There are both video and still images of what is clearly a public extrajudicial execution. The kind of thing one would expect from drug kingpins in a turf war. How do the regime spinners think they can lie about it and get away with it? Worse yet, what is happening in the brains of the citizens who DO believe it?
HEATHER: " ... the Minnesota prison system to the extraordinary step of launching its own web site to combat the lies [ sea of mendacity ] from DHS".
Just Google "Combatting DHS Misinformation/Department of Correction for the Minnesota site complete with a "Media Fact Sheet" & four (4) "Press Releases".
The famous phrase "Sea of Mendacity" in another context was authored Tennessee Williams.
For more DHS impeachment facts go to the excellent MN local station: KARE11.com. FYI, care is what they do, care for their community.
Now per ABC Sunday 1/25/26 afternoon ABC World News Tonight, ABC showed footage that Alex Pritti's lawfully fully licensed gun was REMOVED by a Fed agent from the scene BEFORE he was shot 10 times .
ABC also confirmed the CPB shot him 3 times in his back. IMO, Murder 1.
Renee Good was also murdered, imho. ICE and CBP have orders from the top to instigate violence in order to initiate the Insurrection Act. Unfortunately for them, the citizens of Minneapolis have been peaceful, and have not taken the bait.
Even without such probable order, to join ICE, you have to be of a violence-prone mindset. Would you join if you were given kazillion dollars? I would not -- I predict you wouldn't either... These thugs probably revel in the killings..Enraging and also sad that such people are our country men (and women?)
I read many comments from those who were fine with what happened. It started to sicken me, knowing that these are my neighbors and fellow Americans. Life has become so much more difficult for us. We can no longer trust.
"those who were fine with what happened" - This is the foreseeable result of the othering and demonization of immigrants and "the libs". It becomes perfectly acceptable, even laudable, to kill them. Some people are just happy to grasp at a justification to become murderers.
A Rassmussen poll showed that 39% approve of Trump’s handling of immigration. That 39% would surely include a significant majority of white voters and almost nobody else. If Rassmussen (admittedly, not a reliable source) is correct, when you see a random white American the odds would favor an assumption that they approve of what the Trump regime is doing.
Well, supposedly there is video of one clapping after the execution. The one who shot Renee Good called her an f***ing bitc*. These people are monsters. There isn't a shred of decency in their psyche. If there was, they'd be resigning in droves.
Just remember, these are the same people we sent home after the Confederacy. They are the people who founded the Klan, who wrote Jim Crow, who joined the Workers Party, who supported McCarthy, who supported the Moral Majority, who backed the Russian owned and operated NRA. Same people, just different hats.
These are the same people they have always been, and the biggest mistake we have made, again, and again, and again, is thinking they would understand when they've lost.
I don't want our grandchildren and great grandchildren to have to fight another civil war in a century to remind these people why they've lost again. I'm just as fine not sharing a country with them, and treating them with the disdain with which they have treated people of color around the world.
I’m guessing if there are any left who were half way decent people they are afraid to resign for multiple reasons. One being that with the reputation they will be unemployable. I hope none of the real monsters ever work again unless it’s cleaning the prison toilets.
This video by a former Black Panther is incredibly important to watch right now when we are all so angry. We must must not allow the violence and chaos of this corrupt administration spill over into our own actions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7MEUt03a6A
ICE AND CPB are out of control. These "agents" are thugs drunk on the power granted to them by Noem and Bovino, both of whom should be removed from office and tired for perjury and inciting violence.
Yes. These "agents" are thugs who are so proud of their work that they wear face masks to hide their identities. I assume they envision a future invitation to the golden palace where the thug-in-chief will give them medals and lifetime immunity from prosecution, like he does for all those who commit heinous crimes in his name.
Stephen Miller should be included. He is a true Fascist who believes everyone should be murdered who protests his plans to turn our country completely fascist.
There are more like them...we need to start at the top.....remove Trump, Vance, Preacher Boy of the house, Republican thugs in both the House and Senate, Trumps buddy's in the Supreme Court....we have lots of work to do!
We need to start at the top, but more importantly we need to NOT STOP until we get to the very bottom. America failed to do so after the Civil War and have paid the price. we have failed to do so numerous times in our history when the White Supremacists have reminded us who they always were and always will be. Trump himself has shown us the solution to finding his supporters lies in the voter rolls, and the campaign donations.
Project 2025 was founded on the basis of removing, eliminating, or disenfranchising tens of millions of people and Americans. Its past time we stopped pulling punches and returned the favor.
Republicans lauded and feted underage Kyle Rittenhouse for illegally bringing, brandishing and firing an AK-47 in the BLM unrest, killing a man protecting others, while at the same time they say licensed gun owner Alex Pretti (and Renee Good) deserved to be killed simply because they were outside protecting people from gun brandishing thugs acting like Confederate slave catchers. We don't need to go to the Nazis for comparisons. Nazis took patterns from the Confederate South. This current day IS "How the South Won the Civil War "
To be fair, the newswires have been full of stories of statements and actions from the NRA and Gun Owners of America, saying that the government has overstepped. As Heather quoted in today's column, the president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center said no one should be forced to choose between their First and Second Amendment rights.
I have never been a fan of the gun lobby, but good on them for putting their principles over (I assume) their prevailing political opinions, and showing some consistency and backbone on this issue.
Thank you for your post and for the information! I admit that I haven't been watching much news, but instead of relying on my substack subscriptions. I'm so glad that the newswires have carried responses from the NRA and Gun Owners of America! And I will read Heather's column, so I will see her information regarding that. Yes, good on them, and thank you again for letting me, and others who may not know, that the gun lobby is speaking out!!
The majority of police officers in Great Britain are not normally armed. There are "Authorized Firearms Officers (AFO)" for certain occasions. Long guns are kept in locked armories. I question why guns are even issued for immigration duties. It is clear that the guns will be misused.
But the real purpose for these operations is to normalize armed forces leading to martial law controlled by the presidency. Or the main person in charge if the "presidency" no longer exists. "His excellency?"
Indeed! The so called originalist proponents of the US Constitution point to the need for arms against tryrants! The various weapons advocates posit “ a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun!”, can’t wait for police to arrive!!!! Now the hypocrites are swallowing their lying tongues!
The NRA for what it's worth did put out a statement that First and second Amendment rights were being violated. Shocking, but supposedly true since it was reported by reputable news sources.
That is amazing since they are a big supporter of Trump! He had addressed them at conventions and I remember him being in Indianapolis a few years ago at one....it was wonderful for the gun owners in our state...and my area. Grrrr....needless to say I did not attend! I wouldn't walk across the street to see him. Before he was elected the first time he flew into our Terre Haute International Airport. He gave a rally in town. Nope....I didn't attend.
It was gratifying that the gun lobbies put loyalty to their principles (even though I think they've misunderstood the Second Amendment) over their loyalty to their figurehead.
Murder One if you can prove they planned to kill any protesters they find a gun on beforehand. Murder Two if it just occurred to them when they discovered his gun. Greg Bovino has said you don't bring a gun to a protest. Unless of course you are an ICE agent. Doesn't matter apparently what you do. The clear implication is that you are then unlawfully present and obstructing their operations. By Kristi Noem's own public pronouncements that then means you are a terrorist. But of course merely taking a picture of an ICE agent warrants your designation as such by them. And you are then subject to execution on the scene. For then ICE is free to kill you and face no consequences.
And believe it or not, that will be their defense. If they are ever brought to justice. And that is a big if.
But btw, the whole squad can be charged with felony murder.
I guess Bovino hasn't heard that Americans have a right to carry guns, and there's no caveat that they can't carry them to a protest. Add "ignorant" to evil!
I agree wholeheartedly that so many think it’s alright to shoot and kill innocent people on the street and in their own cars. This is way out of hand and evil, as well as being against the law. We must get the majority at midterms in the Senate at midterms and impeach the lying felon, child rapist and wanna be dictator.
The Carefully Hidden Poisonous Roots of Trump’s “Unified Reich*”
I assembled this information to refute the errors by an individual Substack poster whom I suspect was merely repeating – notably (without) ill intent -- some of the falsehoods he’d been taught by the pre-Trump propaganda of “American Exceptionalism” that since 22 November 1963 and especially since our humiliating defeat by Vietnam has increasingly dominated USian K-12 education. But I later realized what had written is a vital glimpse of the miasma from which ChristoNazism has grown; hence its expanded form, which I re-post accordingly, and will continue to do so at regular intervals until our ChristoNazi conquerors are routed and We the People are at last truly liberated. I recognize it is entirely too long to be assimilated in a single reading and viewing, so I respectfully ask that it please be set aside and used as a study guide, a liberating rebuttal of the lies and deceptions by which the U.S. government and its plutocratic owners desperately try to hide the true extent of their support for Nazism before, during and after World War II.
VITAL BACKGROUND FILM (viewing time 53 minutes): “In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a ‘Pro-American Rally.’ Images of George Washington hung alongside swastikas, underlining the organizers’ belief that Nazism was entirely consistent with American ideals.” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/nazi-town-usa/#part01
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U.S. BIG BUSINESS OVERWHELMINGLY PRO-NAZI: “The Third Reich’s destruction of the left, along with Hitler’s stated intention to preserve big business, was welcomed by corporate managers...A number of business moguls in America were overtly anti-Semitic..The New York Herald Tribune reported on 31 July 1941 that the Wall Street firm, Union Banking Corporation, which the American banker Prescott Bush was managing, had in 1933 sent $3 million to the Nazi Party. This is indeed the same Prescott Bush who was the father of George H. W. Bush, and grandfather to George W. Bush...” https://www.globalresearch.ca/history-us-business-operations-with-nazi-germany/5737005 (Note: Prescott Bush was the Bankers’ Plot’s liaison to Hitler, for which see below.)
IBM PERSONIFIES THE MECHANISM OF HOLOCAUST: “Mankind barely noticed when the concept of massively organized information quietly emerged to become a means of social control, a weapon of war, and a roadmap for group destruction. The unique Igniting event was the most fateful day of the last century, January 30, 1933, the day Adolf Hitler came to power. Hitler and his hatred of the Jews was the ironic driving force behind this intellectual turning point. But his quest was greatly enhanced and energized by the ingenuity and craving for profit of a single American company and its legendary, autocratic chairman. That company was International Business Machines, and its chairman was Thomas J. Watson.“ https://ia601309.us.archive.org/20/items/historyDEEPWEB/IBM%20and%20the%20Holocaust%20-%20Edwin%20Black.pdf
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What prompted the debate on Dr. Heather Cox Richardson’s vital, valiantly informative website was a poster’s vain attempt to refute a comment I had made about the (real) origins of ChristoNazism. I noted the U.S. had begun its clandestine adoption of Nazi war criminals soon after the Red Army’s epic victory at Stalingrad convinced the allies Hitler would lose the war. My critic replied that both statements were false. In rebuttal I posted the following: BATTLE OF STALINGRAD, (July 17, 1942–February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favour of the Allies. https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Stalingrad
U.S. ADOPTION OF NAZI WAR CRIMINALS AS ADVISORS AND COMRADES AT ARMS
In the fall of 1944, the United States and its allies launched a secret mission code-named Operation Paperclip. The aim was to find and preserve German weapons, including biological and chemical agents, but American scientific intelligence officers quickly realized the weapons themselves were not enough. https://www.npr.org/2014/02/15/275877755/the-secret-operation-to-bring-nazi-scientists-to-america
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Under Project Paperclip not only rocket scientists were recruited, but convicted war criminals– including doctors who had conducted medical atrocities on concentration camp inmates, such as: experiments with plague vaccines, experiments that force fed chemically altered seawater to starved Dachau concentration camp inmates…American democratic principles were subverted by officials who adopted the Nazi utilitarian philosophy which posits that the ends justify the means..."Nazi attitudes toward research on human subjects were imported and adopted by various U.S. officials."...MKULTRA, the notorious CIA mind control experiments with LSD and other chemical agents, were the brainchild of Nazi Paperclip scientists: https://ahrp.org/legacy-of-nazis-in-america/
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“The CIA and Nazi War Criminals”: National Security Archive ( Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy) – complete bibliography, with every document hyperlinked (my gift to anyone research-minded enough to track the true origins of the ChristoNazi regime.) https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm
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See also PDF: “Useful Enemies: America’s Open Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals” (Richard Rashke, Delphinium Books: 2015)
COMBINE THE ABOVE HISTORY WITH THE BANKERS' PLOT -- recommended links to follow -- and you'll see Trump is not only (not) an anomaly; he is the fulfillment of a scheme that dates back at least to the end of Reconstruction (1878) but did not gain national momentum until the advent of Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany: https://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/145472726/when-the-bankers-plotted-to-overthrow-fdr and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot , which identifies Prescott Bush as the plotters’ liaison to Hitler, also an older but still relevant Guardian report https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/11/trump-fdr-roosevelt-coup-attempt-1930s . We need to read each of these texts to get an adequate picture of what happened -- that the plotters' ultimate intent was probably to make the U.S. a satellite of Nazi Germany or at least a member of its emerging axis. The plot’s diverse elements – many partially redacted by the deliberate, Nazi-protecting suppression of vital documents – are given unity and clarity by Grant Hamilton Stone’s University of Chicago 2021master’s thesis: “The Business Plot reminds us that threats to democracy have defined our past as much as they threaten democracy’s future. Without addressing and learning from previous instances of anti-democratic dissidence, no matter the consequence, we invite a future where what once seemed sensational will become a chilling norm.” https://knowledge.uchicago.edu › nanna › record › 3259 › files › Stone_MAPSS_Thesis_Final.pdf?withWatermark= (Note: the attempted coup was known to my father's generation as the "Bankers' Plot," the term which brought up the first three above links. Stone's vital thesis is accessed only by the far less inflammatory "Business Plot.")
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Additional element: it is at least arguable – though the evidence is entirely circumstantial and is relentlessly dismissed as “conspiracy theory” by those who assert nothing of the kind can ever happen here in their “one nation under God” – that the (real) significance of the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is that 22 November 1963 is "der Tag," the day of infamy the long-simmering bi-partisan Nazification scheme became fully operational. Note the national publication of alleged Nazi connections to the assassination: https://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Nazi%20Connection%20to%20JFK%20Assass.html . Despite initial readership reportedly exceeding that of Time and Newsweek, The Rebel, described here – https://dn721806.ca.archive.org/0/items/rebel-magazine-vol-2-no-1-1984-01-23/Introduction%20to%20The%20Rebel%20uploads%20to%20archive.pdf – was mysteriously slain after only eight issues. The magazine ‘s content is summarized here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFewWFf-YAk . (Normally I would not cite such obvious video-pandering to the lowest common Moron-Nation denominator, but in this instance its sociological message underscores its informational function.) That said – and regardless of our reaction to the allegations – let us not forget the eleven years of unequivocally real political murders that followed the removal of our President, a reign of slayings that did not end until the death of union activist Karen Silkwood in 1974. Nor should we overlook the Democratic Party’s role in events that – just as progressive-minded critics warned – were preliminary steps in the nullification of our Constitution and the destruction of our Republic: treachery inflicted on us by Republicans but unquestionably abetted by the Democrats’ self-reduction to the Republican perpe-traitors' Fifth Column.
Whoa. As a former high school math teacher the US public school curriculum always catches my attention. My dear friend still teaches in our county school system now as the ESOL teacher and before that a master teacher of History, Government, and AP Psychology. (Yes she's triple certified, just finished a doctorate program, is National Board Certified and quite an impressive woman - who brings her talent and energy to the classroom still - with everything she's accomplished - she strives "only" to keep and honor the occupation of "public school teacher". Obviously, I'm in awe. I must share this with her. Thank you.
Thank you. From 1975 through early 1982 -- my tenure ended by the Reagan Recession, which in Washington state was a full-blown depression and so ended most adjunct-faculty jobs -- I taught photography and journalism for two colleges. After about 1979, I began noticing my students who were post-1968 high school graduates had absolutely no understanding of the First Amendment. Hence one evening -- I taught only night-school classes as I was fully employed by a Sunday/Wednesday/Friday suburban newspaper and on retainer to United Press International, then still a wire service -- I interrupted a class discussion on photographer's rights with an ungraded quiz asking for a single paragraph explaining the First Amendment and signed not with a name but only with the year the student graduated high school. The result confirmed my suspicion; those who had graduated before we were run out of Vietnam summarized the amendment almost word-for-word; those who had graduated afterward -- with the exception of a young woman I knew from my own activism to be as politically conscious as I -- were unable to do so. Other faculty members had noted the same problem. Our common response was to add the Bill of Rights to our syllabi. (Relevant to this is the fact a standard complaint of the pro-war politicians of both parties was that our military-age population "knew too much.") Wish I still had those test papers; I had kept them, intending to write a column or an essay about them, but I never got around to it, so of course they were destroyed by the 1983 arson.
You don't need those test papers as proof. You know and have the credentials to be the "source". Please, please, please write a column or an essay. We would all be wiser citizens for it. I worry that "our youth" is missing too many critical historical facts that they need to consider when developing their "independent thinking skills". (Something every teacher in America, public, private, K-PhD level teacher need to have in their curriculum).
Also, I've been really pondering 'all the wars' American has taken part in since WWII. My genetic family has "only" served in that War, the family I married into served in others since then. And a number of students I taught went into the armed forces after high school. (I taught from 2002 - 2018 - "last" professional endeavor on my part. I reflect on it as my public service for my country. Dad thought I should have joined a military branch directly from high school before going to University. I finally did serve my country Dad, I hope that makes you proud. He died in May of 2003.)
There's something about all the wars since WWII that keeps pulling me into deeper learning and reflection. As you noted above there is an echo (?) that has changed since Vietnam. I acknowledge this wasn't the first war after WWII, but Vietnam really feels like an inflection point.
Anyhow, I'm rambling (bad habit). Please write your essay.
Have already done a lot of supportive writing for improved K-12 education. An investigative piece I did on a suburban school in Washington state that was under Moronic Majority attack for its academic excellence won me the highest award of my career, a Sigma Delta Chi, in 1978. And a series I did for The Jersey Journal c. 1969-1970 provided the basis for the state supreme court suit that ruled the property-tax base of state school funding was unconstitutional -- this in response to radical declines in the urban tax base -- earned me a commendation from the Jersey City school board.
It seems to me that "independent thinking skills" married to the immense catalog of collectively gathered information are key to universal empowerment, and universal empowerment is the last thing that those who seek to dominate want.
I think that the misadventure of the Vietnam war damaged a lot of collective trust and mutuality in this country, while the defeat of the predatory Axis, and the Marshall Plan, improved domestic and international relations; and the crucial role of blacks and women in WWII gave momentum to the push to improve Civil and women's rights.
Thanks Loren. Great comment. I graduated in 1967. Agree with posting Constitution and Bill of Rights In schools as Gary suggests. And I'm in Seattle Loren. What was the 1983 arson? Sorry.
I was an ESOL teacher in Md. for 19 years; I had great support from my principal and other teachers when I was soliciting clothes, bedding, furniture, etc. etc. for incoming poor immigrant families. I took two students out shopping for clothes, because they couldn't afford them. I don't take credit for my altruism; I had the means and the time and the sympathy toward these students. (A true story with a wonderful outcome: one of my Vietnamese students came to school only in her pajamas. Today she has a phd, lives in a lovely home in Florida (poor child) and she has imparted her values toward education and a well rounded life to her children.....proof that our immigrants do contribute to our society, embrace hard work and education, and now her children will and their children will....)
Many thanks for all the care and teaching you provided. Teachers, especially in public schools, are often the unsung heroes in everyday life. The fact that a student will pay that care, concern, and wisdom forward to future generations is the best recognition of service every teacher hopes for even if they never know of its happening.
Stephanie, my adult daughters teach/taught HS English. (The older one is now working towards her Masters and will be teaching college) I have seen FIRST hand how teachers fill all the cracks in a child's life--they are counselor, nurse, substitute parent, and sadly, often provide food, clothing and school supplies.
Our school district pays well, I believe right-out-of-college teachers make $52K. My daughter teaches in a rural school, with 11 years experience and has tenure--and she makes roughly $46K. Pretty tough when her rent is about $1600/mo. She could teach at an urban school and easily add $20K to her salary, but she loves her district and her students. And besides, don't rural kids deserved dedicated teachers as well?
And I reside in a county in Md. which pays its teachers quite well. I have no children so I was in essence in loco parentis. I adored these kids, and their parents always relied on me for advice. (I speak French and Spanish so my immigrant parents had a translator when needed....)
I highly recommend the movie Nuremberg to anyone that hates what Kristi Noem and her ICE and CBP thugs are doing. They should refilm it with Donald in the role of Goring. Too bad Himmler was dead during the trials otherwise Stephen Miller would have been perfectly believable in the role.
Silence is complicity. Murdering American citizens while every fucking Republican politician save one or two, remains silent. They are ALL Fascists.
And beware, Elon Musk is back and he will be trying to buy every seat he can so that Trump and his merry band of incompetent miscreants can continue to terrorize American citizens.Last week a Republican leaning PAC donating $40 million to Susan Collins campaign.
No matter who her opponent is, no PAC can buy the vote I'm going to cast against Susan Collins. I'm old enough to remember when she was sensible and moderate; no more.
An aside: I worry about the people who were 10 when trump was first elected; they are now 20 and voting. They only know what trump has wrought. Do they know how not normal this is???
