Traditionally, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the annual budget and appropriations of the Department of Defense, passes Congress on a bipartisan basis.
Tosha, I don't understand them either. But I have to face the facts - they've been there since legal enslavement, they never went away, and they represent a huge number of Americans. Not as many as they pretend to, but still, horrifyingly huge. So I'm realizing that instead of trying to understand them it might be more productive to unpack and understand how for a few decades this country was able to shame the worst of them into containing their outright bigotry, to make it unacceptable in public office. Because Fox and the Christofascists and tfg dissolved those restraints so quickly I don't even recognize the country anymore.
How did we manage to box them, and how can we put them back in that box?
I’m not too sure re boxing the worst of the already terrible can happen; at least not for a few more voting cycles of Dems and indies sending the MAGAT’s back to the Hell they all came from and subsequently put us through.
We didn’t get here overnight so we won’t climb out of it fast either. I do believe we’ve all been given sufficient time to realize that the system of government that most of us will require constant work, involvement and giving enough of a damn about so that if given another chance to make things right, we do just that. We must resolve to learn about all of our history and strive to do better for everyone. We will then deserve the Perfect Union that was once envisioned so long ago.
SPW, I agree with every word you just wrote, but I have to wonder if enough good people have enough energy left to fight that fight. That's got to be a huge part of the evil master plan, of course - make just getting through the day so hard for ordinary people that they don't have time to fight the Christofascist takeover.
The energy to go after this "backwards looking plan" is a real problem. I remember the days before retirement with work and raising a family I didn't have much time to keep on top the news or anything else but day to day living. We old farts have got to keep working to get the message through. It is our job Now.
As Jessica Craven says, “Chop wood, Carry water.” This is our work til our last breath. To paraphrase the Torah, “ we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to abandon it.”
Why does anyone think we reached the “Perfect Union” and our work was done? Because we elected a Black president?There is still grinding poverty in this country, still people who don’t have enough to eat, still predatory capitalism, still sick people who need medical care they cannot afford, still people living paycheck-to-paycheck! There has always been evil in the world; I dare say there always will be.
Those of us who are retired and can contribute, we have no time to be depressed, stay in bed with the covers over our heads. We have important work to do. We all do what we can.
We are the most backward of the major industrialized western nations, as you, Paula Mandell, have so eloquently stated.
We started to come out of it under FDR, and, really, we were doing pretty well. And then RFK was assassinated. That was followed by Nixon stealing the 1968 election. And then Reagan stole the 1980 election, and among other things killed the Fairness Doctrine, and undercut unions. And then SCOTUS stole the 2000 election for Bush2, who got us into wars for the sake of his weak sense of manhood... And a multiplicity of bad actors stole the 2016 election...
Biden has done amazing things. Lets hope we can keep the momentum going!
Well, one would hope. However, there are people who think what is happening was foretold in Revelation in the Bible. FOX News pales in comparison to the word of God. Of course, many of these same folks have been sitting in their lawn chairs waiting to be air lifted to Heaven, so there's that to consider.
I just re-read Dr. Heather’s second paragraph which talks to “loading the bill with a wish list from the far right.” As horrible as this is, it is nothing new. The term EARMARKS applies here. An earmark is a congressional directive that funds should be spent on a specific project. Basically, it’s a way for legislators to get funding for pet projects. Going back in my time machine, I recall the SAFETEA-LU legislation for funding the interstate highways, etc. The acronym stands for Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users. It was introduced by Don Young (R-AK) in February 2005 and passed in March. Scandals surround this legislation. Don Young was crazy about his wife LU. So initially, the LU at the tail end was to honor his wife. One of the infamous earmarks was THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE in Alaska to connect sparsely populated regions at tremendous cost – good example of Pork Barrel Politics. Then there is the case of Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives (2006). He championed for the construction of a $207 Million earmark for the Prairie Parkway in his Illinois District which would benefit a land investment that Hastert and his wife made. Their net worth went from $300,000 to $6.2 Million. His resignation was called for but he had support from President Bush.
Yes, Jeri they are because the former may to out to be in some cases a form of corruption while this is an attempt to undermine democracy that applies to everyone and force their views on abortion on everyone as well. What about the Rs in swing districts. This will surely count against them.
Earmarks (aka pork) is generally a project or organization in a particular legislative district, designed to win votes for that legislator. This is something entirely different, designed to force a policy on the entire Nation.
Despite the anecdotal scandals like the Bridge to Nowhere, earmarks turned out to be a very effective way of keeping major infrastructure modernized throughout the country, so in recent years, they have been reintroduced.
Thank you for sharing this explanation about Earmarks. In the case of this legislation it seems that the repubs aren’t building bridges, but tearing down social structure that is changing. Fear and a host of isms are parts of the repub reasoning.