My brown and black 4th graders were terrified on Nov 9, 2016. Two of the them each had two moms. Three to five had families in various stages of securing legal documentation, green cards, and/or citizenship. One of my moms asked me for a letter of support in her proceedings; BTW, her daughter was determined to be an immigration lawyer. So, yes, they're hopefully voting now - hopefully, voting wisely.
JVP...Anything you can add to the above, please do. Influenced as I am by Sun Tzu, I believe that anything that expands our knowledge and understanding of ChristoNazism's domestic roots will help us rid our political gardens of its toxic fruits. (Pun intended.)
Thank you, Loren Bliss. My simple take on US comes from watching US from a small boat in the French canals 2000-2011. Greed and stupidity (about who we are) will be what bring US down. As a child of FDR’s and Eleanor’s WWII, a musician remembering the story of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial and a Virginian, living in a farming community where everyone I knew or knew about was involved in “the War Effort,” who saw the houses of the farmers of the Revolution as neighbors, I believed in the best of US because that was what I saw.
Now I see what trickle down, assisted by SCOTUS, has done to the middle class, the backbone of our democracy.
But Minneapolis may bring US back to enough sanity to carry on.
My father, whose military service was between the wars, was an upper-level executive with the War Production Board and with the War Assets Administration afterward. That involvement took us out of New York City into that jungle of pridefully ignorant Southron hatred known as Florida, but because my father's closest associates were themselves cursed yankee war-effort people and my playmates were their children, I too grew up consciously feeling thankful I had been born in the US. However, after the war, my father bought a business in Tennessee, and after my experiences as a post-Sputnik advocate for education reform, military service (1959-'62 Regular Army, 16 months in Korea) and Civil Rights Movement involvement (1963-64), I knew for a certainty this land was destined to be the next Nazi Reich. Hence if I may be forgiven for momentarily setting aside my agnosticism, Goddess grant we can take it back from its ChristoNazi conquerors.
I was struck by your citation of the book on IBM. In all my time there, the involvement of Watson with Hitler's Germany was never mentioned. Not once. So that's where I'm starting my reading. I do remember there was an official IBM hymn book - I have a copy of it in one of my file cabinets, which are overflowing with papers I need to recycle..
Would be charming, Loren, to have a history of WASP Ivy League then.
Norman Mailer, late in his life, was working on a fictionalized version of this history. So many Ivy grads steered the biggest U.S. companies and top banks to invest in the state-subsidized industries of Hitler's Waffen SS.
But aside from "Harlot's Ghost," I don't think anyone has been brave enough to confront the incipient fascism deep in the roots of the U.S.'s most elite universities.
If we had such a tome, we'd also have a light shining unto the dark recesses of standardized testing, too -- our era's most efficient assembly line for normalizing fascism's most virulent conceits for grouping, labeling, categorizing, and packaging as otherwise cowardly elites crave.
These tests emphasize cognitive skills and not non-language skills like sociability, curiosity, trustworthiness, staying on task, getting along with others, control over and knowledge of one's emotional state, which are all important for personal success. We want a nation ruled by brilliant, empathetic, principled leaders - instead we ended with trump...
This interview gave me a Whallop of Insight, "MAGA's White Christian Nationalist End Game", interview with Robert Jones on the Left Hook: https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/magas-white-christian-nationalist. Jones grew up in the south and is a writer who's working on a book titled, "Backslide: reclaiming faith after the Christian turn against democracy". This interview is life-changing, as was watching the Madison Square Garden Nazi rally five years ago. Facing the harshest truths, I reflexively turn away to too much and am practicing, getting more comfortable with squarely facing the truths we are living.
I recently finished reading "The Tears of Things" by Fr Richard Rohr. His viewpoint is that Christian leaders are using the Bible to promote their own personal views, and there is too much emphasis on sin/guilt. It helps me understand the hypocrisy of the church. I am tempted to give a copy to a few people I know, but I suspect they would be outraged by Fr. Rohr's book.
For those who might like a peek at Fr Rohr's viewpoint, I suggest this:
Thanks for the pointer, Miselle. I listened to the Audible sample and then downloaded the book. I've been drawn to the rare few events where all local clergy share a role and am imagining possibilities for a forthright investigation that isn't purposefully pursuasive. One step at a time.
Thank you so much for compiling this information, Loren. it is so important for Americans to understand the history of what has brought us to this moment in time.
You have pointed out the many human rights abuses perpetrated by the US in the past. The government has shown, in the past and currently, that it has no interest in public safety. We have seen the normalization of a president enriching himself in violation of the emoluments clause; using the Dept. of Justice as his personal lawyer (that position is supposed to be the public's lawyer); to impose stuff like the insurrection act at will without cause; falsehoods which influence white nationalism sentiments (no different than the slaveholders' views on the rights of black people); we can't trust the data coming out Washington, etc. etc. We are indeed experiencing an historic trauma....
The Bankers Plot made me appreciate double Medal of Honor awardee, Gen Smedley Butler who finally drew the line that to me stopped that plot. Would that we had one person these days that could do as much as an individual to stop the current plot.
Indeed, Hitler is said to have described Madison Grant's infamous 'The Passing of the Great Race' as 'my Bible'. It was also praised by Theodore Roosevelt as "a capital book; in purpose, in vision, in grasp of the facts our people most need to realize. "
See "Hitler's American Model: the United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law" (James Q. Whitman, Princeton University Press: 2018). We should recognize that the ecogenocidal dynamics that Hitler organized into Nazism were already evident in the United States, especially in the South. Hitler merely formalized them into ideology.
Logical reasoning, well researched documentation and persuasive discourse are LOST on the maga mindless! Biden did it! Clinton did it! the videos are edited! Photoshopped pictures! Your research is helpful for ‘those in the choir’ to support their beliefs! You identified IBM as a complicit company. It reminds me that Bayer chemicals and, yes the coveted, Mercedes Benz aided the Hitlers genocide supplying chemicals and vehicles for the Third Reich!
Come on bro, lighten up. Don’t you know it was God who made the ultimate mistake by allowing Man, the wrong primate branch, up the evolutionary trail. God origins designated the Bonobos to walk the trail but Man grabbed the tickets and ran like hell.
Thanks! This is a graduate course for sure…you must add in the funding by Carnegie, and others, for the research that created eugenics and the intense desire of American to steal the vast chemical engineering/knowledge that created the gasses that killed the people, much of it used to create the Green Revolution insecticides and fertilizers.
It’s always about people who think they are better because they are rich and white!
The legacy of Eugenics lives on in standardized testing and ideas like IQ…what was the book, ‘MisMeasurement of Man?’
And you even see it in how we call AI ‘intelligent’ when it’s simply stealing using statistical models and computer programming.
You and I share the same vision of American History and how the conservatives have distorted our history. It was the conservatives that defended the Malmady Nazi soldiers taking their side. It was the conservatives that gave support to the fascists as you noted. Thank you for this.
"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
So, what is a "Free State" we must ask. In today's America, the security of people in every state, both citizens and other human.people, with or without documentation, are under threat from the extra-juducial tyranny of ICE and the CBP. The leadership of these agencies are exhorting their fully armed agents, to ignore normal police procedures and use whatever force is necessary, including deadly force, to achieve their objectives.
The Founders, fully aware of threats both foreign and domestic to our Freedom and Security, left us State militias, today's National Guard, as protection against Federal tyranny. Each states National Guard are under the direct control of the Governor of each state.o
Given the intentional murders by both ICE and CBP of two Minnesota citizens, it is way past time that Governors call up their National Guard troops to secure the safety of the all their states' people.
And the video of what started the entire confrontation: that of the ICE agent lunging at a woman who was more than arms length away from him to violently shove her to the ground. Pretty merely went to help her up and ask if she was OK when he was set upon by a mass of "agents".....otherwise known as murderous thugs.
What we see—from lethal force to enforced impunity—is an abuse of authority and a hallmark of authoritarian governance. We will not be able to abolish ICE. We can disarm them without much trouble. We must move to disarm ICE. There is no logical reason for them to be armed. They are not ever shot at and if they were they should stop what they are doing and call the FBI, DEA, ATF or state and local police to take care of it.
We will always need an immigration and naturalization service but ICE itself is a product of authoritarian culture that was a reaction to 9/11 terrorism, including a number of departures from what, in my opinion, is constrained by the Constitution, trading essential liberty for an illusion of safety, and suiting the purposes of those who would be kings. It seems to me that those entrusted with writing, judging, and enforcing the law need be held to an even higher standard of compliance with equal protection and due process than we ordinary citizens.
You shouldn’t accept a damn thing that’s said or written about “supporters of Trump” no matter the source. There’s a massive political re-alignment now taking place in the country as millions keep using their own eyes even as the bastards keep making shit up faster than Trump can psychotically rage-tweet at night. The cracks in MAGAworld are opening and shearing far faster than they can be documented. Much of it is silent — right until it isn’t. Hold fast.
Thank you, ICTT. "Hold fast" indeed. Hold fast, and call or email your Representatives. You can call at any time of the night or day. They take messages. Let's pour it on. Now is the time. I said, simply, "I want ICE out of Minnesota before another civilian is killed."
I read another post elsewhere in which the person also emailed SCOTUS. We all need to be blowing up the phone lines and email servers to those who are taking our tax dollars in the form of salary and are supposed to represent us!!
Perhaps you should add Maine to that list. Joyce Vance had an interview yesterday with Shenna Bellows, Maine Secretary of State, who said that there is a large Somali population in the mostly white state, and ICE is just as lawless in Maine as in Minnesota. Let's make sure history doesn't repeat itself.
And, using Megan’s spreadsheet, you can call other members of Congress too. (Don’t forget to encourage ones doing the right thing.) this morning I called my (useless) reps and reiterated Mitnick’s moments from today’s letter) and I also left a message for the speaker to man up.
Yes! This is the first of Heather's newsletters in a long timr that has left me with rays of hope. Statements from George Conway, Minnesota's Prison System, Police Department, and National Guard illuminate what we are seeing with our own eyes and are ammunition against this administration's lies. I am holding ground that we will not be turned into an Iran and that democracy will prevail.
Alex Pretti's videoed statement at the deathbed of the veteran he was taking care of has pierced my heart. Let us honor him....
A 20 year friend, who embraced MAGA and at times has been a bit ugly online, contacted me last night regarding my daily posting of these letters, asking why, quite nicely. The cracks are letting the light shine in.
Thinking the worst, catastrophizing, obsessively, leads to depression and anxiety. Look at Cognitive Behavioral Theory. It is human to think of the worst, but to let the worst thoughts win every time is not profitable.
I hope you are correct, ICTT, about the cracks in MAGAworld. I have been observing my friends and relatives who are MAGA supporters and trying to get an understanding of where they are standing. (This is through face-to-face, phone, and Facebook sessions.) As of last night, I don’t see any of them backing down. In fact, I see an increased vociferousness in their comments. Most of these folks have strong religious backgrounds, and Jesus is taking a front-and-center position in their commentary. (Yes, some are huge gun people, too.) Some are also Minnesotans, where “Minnesota Nice” has been their main calling card. The major thing that I have been noticing (on Facebook in particular) is the number of “friends” who are pushing back on these friends and relatives and the interesting consequences of getting “unfriended.” Indeed, this is a rough time for the United States. I sincerely hope that this entire trial that our leaders - including the Supreme Court - are going through will result in massive gains for our DEMOCRACY. Perhaps America WILL become Great Again - just not in the way that Trump and Project 2025/2026 (etc.) have envisioned. Let Freedom Ring and Give Us Your Tired and Poor….
You'll have to tell the rest of us. I live in a blue bubble myself and have no interactions with MAGAland (save for watching once-a-year in-law relations who both bore and scare me). But I very much suspect we are not seeing the mental turmoil and coming-down-to-earth of a segment of the population that is re-thinking much, tho quietly. Pushback is essential to break their bubble of self-imposed isolation and cult behavior.
MAGA people, for the most part, are oppositional. If you try to counter with reason, they will build up that wall of resistance further. Look at some of the hostage negotiator content, or information on dealing with a cult member or an addict. It's all the same. Slow and steady and respectful is the way to go, unless they are true believers. Then we are wasting our time and our own chance at happiness.
Yup, I agree, Anne! I purposely refrain from confronting any of my MAGA friends and relatives. They know how I stand! But, observing the various reactions to some of their Facebook friends has been/is illuminating and interesting. I know I’m not going to change their minds, but CIRCUMSTANCES will eventually have an impact. Several of them are on “manufactured” disability, for example, and depend on several other government programs that may simply disappear. I then expect some WTF shouts from them, but coupled with “It’s Sleepy Joe’s fault.” Oh, well! We will make America great with Renee Good and Alex Pretti, et al as our leaders.
It tells us all what and who we are dealing with! That there are still people who believe what the administration is putting out there is not a mystery to me, but how we can make them see reality is!
One way is by pointing out that the sexual victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein Cult -- let's start calling it what it is -- is the direct ancestor of the terror the MAGAstapo is now unleashing on anyone who refuses to kowtow to the ChristoNazi theocracy. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn in response to credible death threats against the plaintiff: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf Please let us ensure this text is linked early (and therefore prominently) on as many Resistance sites as possible every day until the traitorous regime of ecogenocidal ChristoNazi pedophiles is no more. (I'll do my best to be responsible for this posting, but I am 85 years old and terminally ill, which means others need be ready to pick up the torch on days I am absent and after I am no more.)
Loren. I'm on it. I am composing a Substack letter about this case - hope to publish tomorrow. My audience is modest. But we do what we can. Maybe it will spread.
Getting them to believe the reality is one thing. But what if they like it?!
There is another larger problem. Which the media and many of us reasonable people ignore. There is a significant percentage of Americans who eat and drink hate. The truth of the videos, the shooting of Renee in the face, the shooting of Alex in the back while not resisting... there are Americans who actually like that.
They cheer the brutality, the blood letting, the revenge. Renee and Alex are the "libtards that deserve death". They would be happy to mow us all down, if they could.
There are large pockets of this in certain states - people who still vilify "Yankees" for liberating the slaves. And there are people like this in almost every town.
And astoundingly, there are people like this in the White House and the halls of Congress. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao - all reincarnated and voted in.
Bill, there are ALWAYS people like that in every culture. They marinate in envy and hate. We must spend our efforts on the many other people who are uninformed, unable to see this administration’s long game and/or those who believed Trump’s campaign lies.
And I hate that they cause ME to feel the urges of hate. But when I am confronted with the mindless hypocrisy and twisted "logic" not to mention the "christian" superiority that they move through the world with, I struggle to maintain any attachment to peace and acceptance of differences.
True, of course. I just think we should be shocked into action when we realize just how many of them are in positions of power. If a few want to think that way and hide under rocks, I guess that's inevitable. But embedded in our government?
The sort of surprising thing--to me anyway--is that once someone is elected, our government treats that as akin to a coronation. What I mean is trump could never have passed a security check; neither coul his SIL. But trump has the power to grant security clearances to anyone he wants to--and we know he's a criminal. But because he was "elected," he can do anything he wants. The time to determine suitability is a required security check of every candidate before the primary.
The hateful Magas who "would be happy to mow us all down, if they could."
The turmoil existing right now along with the videos of the street executions of US citizens is shaking up ordinary citizens who would not normally join violent movements to resist the regime and Maga nasties.
There is a battle cry running across our country. It may coalesce into "DEATH TO ICE!" Even governor Abbott is running (rolling) scared.
Ligia, not saying it will work, but find something you know one group cares about. I belong to a horse group. Some of us theorized that if you ask whether they think being cruel to horses would be acceptable, or that horses should be banned because "reasons," all of us gave a resounding no to such a notion.
Ligia, I was never ever able to reason with that kind of people so I decided to ignore them and keep going. I don't waste my time anymore and I think you should do the same. 😄
Pew Research did not or could not measure some other groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, that would almost certainly fall into the christofascist camp.
That's a documented 35% of U.S. population whose religious traditions steer them toward a christofascist world-view. Some will read this summary and protest that not all members of these religious groups support Trump. True, but the tiny percentage of "defectors" from the above-listed religious groups are offset by those who do not identify as "religious," but are strongly influenced by religious family members. I'll guess the net result is about 4% of the U.S. population.
There's your 39%.
This matters because these religious and religious-adjacent groups are steeped in a "faith" system that demands that they accept "truths" that are not supported by any reliable evidence, as presented to them by authority figures, such as preachers, evangelists and public figures endorsed by the system that holds them captive. Such authority figures can lie to their faces and they will believe without reservation.
I come from a family of educated Catholics and not one of them supports the clown, if you read the gospels, where in there does it suggest we should demonize any of the people they are targeting. 19% of the country may be Catholic, but there is no way that they all support the insipid orange turd, maybe the right wing fanatics on the SC do, because that’s how they got their lifetime jobs, but Leonard Leo doesn’t speak for the majority of Catholics trying to raise their families following the teachings of Christ.
Dick, you, your family and friends are members of the "defectors." Congratulations! There are a whole lot of Catholics, especially in rural dioceses, who are not so enlightened.
D Guy, I'm guessing you're not well acquainted with evangelicals. They do not "sway." A popular bumper sticker summarizes the evangelical mind: "God said it. I believe it. That settles it."
A house that divided cannot stand. We are being divided and conquered, a strategy as old as dirt. Solidarity, liberty and justice for ALL is the bedrock of a free society.
The link below is to a post by a foreign service professional on what we can expect next from Trump.
Johan compares the path we are on to Argentina's road to dictatorship — Trump has all the infrastructure in place.
We are at the last point where we can turn this around. We can't afford to wait to take action. He has a list of what can be done by us, and by our allies.
Note too that Rob Bonta, California AG 'led a coalition of 20 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of Minnesota’s lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s extraordinary campaign of lawlessness during its deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol agents to the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.' Go Rob!
Totally worth reading. I agree with Johan's statement: 'They’re not hiding what’s coming. They’re announcing it. Building the legal fiction. Establishing the precedent. Creating permission for escalation.'
The fact that the House passed the bill for additional funding for ICE in spite of the killings means that Trump and his Congressional minions still feel secure with the hardcore MAGA base. They aren't going to peek out of their information silos; they are all in on the Steven Miller version of events.
Fox is spinning out that the protesters are members of Marxist cells out to destroy America. Seeing that scared me--definitely permission for escalation and a call to the J6 faithful, especially since Trump proved his loyalty to them with the pardons on Day One.
Trump doesn't need a majority of goons to morph us into a full-blown dictatorship. Just enough to normalize the terror.
Based on everything I've read about Nazi Germany, NSDAP membership never exceeded -- you guessed it -- 40 percent of the citizenry, and most estimates set it lower. (The lowest figure I have seen is 33 percent.) Unfortunately, what We the People must overcome, is a white majority in which the Malignant Majority -- that is, those so blinded by their hatred they refused to acknowledge the obvious racism (ethnic cleansing included) in Bush II's post-Katrina "relief" -- Pew-polls at 77 percent. All the "USians-aren't-really-that-hateful" excuse-making aside, that's why we have a Führer instead of a president, a maliciously Failed Nation and a ChristoNazi theocracy der neu Führer has already labeled his "Unified Reich."
Loren, I responded to Ricardo with a quick-and-dirty survey that shows where Trump's support comes from: conservative christian groups, or christofascists.
To further explain why that matters, conservative christians are taught that the "others," non-white people, LGBTQ people, and non-christians are "heathens and sinners" who need to be evangelized. If these others refuse to accept their religion, they will be "cast into hell for eternity." This "pre-condemnation" gives them the permission structure to abuse these groups in the present.
Jews are a peculiar group in the christofascist collective mind. On one hand, as "God's chosen people," Jews must be protected like a lucky rabbit's foot; on the other hand, they do not accept Jesus as the messiah, so they're still going to hell. Net response: Be nice to them in public, hate them in private.
This is the clearest brief statement of where the U.S. is on the road to total state terrorism. Easy to read. Very powerful. Very authoritative. Please subscribe at least for free and share his work widely. Now is the moment to stop this process.
But it's okay because they will withdraw ICE from Minnesota if the state turns over it's voter rolls to Bondi. That doesn't sound like the mafia or a cartel at all. Just totally legitimate law enforcement.
Hah-Hah! Here's Bondi: "Turn over your voter rolls if you want the killings and kidnappings to stop." That's the Attorney General of the United States!
Proving that none of this violence and domestic terrorism being committed by ICE has anything to do with making anyone safe or addressing immigration issues...
Perhaps because I know what it is to be five years old and so terrified I could only huddle silently in a corner of our living room sofa -- I survived only because I was rescued by my beloved father (who risked his own life to save mine) -- I know all too well what feelings coursed like tsunamis of fear through that child's mind. For a terrible instant, seeing him savaged by the ChristoNazi conquerors, I was my five-year-old self, and when I was again in control of my reactions, I realized what my logical mind conceived as the proper fate for those who wounded that child was not something I dared set to print.
Thank you. In a sense, my reaction to the arrest of that child was a profoundly valuable lesson, because it revealed to me something I had never before fully acknowledged: the depth of love between my father and me.
Dana- How about a law that requires all ICE and CBP agents to wear name tags with the first letter of their first name and their last name prominently displayed, They will immediately placed on administrative leave if there is evidence of an assault or firing of a weapon. And no more gaslighting from the puppy killer and her thugs.
It “sounds like” mafia to me, Dana, and I think likely to many, if not most Americans. Voter rolls are like Social Security numbers. It’s SECRET BALLOTS we have, unlike Russia.
Lots of red states did. They want to punish their democrat citizens for daring to vote against the Fuhrer. The fact that they exposed their own voters to do it matters not to them as they are 'sure' that Trump won't hurt them on his way to destroying the rest of us.