Agreed. Too tired, too ill-informed, too discouraged by SCOTUS decisions, lacking paid vacations, overwhelmed by worry about their and their children’s futures, etc., etc. Meanwhile, remembering WWII and the efforts we as children made as the fear our parents had seeped down to us, a fear that DeSantis is trying to stir about learning our history so that we will look to him if we don’t look to Trump to “save” US. This morning I woke to an interview about a book on climate change (6:15 MSNBC, weekly rerun of segments of “Morning Joe”). If anyone knows this book, which reports why President Carter had solar panels put on the White House, please post it and alert me. It’s the kind of history all of us need to spur us to action, no matter how turned off we may be.
Wishing for everyone who is reading this that you are safe in the current disasters.
It is hot here in the Willamette Valley today, but not like other places because the humidity is absent. Of course, that means wildfires can easily get going and spread with wind. We are also under a wildfire alert. This week my husband and I took a drive up the Santiam Canyon east of Salem which had a terrible wildfire in 2020, making our sky red and filled with ash here in Salem. We hadn't been up there since then. It is our old hiking area where we spent many a time in the Mt. Jefferson wilderness. We went as far as Detroit and back. When we got there, the place still smelled strongly of wood smoke and the mountains all around were covered with dead trees. Landmarks had disappeared and the restaurant where we did many pre or post hike meals is only the sign. We saw lots of new construction as people try to get their lives back together. The people affected by the fires recently won a large suit against the electric company which failed to shut off the power. The utility offered some pretty weak tea excuses. It will be a long time before this area recovers although we did see lots of new construction. This will be the case in any area now which has suffered destruction. The heat, however, is another story. Saw an article in The Atlantic about when the Southwest will become unlivable. I would say we are well on our way. So what do we have from the party of death.....lots of stirring of the culture wars pot and attempts to undermine, at least here in Oregon, every attempt to further doing something about climate change.
Thank you for this account. Perhaps it will push more of HCR’s readers to get involved. Anyone who can still write can write postcards to get out the vote. If you don’t have a local Indivisible chapter, you can find one online that will lead you to postcards and voter lists (Democrats, of course, although the organization was begun by congressional staffers in November 2016).
We also live in the Willamette Valley near Portland, and I just drove back from Bend down Highway 22 back to Salem. We have vivid memories of the Labor Day 2020 fires and the aftermath. Besides the hills covered with dead trees, what also struck me was the evidence that the MAGA cult is still alive and well in the Santiam Canyon. Trump 2024 flags and the like. What is it going to take to pierce the bubble of the alternative reality that these people live in?
I want to add in this context: have you any idea how many books are being banned? The MoveOn book mobile came to my neighborhood this week so I went to see it. First book I saw was George Takei’s on being part of the Japanese internment in 1942; I got Malala’s “Magic Pencil” for a small friend; saw “To Kill a Mockingbird” and had to leave before learning more. Can we survive this idiocy?
Jeff, thank you very much. When I learned from the interview about Carter’s asking the Academy of Science to give him “the word,” I immediately thought of the 15 minutes Congress “gave” James Hansen in 1988, the fight Jon Tester (the only “real” farmer that I know of in Congress is having in Montana, Al Gore’s 1980 (?) book which I read in 1999 (he was another farmer in summer when he wasn’t in DC with his farmer father, Senator Al Gore, Sr.) and knew I have to read and get the book to as many as possible before it gets banned.
SLWeston, thank you for ID’ing this book. And Virginia, thanks for elevating the “Morning Joe” interview & asking about the title of this book. Adding it to my list of What To Read.
Just ordered it....thank you for the suggestion. We have invested in a solar farm, have a tesla (which many don't agree with, but gotta start somewhere), have a garden, buy organic as much as possible, vegetarian as much as possible, recycle, yada yada. All this is an investment, of course, and we are lucky enough to be able to invest in the future. If we don't come together as a people of the planet, we will be but a memory for the life in the forest that goes on after us.
Ironically, we behave as though it is 70/30 Fascism over decent Americans, when the reality is the reverse.
There is no denying the sledgehammer of money in the tens of billions and how it overwhelms the senses to the point of now making Orwell dystopia real.
The genuine tragedy is that despite our genuine majority, and despite voter suppression, we can still win handily and send these cockroaches back under the rocks from which they crawled.
All we have to do is get off our collective asses and VOTE! and VOTE repeatedly.
OOPS! when I stated repeatedly ? I meant , turn our for each and every election. NOT cast more than one vote in a given one🤣. I’ll leave that BS fantasy to Fascist Republicans
Wasn’t it Stalin who said. It matters not who votes, it matters who counts the votes. Repubs know this, and, boy, have they been busy. Get on it Jack Smith
Getting out to vote is almost impossible for many thousands/millions of Americans in red states or half and half states. Why can't the Fed's step in or it is the supremes who are in control of this country? Obviously the answer is yes. Maybe that is where we should all start
I agree. Add to that, too depressed and deflated. As horrific as today's letter is, I am thankful that we have Heather to keep us apprised of "the good, the bad, and the ugly."Non-violent acts of resistance are needed now more than ever. We know the enemy is bad and ugly and must deal with them daily accordingly.