After the treatment of the two Justins and their lady (sorry not to have learned her name) and Jon Meacham’s pussyfooting, not surprised about Tennessee.
The Roberts Court loyalty is to the Federalist Society 'unitary executive' which is a mashup of Hobbes' Leviathan and papal infallibility, and which preceded Trump. Trump is just their 'made to order' monarch of the moment.
Now they are using the Shadow Docket to catch up with legitimizing actions of the GOP wrecking crew - no oral arguments and no argued decisions.
Their loyalty is to Leonard Leo's plutocrats who funded the campaigns to put them on the court and fund the amicus briefs of the cases they hear. (Oh and sometimes their vacations, mortgages, and school tuitions.)
Well stated: Trump/MAGA are little more than convenient vehicles for Project 2025, the fever dream of Christian Nationalists, supported by the Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society and their ilk.
The marriage of Charlie Kirk Conservatism with the rabid fascism of Stephen Miller is an unholy alliance that will come to no good for neither the USA nor its people, whatever political beliefs they hold.
Sorry I must disagree. Those so-called "justices" -- none of whom are worthy to pass judgement on a single human cell, much less on a complete human being -- are no more than ChristoNazi whores, their souls bought-and-paid-for by the Lords of Chaos whose earldom of Absolute Evil is the Heritage Society.
Got to agree with the others on this. For SCOTUS this has never been about Trump. They have no use for him whatsoever. It's the POSITION that they are creating. The GodKing. With their changes, they expect to be able to keep it out of evil 'democrat' hands forever. Without free and fair elections they can strip any power from the people and consolidate it in a leader that will drag us back to the days before the 13th Amendment when rich men literally had all the rights and the rest of us were basically surfs or slaves.
This is what the oligarchs wants. Cheap labor. No outlays for stupid things like regulations, taxes or healthcare. We are NPC's. Nameless, faceless, disposable. They are literally creating an America that only works for the 1%
They don't care how many of us get shot down in the streets. We are nothing to them.
They don't care that entire regions are poisoned so that the land and animals are not safe to eat. They can move. They will import food from the EU.
They don't care if imported goods are tariffed to infinity since nearly everything that touches their lives is custom made for them.
SCOTUS has abandoned the Constitution for the promise that they will be one of the winners. They are on their own program and Trump was just a useful tool.
That's why when Trump's fast food addiction catches up to him we aren't 'saved'. They have broken so many things it will be decades before we even know how much damage there is. There will be another rich arsehat right there to take Trump's place. And the reality is that even if he does have a D after his name.. he will not fight to 'fix' any of the things Trump has broken because the Oligarchs don't want it. And the oligarchs are the ones in charge here thanks to Citizens United.
In other words... they are all a bunch of morons who are completely out of touch. They can't see that if they won't follow the Constitution then neither will we.
In the words of JFK, "Those who make peaceful protests impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"
Jay Jay, those rose-colored glasses must be fun to wear. Are the lenses cut in the shape of hearts?
This SCOTUS is the collective deity self-appointed to ordain anything and anyone that leads to a theocratic oligarchy. They will not rethink anything, except legal precedent that conflicts with unfettered greed operating under the cloak of christianity.
As they already have, they will continue to twist constitutional language and principles to justify their march to the tune of Onward, Christian Soldiers.
It means its election season already. Dont read from your book. Read from theirs. This proposal by Kristi Noem is saying something. And it is for the benefit of her readers not you or yours. It is saying Minnesota is controlled by Democrats. Democrats engage in voting fraud. They let aliens register to vote. (Lots of them.) And they don't wa t to be exposed for doing it. So they refuse to share their lists of registered voters with Homeland Security. If we has those lists we could use them to find illegal aliens residing in Minnesota and then we could leave, for this hunt would not be necessary.
Ergo, Democrats obstruct justice. Ergo, Democrats are terrorists. Etc. They seem to think some people are following along.
Reportedly MAGA podcast cheerleaders like Joe Rogan are beginning to have doubts and becoming uncomfortable. Using deadly force against illegals who resist? 'Hey. I can see that. But shooting a white licensed gun owner who was carrying.....ho, ho, there. I can't go for that ! Because we are gonna start to lose our audience '
To paraphrase but almost verbatim I hear. So what's it all about ? What are we reading there ?
It's all about entertainment. It's theater. From the top on down. The whole operation. Everything ICE does. Its all be run according to Stephen Miller's script. He is the messaging manager. And it all must fit. Kristi Noem got the memo. Immigration is a winning issue for us. We need to keep it that way !
Trump and Miller know that their base will NEVER see or hear any reporting outside of the Fox and MAGA universe. This is happening now because the information silos around the MAGA base are airtight.
The point here is to normalize the killings for their base. The demonstrators are the new "Red Menace" according to Fox. We are Marxists in cells out to destroy America.
There is only one thing that they screwed up. They started talking about Pretti not having the right to carry a gun to a demonstration. That stirred up the NRA faithful and is causing a split. It was one bit of hypocrisy too far.
That’s it. One bit too far. Donald has finally crossed that bridge. Unsatisfied with his Epsteinian sexual conquests he’s has done the impossible. He fell for the man in the mirror. He has finally f*cked himself.
Even if you know that eventually you are going to have to do business with Amazon, we ought to have a one day (or one week) where we all cancel our accounts with Bezos' enterprise. That is a message that would get his attention....if the new bimbo will let him pay attention to anything other than herself.
You can always do a new account later on if absolutely necessary.
I think the problem is that the MAGA base doesn't see the absolute evidence. Within their news bubble all they hear is what Trump and Noem and Miller tell them is happening.
The only thing that has penetrated the MAGA bubble about the Pretti murder is Kash Patel and others saying that Alex Pretti didn't have the right to carry a gun to a demonstration. That immediately roused the NRA MAGA faction and is causing a split between the 2nd amendment above all things faction and the racists first faction.
It's not like the 1960s and 1970s when everybody saw the same news on TV with Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Huntley and Brinkley.
In the 1960s, a former Berliner Tageblatt journalist called Margret Boveri published a book called "Wir lügen alle" (we are all lying), a diary that documents information and its circulation during the Hitler years. She makes it clear that many people knew what was happening, though not straightforwardly from the papers or radio. They knew from foreign sources (up to the war), from soldiers and state employees sharing with their families (sometimes proudly, sometimes sadly): exactions were an open secret that people shared in whispers, in letters and behind closed doors. Sometimes, by reading between the lines of the official line, they could decrypt what was happening. An area declared "Judenrein" (clear of Jews) in the press was clearly one from which Jews had been forcibly taken and sent away, mostly to "the East" (Poland). People knew it because they saw it happening, or heard it, in congratulatory tones, from Göbbels' Rundfunk speeches and the state-sponsored news.
Don't ever let yourself be fooled that MAGA don't know. In the era of free information, they don't get to use that excuse. They know. They either approve, don't care, or don't want to believe.
I think you are absolutely right about information flow in Nazi Germany.
But I am not sure that the situation is the same now with the “free flow” of information. It is self-limiting and, self-filtered. People choose what they will see. They bookmark their favorite sources. They choose not to see the opposition.
How many people do you know who are here on Heather’s substack who actually look at what is on Fox or X every day? How many people looked at the Heritage website to see what they are doing when Project 2025 finally broke into the news? Why, when people do post about it, does it get relatively little traction?
If we fail to look at what is being said in the MAGAverse, is it reasonable to think they are looking across the divide in our direction?
I agree that information doesn’t flow easily, because people choose not to let it in. But all these people in ICE have friends and family they talk to. There are some very violent recruiting videos used by the DHS to recruit people, and some are actual videos of ICE action in the streets and elsewhere. They aren’t ashamed of what they are doing. This is what I was thinking about.
You are 100% correct about these goons not being ashamed. They are proud of what they are doing. They kill and then walk away like people are road kill. No signs of remorse for the enormity of taking a life. They are soulless.
Indeed. Although I seriously doubt 40% want full-on Handmaid’s Tale Christo Fascism. Most probably don’t want black and brown people, Muslims and Jews and Hindus and anyone else they perceive as heathens, and gay, queer and transgender people, or people with blue hair, or uppity women, or the educated elite, even those who don’t have a bean (especially those who don’t have a bean)… They seem defined more by their neurotic dislikes than by what kind of society they actually want.
Also, in the days of Cronkite, Brinkley and Huntley we didn't have Internet at our fingertips spewing false information right and left. Unfortunately it is a degree of education that separates those who are curious and want to delve deeper into anything written and those who blindly follow the sheep. There is more than one reason why we are where we are today, in this cult-like chasm between those who want to believe the administration, for whatever reason (mostly because of their inadequacies I would dare to say) and those who seek truth, justice, rule of law. I just watched a reel of neo nazis walking in a street in the US, shouting slogans about America belonging to the white race, and I thought they could use a long history course; but we have miserably failed in educating our citizens.
That’s in large part because we don't have national educational standards like most developed nations. Another example of states’ rights run amok. And now that the department of education is gone, and education funding in the states going to charter schools and gutting public schools, that is going to get worse.
To watch Bovino and Noem spin this murder as some kind of protective action or self defense is like stepping through the looking glass -- Noem with her fake everything face and hair and Bovino with his Nazi costume -- it's unbelievable -- as are the narratives they are trying to pass off as truth.
Im no James Carville advertising genius. Im just too strait an arrow. But it does occur to me that we do have here the makings of a very simple but effecting political advertising campaign of general application. Just pick a theme. Hmm mm. I pick "Your Tax Dollars at Work". A still photo. A subtitle: Your Tax Dollars at Work. In Times Roman 16 point bold italics.
The possibilities are endless. The selected media, exhaustive. The cost.minimal. Keep it subliminal on TV. Three second spot. Lasting on billboards. How bout it ?
Just to keep eyes on more than one thing at a time, there are thousands and thousands of documents still unreleased from the Epstein files. The sh*tbag in the White House is both a fast cyst and pedal file at once. Again, to Republicans, What is it going to take????
Fascism fails when it mistakes spectacle for power and terror for consent. While the regime staged galas, ballrooms, and televised outrage, it exposed its emptiness. Killing a citizen required lies. Lies collapsed under video. Authority fractured as communities organized, states told the truth, and even allies recoiled. This is the authoritarian paradox. Control demands disbelief, but modern life records everything. When reality circulates freely, fear loses its monopoly and legitimacy evaporates in public, before witnesses everywhere.
Unfortunately, many maga voters believe the lies coming from the govt. and not what they see with their eyes. Have they noticed Noem's gestapo style outfits? And other morally abhorrent words and actions? People NEED to pay attention to politics more than they ever had.
They think they can get away with it because they've been getting away with their lies for over a decade. But now they've lied to the wrong people, with the wrong lie. Now they're telling MAGA that they don't have the right to carry a gun wherever they want. This will backfire on them spectacularly. The rumbling has already started. The cracks are forming.
Trump and his circle follow two guiding principles. The first, in Trump's own words: "You tell them and they will believe you—they just do." The second, learned from his mentor Roy Cohn: "You don't have to believe what you say." Together, these reveal why truth and reality hold no value for them—repetition and conviction matter more than accuracy.
Exactly Annabel! The people that are pushing the lies that contradict the real time videos are cage criminals. We the people need to continue to show the world the videos of the shooting and also of Alex in his job at the VA. Reality will overcome all the administration's lies.
“What is happening in the brains of citizens who” believe lies instead of their eyes.
How long does it take to recognize that an inconvenient truth is an opportunity worthy of further consideration? No more than two minutes. How long does it take to misperceive an opportunity as a threat? Less than one third of a second. What’s the brain's innate/default method to “neutralize” an inconvenient truth misperceived as a threat? Ignore the messenger.
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
While it’s crucial we speak up right now, it’s also crucial to take care of our mental health. Please know and remember that. (I needed that reminder this weekend.)
Today my family made 5 dozen heart cookies to bring to my school community and pass out to our neighbors. We snuggled extra, played outside and just slowed down (while I also popped online to share the spreadsheet occasionally). This week I’m going to work on finding balance while speaking up extra.
You have to do this — we all do — or we’ll lose our minds. You have the right not just to shout, but to bake cookies, to say thank you to a doctor or a nurse, to love your children, take joy in watching a sunrise, pet an animal, assert — as did Anne Frank — that in spite of everything, people are basically good at heart. Faith is sometimes an act of pure will.
Wonderful about the cookies! Our neighborhood in Brooklyn has a community fridge -- and this weekend - ahead of and during the big snow storm, neighbors filled the fridge with home made soups and ziti and other dishes in individual serving sizes -- the rule of the fridge is 'take what you need, add what you can'
I donate frequently to two "little free pantry" lockers in nearby neighborhoods. (I live in a pretty affluent area up on "the hill") and the "little free library" my neighbor two doors down built.
Yes, Megan, do take care of yourself! Making cookies good! I made soup. Praying, and hoping recent events will bring sanity back! Still speaking up but need to take a break too.
Learn How Block by Block Organizing Made Resistance Possible
--And How to Start Laying the Groundwork Where You Live
Tuesday January 27-- 8PM ET/5PM PT
This is the second of a two part training on Solidarity Mobilizations - Showing Up for Immigrant Communities and Resisting Authoritarianism (but you don’t need to have gone to the 1st one)
Megan, 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼WE CANNOT let this cruel administration rob us of our humanity!!
I appreciate knowing what you did to spread kindness. This weekend, we shoveled neighbor's snow, and picked up meds for them (even though they are MAGA. Because that's what good people do for people who are ill or need help)
I want you to know, I call 15 senators in the last half hour or so. It's all I can manage today, but EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS.
We do what we can, when we can, for as long as we can. This isn't my motto, (perhaps paraphrased a bit) it's from Beau, former host of the YouTube channel now hosted by his wife, "Belle of the Ranch".
Megan, thanks again for your dedication and tenacity.
All of our children, no matter who they are, are becoming swept up by this wave of onslaught in our communities. I have heard stories of kids being taunted by others, name calling “you’re an illegal immigrant, and Trump is going to find you and send you back where you came from!” I’ve heard stories of teachers like you counseling their young students to reassure them the adults around them are working to keep the safe and secure.
…and another young little child is shipped off and disappeared into one of the awful detention (concentration) camps.
And the hypocrisy of Kyle Rittenhouse who was honored and roams free brandishing his automatic assault weapon on the streets of a city near you!
Only 23… that’s all of the republicans in congress we need to END THIS MADNESS!
Stay strong, stay peaceful, protect our children and know that We The People are on the right side of history!
It concluded: “Mr. President, the American people didn’t vote for these scenes and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.”
I thought the game was up after the thoroughly televised Jan 6th Capitol riot was officially rebranded by the Republican Party as "Representatives Cheney are Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in in legitimate political discourse,", but perhaps now, now(?) the horror of what's been going down is finally breaking though?
What is legitimate LEO if not due process and respect for provable evidence? Our culture is losing it's grip on reality, and that's bad news. I'm not saying that my view has a lock on veracity, but we know the drill, and historically we know how the process of proving what is most likely to be true works, and the benefits of doing so. We have also seen where cluelessness and/or Big Lies can lead. Ego bereft of wisdom and compassion is like a car rolling down a hill without a driver; or worse, AI autopilot with malicious intent. Exterminate!
We are following Dr. Richardson's advice by contacting Republican Senators and Republican Representatives in multiple states in order to draw on their humanity. We are asking that they protect Americans from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) overreach, and that they reverse policies of our current administration that have harmed Americans and prevent further harm by using their power in the House and Senate. The funding for ICE was 3.3 billion before 2024, jumped up to 9.6 plus billion in 2025, and has further jumped to 11.3 billion for 2026 [see our post for January 2026: U.S. National Security Strategy at OneClick2BetterWorld.substack.com].
Our government is in a spending frenzy in order increase their numbers by using the ICE and CBP money ASAP, leading to inadequate vetting and training of ICE and CBP then sending them to American cities, which is an expansion of their focus on the Southern border north. Please contact Republican Senators and Republican Representatives to hold them responsible because they are the only party currently that has enough votes to turn harmful policies around in America.
Here's a tip for those who are reluctant to call the offices of your elected representatives: call before 7am or after 6pm. You'll get their voicemail, and you can leave your message. It still counts, and you don't have to talk to their staff. Sending messages is also important. I sent 3 on Saturday 2 yesterday...
Singe, between abot 1:30 -11 Chicago time, I called 17 Senators. I didn't get a single aide--and two had full voice mailboxes. I managed to leave my message on 15 lines. More than I usually manage, but I'm really upset. I wish I could do more, but no joke, I watch my pulse go up as I leave messages, and I suspect my blood pressure rises as well.
We all need to do what we can, when we can, as long as we can.
Well done, Miselle! Full voice mailboxes show that MULTITUDES of us are calling. This makes a difference. I know; my BP goes up too! But it's worth it. Keep up the good work! You are not alone.
"This message is for the members of Congress who are supposed to be looking out for us their constituents and voters:
Find a spine. Find a vertebra. Find some strength in yourself to stand up for this Country and the people who live here. You have a masked militia in the street murdering citizens who are doing nothing wrong. If you cannot find it in yourself to do something about that then please know we will find new leadership. If you think you are safe because you live in a non-competitive district, think again. We are not afraid to change our party in order to defeat you. We are not afraid to figure out how to work the system to get you out of office if you will not keep us safe. Do your jobs. Do it with an ounce of bravery. All it takes is a hundredth of the bravery that Renee Good or Nurse Pretti had. Do better or do a different job."
Thank you, Megan. In these moments of deep sadness and concern for the future, everyday you shine a light. It uplifts hearts, some nearing the brink of despair. You bring them back.
Terrence Goggins, on his Substack The West Point Professor, suggested that we write to our Congress people, especially republicans, that Trump is insane. They might respond to that argument.
Dear Heather, I just want to pause a moment to say thank you very, very much, as always, for everything you are doing. Your words are absolutely vital and you are deeply appreciated!
Who paid for Trump's tone-deaf black-tie private screening of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump? Who pays when Trump hosts all his cronies at the White House? Who will be paying for Don Jr.'s wedding which is supposed to take place at the White House? How much of Mar-a-Lago expenses are taxpayers covering? And what are the secret service costs for keeping all those egomaniacs safe and snug? Any reporting on any of that? Retrofitting his Qatari plane - which is going on right now - is costing us hundreds of millions. It's going to have secure, military-grade communication and anti-missile systems, and he'll be taking it with him when he leaves office. A private citizen needs advanced defense systems on his private jet? The waste, fraud, and abuse Trump said he wanted to root out is walking around in his suit and a really long tie. But we had to admit: Trump never said he wanted to root out violence. He likes that.
We have insufficient money to support public health, etc., but Trump throws trainloads of public money at his bizarre personal conceits like there is no tomorrow. Literally.
SUBSTACK NURDS -- NOW, EXACTLY AS ANDRA WATKINS PREDICTED -- ARE UNABASHEDLY FUNCTIONING AS MAGASTAPO AGENTS BY REFUSING TO LET ME POST VITAL INFORMATION.
UPDATE 01:45 PST: the post, which they had repeatedly forced me to remove as too lengthy when I sought to edit it (never mind posts of equal length have often appeared on these threads), has reappeared where it was originally made. My thanks to whomever intervened on my behalf.
He needs the plane for when he is "Chairman for Life Trump" of the Board of Peace if he actually ever leaves the presidency. I guess he thinks all the countries will join as a replacement for the UN (after he finishes gutting it)and he will be dictator of the whole world.
He will leave, and probably sooner rather than later. He "bumped his hand on a table and got a bruise"... Just mere months ago a gunshot to his ear didn't even leave a scratch. 😜
I guess now we know why he wants that ballroom finished quickly: Junior's wedding. Is his White House wedding the first step in his anointment as the successor president?
Oh, and I think we know who will pay for all those parties: Anybody but himself. Taxpayers or suckered donors.
“….the account claimed that the addition “is being done with the design, consent, and approval of the highest levels of the United States Military and Secret Service.” Now ask yourself, why would he cite the military and Secret Service as sources of approval for his “ballroom”? This is a prime example of where he’s so stupid he doesn’t know he’s giving away the real reason for the “ballroom.” It’s a bunker, and on the day after the 2028 election, depending on which way it goes, he will move in to stay. He’s not leaving the White House voluntarily. Ever. We must understand that. I’m surprised no one else commenting here has picked up on that.
Actually it's been reported that the original East Wing had a bunker. This was one of the reasons the Secret Service was unhappy at the demolition. A bunker in the new ballroom was a given. The difference is not that there will be a bunker but the size of the new ballroom, so much larger that it will accommodate a larger number of 'bunkerers.' Yes, we can assume that that's the space he'll abscond to when it's time for him to leave the WH.
But yes, and because they tore down the East Wing including destroying the small auditorium, there was nowhere to show the documentary so they had to make a new space in another part of the White House, with state of the art equipment for which I'm sure they spared no expense.
(if I can find the article about it will edit to add the link here)
I thought Heather would take a long-delayed break as her Sunday night rolled into Monday a.m.
She has worked – chipper, but always well-detailed, accounting for the U.S.’s deliberate, murderous, fascist crisis – so hard now, day after day, week after week, with no breaks.
As the time passed two in the afternoon here in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan, midnight Heather’s Maine time, still no announcement of break.
So I knew she’d be working yet. Such resilience.
I think best from her overworked days: her constant reservoir of decency.
Many commenters here emulate this, her decency. Ditto many public officials in Minnesota’s twin cities and nearby. Many online podcasters, too.