This is my prayer: When it comes to giving up on democracy, we all have fight left no matter what our age. This is NOT happening! Even if it takes a long game. True democracy is too precious an ideal for thinking people just to roll over!
To really suck the life and hope outta this July morning: The climate crisis is quickly zapping the energy and fight and future out of all sides of this battle.
Just as we have passed the “tipping point” on climate change and damage to the planet can only be mitigated to some degree, I fear we have reached the “tipping point” of our republic. Awash in dark money, corrupted by gerrymandering, fueled by misinformation, disinformation, prejudice, and hate, our elections no longer hinge on ideas but on grievances. A clown car of vote-splintering Republican candidates, the arcane Electoral College, and a vast cadre of MAGA ideologues put Trump in a good position to win the nomination. Even if Democrats, Independents, and more traditional Republicans band to defeat him in the general election, Trump will never concede defeat, and January 6 will look like a quaint dress rehearsal. As Franklin supposedly said, we have a Republic, if we can keep it. Keeping it depends on honest, civil, full-throated debate on matters of interest to all Americans, not fact-free rants by self-centered, self-serving ideologues.
I’m seeing cracks in the wall of dumpty support. It helps.
Fox is getting b-slapped not only by corporations but the J6 marauders themselves who claim they wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for Fox. Whatever happened to the party of personal responsibility? Dude, that starts in your head.
Dumpty is terrified as the Smith investigation grows around him. His attorneys are finding no sympathy for his increasingly desperate legal briefs and I’m sure he’s starting to wonder if they’ll really incarcerate an elderly man.. well know he’s truly despairing when he pulls that one out.
One thing this rabid mob hates is a loser who can’t protect them. They’ll eat him alive.
Those thoughts give me hope the fever will break. Or at least the MAGAts will go back underground.
I hope you are right, but Trump’s popularity among his hardcore supporters grows with each indictment and conviction. Gutless Republican “leaders” either repeat his baseless persecution lies or mumble vague criticisms, off the record, of course. His well-armed, grievance-driven followers are, at best, unpredictable. Some are unstable. Some are white supremacists itching for conflict. Some are just happy about the chaos he creates because it helps their bottom line. We’re devolving into a nation with many of the hallmarks of the “shit-hole countries” Trump deplored: violence as a political tool; a popular media outlet that loyally mouths the leader’s lies; labeling other media as the enemy of the people; denial of election results; distrust of law enforcement agencies and the courts; divisions of class, race, and gender; widespread homelessness and crushing poverty amid outrageous wealth for a few. I’m not saying we’re finished, but there are signs of serious trouble ahead. And, oh yeah, the planet is burning.
Yes his witless sycophants become more crazed with every attack on Der Fuhrer. But remember they are only a minority percent of a minority oarty, and they are elderly themselves. Maybe they will forget to vote.
The Extreme Court is a disgrace, but I think the House may flip in the next election, and maybe…the rethugs will forget to vote.
But yes the planet is burning. The ocean temperatures are truly alarming; we got away with the CO2 greenhouse for decades because the oceans sucked up so much of it. When you consider how much energy it takes to increase the temp of water, and the planet is 70% water…I don’t think this can be turned back.
I feel immense grief for every child I see.
So I’d rather think about Eric Holders contention that sure, the federal penal system can handle a dumpty in prison.
John Adams prediction is coming true. Our democracy can only fail through "self-suicide." The blood drops from our self-inflicted wrist slashing are increasing by the day.
SPW, beautiful ❤️. I'm ready to work "like the dickens" to stop the magat onslaught. Register Gen Z and all other voters and get them to the polls. I don't see any other way.
I was outraged when RR tore Jimmy Carter's solar panels off the White House roof... And when RR, the former president of SAG, fired all the striking air traffic controllers. Hypocrisy seems to be in R DNA.
That certainly didn’t help but our problems began way before that. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. While that is a law of physics, the same tends to hold true in politics as well. As you probably know, there was a huge and to many, quite fearful, move to the Left in the middle of the Viet Nam war. There were violent protests, bombings and the killings of four Kent State students by a National Guard unit. In the wake of all that upheaval was Nixon’s resignation over Watergate and Ford’s pardon of him. The time was right for the Moral Majority to step in to soothe the “troubled beast” that was this country. They got behind Jimmy Carter but found that his honest faith would not align with theirs therefore the nasty bit of business between the Ayatollah of Iran and Reagan over the US hostages taken in Iranian revolution. James Earl Carter III was way too good for the direction this country was set to head. The Right had 12 years to put their plans into place and the technology was ready and waiting for them to weaponize early. Rush Limbaugh had softened up those who found him on the airwaves then along came Ailes. The rest is just generational(30 yrs)history and look at what all has happened in these last 30 years. Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it.