And then, at the end of Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway on “Pivot” today, the former introduced a short video of the recently CBP-murdered Alex Pretti in ICU, on the job – in his scrubs – saying words of gratitude and goodbye for a veteran who’d just passed away. (Heather cites it in her concluding para today.)
To honor all those dealing with the onslaught of U.S. murder and fascism, here it is, at the 25:30 mark:
The answer, if you believe your own eyes, are Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Republican members of Congress, conservative Supreme Court justices who gave ICE permission to profile, and anyone who can’t separate truth from fiction.
Every person who wants to save democracy needs to understand the level of incitement to violence and confrontation that is being spewed from Fox and the administration. Our right to dissent is being portrayed as a massive “Red Menace” conspiracy. They claim that the blame for Alex Pretti’s death is OURS.
From Fox:
"Over the following hours, a national network of socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist cells in the United States leveraged the tragic fatality into a nationwide protest operation. While grief and outrage over Pretti's death is genuine, the network's real-time rapid response, using short sensational video clips and emojis as weapons of propaganda, offers a window into the disciplined logistics, messaging and coordination of far-left warriors fomenting insurgency-like confrontation with authorities."
The rhetoric is a dog whistle to the far-right. It is a new call to the groypers and Proud Boys. It is meant to be the match that Trump can use to invoke the Insurrection Act.
Peaceful civil disobedience must be our only response. Every camera out,
Marxist-Leninist cells. Go find one. I encountered some Marxist wannabees in the 1970's but doubt I ever observed the real thing. Real Communism sought to change human nature, but all they could muster was authoritarianism. Cooperative enlightened self interest works for me. The social contract. MAGA just wants to bully.
MAGA followers don't read history. These are the higher decibel dog whistles when "libtards" and "socialists" are not loud enough.
Trump has wet dreams of Joe McCarthy-style investigations of politicians for any whiff of commie leanings. Remember Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor, was McCarthy's chief counsel.
Yes, I'm aware of that, and Trump was (is?) tight with the mob. McCarthy also drew a fanatical crowd, and Trump shows even less decency; but it's the same old serpent. Powered by $COTUS-approved de facto bribery, the former party of Lincoln sold what remained of its soul to the devil, picked up McCarthy's playbook, and ran with it. Voila.
The thing is that all cellphone conversations have been gathered by U.S. intelligence since the inception of said phones. Cells within the continental borders and around the world are monitored and information gleaned pinpoints the location of extant cells around the country. In the wake of failure to sniff out the 9-11 attacks we were forced to use the obvious ability to collect and decipher real terrorist activities. The big stink was the invasion of privacy on normal civilian venues. Assurances were forthcoming that they weren’t focusing on civilians. That our privacy was invaded and continues to this day was quietly slid under the rug. Your phone can be accessed by government sources without your knowledge. Don’t forget it is a listening device as well as a transmitter. Rest assured Big Ernie is using this modern marvel to protect and defend your constitutional rights. Funny thing is MAGA fully understands this and is cognizant they have been scrutinized fully. Still they hasten their way to the trap line.
We have to operate on the assumption that there is no such thing as privacy anymore. Between facial recognition, cell phone monitoring and access to stored computer data via the Cloud, nothing is private. One can hardly have a naughty thought that's private. (Speaking for a friend...)
Technology and "deregulation", AKA abandonment of governance of, by, and for the people.
"Regulation" is rules, and the rules can be despotic or just with the considered consent of the governed. Government is not "the problem". Despotism and/or irresponsibility is. If we agree that ALL people are created equal, -that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among the public, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
I have lived in the country and lived or worked in large cities such as Manhattan. That sort of anonymity seems a blessing and a curse. Yet even large cities seem to vary in the sense of community one finds there, and I feel that sense of community breaking down. I think is is both cause and effect and has a lot to do with are current perils. I think growing social inequality and refeudalization has a lot to do with it.
Feudalism begets inequality. The sock comes with the boot. Our American royalty waltzes serenely on thin ice. That ice can only bear so much abuse. The cracking sounds must be heeded. When the weight above exceeds the capacity inequality gives way suddenly. Man’s capacity for greed is invested in just enough souls to keep feudalism alive and well. He who has the gold lives in the castle. We must never abandon the mechanism which dismantles the walls.
Good point Georgia, it’s incredibly impressive that We the People have remained peaceful in our protests and protection of our neighbors! We will not take the bait of this regime no matter what form it takes.
It’s tempting and justified to lay all this at the feet of that psychopathic douchebag Steven Miller.
But that isn’t fair to the hundreds and thousands of enablers who applauded while Trump engaged in his demented world salad, cheered when he called people “vermin,” looked the other way as he desecrated our Constitution the first time, then voted to approve his Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Misfits and Baboons later. THEY are the ones truly responsible for waging war against us.
These are Republican monsters, created by the GOP to flood our zone with their shit, then lecture us by claiming ‘he had it coming.’ The only thing missing from Bovino’s mocking, falsifying, prevaricating, arrogant press conference was… “fucking bitch.”
They’re not going to get the last word here, no matter what delusional bullshit they engage in.
At one point during the press conference, Bovino started ranting on about 'choices'. Putting the blame on politicians and journalists for making the choice to vilify ICE & Border Patrol or call them the Gestapo.
But these rampaging, murderous thugs in ICE & Border Patrol are acting just like the Gestapo and villainous storm troopers: bashing in car windows, busting into peoples houses and forcing them into the freezing cold, shooting peaceful protesters dead at point blank range. Terrorizing, intimidating, brutalizing, murdering all with impunity. It appears Bovino lacks the self awareness to see those choices he and his agents are making that are the cause of this horror show.
I'm with you all the way... except for one detail, one word: Baboons.
Afrikaner white suprematists used to ask the rhetorical question:
"Would you give a vote to a baboon?"
No, I wouldn't. Nevertheless, as a kid in South Africa, I got an important part of my political education from observing the local baboon pack. An important part of this initiation was when I and my friend nearly got ourselves killed after inadvertently invading the pack's territory when they were drinking round a pool. I won't bore readers with a full account, but... when we thought it safe to return under the cliff the baboons had rushed up when disturbed... they rolled an avalanche of big rocks down on us. We'd retreated just in time.
One way of inculcating respect.
Baboons' survival instincts and skills are far superior to those of human beings. Social order, hierarchical. But they do not and cannot select a misleader.
That -- as we are seeing -- is a uniquely human aptitude.
Those who do not now actively oppose or resist the fascist régime, from Mahogany Row offices and corporate board rooms through every industry and walk of life to every household, are enablers. And as enablers, they have blood on their hands. Paul Krugman lays out the matter as eloquently as could be done in yesterday's Substack:
" ... It has been clear for a long time, to anyone willing to see, that the people running the federal government — Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino and more — are monsters. It has been equally obvious that ICE and the Border Patrol are now filled with sadistic thugs. Yet many people — almost the entire GOP, everyone serving in the Trump administration, some Democrats, a significant part of the media — were too cowardly to admit the obvious.
"At this point, however, there are no more excuses. In a way the cowards and opportunists enabling Trump are more to blame for where we are than Trump and company themselves: monsters are monsters and can’t help themselves, but the enablers have a choice. And they have chosen, again and again, to accommodate and facilitate evil."
Now: reread Krugman's second paragraph: "... the enablers have a choice. And they have chosen, again and again, to accommodate and facilitate evil."
Now: if you are not already engaged in some resistance activity, find one and get busy. How modest or minor you may perceive it to be, or how much or little you do compared to someone else don't matter. Every single action, whether filling out the front lines at a rally, bringing food to a community member in need, writing postcards and calling your congresscritters incessantly, or any other act of compassion and support for your community and our democracy, is an act of resistance and is courageous.
Thank you, as always, Dr Richardson. This whole degradation by depredation of all that we hold dear reminds me of Hymn #519 from my grade school hymnal:
Hymns and anthems have so much meaning, especially when people are singing them together. I wish we did that more often instead of always listening to someone sing.
I am unaware of a culture in which music plays no important part. There may be some, but if so they are surely outliers. It seems to me that music synchronizes social bonding as well as tone, word, and motion. I read that in the early 20th century people would line up at music stores to purchase sheet music of the latest popular song. Now I can hear some of the most skilled artists on the planet via Internet connection, but rarely sing. I think it's part of what keeps churches going.
This is so important...we the anti-MAGA, anti Project 2025 people need an anthem! Before 'they' have one. My suggestion would be adopting We Shall Overcome, which has been sung by so many at so many momentous times. Again I reference the documentary Singing the Revolution on how Estonians used their music to start and sustain their revolution against Soviet domination.
Sharing music is a bonding experience. I am not a Christian, nor a follower of Christ although I ring handbells at the church my dear friend attends. There is power of community standing to sing together, and I wish we did more of it.
A fellow tuba player's wife is an internationally recognized educator; they were together at a conference in South Africa, and were having a small dinner with her counterpart. He asked my friend what he did, and he replied that he was a retired music teacher. I will never forget the man's reply: "Why do you have to teach music? Music is for all of us, and we know and feel it."
Words and credo to live by, light to dispel the darkness all around. Remember the words of the very first participants in the struggle against fascism in Spain in 1936 — “NO PASARÁN”
The Christofascists and the MAGA far right will do anything to stay in power because they know if they lose in the midterms they will be investigated impeached and possibly convicted. Of course Trump has no plans on leaving quietly. Being that Trump’s base feels that this could possibly be their last chance to make America white again, and the left fears the same thing but for a different reasons, things are bound to get chaotic and tense as we approach the midterms where many feel that ICE and border patrol agents will be swarming the voting centers, and not causing good trouble.
If you’re going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill
I have been in my country of origin (Netherlands) for the past month and heading back to the US tomorrow. I follow and read the news closely and like in the US Heather is always first. We live in surreal times right now. When I see the various photos of the demonstrations I have to look twice to see whether they were taken in Tehran or Minneapolis and now in my beloved State of Maine. I see hope in how the country is coming together and hallelujah, the Minnesota National Guard handing out donuts! It is incomprehensible to me that in a Rasmussen poll “only 39%” is in support of ice. How can so many be so hateful and racist in a country built by and with immigrants!
To your point, Tom Friedman of the New York Times yesterday wrote that he’d never thought Gaza would come to Minneapolis — his home town. He meant the masks, of course. All over the world, young men (mostly) who brutalize others wear masks — because they have something to hide. Hamas in Gaza — because they kill both Israelis and Palestinians — and ICE. Men hiding who they are, running from culpability. Paramilitaries destroying civilization.
One commenter quite awhile ago thought perhaps more Republicans answer more phone calls, but progressives less because they’re smarter at screening them.
Also : “Rasmussen Reports is generally considered a reliable polling organization, but it has a slight *bias towards 🔻Republican candidates and has faced criticism for its methodology. Its accuracy is rated at about 78%, which is considered mostly factual, but some experts have raised concerns about its increasing * partisanship in recent years.”
It would be news to many gun-owning Republicans that they can’t carry guns to a protest. They have routinely shown up to protests in places like Texas, Northern California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona with firearms — often brandishing semi-automatic rifles.
Congress appears to be waking up from its year-long slumber. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) publically decried shutting out local law enforcement from the investigation. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) publically states that carrying a firearm is a protected right and NOT a death sentence.
And while hearing conservative voices finally, FINALLY speak out at these atrocities has been vindicating, nothing showed more of a break in the Trump Coalition The National Rifle Association (NRA) labeling comments from a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor —who suggested the Pretti shooting was justified — as "dangerous and wrong".
The NRA urged for a "full investigation," stating that "responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens".
Hello Annabel... From HCR Today: "“Today we remember that freedom is not free,” Pretti said. “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we [give] them our honor, and our gratitude.”... ... This Is Eloquent. and Powerful"... Thank You Alex... Rest In Power...
Good morning, Apache. My sign for protest today will list Alex Pretti and Renee Good; I will draw a black ribbon on a light blue background for Alex, and one on a lavender background for Renee. The obverse will have an as yet undecided upon anti ICE message.
After listening to HCR the other night, I was compelled to write a letter, to stop the craziness, stop crimes against humanity, vote no on DHS bill, and stop executions.First I sent the emails to our states elected officials (no morals, no ethics), and now just finished emailing the same letter every Republican Senator. Onward tomorrow to House Republicans. We did show up at our protest in Fairbanks in -7 or so weather.
Here is what was sent:
Crimes Against Humanity
25 January 2026
Dear Senator :
Reckless ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minneapolis and across the country are causing immediate and irreversible harm to children, families, and entire communities. People have already been killed. Fear is widespread. Congress must act now.
ICE’s violent and unchecked actions show a blatant disregard for the law, basic civil rights, and human life. Federal agents are terrorizing our neighborhoods, and without swift intervention, more people will be injured or killed. Continued inaction is not neutral — it is a choice with deadly consequences.
As a Member of Congress, you have a duty to intervene immediately and hold ICE accountable for these abuses. I expect concrete action within days, not weeks or months. Specifically, I am urging you to:
Demand an immediate halt to ICE operations in Minneapolis and prevent further large-scale enforcement escalations in our communities.
Publicly oppose and vote against any additional funding for ICE’s enforcement and detention budget, including provisions in the most recent appropriations bill.
Initiate a transparent, independent investigation without delay into the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, ICE’s reckless hiring practices, and its failure to hold agents accountable to the law.
Release the Epstein Files
Every day Congress fails to act, more lives are placed at risk and more families are forced to live in fear. I expect your office to take swift, visible action to stop this escalation and to communicate clearly how and when you will do so.
The time for statements has passed. Immediate action is required.
Good job Juneau! We had a pop up protest in Anchorage Saturday night, with about 100 people. Why am I not the tiniest bit surprised that Sullivan and Begich once again are on the wrong side of history? Looking forward to voting them out in November.
There are both video and still images of what is clearly a public extrajudicial execution. The kind of thing one would expect from drug kingpins in a turf war. How do the regime spinners think they can lie about it and get away with it? Worse yet, what is happening in the brains of the citizens who DO believe it?
Not to mention the use of grossly excessive force on Pretti and others even before the execution.
HEATHER: " ... the Minnesota prison system to the extraordinary step of launching its own web site to combat the lies [ sea of mendacity ] from DHS".
Just Google "Combatting DHS Misinformation/Department of Correction for the Minnesota site complete with a "Media Fact Sheet" & four (4) "Press Releases".
The famous phrase "Sea of Mendacity" in another context was authored Tennessee Williams.
For more DHS impeachment facts go to the excellent MN local station: KARE11.com. FYI, care is what they do, care for their community.
Now per ABC Sunday 1/25/26 afternoon ABC World News Tonight, ABC showed footage that Alex Pritti's lawfully fully licensed gun was REMOVED by a Fed agent from the scene BEFORE he was shot 10 times .
ABC also confirmed the CPB shot him 3 times in his back. IMO, Murder 1.
Renee Good was also murdered, imho. ICE and CBP have orders from the top to instigate violence in order to initiate the Insurrection Act. Unfortunately for them, the citizens of Minneapolis have been peaceful, and have not taken the bait.
Even without such probable order, to join ICE, you have to be of a violence-prone mindset. Would you join if you were given kazillion dollars? I would not -- I predict you wouldn't either... These thugs probably revel in the killings..Enraging and also sad that such people are our country men (and women?)
I read many comments from those who were fine with what happened. It started to sicken me, knowing that these are my neighbors and fellow Americans. Life has become so much more difficult for us. We can no longer trust.
“What is happening in the brains of citizens who” believe lies instead of their eyes.
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-25-2026?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=205380567
"those who were fine with what happened" - This is the foreseeable result of the othering and demonization of immigrants and "the libs". It becomes perfectly acceptable, even laudable, to kill them. Some people are just happy to grasp at a justification to become murderers.
Build new supporting Communities.🙏
A Rassmussen poll showed that 39% approve of Trump’s handling of immigration. That 39% would surely include a significant majority of white voters and almost nobody else. If Rassmussen (admittedly, not a reliable source) is correct, when you see a random white American the odds would favor an assumption that they approve of what the Trump regime is doing.
Well, supposedly there is video of one clapping after the execution. The one who shot Renee Good called her an f***ing bitc*. These people are monsters. There isn't a shred of decency in their psyche. If there was, they'd be resigning in droves.
Just remember, these are the same people we sent home after the Confederacy. They are the people who founded the Klan, who wrote Jim Crow, who joined the Workers Party, who supported McCarthy, who supported the Moral Majority, who backed the Russian owned and operated NRA. Same people, just different hats.
These are the same people they have always been, and the biggest mistake we have made, again, and again, and again, is thinking they would understand when they've lost.
I don't want our grandchildren and great grandchildren to have to fight another civil war in a century to remind these people why they've lost again. I'm just as fine not sharing a country with them, and treating them with the disdain with which they have treated people of color around the world.
I’m guessing if there are any left who were half way decent people they are afraid to resign for multiple reasons. One being that with the reputation they will be unemployable. I hope none of the real monsters ever work again unless it’s cleaning the prison toilets.
Dr. J, not probably revel, do revel. Mostly men, but I think I have seen a few women.
They have to be taught....by family, friends or video gaming.
Which is why it horrifies me to think any of them have children. Especially the women. 😢
It sure sounded like Alex's murderer did from what I read.
This video by a former Black Panther is incredibly important to watch right now when we are all so angry. We must must not allow the violence and chaos of this corrupt administration spill over into our own actions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7MEUt03a6A
Here is the first video in the series. POWERFUL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3mIzBzK_F8
Here is one that just came out - an action plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aluKRxSLW34
All great videos. Thank you.
ICE AND CPB are out of control. These "agents" are thugs drunk on the power granted to them by Noem and Bovino, both of whom should be removed from office and tired for perjury and inciting violence.
Yes. These "agents" are thugs who are so proud of their work that they wear face masks to hide their identities. I assume they envision a future invitation to the golden palace where the thug-in-chief will give them medals and lifetime immunity from prosecution, like he does for all those who commit heinous crimes in his name.
Did you see how fast they scattered after the shot him!
I wonder where they were re-assigned too. I understand these guys were from the border patrol.
My guess is most of these guys he has already pardon for Jan 6.
Yes. And, you are not bitching. Right on, "Prochoice Always" Sister.
Stephen Miller should be included. He is a true Fascist who believes everyone should be murdered who protests his plans to turn our country completely fascist.
There are more like them...we need to start at the top.....remove Trump, Vance, Preacher Boy of the house, Republican thugs in both the House and Senate, Trumps buddy's in the Supreme Court....we have lots of work to do!
We need to start at the top, but more importantly we need to NOT STOP until we get to the very bottom. America failed to do so after the Civil War and have paid the price. we have failed to do so numerous times in our history when the White Supremacists have reminded us who they always were and always will be. Trump himself has shown us the solution to finding his supporters lies in the voter rolls, and the campaign donations.
Project 2025 was founded on the basis of removing, eliminating, or disenfranchising tens of millions of people and Americans. Its past time we stopped pulling punches and returned the favor.
I agree!
That is what Trump wants...get rid of us no matter how!
There will be many prosecutions post Trump and the sooner the better.
And where are the pro-gun folks screaming about his right to carry that gun and not be murdered!!
Republicans lauded and feted underage Kyle Rittenhouse for illegally bringing, brandishing and firing an AK-47 in the BLM unrest, killing a man protecting others, while at the same time they say licensed gun owner Alex Pretti (and Renee Good) deserved to be killed simply because they were outside protecting people from gun brandishing thugs acting like Confederate slave catchers. We don't need to go to the Nazis for comparisons. Nazis took patterns from the Confederate South. This current day IS "How the South Won the Civil War "
To be fair, the newswires have been full of stories of statements and actions from the NRA and Gun Owners of America, saying that the government has overstepped. As Heather quoted in today's column, the president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center said no one should be forced to choose between their First and Second Amendment rights.
I have never been a fan of the gun lobby, but good on them for putting their principles over (I assume) their prevailing political opinions, and showing some consistency and backbone on this issue.
Thank you for your post and for the information! I admit that I haven't been watching much news, but instead of relying on my substack subscriptions. I'm so glad that the newswires have carried responses from the NRA and Gun Owners of America! And I will read Heather's column, so I will see her information regarding that. Yes, good on them, and thank you again for letting me, and others who may not know, that the gun lobby is speaking out!!
The majority of police officers in Great Britain are not normally armed. There are "Authorized Firearms Officers (AFO)" for certain occasions. Long guns are kept in locked armories. I question why guns are even issued for immigration duties. It is clear that the guns will be misused.
But the real purpose for these operations is to normalize armed forces leading to martial law controlled by the presidency. Or the main person in charge if the "presidency" no longer exists. "His excellency?"
Indeed! The so called originalist proponents of the US Constitution point to the need for arms against tryrants! The various weapons advocates posit “ a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun!”, can’t wait for police to arrive!!!! Now the hypocrites are swallowing their lying tongues!
The NRA for what it's worth did put out a statement that First and second Amendment rights were being violated. Shocking, but supposedly true since it was reported by reputable news sources.
That is amazing since they are a big supporter of Trump! He had addressed them at conventions and I remember him being in Indianapolis a few years ago at one....it was wonderful for the gun owners in our state...and my area. Grrrr....needless to say I did not attend! I wouldn't walk across the street to see him. Before he was elected the first time he flew into our Terre Haute International Airport. He gave a rally in town. Nope....I didn't attend.
It was gratifying that the gun lobbies put loyalty to their principles (even though I think they've misunderstood the Second Amendment) over their loyalty to their figurehead.
Murder One if you can prove they planned to kill any protesters they find a gun on beforehand. Murder Two if it just occurred to them when they discovered his gun. Greg Bovino has said you don't bring a gun to a protest. Unless of course you are an ICE agent. Doesn't matter apparently what you do. The clear implication is that you are then unlawfully present and obstructing their operations. By Kristi Noem's own public pronouncements that then means you are a terrorist. But of course merely taking a picture of an ICE agent warrants your designation as such by them. And you are then subject to execution on the scene. For then ICE is free to kill you and face no consequences.
And believe it or not, that will be their defense. If they are ever brought to justice. And that is a big if.
But btw, the whole squad can be charged with felony murder.
I guess Bovino hasn't heard that Americans have a right to carry guns, and there's no caveat that they can't carry them to a protest. Add "ignorant" to evil!
I agree wholeheartedly that so many think it’s alright to shoot and kill innocent people on the street and in their own cars. This is way out of hand and evil, as well as being against the law. We must get the majority at midterms in the Senate at midterms and impeach the lying felon, child rapist and wanna be dictator.
An author on Daily Kos posted that Pretti carried a weapon even more threatening to ICE than a gun; his phone.
Some MAGA state legislator proposed REQUIRING people to carry guns.
Not surprised, and evidently no caveat not to take them to a protest!
All of which is the legacy of this:
The Carefully Hidden Poisonous Roots of Trump’s “Unified Reich*”
I assembled this information to refute the errors by an individual Substack poster whom I suspect was merely repeating – notably (without) ill intent -- some of the falsehoods he’d been taught by the pre-Trump propaganda of “American Exceptionalism” that since 22 November 1963 and especially since our humiliating defeat by Vietnam has increasingly dominated USian K-12 education. But I later realized what had written is a vital glimpse of the miasma from which ChristoNazism has grown; hence its expanded form, which I re-post accordingly, and will continue to do so at regular intervals until our ChristoNazi conquerors are routed and We the People are at last truly liberated. I recognize it is entirely too long to be assimilated in a single reading and viewing, so I respectfully ask that it please be set aside and used as a study guide, a liberating rebuttal of the lies and deceptions by which the U.S. government and its plutocratic owners desperately try to hide the true extent of their support for Nazism before, during and after World War II.
_________
*https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trumps-social-media-account-shares-and-deletes-video-referencing-a-unified-reich
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VITAL BACKGROUND FILM (viewing time 53 minutes): “In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a ‘Pro-American Rally.’ Images of George Washington hung alongside swastikas, underlining the organizers’ belief that Nazism was entirely consistent with American ideals.” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/nazi-town-usa/#part01
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U.S. BIG BUSINESS OVERWHELMINGLY PRO-NAZI: “The Third Reich’s destruction of the left, along with Hitler’s stated intention to preserve big business, was welcomed by corporate managers...A number of business moguls in America were overtly anti-Semitic..The New York Herald Tribune reported on 31 July 1941 that the Wall Street firm, Union Banking Corporation, which the American banker Prescott Bush was managing, had in 1933 sent $3 million to the Nazi Party. This is indeed the same Prescott Bush who was the father of George H. W. Bush, and grandfather to George W. Bush...” https://www.globalresearch.ca/history-us-business-operations-with-nazi-germany/5737005 (Note: Prescott Bush was the Bankers’ Plot’s liaison to Hitler, for which see below.)
IBM PERSONIFIES THE MECHANISM OF HOLOCAUST: “Mankind barely noticed when the concept of massively organized information quietly emerged to become a means of social control, a weapon of war, and a roadmap for group destruction. The unique Igniting event was the most fateful day of the last century, January 30, 1933, the day Adolf Hitler came to power. Hitler and his hatred of the Jews was the ironic driving force behind this intellectual turning point. But his quest was greatly enhanced and energized by the ingenuity and craving for profit of a single American company and its legendary, autocratic chairman. That company was International Business Machines, and its chairman was Thomas J. Watson.“ https://ia601309.us.archive.org/20/items/historyDEEPWEB/IBM%20and%20the%20Holocaust%20-%20Edwin%20Black.pdf
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What prompted the debate on Dr. Heather Cox Richardson’s vital, valiantly informative website was a poster’s vain attempt to refute a comment I had made about the (real) origins of ChristoNazism. I noted the U.S. had begun its clandestine adoption of Nazi war criminals soon after the Red Army’s epic victory at Stalingrad convinced the allies Hitler would lose the war. My critic replied that both statements were false. In rebuttal I posted the following: BATTLE OF STALINGRAD, (July 17, 1942–February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favour of the Allies. https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Stalingrad
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The news of the battle echoed round the world, with many people now believing that Hitler's defeat was inevitable.[324] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad
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U.S. ADOPTION OF NAZI WAR CRIMINALS AS ADVISORS AND COMRADES AT ARMS
In the fall of 1944, the United States and its allies launched a secret mission code-named Operation Paperclip. The aim was to find and preserve German weapons, including biological and chemical agents, but American scientific intelligence officers quickly realized the weapons themselves were not enough. https://www.npr.org/2014/02/15/275877755/the-secret-operation-to-bring-nazi-scientists-to-america
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Under Project Paperclip not only rocket scientists were recruited, but convicted war criminals– including doctors who had conducted medical atrocities on concentration camp inmates, such as: experiments with plague vaccines, experiments that force fed chemically altered seawater to starved Dachau concentration camp inmates…American democratic principles were subverted by officials who adopted the Nazi utilitarian philosophy which posits that the ends justify the means..."Nazi attitudes toward research on human subjects were imported and adopted by various U.S. officials."...MKULTRA, the notorious CIA mind control experiments with LSD and other chemical agents, were the brainchild of Nazi Paperclip scientists: https://ahrp.org/legacy-of-nazis-in-america/
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“The CIA and Nazi War Criminals”: National Security Archive ( Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy) – complete bibliography, with every document hyperlinked (my gift to anyone research-minded enough to track the true origins of the ChristoNazi regime.) https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm
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See also PDF: “Useful Enemies: America’s Open Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals” (Richard Rashke, Delphinium Books: 2015)
https://tinyurl.com/4tacsyk3
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COMBINE THE ABOVE HISTORY WITH THE BANKERS' PLOT -- recommended links to follow -- and you'll see Trump is not only (not) an anomaly; he is the fulfillment of a scheme that dates back at least to the end of Reconstruction (1878) but did not gain national momentum until the advent of Fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany: https://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/145472726/when-the-bankers-plotted-to-overthrow-fdr and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot , which identifies Prescott Bush as the plotters’ liaison to Hitler, also an older but still relevant Guardian report https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/11/trump-fdr-roosevelt-coup-attempt-1930s . We need to read each of these texts to get an adequate picture of what happened -- that the plotters' ultimate intent was probably to make the U.S. a satellite of Nazi Germany or at least a member of its emerging axis. The plot’s diverse elements – many partially redacted by the deliberate, Nazi-protecting suppression of vital documents – are given unity and clarity by Grant Hamilton Stone’s University of Chicago 2021master’s thesis: “The Business Plot reminds us that threats to democracy have defined our past as much as they threaten democracy’s future. Without addressing and learning from previous instances of anti-democratic dissidence, no matter the consequence, we invite a future where what once seemed sensational will become a chilling norm.” https://knowledge.uchicago.edu › nanna › record › 3259 › files › Stone_MAPSS_Thesis_Final.pdf?withWatermark= (Note: the attempted coup was known to my father's generation as the "Bankers' Plot," the term which brought up the first three above links. Stone's vital thesis is accessed only by the far less inflammatory "Business Plot.")
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Additional element: it is at least arguable – though the evidence is entirely circumstantial and is relentlessly dismissed as “conspiracy theory” by those who assert nothing of the kind can ever happen here in their “one nation under God” – that the (real) significance of the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is that 22 November 1963 is "der Tag," the day of infamy the long-simmering bi-partisan Nazification scheme became fully operational. Note the national publication of alleged Nazi connections to the assassination: https://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Nazi%20Connection%20to%20JFK%20Assass.html . Despite initial readership reportedly exceeding that of Time and Newsweek, The Rebel, described here – https://dn721806.ca.archive.org/0/items/rebel-magazine-vol-2-no-1-1984-01-23/Introduction%20to%20The%20Rebel%20uploads%20to%20archive.pdf – was mysteriously slain after only eight issues. The magazine ‘s content is summarized here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFewWFf-YAk . (Normally I would not cite such obvious video-pandering to the lowest common Moron-Nation denominator, but in this instance its sociological message underscores its informational function.) That said – and regardless of our reaction to the allegations – let us not forget the eleven years of unequivocally real political murders that followed the removal of our President, a reign of slayings that did not end until the death of union activist Karen Silkwood in 1974. Nor should we overlook the Democratic Party’s role in events that – just as progressive-minded critics warned – were preliminary steps in the nullification of our Constitution and the destruction of our Republic: treachery inflicted on us by Republicans but unquestionably abetted by the Democrats’ self-reduction to the Republican perpe-traitors' Fifth Column.
Whoa. As a former high school math teacher the US public school curriculum always catches my attention. My dear friend still teaches in our county school system now as the ESOL teacher and before that a master teacher of History, Government, and AP Psychology. (Yes she's triple certified, just finished a doctorate program, is National Board Certified and quite an impressive woman - who brings her talent and energy to the classroom still - with everything she's accomplished - she strives "only" to keep and honor the occupation of "public school teacher". Obviously, I'm in awe. I must share this with her. Thank you.
Thank you. From 1975 through early 1982 -- my tenure ended by the Reagan Recession, which in Washington state was a full-blown depression and so ended most adjunct-faculty jobs -- I taught photography and journalism for two colleges. After about 1979, I began noticing my students who were post-1968 high school graduates had absolutely no understanding of the First Amendment. Hence one evening -- I taught only night-school classes as I was fully employed by a Sunday/Wednesday/Friday suburban newspaper and on retainer to United Press International, then still a wire service -- I interrupted a class discussion on photographer's rights with an ungraded quiz asking for a single paragraph explaining the First Amendment and signed not with a name but only with the year the student graduated high school. The result confirmed my suspicion; those who had graduated before we were run out of Vietnam summarized the amendment almost word-for-word; those who had graduated afterward -- with the exception of a young woman I knew from my own activism to be as politically conscious as I -- were unable to do so. Other faculty members had noted the same problem. Our common response was to add the Bill of Rights to our syllabi. (Relevant to this is the fact a standard complaint of the pro-war politicians of both parties was that our military-age population "knew too much.") Wish I still had those test papers; I had kept them, intending to write a column or an essay about them, but I never got around to it, so of course they were destroyed by the 1983 arson.
Perhaps instead of posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms we should be posting the First Ten Amendments.
Hear, hear!
Agreed!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Excellent idea, Gary! I’d add the whole Constitution and Bill of Rights as well.
Start by posting them in the Supreme Court.
Oh Loren,
You don't need those test papers as proof. You know and have the credentials to be the "source". Please, please, please write a column or an essay. We would all be wiser citizens for it. I worry that "our youth" is missing too many critical historical facts that they need to consider when developing their "independent thinking skills". (Something every teacher in America, public, private, K-PhD level teacher need to have in their curriculum).
Also, I've been really pondering 'all the wars' American has taken part in since WWII. My genetic family has "only" served in that War, the family I married into served in others since then. And a number of students I taught went into the armed forces after high school. (I taught from 2002 - 2018 - "last" professional endeavor on my part. I reflect on it as my public service for my country. Dad thought I should have joined a military branch directly from high school before going to University. I finally did serve my country Dad, I hope that makes you proud. He died in May of 2003.)
There's something about all the wars since WWII that keeps pulling me into deeper learning and reflection. As you noted above there is an echo (?) that has changed since Vietnam. I acknowledge this wasn't the first war after WWII, but Vietnam really feels like an inflection point.
Anyhow, I'm rambling (bad habit). Please write your essay.
Peace
Lonnise
Have already done a lot of supportive writing for improved K-12 education. An investigative piece I did on a suburban school in Washington state that was under Moronic Majority attack for its academic excellence won me the highest award of my career, a Sigma Delta Chi, in 1978. And a series I did for The Jersey Journal c. 1969-1970 provided the basis for the state supreme court suit that ruled the property-tax base of state school funding was unconstitutional -- this in response to radical declines in the urban tax base -- earned me a commendation from the Jersey City school board.
It seems to me that "independent thinking skills" married to the immense catalog of collectively gathered information are key to universal empowerment, and universal empowerment is the last thing that those who seek to dominate want.
I think that the misadventure of the Vietnam war damaged a lot of collective trust and mutuality in this country, while the defeat of the predatory Axis, and the Marshall Plan, improved domestic and international relations; and the crucial role of blacks and women in WWII gave momentum to the push to improve Civil and women's rights.
Thanks Loren. Great comment. I graduated in 1967. Agree with posting Constitution and Bill of Rights In schools as Gary suggests. And I'm in Seattle Loren. What was the 1983 arson? Sorry.
I was an ESOL teacher in Md. for 19 years; I had great support from my principal and other teachers when I was soliciting clothes, bedding, furniture, etc. etc. for incoming poor immigrant families. I took two students out shopping for clothes, because they couldn't afford them. I don't take credit for my altruism; I had the means and the time and the sympathy toward these students. (A true story with a wonderful outcome: one of my Vietnamese students came to school only in her pajamas. Today she has a phd, lives in a lovely home in Florida (poor child) and she has imparted her values toward education and a well rounded life to her children.....proof that our immigrants do contribute to our society, embrace hard work and education, and now her children will and their children will....)
Many thanks for all the care and teaching you provided. Teachers, especially in public schools, are often the unsung heroes in everyday life. The fact that a student will pay that care, concern, and wisdom forward to future generations is the best recognition of service every teacher hopes for even if they never know of its happening.
And this former Vietnamese student still follows me and I return the follow on Facebook....
Stephanie, my adult daughters teach/taught HS English. (The older one is now working towards her Masters and will be teaching college) I have seen FIRST hand how teachers fill all the cracks in a child's life--they are counselor, nurse, substitute parent, and sadly, often provide food, clothing and school supplies.
Our school district pays well, I believe right-out-of-college teachers make $52K. My daughter teaches in a rural school, with 11 years experience and has tenure--and she makes roughly $46K. Pretty tough when her rent is about $1600/mo. She could teach at an urban school and easily add $20K to her salary, but she loves her district and her students. And besides, don't rural kids deserved dedicated teachers as well?
And I reside in a county in Md. which pays its teachers quite well. I have no children so I was in essence in loco parentis. I adored these kids, and their parents always relied on me for advice. (I speak French and Spanish so my immigrant parents had a translator when needed....)
Thank you for this post. I have much reading to do. And a visit to make to my local library, which will be closed until Tuesday due to the storm.
I highly recommend the movie Nuremberg to anyone that hates what Kristi Noem and her ICE and CBP thugs are doing. They should refilm it with Donald in the role of Goring. Too bad Himmler was dead during the trials otherwise Stephen Miller would have been perfectly believable in the role.
Silence is complicity. Murdering American citizens while every fucking Republican politician save one or two, remains silent. They are ALL Fascists.
And beware, Elon Musk is back and he will be trying to buy every seat he can so that Trump and his merry band of incompetent miscreants can continue to terrorize American citizens.Last week a Republican leaning PAC donating $40 million to Susan Collins campaign.
No matter who her opponent is, no PAC can buy the vote I'm going to cast against Susan Collins. I'm old enough to remember when she was sensible and moderate; no more.
She is known here in Maine as "Suzie Two Face." It is well past time for her to go!
Skepticat, Collins brought the waffle to a new and prominent position with her stated positions as against her votes.
Senator, you're no Margaret Chase Smith. Not even close. The problem is a lack of conscience.
Moderation is no virtue.
An aside: I worry about the people who were 10 when trump was first elected; they are now 20 and voting. They only know what trump has wrought. Do they know how not normal this is???
My brown and black 4th graders were terrified on Nov 9, 2016. Two of the them each had two moms. Three to five had families in various stages of securing legal documentation, green cards, and/or citizenship. One of my moms asked me for a letter of support in her proceedings; BTW, her daughter was determined to be an immigration lawyer. So, yes, they're hopefully voting now - hopefully, voting wisely.
Sadly, no, unless they have read history.
That demographic hates Trump especially now that the Israeli and Hamas war is over..
JVP...Anything you can add to the above, please do. Influenced as I am by Sun Tzu, I believe that anything that expands our knowledge and understanding of ChristoNazism's domestic roots will help us rid our political gardens of its toxic fruits. (Pun intended.)
Thank you, Loren Bliss. My simple take on US comes from watching US from a small boat in the French canals 2000-2011. Greed and stupidity (about who we are) will be what bring US down. As a child of FDR’s and Eleanor’s WWII, a musician remembering the story of Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial and a Virginian, living in a farming community where everyone I knew or knew about was involved in “the War Effort,” who saw the houses of the farmers of the Revolution as neighbors, I believed in the best of US because that was what I saw.
Now I see what trickle down, assisted by SCOTUS, has done to the middle class, the backbone of our democracy.
But Minneapolis may bring US back to enough sanity to carry on.
My father, whose military service was between the wars, was an upper-level executive with the War Production Board and with the War Assets Administration afterward. That involvement took us out of New York City into that jungle of pridefully ignorant Southron hatred known as Florida, but because my father's closest associates were themselves cursed yankee war-effort people and my playmates were their children, I too grew up consciously feeling thankful I had been born in the US. However, after the war, my father bought a business in Tennessee, and after my experiences as a post-Sputnik advocate for education reform, military service (1959-'62 Regular Army, 16 months in Korea) and Civil Rights Movement involvement (1963-64), I knew for a certainty this land was destined to be the next Nazi Reich. Hence if I may be forgiven for momentarily setting aside my agnosticism, Goddess grant we can take it back from its ChristoNazi conquerors.
I was struck by your citation of the book on IBM. In all my time there, the involvement of Watson with Hitler's Germany was never mentioned. Not once. So that's where I'm starting my reading. I do remember there was an official IBM hymn book - I have a copy of it in one of my file cabinets, which are overflowing with papers I need to recycle..
Would be charming, Loren, to have a history of WASP Ivy League then.
Norman Mailer, late in his life, was working on a fictionalized version of this history. So many Ivy grads steered the biggest U.S. companies and top banks to invest in the state-subsidized industries of Hitler's Waffen SS.
But aside from "Harlot's Ghost," I don't think anyone has been brave enough to confront the incipient fascism deep in the roots of the U.S.'s most elite universities.
If we had such a tome, we'd also have a light shining unto the dark recesses of standardized testing, too -- our era's most efficient assembly line for normalizing fascism's most virulent conceits for grouping, labeling, categorizing, and packaging as otherwise cowardly elites crave.
I used to be a lawyer for Columbia University - and they - for the most part - acknowledged their anti-Semitic past, which was so incredibly awful.
These tests emphasize cognitive skills and not non-language skills like sociability, curiosity, trustworthiness, staying on task, getting along with others, control over and knowledge of one's emotional state, which are all important for personal success. We want a nation ruled by brilliant, empathetic, principled leaders - instead we ended with trump...
Loren - thank you so very much for this -- I will put it aside and read and watch later today.
Thank you.
This interview gave me a Whallop of Insight, "MAGA's White Christian Nationalist End Game", interview with Robert Jones on the Left Hook: https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/magas-white-christian-nationalist. Jones grew up in the south and is a writer who's working on a book titled, "Backslide: reclaiming faith after the Christian turn against democracy". This interview is life-changing, as was watching the Madison Square Garden Nazi rally five years ago. Facing the harshest truths, I reflexively turn away to too much and am practicing, getting more comfortable with squarely facing the truths we are living.
I recently finished reading "The Tears of Things" by Fr Richard Rohr. His viewpoint is that Christian leaders are using the Bible to promote their own personal views, and there is too much emphasis on sin/guilt. It helps me understand the hypocrisy of the church. I am tempted to give a copy to a few people I know, but I suspect they would be outraged by Fr. Rohr's book.
For those who might like a peek at Fr Rohr's viewpoint, I suggest this:
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/many-voices-one-text/
Thanks for the pointer, Miselle. I listened to the Audible sample and then downloaded the book. I've been drawn to the rare few events where all local clergy share a role and am imagining possibilities for a forthright investigation that isn't purposefully pursuasive. One step at a time.
I thought that this book has value for people of any faith--or no faith at all. It's good to see exactly where the hypocrisy originates.
Thanks for the link. Very good information.
Thank you so much for compiling this information, Loren. it is so important for Americans to understand the history of what has brought us to this moment in time.
Thank you.
You have pointed out the many human rights abuses perpetrated by the US in the past. The government has shown, in the past and currently, that it has no interest in public safety. We have seen the normalization of a president enriching himself in violation of the emoluments clause; using the Dept. of Justice as his personal lawyer (that position is supposed to be the public's lawyer); to impose stuff like the insurrection act at will without cause; falsehoods which influence white nationalism sentiments (no different than the slaveholders' views on the rights of black people); we can't trust the data coming out Washington, etc. etc. We are indeed experiencing an historic trauma....
The Bankers Plot made me appreciate double Medal of Honor awardee, Gen Smedley Butler who finally drew the line that to me stopped that plot. Would that we had one person these days that could do as much as an individual to stop the current plot.