Well said, and the analogy between physics and politics is one of my favorites. I'm a handful of years younger than you (conceived in Truman, born in during Eisenhower's first summer) but I do remember almost all of what you're saying, although you sound to me like your knowledge on this is deeper than mine. If you're in or near the Boston area maybe we should have coffee, and if you're so inclined, you can find me at supernova1@aol.com. And if you want to subscribe to one more, try Robert Hubbell, who I find to be the most consistently and widely illuminating. (Joyce Vance is also superb, though her focus is narrower, and Hubbell often refers readers to her.)
I’m a leading edge Boomer; parents married on VJ Day and I came along exactly 9 months later. I vaguely remember comments about Truman or his daughter but really got into the “I Like Ike” slogan and thought the conventions made for good entertainment on the radio. All my family were typical ‘50s Republicans. I do remember how conflicted they were with the Kennedy/Nixon election. They hated Nixon(crook)AND Kennedy(Catholic). That was the one election I followed and was thrilled when Kennedy won. Thing is, down here in NC we believed that one never discussed politics or religion outside of immediate family. I couldn’t vote until I was 21, I voted split ticket usually and only declared a party when the board of elections said they needed a registrar in the main district of our town. Eye-opener, that! Those were the good old days of hand counted ballots too. After about 3 years of putting up with all sorts of BS, I got fired-for not being partisan enough. I guess since I was the republican registrar, I was supposed to have my finger on the Republican scale.
I moved back to my hometown after my separation, got a job, remarried(for 39 yrs)and since my husbands death last year I’ve just been trying to readjust to single and MUCH OLDER living.
TMI most likely but since you’re in Boston and I’m in NC, we’ll have to forego our coffee and let this be our conversation.
Well put, SPW. We must all work for the ideals of the Constitution. That means, besides being informed on the issues, working to get out the vote, and voting ourselves in every election especially the local ones where these wing nuts can spread their dreck into schools, etc.
Alexandra: exactly! With 70 to 80 percent of American women insisting that they urgently want our laws to protect--not harm--pregnant women and their own individual choices as their own bodies with the advice of her doctor, yet yesterday virtually the entire Republican caucus in Congress--205 of them--gleefully voted NO!
If you are serving in our Armed Forces, we won’t even let you take medical leave to go to another state for an abortion! Disgraceful!Shame on each and every one of them forever!
...which often is why abortions are needed! That is something that should be highlighted. Somehow, I doubt it was even mentioned in any discussions in Congress.
Very important column. It appears clear that the ultimate agenda of the former Republican Party, now the NAF ( New Authoritarian Fascist) party is to drive all decent sane patriotic American out of the military and saturate our armed forces with white supremacist Christian Nationalists. Very terrifying and ominous times.
Somebody please help me understand, are there no republican women in the military who get raped and need to take time off to have an abortion? Aren't there any republican gays in the military? Isn't it about time that a revolt mushroomed within the armed forces? This "Christian" crusade is the most un-Christian concept imaginable--its extreme members have molded themselves into the repugnant Pharisees of the Bible. But I believe in karma. Let's see what happens when one of Ron DeSantis' kids announces that they are transgender....
There are 2 local FB forums here in a more conservative part of our notedly liberal state that feast on Fox. For some, Fox is now passé as they have moved farther to the right. The hate on these forums is so obvious it has been reduced to an echo chamber. ANY and ALL reasonable comments by even centrist folks will immediately trigger disgusting memes - Biden in diapers and clown shoes, grooming children - an on-going borderline harassment of a forum member who shared that for environmental reasons, she prefers to have her coffee in a recycled cup at the Dunkin’s drive through. The over-all ‘take away’ is that it is becoming very obvious that each of these small minds has fallen for the whole package - abortion. 2A rights. Free Speech. Climate change, LGBTQ issues. Public school curriculum. Definitions of “patriotism”….. And now, creeping in around the edges - criticism of Ukraine’s fight for their own democracy - (thereby celebrating Putin’s politics). They buy it all — no nuance, no restrictions - same phrasing used by each and every one of them. A lesson in the power of”free speech”!
The "power of propaganda" was cleverly put in place by Roger Ailes. I read The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman when it first came out in 2014. It's all about how Fox News got to be the way it is. I was trying desperately to understand why all the people I kept encountering in Florida (I had just moved here) were so taken in by what they were seeing and hearing on Fox News. Repetition of images and words results in brainwashing big time! Facts don't matter. I encouraged Fox News watchers to read it, but none wanted to believe it once they opened the book. Not sure any of them got through it. It is a long book, but it's well written and referenced. It had the scoop on Bill O'Reilly way before he was ousted by Fox.
Fay, I'm asking the question without knowing the answers, but I think one important answer is that there was a growing secularization—abandoning religion for spirituality and a morality based on doing what is right rather than what a patriarchal church tells you to do. It's no accident the Rs are weaponizing religion to crush that progress.