The United States had its own home-grown eugenics movement without any need for a transfusion from post-war Germany.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/19/where-science-meets-fiction-the-dark-history-of-eugenics
Indeed, Hitler is said to have described Madison Grant's infamous 'The Passing of the Great Race' as 'my Bible'. It was also praised by Theodore Roosevelt as "a capital book; in purpose, in vision, in grasp of the facts our people most need to realize. "
See "Hitler's American Model: the United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law" (James Q. Whitman, Princeton University Press: 2018). We should recognize that the ecogenocidal dynamics that Hitler organized into Nazism were already evident in the United States, especially in the South. Hitler merely formalized them into ideology.
my Grandpa went and kicked Nazi ass at that NY event in 39
The Germans also studied American advertising promoting World War I.
Indeed; Goebbels was profoundly influenced by Edward Bernays.
Logical reasoning, well researched documentation and persuasive discourse are LOST on the maga mindless! Biden did it! Clinton did it! the videos are edited! Photoshopped pictures! Your research is helpful for ‘those in the choir’ to support their beliefs! You identified IBM as a complicit company. It reminds me that Bayer chemicals and, yes the coveted, Mercedes Benz aided the Hitlers genocide supplying chemicals and vehicles for the Third Reich!
Come on bro, lighten up. Don’t you know it was God who made the ultimate mistake by allowing Man, the wrong primate branch, up the evolutionary trail. God origins designated the Bonobos to walk the trail but Man grabbed the tickets and ran like hell.
God did it. And God should be punished.
Thanks! This is a graduate course for sure…you must add in the funding by Carnegie, and others, for the research that created eugenics and the intense desire of American to steal the vast chemical engineering/knowledge that created the gasses that killed the people, much of it used to create the Green Revolution insecticides and fertilizers.
It’s always about people who think they are better because they are rich and white!
The legacy of Eugenics lives on in standardized testing and ideas like IQ…what was the book, ‘MisMeasurement of Man?’
And you even see it in how we call AI ‘intelligent’ when it’s simply stealing using statistical models and computer programming.
Wish us luck and WOKEN!
You and I share the same vision of American History and how the conservatives have distorted our history. It was the conservatives that defended the Malmady Nazi soldiers taking their side. It was the conservatives that gave support to the fascists as you noted. Thank you for this.
Thank you for this!
The plain English of the 2nd amendment reads:
"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
So, what is a "Free State" we must ask. In today's America, the security of people in every state, both citizens and other human.people, with or without documentation, are under threat from the extra-juducial tyranny of ICE and the CBP. The leadership of these agencies are exhorting their fully armed agents, to ignore normal police procedures and use whatever force is necessary, including deadly force, to achieve their objectives.
The Founders, fully aware of threats both foreign and domestic to our Freedom and Security, left us State militias, today's National Guard, as protection against Federal tyranny. Each states National Guard are under the direct control of the Governor of each state.o
Given the intentional murders by both ICE and CBP of two Minnesota citizens, it is way past time that Governors call up their National Guard troops to secure the safety of the all their states' people.
And one of them said, "This is like Call of Duty, cool".
And another was clapping his hands - applauding the cowardly execution. They need to be found and charged.
At the very minimum taken off the streets.
Counting bullet holes
The comment of a man child
And the video of what started the entire confrontation: that of the ICE agent lunging at a woman who was more than arms length away from him to violently shove her to the ground. Pretty merely went to help her up and ask if she was OK when he was set upon by a mass of "agents".....otherwise known as murderous thugs.
What we see—from lethal force to enforced impunity—is an abuse of authority and a hallmark of authoritarian governance. We will not be able to abolish ICE. We can disarm them without much trouble. We must move to disarm ICE. There is no logical reason for them to be armed. They are not ever shot at and if they were they should stop what they are doing and call the FBI, DEA, ATF or state and local police to take care of it.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/disarm-ice?r=3m1bs
We will always need an immigration and naturalization service but ICE itself is a product of authoritarian culture that was a reaction to 9/11 terrorism, including a number of departures from what, in my opinion, is constrained by the Constitution, trading essential liberty for an illusion of safety, and suiting the purposes of those who would be kings. It seems to me that those entrusted with writing, judging, and enforcing the law need be held to an even higher standard of compliance with equal protection and due process than we ordinary citizens.
You are right Annabel but I still wonder about describing the supporters of this regime as " only" 39 percent. Something it's very wrong here.
You shouldn’t accept a damn thing that’s said or written about “supporters of Trump” no matter the source. There’s a massive political re-alignment now taking place in the country as millions keep using their own eyes even as the bastards keep making shit up faster than Trump can psychotically rage-tweet at night. The cracks in MAGAworld are opening and shearing far faster than they can be documented. Much of it is silent — right until it isn’t. Hold fast.
Thank you, ICTT. "Hold fast" indeed. Hold fast, and call or email your Representatives. You can call at any time of the night or day. They take messages. Let's pour it on. Now is the time. I said, simply, "I want ICE out of Minnesota before another civilian is killed."
I read another post elsewhere in which the person also emailed SCOTUS. We all need to be blowing up the phone lines and email servers to those who are taking our tax dollars in the form of salary and are supposed to represent us!!
Perhaps you should add Maine to that list. Joyce Vance had an interview yesterday with Shenna Bellows, Maine Secretary of State, who said that there is a large Somali population in the mostly white state, and ICE is just as lawless in Maine as in Minnesota. Let's make sure history doesn't repeat itself.
Yes, in Lewiston Maine, the same city already traumatized by a mass shooting in 2023.
And, using Megan’s spreadsheet, you can call other members of Congress too. (Don’t forget to encourage ones doing the right thing.) this morning I called my (useless) reps and reiterated Mitnick’s moments from today’s letter) and I also left a message for the speaker to man up.
I wonder how many "supporters of Trump" lay awake a night worrying that construction of the Royal Ballroom has been delayed?
Yes! This is the first of Heather's newsletters in a long timr that has left me with rays of hope. Statements from George Conway, Minnesota's Prison System, Police Department, and National Guard illuminate what we are seeing with our own eyes and are ammunition against this administration's lies. I am holding ground that we will not be turned into an Iran and that democracy will prevail.
Alex Pretti's videoed statement at the deathbed of the veteran he was taking care of has pierced my heart. Let us honor him....
I'm concerned about the worst of the worst of MAGA that are locked and loaded.
You can only do what you can only do. If you fill your heart with night terrors, real or imagined, they’ve already won. Don’t give them that.
A 20 year friend, who embraced MAGA and at times has been a bit ugly online, contacted me last night regarding my daily posting of these letters, asking why, quite nicely. The cracks are letting the light shine in.
Wonderful.
And then there's that option.
Thinking the worst, catastrophizing, obsessively, leads to depression and anxiety. Look at Cognitive Behavioral Theory. It is human to think of the worst, but to let the worst thoughts win every time is not profitable.
I hope you are correct, ICTT, about the cracks in MAGAworld. I have been observing my friends and relatives who are MAGA supporters and trying to get an understanding of where they are standing. (This is through face-to-face, phone, and Facebook sessions.) As of last night, I don’t see any of them backing down. In fact, I see an increased vociferousness in their comments. Most of these folks have strong religious backgrounds, and Jesus is taking a front-and-center position in their commentary. (Yes, some are huge gun people, too.) Some are also Minnesotans, where “Minnesota Nice” has been their main calling card. The major thing that I have been noticing (on Facebook in particular) is the number of “friends” who are pushing back on these friends and relatives and the interesting consequences of getting “unfriended.” Indeed, this is a rough time for the United States. I sincerely hope that this entire trial that our leaders - including the Supreme Court - are going through will result in massive gains for our DEMOCRACY. Perhaps America WILL become Great Again - just not in the way that Trump and Project 2025/2026 (etc.) have envisioned. Let Freedom Ring and Give Us Your Tired and Poor….
You'll have to tell the rest of us. I live in a blue bubble myself and have no interactions with MAGAland (save for watching once-a-year in-law relations who both bore and scare me). But I very much suspect we are not seeing the mental turmoil and coming-down-to-earth of a segment of the population that is re-thinking much, tho quietly. Pushback is essential to break their bubble of self-imposed isolation and cult behavior.
MAGA people, for the most part, are oppositional. If you try to counter with reason, they will build up that wall of resistance further. Look at some of the hostage negotiator content, or information on dealing with a cult member or an addict. It's all the same. Slow and steady and respectful is the way to go, unless they are true believers. Then we are wasting our time and our own chance at happiness.
Yup, I agree, Anne! I purposely refrain from confronting any of my MAGA friends and relatives. They know how I stand! But, observing the various reactions to some of their Facebook friends has been/is illuminating and interesting. I know I’m not going to change their minds, but CIRCUMSTANCES will eventually have an impact. Several of them are on “manufactured” disability, for example, and depend on several other government programs that may simply disappear. I then expect some WTF shouts from them, but coupled with “It’s Sleepy Joe’s fault.” Oh, well! We will make America great with Renee Good and Alex Pretti, et al as our leaders.
If you have the means, please sent them the 2025 released book
"The Tears of Things" by FR Richard Rohr.
Or send the daily mediations from his foundations. Be prepared! IF they read it, they probably won't like it.
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/many-voices-one-text/
The " only" 39 % of support for the regime info comes from Heather's letter posted today. Just to clarify.
Ricardo: That really enrages me — 39% is over 12 million people. WTF?
Well said, I believe this is correct.
It tells us all what and who we are dealing with! That there are still people who believe what the administration is putting out there is not a mystery to me, but how we can make them see reality is!
One way is by pointing out that the sexual victimization of terrorized children by the Trumpstein Cult -- let's start calling it what it is -- is the direct ancestor of the terror the MAGAstapo is now unleashing on anyone who refuses to kowtow to the ChristoNazi theocracy. Thus the vital, know-our-enemy relevance of the full text of the Jane Doe lawsuit against Trump and Epstein -- later withdrawn in response to credible death threats against the plaintiff: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf Please let us ensure this text is linked early (and therefore prominently) on as many Resistance sites as possible every day until the traitorous regime of ecogenocidal ChristoNazi pedophiles is no more. (I'll do my best to be responsible for this posting, but I am 85 years old and terminally ill, which means others need be ready to pick up the torch on days I am absent and after I am no more.)
Loren. I'm on it. I am composing a Substack letter about this case - hope to publish tomorrow. My audience is modest. But we do what we can. Maybe it will spread.
Thanks for all you contribute here.
Sorry: See the point…..the court denied the motion as time had expired and said a new motion would need filing
Getting them to believe the reality is one thing. But what if they like it?!
There is another larger problem. Which the media and many of us reasonable people ignore. There is a significant percentage of Americans who eat and drink hate. The truth of the videos, the shooting of Renee in the face, the shooting of Alex in the back while not resisting... there are Americans who actually like that.
They cheer the brutality, the blood letting, the revenge. Renee and Alex are the "libtards that deserve death". They would be happy to mow us all down, if they could.
There are large pockets of this in certain states - people who still vilify "Yankees" for liberating the slaves. And there are people like this in almost every town.
And astoundingly, there are people like this in the White House and the halls of Congress. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao - all reincarnated and voted in.
Bill, there are ALWAYS people like that in every culture. They marinate in envy and hate. We must spend our efforts on the many other people who are uninformed, unable to see this administration’s long game and/or those who believed Trump’s campaign lies.
And I hate that they cause ME to feel the urges of hate. But when I am confronted with the mindless hypocrisy and twisted "logic" not to mention the "christian" superiority that they move through the world with, I struggle to maintain any attachment to peace and acceptance of differences.
True, of course. I just think we should be shocked into action when we realize just how many of them are in positions of power. If a few want to think that way and hide under rocks, I guess that's inevitable. But embedded in our government?
The sort of surprising thing--to me anyway--is that once someone is elected, our government treats that as akin to a coronation. What I mean is trump could never have passed a security check; neither coul his SIL. But trump has the power to grant security clearances to anyone he wants to--and we know he's a criminal. But because he was "elected," he can do anything he wants. The time to determine suitability is a required security check of every candidate before the primary.
HCR's "How the South Won the Civil War" now seems insufficient.
I turn instead to economic historian Gary Gerstel.
His new book ( available on tape from my local library) "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order" has fireworks going off in my mind.
THIS!
And THIS!
This mental illness / justification for the Epstein class, and the resentment thst results, is the answer I've been looking for.
I hope Heather reads it, it's I'm sure a part of her framework of comprehension as well.
Thanks Jen. I’ll look for it!
The hateful Magas who "would be happy to mow us all down, if they could."
The turmoil existing right now along with the videos of the street executions of US citizens is shaking up ordinary citizens who would not normally join violent movements to resist the regime and Maga nasties.
There is a battle cry running across our country. It may coalesce into "DEATH TO ICE!" Even governor Abbott is running (rolling) scared.
Ligia, not saying it will work, but find something you know one group cares about. I belong to a horse group. Some of us theorized that if you ask whether they think being cruel to horses would be acceptable, or that horses should be banned because "reasons," all of us gave a resounding no to such a notion.
I am "horsey" too, and there are very few MAGAts left among us.
Dog person here. Very against what is going on and vocal on Facebook about it.
Morning, Lynell!
Ligia, I was never ever able to reason with that kind of people so I decided to ignore them and keep going. I don't waste my time anymore and I think you should do the same. 😄
Ricardo, 39% is too much, but probably about as low as we can ever expect. I had a hunch, so I did some easy, superficial research.
23% of U.S. population are evangelical protestants.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/evangelical-protestant/
19% of U.S. population are Roman Catholic.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/catholic/
2% of U.S. population are Latter Day Saints.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/latter-day-saint-mormon/
1% of U.S. population are orthodox christian.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/orthodox-christian/
Pew Research did not or could not measure some other groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, that would almost certainly fall into the christofascist camp.
That's a documented 35% of U.S. population whose religious traditions steer them toward a christofascist world-view. Some will read this summary and protest that not all members of these religious groups support Trump. True, but the tiny percentage of "defectors" from the above-listed religious groups are offset by those who do not identify as "religious," but are strongly influenced by religious family members. I'll guess the net result is about 4% of the U.S. population.
There's your 39%.
This matters because these religious and religious-adjacent groups are steeped in a "faith" system that demands that they accept "truths" that are not supported by any reliable evidence, as presented to them by authority figures, such as preachers, evangelists and public figures endorsed by the system that holds them captive. Such authority figures can lie to their faces and they will believe without reservation.
I come from a family of educated Catholics and not one of them supports the clown, if you read the gospels, where in there does it suggest we should demonize any of the people they are targeting. 19% of the country may be Catholic, but there is no way that they all support the insipid orange turd, maybe the right wing fanatics on the SC do, because that’s how they got their lifetime jobs, but Leonard Leo doesn’t speak for the majority of Catholics trying to raise their families following the teachings of Christ.
Dick, you, your family and friends are members of the "defectors." Congratulations! There are a whole lot of Catholics, especially in rural dioceses, who are not so enlightened.
So now those 39% are seeing what imposing their beliefs on the rest of US would result in. Hopefully a reality check will sway some.
D Guy, I'm guessing you're not well acquainted with evangelicals. They do not "sway." A popular bumper sticker summarizes the evangelical mind: "God said it. I believe it. That settles it."
Maybe we need to ask then to prove that God said it. I wouldn't be able to wait for the answer since I might start laughing much before 🤣
There you go Dale….no wonder. So many hypocrites.
A house that divided cannot stand. We are being divided and conquered, a strategy as old as dirt. Solidarity, liberty and justice for ALL is the bedrock of a free society.
J L, the strategy might be old but it works on societies with a great number of ignorant people and that's the situation in this country.
The link below is to a post by a foreign service professional on what we can expect next from Trump.
Johan compares the path we are on to Argentina's road to dictatorship — Trump has all the infrastructure in place.
We are at the last point where we can turn this around. We can't afford to wait to take action. He has a list of what can be done by us, and by our allies.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-185776093
The link is chilling. And necessary for everyone to read. Thanks.
Note too that Rob Bonta, California AG 'led a coalition of 20 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of Minnesota’s lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s extraordinary campaign of lawlessness during its deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol agents to the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.' Go Rob!
Totally worth reading. I agree with Johan's statement: 'They’re not hiding what’s coming. They’re announcing it. Building the legal fiction. Establishing the precedent. Creating permission for escalation.'
The fact that the House passed the bill for additional funding for ICE in spite of the killings means that Trump and his Congressional minions still feel secure with the hardcore MAGA base. They aren't going to peek out of their information silos; they are all in on the Steven Miller version of events.
Fox is spinning out that the protesters are members of Marxist cells out to destroy America. Seeing that scared me--definitely permission for escalation and a call to the J6 faithful, especially since Trump proved his loyalty to them with the pardons on Day One.
Trump doesn't need a majority of goons to morph us into a full-blown dictatorship. Just enough to normalize the terror.
Based on everything I've read about Nazi Germany, NSDAP membership never exceeded -- you guessed it -- 40 percent of the citizenry, and most estimates set it lower. (The lowest figure I have seen is 33 percent.) Unfortunately, what We the People must overcome, is a white majority in which the Malignant Majority -- that is, those so blinded by their hatred they refused to acknowledge the obvious racism (ethnic cleansing included) in Bush II's post-Katrina "relief" -- Pew-polls at 77 percent. All the "USians-aren't-really-that-hateful" excuse-making aside, that's why we have a Führer instead of a president, a maliciously Failed Nation and a ChristoNazi theocracy der neu Führer has already labeled his "Unified Reich."
Loren, I responded to Ricardo with a quick-and-dirty survey that shows where Trump's support comes from: conservative christian groups, or christofascists.
To further explain why that matters, conservative christians are taught that the "others," non-white people, LGBTQ people, and non-christians are "heathens and sinners" who need to be evangelized. If these others refuse to accept their religion, they will be "cast into hell for eternity." This "pre-condemnation" gives them the permission structure to abuse these groups in the present.
Jews are a peculiar group in the christofascist collective mind. On one hand, as "God's chosen people," Jews must be protected like a lucky rabbit's foot; on the other hand, they do not accept Jesus as the messiah, so they're still going to hell. Net response: Be nice to them in public, hate them in private.
“They’re not hiding what comes next. They’re announcing it.
Believe them.”
Very powerful.
This is the clearest brief statement of where the U.S. is on the road to total state terrorism. Easy to read. Very powerful. Very authoritative. Please subscribe at least for free and share his work widely. Now is the moment to stop this process.
Thank-you for sharing. It is a must read.
So true. And frightening. We retirees know history. This pattern must be communicated to the TikTok genernation
I recently read an excellent book about the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, and it gave me quite an education about what happened in Argentina.
We must refuse to look away. We cannot normalize the violence and the lawlessness.
Title and author of the book please
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children,
by Haley Cohen Gilliland
Thanks!
thank you Georgia.
Thanks, Georgia. Excellent info. And scary as hell. It's not too late.
But it's okay because they will withdraw ICE from Minnesota if the state turns over it's voter rolls to Bondi. That doesn't sound like the mafia or a cartel at all. Just totally legitimate law enforcement.
Hah-Hah! Here's Bondi: "Turn over your voter rolls if you want the killings and kidnappings to stop." That's the Attorney General of the United States!
Proving that none of this violence and domestic terrorism being committed by ICE has anything to do with making anyone safe or addressing immigration issues...
"The killings and beatings will stop as soon as morale improves. . ."
Right. "Give us what we want or the 5 year old with the bunny hat gets it!"
Perhaps because I know what it is to be five years old and so terrified I could only huddle silently in a corner of our living room sofa -- I survived only because I was rescued by my beloved father (who risked his own life to save mine) -- I know all too well what feelings coursed like tsunamis of fear through that child's mind. For a terrible instant, seeing him savaged by the ChristoNazi conquerors, I was my five-year-old self, and when I was again in control of my reactions, I realized what my logical mind conceived as the proper fate for those who wounded that child was not something I dared set to print.
I'm so sorry, but I'm happy that you were rescued and restored to a long and productive life.
Thank you. In a sense, my reaction to the arrest of that child was a profoundly valuable lesson, because it revealed to me something I had never before fully acknowledged: the depth of love between my father and me.
Dana- How about a law that requires all ICE and CBP agents to wear name tags with the first letter of their first name and their last name prominently displayed, They will immediately placed on administrative leave if there is evidence of an assault or firing of a weapon. And no more gaslighting from the puppy killer and her thugs.
No. Their FULL FIRST AND LAST NAMES must be clearly legible at all times.
And lose the masks. If you think what you’re doing is legally defensible, why are you hiding?
Or how about we all descend on DC and abolish ICE once and for all.
And NO GUNS!
It “sounds like” mafia to me, Dana, and I think likely to many, if not most Americans. Voter rolls are like Social Security numbers. It’s SECRET BALLOTS we have, unlike Russia.
Tennessee officials turned our voter rolls over voluntarily.
EXTREME DISLIKE
Lots of red states did. They want to punish their democrat citizens for daring to vote against the Fuhrer. The fact that they exposed their own voters to do it matters not to them as they are 'sure' that Trump won't hurt them on his way to destroying the rest of us.
Well sh!t. I wondered if that was why sexton was meeting with Miller.
After the treatment of the two Justins and their lady (sorry not to have learned her name) and Jon Meacham’s pussyfooting, not surprised about Tennessee.
Texas gave all voter rolls in existence voluntarily (and I'm sure, happily.) Thanks, idiot Abbott!
The GOOD news there is that this BAD press is going to cause SCOTUS to rethink their blinkered loyalty to the Trump regime!
The Roberts Court loyalty is to the Federalist Society 'unitary executive' which is a mashup of Hobbes' Leviathan and papal infallibility, and which preceded Trump. Trump is just their 'made to order' monarch of the moment.