I agree, that is a good part of the problem. Those of us with some intelligence, do not want someone assuming authority and telling us how to think and act. While others still cling to the need for "daddy" telling them what to do while assuring them everything will be alright, just leave it to father.
Alexandra, excellent comment. Expresses my thoughts perfectly. Slavery is only possible if those who are enslaved are believed to be inferior sub humans. And I believe that is the basis of all the racists that exists today.
Great job isolating the central question! How did we place guardrails around the hate filled, misogynistic, bigotry? Can we do so again?
One of the strongest set of guardrails was the FCC fairness doctrine. Growing up in the 80s & 90s, I recall American’s disagreeing on all things political, as we do today, but we formed a consensus around basic facts. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, our network TV anchors were trusted by virtually all Americans. That trust gave us a shared set of facts as a spring board from which the public could make their opinions & debate topics & from which policy makers could form their decisions.
Slowly since 1987 when the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine, our guardrails have disappeared & cable news (mostly Fox) has polarized us, misinformed & radicalized many.
Tfg’s embrace of hate & bigotry ripped down the remaining guardrails, making some conflate cruelty & viciousness with masculinity. Men searching for validation of there manhood, and women, falling for the ruse, also came to believe that loud equates to proud & bullying equals bravery.
Social media, the religious right & exploiting a fear some white peoples held (many unbeknownst to themselves) or becoming a minority have also been significant agitators, influencing the climate & chaos we find ourselves in.
As for how to get those guardrails back, the only solutions I can come up with are long term, beginning with education reform. Teaching students at every level how to discern fact from fiction, making newspaper reading a part of their reading instruction, constant practice in identifying misinformation & disinformation, repeated lessons on journalistic integrity & bias, teaching student to find and use reputable sources of information.
Also, a continued push for SEL (Social Emotional Learning), helping students to practice empathy, strength their social skills & lean to self regulate.
Alexandra, I’m reasonably sure that it’s true that racism and intolerance have always been simmering among conservatives, but the level of vitriol they express today has been deliberately cultivated. In other words, it’s not that resentment wasn’t always there, it’s that it has been stoked actively to a higher intensity than it’s been in decades. I think that’s an important point to keep in mind. The problem is better understood as one of psychological warfare. The crazier the right gets, the more ludicrous the rationalizations with which they justify themselves become. We are never going to put them in a box, but perhaps we can put this unhinged psychology in a box. The Biden administration has opted to demonstrate the difference between crazy and not crazy, and call out the cowards who do know the difference but pretend otherwise. I think the strategy is something like holding the fire line until the fire burns itself out.
Jim, thanks for that - you're so right! It has been stoked. And maybe the far right being so crazy helps ordinary bigot conservatives get what they want because we're all so freaking grateful when the agenda gets pulled back from the brink even a little. I do appreciate every day that Biden is holding the line. I hope to god you're right about the fire burning itself out. I'll try to hold that thought.
Yeah. There are no guarantees. But Biden has been on a winning streak lately and the crazies are desperate to make themselves look relevant. More crazy is all they have. Holding up the defense bill over an abortion issue is making Tuberville a lot of enemies in both parties. On the GOP side it’s not just because he’s got a really bad idea, but because he’s putting a face on stupidity and it makes the whole party look stupid. So there, we have some agreement with people on the right. It’s a start.
I have posted this before, but i return to it because, like many of Lincoln's thoughts, it gets to the root of our most persistent behaviors:
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings."
How I look at it, it does not just apply to kings, but any top-down, autocratic stratification of society as opposed to a very different base up society in which those with authority are lent it by the will of the public and a social contract agreement pertaining to universal, unalienable, human rights. The thing is that they both haev staying power, they both "get things done", they both attract a base of adherents who will fight to maintain the method. I think that history illustrates this. The problem with power in the hands of a few is the lack of limits to what they may be inclined to do with it, and the desire to live like kings is seductive, I'm not immune to it. Politicians aren't either. when one has the power to make rules, it is tempting to advance self-serving components. And don't we see a whole lot of that, even with within our republican (SMALL "r") governmental infrastructure?
Also, as human beings, we have the capacity for both compassionate and sociopathic behavior. History indicates that both can spread in human societies. Compassion and democracy is the harder row to hoe, requiring a tolerance for more ambiguity, a lot of effort, and far less certainty and defined "order". Despite horrifying historical object lessons, many seem to find the more authoritarian options more comforting, but a lot of that comfort depends on misleading one's self.
I worry it’s too late. We are in the dying stages of capitalism that has allowed a few billionaires to influence everything up to and including the Supreme Court. Meanwhile Mother Earth doesn’t have the decades it may take to right the wrongs of the last 40 years. I’m not sure we put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point but we can certainly work with our children to plan navigation of this new reality.
the problem goes back to Reagan's rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine, where the media had to give equal time to both sides (or something close to that). That enabled the MAGAts to be unaware of what the other side had to say. MAGAts in other parts of the country may not even be aware that temperatures in places like Phoenix and Florida have spiked dangerously, because Fox probably doesn't report on this, and it may be hard for MAGATs feeling the heat to avoid finding out the cause from their neighbors. And those elsewhere may hear what's going on from friends in such places, and the information may begin to seep into their ranks.