Now they are using the Shadow Docket to catch up with legitimizing actions of the GOP wrecking crew - no oral arguments and no argued decisions.
Their loyalty is to Leonard Leo's plutocrats who funded the campaigns to put them on the court and fund the amicus briefs of the cases they hear. (Oh and sometimes their vacations, mortgages, and school tuitions.)
Well stated: Trump/MAGA are little more than convenient vehicles for Project 2025, the fever dream of Christian Nationalists, supported by the Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society and their ilk.
The marriage of Charlie Kirk Conservatism with the rabid fascism of Stephen Miller is an unholy alliance that will come to no good for neither the USA nor its people, whatever political beliefs they hold.
There are still three SC member holdouts. Are they safe? Some governors will turn over voters rolls. Will there be midterms? Will it matter?
Sorry I must disagree. Those so-called "justices" -- none of whom are worthy to pass judgement on a single human cell, much less on a complete human being -- are no more than ChristoNazi whores, their souls bought-and-paid-for by the Lords of Chaos whose earldom of Absolute Evil is the Heritage Society.
Got to agree with the others on this. For SCOTUS this has never been about Trump. They have no use for him whatsoever. It's the POSITION that they are creating. The GodKing. With their changes, they expect to be able to keep it out of evil 'democrat' hands forever. Without free and fair elections they can strip any power from the people and consolidate it in a leader that will drag us back to the days before the 13th Amendment when rich men literally had all the rights and the rest of us were basically surfs or slaves.
This is what the oligarchs wants. Cheap labor. No outlays for stupid things like regulations, taxes or healthcare. We are NPC's. Nameless, faceless, disposable. They are literally creating an America that only works for the 1%
They don't care how many of us get shot down in the streets. We are nothing to them.
They don't care that entire regions are poisoned so that the land and animals are not safe to eat. They can move. They will import food from the EU.
They don't care if imported goods are tariffed to infinity since nearly everything that touches their lives is custom made for them.
SCOTUS has abandoned the Constitution for the promise that they will be one of the winners. They are on their own program and Trump was just a useful tool.
That's why when Trump's fast food addiction catches up to him we aren't 'saved'. They have broken so many things it will be decades before we even know how much damage there is. There will be another rich arsehat right there to take Trump's place. And the reality is that even if he does have a D after his name.. he will not fight to 'fix' any of the things Trump has broken because the Oligarchs don't want it. And the oligarchs are the ones in charge here thanks to Citizens United.
In other words... they are all a bunch of morons who are completely out of touch. They can't see that if they won't follow the Constitution then neither will we.
In the words of JFK, "Those who make peaceful protests impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"
I understand that (altho not in the detail you explained, Thanks).
* Even before the 2 murders they expressed doubts re: tariffs.
Plus they may not have the 🔹 guts to go along TOO far with The Donald,
— considering the heat of the moment.
Not even close, Jay Jay. They are the instrument of Project 2025 implementation.
Even before the 2 murders they expressed doubts re: tariffs.
Plus they may not have the guts to go along TOO far with The Donald.
— hope springs eternal …
Jay Jay, those rose-colored glasses must be fun to wear. Are the lenses cut in the shape of hearts?
This SCOTUS is the collective deity self-appointed to ordain anything and anyone that leads to a theocratic oligarchy. They will not rethink anything, except legal precedent that conflicts with unfettered greed operating under the cloak of christianity.
As they already have, they will continue to twist constitutional language and principles to justify their march to the tune of Onward, Christian Soldiers.
Even before the 2 murders they expressed doubts re: tariffs.
Plus they may not have the guts to go along TOO far with The Donald,
Uuuuuuhhhhhh.... Nope
It means its election season already. Dont read from your book. Read from theirs. This proposal by Kristi Noem is saying something. And it is for the benefit of her readers not you or yours. It is saying Minnesota is controlled by Democrats. Democrats engage in voting fraud. They let aliens register to vote. (Lots of them.) And they don't wa t to be exposed for doing it. So they refuse to share their lists of registered voters with Homeland Security. If we has those lists we could use them to find illegal aliens residing in Minnesota and then we could leave, for this hunt would not be necessary.
Ergo, Democrats obstruct justice. Ergo, Democrats are terrorists. Etc. They seem to think some people are following along.
Reportedly MAGA podcast cheerleaders like Joe Rogan are beginning to have doubts and becoming uncomfortable. Using deadly force against illegals who resist? 'Hey. I can see that. But shooting a white licensed gun owner who was carrying.....ho, ho, there. I can't go for that ! Because we are gonna start to lose our audience '
To paraphrase but almost verbatim I hear. So what's it all about ? What are we reading there ?
It's all about entertainment. It's theater. From the top on down. The whole operation. Everything ICE does. Its all be run according to Stephen Miller's script. He is the messaging manager. And it all must fit. Kristi Noem got the memo. Immigration is a winning issue for us. We need to keep it that way !
That is all.
Trump and Miller know that their base will NEVER see or hear any reporting outside of the Fox and MAGA universe. This is happening now because the information silos around the MAGA base are airtight.
The point here is to normalize the killings for their base. The demonstrators are the new "Red Menace" according to Fox. We are Marxists in cells out to destroy America.
There is only one thing that they screwed up. They started talking about Pretti not having the right to carry a gun to a demonstration. That stirred up the NRA faithful and is causing a split. It was one bit of hypocrisy too far.
That’s it. One bit too far. Donald has finally crossed that bridge. Unsatisfied with his Epsteinian sexual conquests he’s has done the impossible. He fell for the man in the mirror. He has finally f*cked himself.
Well, nobody else would. . .
But one got a biopic film. It galls me that Bezos has my credit card number.
Cancel your account.
Even if you know that eventually you are going to have to do business with Amazon, we ought to have a one day (or one week) where we all cancel our accounts with Bezos' enterprise. That is a message that would get his attention....if the new bimbo will let him pay attention to anything other than herself.
You can always do a new account later on if absolutely necessary.
My anger is at all those who reject, and stay silent, in the presence of absolute evidence!
I think the problem is that the MAGA base doesn't see the absolute evidence. Within their news bubble all they hear is what Trump and Noem and Miller tell them is happening.
The only thing that has penetrated the MAGA bubble about the Pretti murder is Kash Patel and others saying that Alex Pretti didn't have the right to carry a gun to a demonstration. That immediately roused the NRA MAGA faction and is causing a split between the 2nd amendment above all things faction and the racists first faction.
It's not like the 1960s and 1970s when everybody saw the same news on TV with Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Huntley and Brinkley.
They don't want to see it.
In the 1960s, a former Berliner Tageblatt journalist called Margret Boveri published a book called "Wir lügen alle" (we are all lying), a diary that documents information and its circulation during the Hitler years. She makes it clear that many people knew what was happening, though not straightforwardly from the papers or radio. They knew from foreign sources (up to the war), from soldiers and state employees sharing with their families (sometimes proudly, sometimes sadly): exactions were an open secret that people shared in whispers, in letters and behind closed doors. Sometimes, by reading between the lines of the official line, they could decrypt what was happening. An area declared "Judenrein" (clear of Jews) in the press was clearly one from which Jews had been forcibly taken and sent away, mostly to "the East" (Poland). People knew it because they saw it happening, or heard it, in congratulatory tones, from Göbbels' Rundfunk speeches and the state-sponsored news.
Don't ever let yourself be fooled that MAGA don't know. In the era of free information, they don't get to use that excuse. They know. They either approve, don't care, or don't want to believe.
I think you are absolutely right about information flow in Nazi Germany.
But I am not sure that the situation is the same now with the “free flow” of information. It is self-limiting and, self-filtered. People choose what they will see. They bookmark their favorite sources. They choose not to see the opposition.
How many people do you know who are here on Heather’s substack who actually look at what is on Fox or X every day? How many people looked at the Heritage website to see what they are doing when Project 2025 finally broke into the news? Why, when people do post about it, does it get relatively little traction?
If we fail to look at what is being said in the MAGAverse, is it reasonable to think they are looking across the divide in our direction?
I agree that information doesn’t flow easily, because people choose not to let it in. But all these people in ICE have friends and family they talk to. There are some very violent recruiting videos used by the DHS to recruit people, and some are actual videos of ICE action in the streets and elsewhere. They aren’t ashamed of what they are doing. This is what I was thinking about.
You are 100% correct about these goons not being ashamed. They are proud of what they are doing. They kill and then walk away like people are road kill. No signs of remorse for the enormity of taking a life. They are soulless.
Theres another factor to consider, Sophie. They WANT to believe. That is the kicker. They WANT the Christo Fascist doctrine.
Indeed. Although I seriously doubt 40% want full-on Handmaid’s Tale Christo Fascism. Most probably don’t want black and brown people, Muslims and Jews and Hindus and anyone else they perceive as heathens, and gay, queer and transgender people, or people with blue hair, or uppity women, or the educated elite, even those who don’t have a bean (especially those who don’t have a bean)… They seem defined more by their neurotic dislikes than by what kind of society they actually want.
Also, in the days of Cronkite, Brinkley and Huntley we didn't have Internet at our fingertips spewing false information right and left. Unfortunately it is a degree of education that separates those who are curious and want to delve deeper into anything written and those who blindly follow the sheep. There is more than one reason why we are where we are today, in this cult-like chasm between those who want to believe the administration, for whatever reason (mostly because of their inadequacies I would dare to say) and those who seek truth, justice, rule of law. I just watched a reel of neo nazis walking in a street in the US, shouting slogans about America belonging to the white race, and I thought they could use a long history course; but we have miserably failed in educating our citizens.
That’s in large part because we don't have national educational standards like most developed nations. Another example of states’ rights run amok. And now that the department of education is gone, and education funding in the states going to charter schools and gutting public schools, that is going to get worse.
You are unfortunately right! So very sad.
To watch Bovino and Noem spin this murder as some kind of protective action or self defense is like stepping through the looking glass -- Noem with her fake everything face and hair and Bovino with his Nazi costume -- it's unbelievable -- as are the narratives they are trying to pass off as truth.
And the MAGAts are buying into it fully.
Im no James Carville advertising genius. Im just too strait an arrow. But it does occur to me that we do have here the makings of a very simple but effecting political advertising campaign of general application. Just pick a theme. Hmm mm. I pick "Your Tax Dollars at Work". A still photo. A subtitle: Your Tax Dollars at Work. In Times Roman 16 point bold italics.
The possibilities are endless. The selected media, exhaustive. The cost.minimal. Keep it subliminal on TV. Three second spot. Lasting on billboards. How bout it ?
have you contacted the lincoln project about this? Or your friendly Dem senator (who keeps asking you for $)? Imagine the photo being of Liam Ramos.
Just to keep eyes on more than one thing at a time, there are thousands and thousands of documents still unreleased from the Epstein files. The sh*tbag in the White House is both a fast cyst and pedal file at once. Again, to Republicans, What is it going to take????
Fascism fails when it mistakes spectacle for power and terror for consent. While the regime staged galas, ballrooms, and televised outrage, it exposed its emptiness. Killing a citizen required lies. Lies collapsed under video. Authority fractured as communities organized, states told the truth, and even allies recoiled. This is the authoritarian paradox. Control demands disbelief, but modern life records everything. When reality circulates freely, fear loses its monopoly and legitimacy evaporates in public, before witnesses everywhere.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/murder-lies-and-video
Unfortunately, many maga voters believe the lies coming from the govt. and not what they see with their eyes. Have they noticed Noem's gestapo style outfits? And other morally abhorrent words and actions? People NEED to pay attention to politics more than they ever had.
"Noem's gestapo style outfits" probably looking online where to purchase such sartorial style
Noticed and approved, it seems like.
They think they can get away with it because they've been getting away with their lies for over a decade. But now they've lied to the wrong people, with the wrong lie. Now they're telling MAGA that they don't have the right to carry a gun wherever they want. This will backfire on them spectacularly. The rumbling has already started. The cracks are forming.
Trump and his circle follow two guiding principles. The first, in Trump's own words: "You tell them and they will believe you—they just do." The second, learned from his mentor Roy Cohn: "You don't have to believe what you say." Together, these reveal why truth and reality hold no value for them—repetition and conviction matter more than accuracy.
Exactly Annabel! The people that are pushing the lies that contradict the real time videos are cage criminals. We the people need to continue to show the world the videos of the shooting and also of Alex in his job at the VA. Reality will overcome all the administration's lies.
“What is happening in the brains of citizens who” believe lies instead of their eyes.
How long does it take to recognize that an inconvenient truth is an opportunity worthy of further consideration? No more than two minutes. How long does it take to misperceive an opportunity as a threat? Less than one third of a second. What’s the brain's innate/default method to “neutralize” an inconvenient truth misperceived as a threat? Ignore the messenger.
This is a link to my last essay: https://jamesrcarey.substack.com/p/why-scientists-are-expert-problem. I promise my (almost ready to publish) next essay will be easier to understand.
39% APPROVE? How on earth can this be? The approval number shocks me to my core.
Videos from Russia show very similar street violence.
Raise your voice. Be LOUD. We deserve better 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
While it’s crucial we speak up right now, it’s also crucial to take care of our mental health. Please know and remember that. (I needed that reminder this weekend.)
Today my family made 5 dozen heart cookies to bring to my school community and pass out to our neighbors. We snuggled extra, played outside and just slowed down (while I also popped online to share the spreadsheet occasionally). This week I’m going to work on finding balance while speaking up extra.
You have to do this — we all do — or we’ll lose our minds. You have the right not just to shout, but to bake cookies, to say thank you to a doctor or a nurse, to love your children, take joy in watching a sunrise, pet an animal, assert — as did Anne Frank — that in spite of everything, people are basically good at heart. Faith is sometimes an act of pure will.
All of those lovely actions strengthen community and help others cope with the government terror.
Wonderful about the cookies! Our neighborhood in Brooklyn has a community fridge -- and this weekend - ahead of and during the big snow storm, neighbors filled the fridge with home made soups and ziti and other dishes in individual serving sizes -- the rule of the fridge is 'take what you need, add what you can'
I donate frequently to two "little free pantry" lockers in nearby neighborhoods. (I live in a pretty affluent area up on "the hill") and the "little free library" my neighbor two doors down built.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Since Trump attacked SNAP, I've been shopping the loss leaders and filling bags for the local food pantry.
We all do what we can.
❤️
Yes, Megan, do take care of yourself! Making cookies good! I made soup. Praying, and hoping recent events will bring sanity back! Still speaking up but need to take a break too.
Keep the balance and stagger breathe, Megan. I try and share your link at the end of my chronological perusal of the letter.
SOLIDARITY MOBILIZATION TRAINING
Learn How Block by Block Organizing Made Resistance Possible
--And How to Start Laying the Groundwork Where You Live
Tuesday January 27-- 8PM ET/5PM PT
This is the second of a two part training on Solidarity Mobilizations - Showing Up for Immigrant Communities and Resisting Authoritarianism (but you don’t need to have gone to the 1st one)
REGISTER HERE:
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilize.us%2Fsurj%2Fevent%2F885616%3Ffbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExYnNDYVY4OElNWDl3dzNINHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR4tRzOnc2JHNus6zAsmzXMFkgQOnRguWN6N0IxP75gGBUWbxWKrRBNYXoo3OA_aem_HWQxoNYzgRBeOMT7GIU_ug&h=AT3olpOcvpsR0l2XeGxqngxMMCFjte1XtK2dMyAzJI4Ay23LAzt6l9UmOb4obfazq7o6OcMyp2Jb_fYwfhPXjsfNN9YBrHyXtnmT9CiM4PMC8N5GzRovXz5F-eXlxs9K2yP6U9O8Asum1XkM5pl5EmqazHo0e79a&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3Msk1WJQoDacta0fB9EECoG3y9pi1Xh4q3McqBO1lj3g6jnwTanhQ6bl-5DQVAs1nnP6pHdxayzEe_LVuJ2Fmrs7IJPh7qZeEXs3XvIrl8E_WQuCrqx8iSLbde6fObw4-LDnQDkFeLuKRslqHoxhQEc7MD1kRD3Htm6K6XZ9dqsM34JLd_Ruk96gc1QY343glOfikBqEc3qkEbr3xfyEkeHjTfO1pGdh1mxCaSpkXWFw
Megan, 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼WE CANNOT let this cruel administration rob us of our humanity!!
I appreciate knowing what you did to spread kindness. This weekend, we shoveled neighbor's snow, and picked up meds for them (even though they are MAGA. Because that's what good people do for people who are ill or need help)
I want you to know, I call 15 senators in the last half hour or so. It's all I can manage today, but EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS.
We do what we can, when we can, for as long as we can. This isn't my motto, (perhaps paraphrased a bit) it's from Beau, former host of the YouTube channel now hosted by his wife, "Belle of the Ranch".
Megan, thanks again for your dedication and tenacity.
All of our children, no matter who they are, are becoming swept up by this wave of onslaught in our communities. I have heard stories of kids being taunted by others, name calling “you’re an illegal immigrant, and Trump is going to find you and send you back where you came from!” I’ve heard stories of teachers like you counseling their young students to reassure them the adults around them are working to keep the safe and secure.
…and another young little child is shipped off and disappeared into one of the awful detention (concentration) camps.
And the hypocrisy of Kyle Rittenhouse who was honored and roams free brandishing his automatic assault weapon on the streets of a city near you!
Only 23… that’s all of the republicans in congress we need to END THIS MADNESS!
Stay strong, stay peaceful, protect our children and know that We The People are on the right side of history!
It concluded: “Mr. President, the American people didn’t vote for these scenes and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.”
I thought the game was up after the thoroughly televised Jan 6th Capitol riot was officially rebranded by the Republican Party as "Representatives Cheney are Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in in legitimate political discourse,", but perhaps now, now(?) the horror of what's been going down is finally breaking though?
JL, what I see from my LEO cohort is that it was a justified shoot. I am freaking stunned. That was an execution, not defense of self.
"There is none so blind as he who will not see."
What is legitimate LEO if not due process and respect for provable evidence? Our culture is losing it's grip on reality, and that's bad news. I'm not saying that my view has a lock on veracity, but we know the drill, and historically we know how the process of proving what is most likely to be true works, and the benefits of doing so. We have also seen where cluelessness and/or Big Lies can lead. Ego bereft of wisdom and compassion is like a car rolling down a hill without a driver; or worse, AI autopilot with malicious intent. Exterminate!
Megan is my shero.
This is a great idea. I will bake cookies for my local police, sheriff and fire departments 💕💕
Speaking from personal experience, they are welcomed. 😉
After 9/11 we had so much food brought to our offices that no one had to bring a lunch for a week.
We are following Dr. Richardson's advice by contacting Republican Senators and Republican Representatives in multiple states in order to draw on their humanity. We are asking that they protect Americans from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) overreach, and that they reverse policies of our current administration that have harmed Americans and prevent further harm by using their power in the House and Senate. The funding for ICE was 3.3 billion before 2024, jumped up to 9.6 plus billion in 2025, and has further jumped to 11.3 billion for 2026 [see our post for January 2026: U.S. National Security Strategy at OneClick2BetterWorld.substack.com].
Our government is in a spending frenzy in order increase their numbers by using the ICE and CBP money ASAP, leading to inadequate vetting and training of ICE and CBP then sending them to American cities, which is an expansion of their focus on the Southern border north. Please contact Republican Senators and Republican Representatives to hold them responsible because they are the only party currently that has enough votes to turn harmful policies around in America.
Here's a tip for those who are reluctant to call the offices of your elected representatives: call before 7am or after 6pm. You'll get their voicemail, and you can leave your message. It still counts, and you don't have to talk to their staff. Sending messages is also important. I sent 3 on Saturday 2 yesterday...
Singe, between abot 1:30 -11 Chicago time, I called 17 Senators. I didn't get a single aide--and two had full voice mailboxes. I managed to leave my message on 15 lines. More than I usually manage, but I'm really upset. I wish I could do more, but no joke, I watch my pulse go up as I leave messages, and I suspect my blood pressure rises as well.
We all need to do what we can, when we can, as long as we can.
Well done, Miselle! Full voice mailboxes show that MULTITUDES of us are calling. This makes a difference. I know; my BP goes up too! But it's worth it. Keep up the good work! You are not alone.
"This message is for the members of Congress who are supposed to be looking out for us their constituents and voters:
Find a spine. Find a vertebra. Find some strength in yourself to stand up for this Country and the people who live here. You have a masked militia in the street murdering citizens who are doing nothing wrong. If you cannot find it in yourself to do something about that then please know we will find new leadership. If you think you are safe because you live in a non-competitive district, think again. We are not afraid to change our party in order to defeat you. We are not afraid to figure out how to work the system to get you out of office if you will not keep us safe. Do your jobs. Do it with an ounce of bravery. All it takes is a hundredth of the bravery that Renee Good or Nurse Pretti had. Do better or do a different job."
Author: Kate Compton Barr
Thank you, Megan. In these moments of deep sadness and concern for the future, everyday you shine a light. It uplifts hearts, some nearing the brink of despair. You bring them back.
Thank you.
You’re welcome! Thanks for speaking up right now!
Thank you!
Thank you, Megan!! An invaluable resource. May we all put it to good use for Good Trouble.
You’re welcome! I will keep hoping it helps. Every action is a little ripple for a big wave 🤞💙
Terrence Goggins, on his Substack The West Point Professor, suggested that we write to our Congress people, especially republicans, that Trump is insane. They might respond to that argument.
That’s not a name I know but I will go check out his Substack. Thank you!