The republicans of today are the dems of the pre-civil war era. I am sorry to say that it was the democrats who defended slavery, started the civil war, and then the klu klux klan. It was Abraham Lincoln who built the republican party to abolish slavery and it was John Wilkes Booth, a democrat who assassinated him. In the 1857 Supreme Court case, Dred Scott vs Stanford, that ruled slaves weren't citizens but property, the seven justices that ruled for were democrats and the two against were republicans. This has always perplexed me. I need to learn more about how these two parties turned on their heads to where today most Blacks vote with the party that once oppressed them, and the republicans of today have become the scum that are hell bent on oppressing them and keep them from voting....
sharon tobin -- Thank you very much for this fabulous article! To see the history of The Great Switch so concisely written is highly illuminating, as well as (for me) to see/learn that it was FDR who was pivotal, and how quickly it happened. It's interesting to think about our tendencies (as humans) to pigeon-hole and hold onto our thinking and beliefs -- how restrictive that action is. Carl Jung (Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst) introduced the West to the concept of "enantiodromia" -- "the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time." This certainly applies to our politics. (Wikipedia has an informative entry on the word, if you're interested.)
I think we need to form focused coalitions with, what I continue to believe are sane people who don’t think ignorance and bigotry are cool. One interesting coalition is beginning to form between the humanists and mainstream religious groups who are open to change. The Republican noise machine has been great at grabbing headlines, but their empty-headed braying of bad old news is wearing thin in a lot of quarters.
BRILLIANTLY stated, Alexandra. They’ve been so clever about hiding their true nature that I was absolutely CLUELESS that this, this, this terrifying contagion of hate and revenge was roiling under the surface. So well described …. Ugh.
Alexandra, I believe they were boxed after World War Two, by Dwight Eisenhower and a broad consensus. But what created that consensus? Was it backlash to the extremism of the war? Could backlash to Trump, January 6, and an extreme SCOTUS create a new consensus?
That's true, Nancy, and FDR (and Eleanor, and Frances Perkins, and the team) also had a lot to do with it, presenting a positive and humanitarian alternative in a really dire time.
These people are the same people H.L. Menken described 99 years ago during another period of social insanity, "The Scopes Monkey Trial": "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American."
Or to quote the courageous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,who was executed in Germany during WWII, “Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.”
I've been thinking a lot about Bonhoeffer recently. He could have stayed at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he studied when the war broke out, but he went back to Germany because he thought he could influence the Lutheran Church, which never put up significant resistance to Hitler.
Thank you for quoting Bonhoeffer. I only know the “...they came for me...” quote. Having been railing against stupidity since waking today, particularly delighted to add this.
This quote gave me goosebumps. Thank you Jerry Carbone. I wish you could somehow get this quote into the hands of my heroes in Congress, Jamie Raskin and/or Adam Schiff. Or Biden himself. It is beyond apropos in dealing with the far right all over this country but especially in Congress. Maybe Heather could pull some strings. . . .
This is chilling enough but seeing it in action, as we so often experience now, brings the force of it home. I'm not at all familiar with Bonhoeffer but this quote makes absolute sense to me in the context of reactions I experience when trying to reason with anyone who supports MAGAt ideology.
Good comment. Thanks for the Bonhoeffer quote. I c & pasted it to use somewhere later. I supposedly studied him in my college philosophy class a zillion years ago but I was far more interested in playing cards than going to class. Guess I should have stayed in class.
Speaking of stupid, perhaps the model for today's doctors who slice off the breasts and penises of teenagers should be the Nazi doctors who were hanged at Nuremberg.
I don't know how Republicans came with the rule of jungle to the Congress and get away with it easily.
Their partisanship is born out of superiority.
But, history can give us a hint of their modern behaviour.
Currently, Republicans continue to move to the far right more than Democrats to the left wing. As a per the Pew Research Center, when the 92nd (1971-1972) and the current Congress (117th) are compared, both parties are shifting further away from their ideological identity, but Republicans are worst hit by their political seismic movements. Statistically, House Democrats have shifted from 0.31 to 0.38 to imply that their shift is modest on average. However, House Republicans have moved from 0.25 to 0.51 and this represents the biggest increase towards a more conservative direction.
"As Democrats have grown more liberal over time and Republicans much more conservative, the “middle” – where moderate-to-liberal Republicans could sometimes find common ground with moderate-to-conservative Democrats on contentious issues – has vanished."
As we move forward, ideological overlap zone continues to decrease or has already been lost as occasioned by less liberal Democrats and less conservative Republicans getting out of touch with their caucases and voters in their respective party regions. As a result, most of them have perhaps retired, lost reelection, or shift to other parties. Thus, the middle ground of bipartisanship is so minimal to the extent that partisan polarisation is extreme. As obvious, Republicans will shoot down overwhelmingly abortion bills meant for military.
50 years ago, there were only 144 less conservative Republicans, but that number has shrink to the lowest level of not more than 20 based on how to they vote on must-have bills.
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It’s 18th century French mob radicalism, not “conservatism.” Please make the distinction. Conservatives conserve; Radicals destroy as the Republicans are doing.
"Since 2002, when Republican Rep. Constance Morella of Maryland was defeated for reelection and GOP Rep. Benjamin Gilman of New York retired, there’s been no overlap at all between the least liberal Democrats and the least conservative Republicans in the House. In the Senate, the end of overlap came in 2004, when Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia retired."
"The gaps between the least conservative Republicans and least liberal Democrats in both the House and Senate have widened – making it ever less likely that there’s any common ground to find. This is partly due to geographical and demographic shifts."
MAGA Republicans are simply the grandchildren of the KKK. Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland" about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the Midwest in the early 1920's is a must read to understand today's MAGAs. What motivates MAGA people? Race, religion, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and anti-LGBTQ sentiments. D.C. Hutchinson, the leader of the Indiana KKK said: " "I did not sell the Klan in Indiana on hatreds. I sold it on Americanism." In other words, white Protestant supremacy.
White supremacy is a mental disorder that motivates too many people. We’ve all been conditioned for more than 200 years to divide people according to skin color. Obama’s election was the “wake up” call for racists-that’s why they viciously came out of their box.
If we don’t face the truth about the way racism is destroying our democracy then we’ll all go over the cliff with these folks who want to gain and hold power to keep people down including women and LGBTQ folks. We’re living in perilous times.
Racists are frightened ignorant people. When they band together they are formidable without insight - the worst combination. If they weren't so dangerous, they would just be pathetic - people unable to see how they allow their own ignorance and fear to control themselves. I know there are many people who are trying to figure out how to shift this way of thinking (reactionary) in racists, since our very survival may depend on that. It may not be possible, so perhaps the only way forward for those of us who see the danger is to get out and work like heck to unseat their leadership. And then we might try to address the actual source of their fears.
Money is a factor, but it's more than that. Why did Evangelicals vote for Trump, a sinner if ever there was one? Google "The Anger Games, Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" In short, the Big Three are racism, misogyny and xenophobia.
This was worse than the Norfolk Southern train crash in East Palestine, Ohio.
So what is it to be KrazyTown or Disneyland? My representative Scott Perry, (R, 10th District of PA), is for the former. He's one of the KrazyTown leaders of the Freedom Caucus and a general in the Army National Guard. For him to use the word "righteous" is insanity. Unfortunately, in this district there are far too many MAGA people who vote him. This is where KrazyTown folks predominate.
Tosha, I don’t believe the voters for one minute understood or were prepared for what the generally GOP candidates might do or vote for under the influence of the MAGA leadership and Freedom Caucus. It is essential that they all be exposed as risking American lives and the mighty military that defend us. I remain hopeful these nuisance radical right wing “add ons” to an essential funding package will be defeated in the Senate and vetoed by President Biden. That Marjorie Taylor Greene cannot get off her right wing nutcase pulpit is literally making me crazy! She takes Twitter by storm, demeans Biden, she is McCarthy’s go to BFF, and now she is invited to participate in negotiations as a non-committee member? This is so APPALLING at every level. I am beginning to believe she is our worst enemy in the House. But how do we get her out of the sphere of influence?
One of the worst things that we can do is to underestimate their resolve. They are literally "True Believers." Stopping fanaticism isn't easy. Rational discourse doesn't work. Power at the polls itself may not even be enough.
It is because somewhere in their makeup they too are cowardly bigots. All the more need for the 2024 elections to produce strong Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress.
For Representative Scott Perry (R-PA), "righteous causes" are obviously more important than governing. One has to wonder what these folks in the Congress think that their constituents elected them to do. Surely some of them represent veterans or current members of the military, and when the emphasis is on righteous causes instead of proposing a bipartisan bill that will provide for the needs of members of the military and their families, it's unclear what their conception of their job is and whom they think they're helping.
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
- John Adams
Not that there are no responsible uses of power, but the will to subjugate is tyranny.
J L Graham, this John Adams quote describes Charles Koch, his donor network and others of the morbidly wealthy class. They throw the public a few bones like funding a museum or supporting a university. Those actions, while commendable in principle, are not a replacement for a fair system that allows the most number of people to prosper.
"Reaganomics" was a "U" turn back to the plutocratic "Gilded Age". if not feudalism, cloaked in a cloud of big lies. Those who would "rule the world" never give up.
Ultimately I think the seeming madness in current "GOP" rhetoric, and the roiling, dark, plutocratic undercurrents, is a product of narcissism run amok, pushing inconvenient "better angels" out of the nest, e.g. logical and evidence-based thinking, integrity, compassion, honor, justice, and "decency" for starters. A fanatical obsession with money, status, and power.