Dear Heather, I just want to pause a moment to say thank you very, very much, as always, for everything you are doing. Your words are absolutely vital and you are deeply appreciated!
Who paid for Trump's tone-deaf black-tie private screening of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump? Who pays when Trump hosts all his cronies at the White House? Who will be paying for Don Jr.'s wedding which is supposed to take place at the White House? How much of Mar-a-Lago expenses are taxpayers covering? And what are the secret service costs for keeping all those egomaniacs safe and snug? Any reporting on any of that? Retrofitting his Qatari plane - which is going on right now - is costing us hundreds of millions. It's going to have secure, military-grade communication and anti-missile systems, and he'll be taking it with him when he leaves office. A private citizen needs advanced defense systems on his private jet? The waste, fraud, and abuse Trump said he wanted to root out is walking around in his suit and a really long tie. But we had to admit: Trump never said he wanted to root out violence. He likes that.
We have insufficient money to support public health, etc., but Trump throws trainloads of public money at his bizarre personal conceits like there is no tomorrow. Literally.
SUBSTACK NURDS -- NOW, EXACTLY AS ANDRA WATKINS PREDICTED -- ARE UNABASHEDLY FUNCTIONING AS MAGASTAPO AGENTS BY REFUSING TO LET ME POST VITAL INFORMATION.
UPDATE 01:45 PST: the post, which they had repeatedly forced me to remove as too lengthy when I sought to edit it (never mind posts of equal length have often appeared on these threads), has reappeared where it was originally made. My thanks to whomever intervened on my behalf.
He needs the plane for when he is "Chairman for Life Trump" of the Board of Peace if he actually ever leaves the presidency. I guess he thinks all the countries will join as a replacement for the UN (after he finishes gutting it)and he will be dictator of the whole world.
Qatar put in another billion to that grift.
He will leave, and probably sooner rather than later. He "bumped his hand on a table and got a bruise"... Just mere months ago a gunshot to his ear didn't even leave a scratch. 😜
C'mon blood clot. There's gotta be one in there somewhere 😈
I guess now we know why he wants that ballroom finished quickly: Junior's wedding. Is his White House wedding the first step in his anointment as the successor president?
Oh, and I think we know who will pay for all those parties: Anybody but himself. Taxpayers or suckered donors.
“….the account claimed that the addition “is being done with the design, consent, and approval of the highest levels of the United States Military and Secret Service.” Now ask yourself, why would he cite the military and Secret Service as sources of approval for his “ballroom”? This is a prime example of where he’s so stupid he doesn’t know he’s giving away the real reason for the “ballroom.” It’s a bunker, and on the day after the 2028 election, depending on which way it goes, he will move in to stay. He’s not leaving the White House voluntarily. Ever. We must understand that. I’m surprised no one else commenting here has picked up on that.
Actually it's been reported that the original East Wing had a bunker. This was one of the reasons the Secret Service was unhappy at the demolition. A bunker in the new ballroom was a given. The difference is not that there will be a bunker but the size of the new ballroom, so much larger that it will accommodate a larger number of 'bunkerers.' Yes, we can assume that that's the space he'll abscond to when it's time for him to leave the WH.
https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/trump-isnt-building-a-ballroom?r=8bwtu&shareImageVariant=overlay&triedRedirect=true
I thought it but didn’t say it.
He can use the ballroom for his "Bored of Peace" blowouts, too.
Trump is such a tightwad......hmmmmmm. I can only guess.
"... when he leaves office."
But yes, and because they tore down the East Wing including destroying the small auditorium, there was nowhere to show the documentary so they had to make a new space in another part of the White House, with state of the art equipment for which I'm sure they spared no expense.
(if I can find the article about it will edit to add the link here)
I thought Heather would take a long-delayed break as her Sunday night rolled into Monday a.m.
She has worked – chipper, but always well-detailed, accounting for the U.S.’s deliberate, murderous, fascist crisis – so hard now, day after day, week after week, with no breaks.
As the time passed two in the afternoon here in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan, midnight Heather’s Maine time, still no announcement of break.
So I knew she’d be working yet. Such resilience.
I think best from her overworked days: her constant reservoir of decency.
Many commenters here emulate this, her decency. Ditto many public officials in Minnesota’s twin cities and nearby. Many online podcasters, too.
And then, at the end of Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway on “Pivot” today, the former introduced a short video of the recently CBP-murdered Alex Pretti in ICU, on the job – in his scrubs – saying words of gratitude and goodbye for a veteran who’d just passed away. (Heather cites it in her concluding para today.)
To honor all those dealing with the onslaught of U.S. murder and fascism, here it is, at the 25:30 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFsdnQCyuOQ
Thank You for this video, Phil. This is how "honor" looks and feels and is.
RN-ret. Sharing.
Here’s a stand alone version MaryPat. https://youtube.com/shorts/tCa-rEeX9bg?si=1Zm0Gz20dYN6WaGx
That "walk of honor" is something to behold. I loved both the content and delivery of that message that Alex gave.
Who are the domestic terrorists?
The answer, if you believe your own eyes, are Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Greg Bovino, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Republican members of Congress, conservative Supreme Court justices who gave ICE permission to profile, and anyone who can’t separate truth from fiction.
Orwell could have prefigured the details of the Trump regime had he wanted to retell his story of tyranny with more sarcastic twists.
The three piece suits in the coalition Phil.
Every person who wants to save democracy needs to understand the level of incitement to violence and confrontation that is being spewed from Fox and the administration. Our right to dissent is being portrayed as a massive “Red Menace” conspiracy. They claim that the blame for Alex Pretti’s death is OURS.
From Fox:
"Over the following hours, a national network of socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist cells in the United States leveraged the tragic fatality into a nationwide protest operation. While grief and outrage over Pretti's death is genuine, the network's real-time rapid response, using short sensational video clips and emojis as weapons of propaganda, offers a window into the disciplined logistics, messaging and coordination of far-left warriors fomenting insurgency-like confrontation with authorities."
The rhetoric is a dog whistle to the far-right. It is a new call to the groypers and Proud Boys. It is meant to be the match that Trump can use to invoke the Insurrection Act.
Peaceful civil disobedience must be our only response. Every camera out,
FOR JUSTICE: WE WILL REMEMBER
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/far-left-network-helped-put-alex-pretti-harms-way-made-him-martyr
Compare the January 6 march to our marches in Minneapolis. I think we have demonstrated remarkable restraint.
And enormous heroism.
Midwestern independence, solidarity and pragmatism at its best. Immense bravery too. Well done, and keep up the good work.
Marxist-Leninist cells. Go find one. I encountered some Marxist wannabees in the 1970's but doubt I ever observed the real thing. Real Communism sought to change human nature, but all they could muster was authoritarianism. Cooperative enlightened self interest works for me. The social contract. MAGA just wants to bully.
MAGA followers don't read history. These are the higher decibel dog whistles when "libtards" and "socialists" are not loud enough.
Trump has wet dreams of Joe McCarthy-style investigations of politicians for any whiff of commie leanings. Remember Roy Cohn, Trump's mentor, was McCarthy's chief counsel.
Yes, I'm aware of that, and Trump was (is?) tight with the mob. McCarthy also drew a fanatical crowd, and Trump shows even less decency; but it's the same old serpent. Powered by $COTUS-approved de facto bribery, the former party of Lincoln sold what remained of its soul to the devil, picked up McCarthy's playbook, and ran with it. Voila.
The thing is that all cellphone conversations have been gathered by U.S. intelligence since the inception of said phones. Cells within the continental borders and around the world are monitored and information gleaned pinpoints the location of extant cells around the country. In the wake of failure to sniff out the 9-11 attacks we were forced to use the obvious ability to collect and decipher real terrorist activities. The big stink was the invasion of privacy on normal civilian venues. Assurances were forthcoming that they weren’t focusing on civilians. That our privacy was invaded and continues to this day was quietly slid under the rug. Your phone can be accessed by government sources without your knowledge. Don’t forget it is a listening device as well as a transmitter. Rest assured Big Ernie is using this modern marvel to protect and defend your constitutional rights. Funny thing is MAGA fully understands this and is cognizant they have been scrutinized fully. Still they hasten their way to the trap line.
We have to operate on the assumption that there is no such thing as privacy anymore. Between facial recognition, cell phone monitoring and access to stored computer data via the Cloud, nothing is private. One can hardly have a naughty thought that's private. (Speaking for a friend...)
That's been true for decades. "1984" was supposed to be fiction.
Orwell had said he meant it to be a warning not a how-to-manual…
Today's technology, though, has made surveillance so much faster and more universal.
I think Pogo understood it: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Technology and "deregulation", AKA abandonment of governance of, by, and for the people.
"Regulation" is rules, and the rules can be despotic or just with the considered consent of the governed. Government is not "the problem". Despotism and/or irresponsibility is. If we agree that ALL people are created equal, -that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among the public, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
With a social message.
Yeah Donna, might as well give up the anonymity which came with living in the city and move back to the country.
I have lived in the country and lived or worked in large cities such as Manhattan. That sort of anonymity seems a blessing and a curse. Yet even large cities seem to vary in the sense of community one finds there, and I feel that sense of community breaking down. I think is is both cause and effect and has a lot to do with are current perils. I think growing social inequality and refeudalization has a lot to do with it.
Feudalism begets inequality. The sock comes with the boot. Our American royalty waltzes serenely on thin ice. That ice can only bear so much abuse. The cracking sounds must be heeded. When the weight above exceeds the capacity inequality gives way suddenly. Man’s capacity for greed is invested in just enough souls to keep feudalism alive and well. He who has the gold lives in the castle. We must never abandon the mechanism which dismantles the walls.
"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people." - John Adams
Mutual aid, as Kropotkin called it (of course it predates him by millennia; he was describing it and pushing for its wholescale adoption).
Thanks, Sophie, for the reminder. Kropotkin still makes excellent reading.
Good point Georgia, it’s incredibly impressive that We the People have remained peaceful in our protests and protection of our neighbors! We will not take the bait of this regime no matter what form it takes.
Trump has certainly set a trap.
I imagine the Fox quote in the stage voice of King George. He’s just been told the colonies have declared independence. Radicals!
Fox is the paid agitator! Fox is the poison of our democracy, a poison produced by a multi-billionaire IMMIGRANT!!!
Fox is the voice of the Liar!
He is the king of a nation of traitors. Methinks his loyalists will surrender at the Battle of Maralago.
I don't have a detailed view of history, but my sense that while King George was a tyrant he was not the sociopath that Trump seems to be.
If only!
It’s tempting and justified to lay all this at the feet of that psychopathic douchebag Steven Miller.
But that isn’t fair to the hundreds and thousands of enablers who applauded while Trump engaged in his demented world salad, cheered when he called people “vermin,” looked the other way as he desecrated our Constitution the first time, then voted to approve his Dr. Caligari’s Cabinet of Misfits and Baboons later. THEY are the ones truly responsible for waging war against us.
These are Republican monsters, created by the GOP to flood our zone with their shit, then lecture us by claiming ‘he had it coming.’ The only thing missing from Bovino’s mocking, falsifying, prevaricating, arrogant press conference was… “fucking bitch.”
They’re not going to get the last word here, no matter what delusional bullshit they engage in.
At one point during the press conference, Bovino started ranting on about 'choices'. Putting the blame on politicians and journalists for making the choice to vilify ICE & Border Patrol or call them the Gestapo.
But these rampaging, murderous thugs in ICE & Border Patrol are acting just like the Gestapo and villainous storm troopers: bashing in car windows, busting into peoples houses and forcing them into the freezing cold, shooting peaceful protesters dead at point blank range. Terrorizing, intimidating, brutalizing, murdering all with impunity. It appears Bovino lacks the self awareness to see those choices he and his agents are making that are the cause of this horror show.
CBP is the Gestapo. ICE are mercenaries.
I'm with you all the way... except for one detail, one word: Baboons.
Afrikaner white suprematists used to ask the rhetorical question:
"Would you give a vote to a baboon?"
No, I wouldn't. Nevertheless, as a kid in South Africa, I got an important part of my political education from observing the local baboon pack. An important part of this initiation was when I and my friend nearly got ourselves killed after inadvertently invading the pack's territory when they were drinking round a pool. I won't bore readers with a full account, but... when we thought it safe to return under the cliff the baboons had rushed up when disturbed... they rolled an avalanche of big rocks down on us. We'd retreated just in time.
One way of inculcating respect.
Baboons' survival instincts and skills are far superior to those of human beings. Social order, hierarchical. But they do not and cannot select a misleader.
That -- as we are seeing -- is a uniquely human aptitude.
Ah…misfits and misanthropes then. Let’s narrow it down.
Those who do not now actively oppose or resist the fascist régime, from Mahogany Row offices and corporate board rooms through every industry and walk of life to every household, are enablers. And as enablers, they have blood on their hands. Paul Krugman lays out the matter as eloquently as could be done in yesterday's Substack:
" ... It has been clear for a long time, to anyone willing to see, that the people running the federal government — Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino and more — are monsters. It has been equally obvious that ICE and the Border Patrol are now filled with sadistic thugs. Yet many people — almost the entire GOP, everyone serving in the Trump administration, some Democrats, a significant part of the media — were too cowardly to admit the obvious.
"At this point, however, there are no more excuses. In a way the cowards and opportunists enabling Trump are more to blame for where we are than Trump and company themselves: monsters are monsters and can’t help themselves, but the enablers have a choice. And they have chosen, again and again, to accommodate and facilitate evil."
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/monsters
Now: reread Krugman's second paragraph: "... the enablers have a choice. And they have chosen, again and again, to accommodate and facilitate evil."
Now: if you are not already engaged in some resistance activity, find one and get busy. How modest or minor you may perceive it to be, or how much or little you do compared to someone else don't matter. Every single action, whether filling out the front lines at a rally, bringing food to a community member in need, writing postcards and calling your congresscritters incessantly, or any other act of compassion and support for your community and our democracy, is an act of resistance and is courageous.
DO IT NOW. THE TIME IS NOW.
Thank you, as always, Dr Richardson. This whole degradation by depredation of all that we hold dear reminds me of Hymn #519 from my grade school hymnal:
https://youtu.be/9hxg3B-1OsA ("Ohio" by C.S.N.Y.)
https://youtu.be/JCS-g3HwXdc ("Where Have All the Flowers Gone?")
"Once to every [wo]man and nation
comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision,
off'ring each the bloom or blight,
and the choice goes by forever
'twixt that darkness and that light."
Hymns and anthems have so much meaning, especially when people are singing them together. I wish we did that more often instead of always listening to someone sing.
I am unaware of a culture in which music plays no important part. There may be some, but if so they are surely outliers. It seems to me that music synchronizes social bonding as well as tone, word, and motion. I read that in the early 20th century people would line up at music stores to purchase sheet music of the latest popular song. Now I can hear some of the most skilled artists on the planet via Internet connection, but rarely sing. I think it's part of what keeps churches going.
"Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."
-- Andrew Fletcher
This is so important...we the anti-MAGA, anti Project 2025 people need an anthem! Before 'they' have one. My suggestion would be adopting We Shall Overcome, which has been sung by so many at so many momentous times. Again I reference the documentary Singing the Revolution on how Estonians used their music to start and sustain their revolution against Soviet domination.
Sharing music is a bonding experience. I am not a Christian, nor a follower of Christ although I ring handbells at the church my dear friend attends. There is power of community standing to sing together, and I wish we did more of it.
A fellow tuba player's wife is an internationally recognized educator; they were together at a conference in South Africa, and were having a small dinner with her counterpart. He asked my friend what he did, and he replied that he was a retired music teacher. I will never forget the man's reply: "Why do you have to teach music? Music is for all of us, and we know and feel it."
If you’ve not yet heard of this musician, Jesse Welles is reminiscent of folk singers from days long gone
https://youtu.be/AR15xWFtu-s?si=32xdki0EDxbTqYFG
I have! Thanks for this link.
Words and credo to live by, light to dispel the darkness all around. Remember the words of the very first participants in the struggle against fascism in Spain in 1936 — “NO PASARÁN”
The Christofascists and the MAGA far right will do anything to stay in power because they know if they lose in the midterms they will be investigated impeached and possibly convicted. Of course Trump has no plans on leaving quietly. Being that Trump’s base feels that this could possibly be their last chance to make America white again, and the left fears the same thing but for a different reasons, things are bound to get chaotic and tense as we approach the midterms where many feel that ICE and border patrol agents will be swarming the voting centers, and not causing good trouble.
If you’re going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill
Great quote.
" High morale implies essentially the ability to triumph over discomforts and dangers and carry on with the job." Bernard Montgomery
May we all live up to the ideals of Alex Pretti 🙏
I have been in my country of origin (Netherlands) for the past month and heading back to the US tomorrow. I follow and read the news closely and like in the US Heather is always first. We live in surreal times right now. When I see the various photos of the demonstrations I have to look twice to see whether they were taken in Tehran or Minneapolis and now in my beloved State of Maine. I see hope in how the country is coming together and hallelujah, the Minnesota National Guard handing out donuts! It is incomprehensible to me that in a Rasmussen poll “only 39%” is in support of ice. How can so many be so hateful and racist in a country built by and with immigrants!
To your point, Tom Friedman of the New York Times yesterday wrote that he’d never thought Gaza would come to Minneapolis — his home town. He meant the masks, of course. All over the world, young men (mostly) who brutalize others wear masks — because they have something to hide. Hamas in Gaza — because they kill both Israelis and Palestinians — and ICE. Men hiding who they are, running from culpability. Paramilitaries destroying civilization.
What a world, what a world..
One commenter quite awhile ago thought perhaps more Republicans answer more phone calls, but progressives less because they’re smarter at screening them.
Also : “Rasmussen Reports is generally considered a reliable polling organization, but it has a slight *bias towards 🔻Republican candidates and has faced criticism for its methodology. Its accuracy is rated at about 78%, which is considered mostly factual, but some experts have raised concerns about its increasing * partisanship in recent years.”
Then, let’s find a reliable poll.
Ineke, are you certain you want to return?
It would be news to many gun-owning Republicans that they can’t carry guns to a protest. They have routinely shown up to protests in places like Texas, Northern California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona with firearms — often brandishing semi-automatic rifles.
Congress appears to be waking up from its year-long slumber. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) publically decried shutting out local law enforcement from the investigation. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) publically states that carrying a firearm is a protected right and NOT a death sentence.
And while hearing conservative voices finally, FINALLY speak out at these atrocities has been vindicating, nothing showed more of a break in the Trump Coalition The National Rifle Association (NRA) labeling comments from a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor —who suggested the Pretti shooting was justified — as "dangerous and wrong".
The NRA urged for a "full investigation," stating that "responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens".
Hello Annabel... From HCR Today: "“Today we remember that freedom is not free,” Pretti said. “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we [give] them our honor, and our gratitude.”... ... This Is Eloquent. and Powerful"... Thank You Alex... Rest In Power...
Good morning, Apache. My sign for protest today will list Alex Pretti and Renee Good; I will draw a black ribbon on a light blue background for Alex, and one on a lavender background for Renee. The obverse will have an as yet undecided upon anti ICE message.
After listening to HCR the other night, I was compelled to write a letter, to stop the craziness, stop crimes against humanity, vote no on DHS bill, and stop executions.First I sent the emails to our states elected officials (no morals, no ethics), and now just finished emailing the same letter every Republican Senator. Onward tomorrow to House Republicans. We did show up at our protest in Fairbanks in -7 or so weather.
Here is what was sent:
Crimes Against Humanity
25 January 2026
Dear Senator :
Reckless ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minneapolis and across the country are causing immediate and irreversible harm to children, families, and entire communities. People have already been killed. Fear is widespread. Congress must act now.
ICE’s violent and unchecked actions show a blatant disregard for the law, basic civil rights, and human life. Federal agents are terrorizing our neighborhoods, and without swift intervention, more people will be injured or killed. Continued inaction is not neutral — it is a choice with deadly consequences.
As a Member of Congress, you have a duty to intervene immediately and hold ICE accountable for these abuses. I expect concrete action within days, not weeks or months. Specifically, I am urging you to:
Demand an immediate halt to ICE operations in Minneapolis and prevent further large-scale enforcement escalations in our communities.
Publicly oppose and vote against any additional funding for ICE’s enforcement and detention budget, including provisions in the most recent appropriations bill.
Initiate a transparent, independent investigation without delay into the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, ICE’s reckless hiring practices, and its failure to hold agents accountable to the law.
Release the Epstein Files
Every day Congress fails to act, more lives are placed at risk and more families are forced to live in fear. I expect your office to take swift, visible action to stop this escalation and to communicate clearly how and when you will do so.
The time for statements has passed. Immediate action is required.
Respectfully,
Ricki Kahn Hnilicka & Charles Hnilicka
Nenana Alaska
99760
That’s a super letter! The time for ‘statements’ has passed indeed!
Got into some 'good trouble' today
...https://www.juneauindependent.com/post/anger-flares-up-at-juneau-candlelight-vigil-after-second-person-killed-by-federal-agents-in-minneapo
https://youtu.be/9xbjKR4X3ik?feature=shared
Good job Juneau! We had a pop up protest in Anchorage Saturday night, with about 100 people. Why am I not the tiniest bit surprised that Sullivan and Begich once again are on the wrong side of history? Looking forward to voting them out in November.
WAY TO GO, CLAIRE!! I am in Indivisible ReSisters of Contra Costa in CA.
BRAVA!
Yay! I’ve been spreading the word to my Alaskan relatives (near Fairbanks) about Mary Peltola…I hope she can secure a win!
OUTSTANDING!!!