JL, there is a single word in what you have just written that should not be there: what we are seeing is NOT "seeming" madness. It is madness pure and simple. It is part of a wider epidemic of certifiable mass madness.
Enough to send a fleet of ambulances to Congress...
It is high time to identify psychotic behavior for what it is. In this instance, the same kind of phenomenon as swept across Italy when Mussolini proclaimed himself Duce, when Hitler proclaimed the Third Reich, when Putin sent armies hollowed out by endemic corruption at the top of the officer corps to die invading Ukraine.
They. Just. Don't. Care. They have made a farce out of governance. Their intention isn't to help people or advance our country's interest or security, whether here or abroad. Rather, it's to shove their malign, narrow, unpopular and misguided beliefs down our throats, damn the consequences. Tuberville has been carrying on this way for months in the Senate, delaying military promotions up to a new Marine Corps commandant. Now McCarthy has allowed the band of broken toys to disrupt defense funding, in their pursuit of an extreme right-wing cultural agenda across the spectrum; that's their only goal. And it is indefensible.
They have made a mockery of the Republican party and should be turned out in 2024.
I'm at the point where there's nothing too bad that can happen to any of them. Just Make America Great Again with their permanent departures, however that happens.
As Oscar Wilde said, "Some spread joy wherever they go, some whenever they go."
Their permanent departures is the best thing i have heard in long time. I personally would not care how it happens just long as they are gone. Good riddance to those despicable scumbags.
I agree with both you and Oscar Wilde. One of the things I most resent is the way every bit of news about the actions of the extreme right (and I include speech as an action) activates my reaction that something bad enough to knock them out of power would be a welcome development. I don’t like the feeling of wishing something bad on someone, but they’ve earned it. Preferably something like a heart attack — we don’t need any martyrs
Great comment, i would like to see that sorry piece of crap Kevin McCarthy removed and thrown out of Congress. He is a wimp and a coward and a low life SOB. These fascists have made a mockery of Congress. And these insane and deluded people that vote them in office are just as bad as they are. My disgust and anger toward these scumbags is off the charts right now. I am totally fed up with their crazy clown show. Tuberville is the most ignorant clown of them all.
I know quite a few people that have moved to Canada, and all of them are really glad they did. It's not perfect there, they tell me it's a huge relief living there not having to be concerned about the direction the United States is headed. They are no longer concerned about the numerous school shootings when they send their children and grandchildren to school in Canada. Prescription medications are much cheaper in Canada. Also, the work environment is much better too.. I have my personal list of things i like about Canada very much too. If the United States becomes a Fascist, dictatorship, our basic freedoms will be a thing of the past, and i for one am not going to put up with that, they are not going to force their BS Christian Nationalism crap on me. They are not going to tell me what i can and can't do. I have taken the first step already by passing the Canadian citizenship test. There is still much more to do just in case those terrorist Fascist Rethuglicans rig and cheat and suppress voting to win elections in 2024. The Rethug fascists are greedy, corrupt, and evil to the core.
Your sister is right, i was thinking the same thing. When i was young i often think about the way it used to be here in America. Those times seemed so much better than now. If someone had told me that Fascism is trying to take hold here back then, i would have laughed about it and told them they were nuts for even thinking about that kind of thing in America. Look what's happening now. If the Fascist GQP isn't dealt with, it really could happen now.
It’s possible clowns like Scott Perry, a retired brigadier general, is representing the people that put him in office. People in Central PA generally vote R because they always have. They don’t know anything about who they’re voting for other than that the candidate is an R...good enough and the D candidate put up against Perry in 2020 was a joke. These things coupled with PA’s stupid party line primary system fosters
In that case, it might be worth while for a Democrat to pose as a Republican next election. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Join the clown car. Have a laugh on the traitors.
Agreed! In PA, if you want to participate in the primaries, you have to be registered as an R or D. As an independent you have no voice in who ends up on the November ballot. Doesn’t seem quite right to me.
These MAGA Republicans always have a bad excuse. I just retired from the USAF. In my experience with them, they fall for the the lies (see Big Lie, 6 JAN, Trump lies) and false patriotism that Republicans & GOP misinformation outlets lie to them about. It's delusional...and you can't reason with Delusion. They can't critically think & refuse to read/listen to credible news sources so they're in a MAGA loop that they refuse to get out of.
Righteous causes are non negotiable, hasn’t the church always said so. Pragmatism used to hold sway, no more. Combine the power/greed/righteous causes and they see no downside.
"This year’s budget is $886 billion as the U.S. modernizes the military to compete with new threats such as the rise of China, and it provides a 5.2% increase in pay for military personnel." So will their constituents only see it provides for a 5.2% increase in pay?
Does any of you know which elected officials are on China's payroll? It seems to me that, barring raw stupidity, a good portion of the republican party is playing chinese checkers.
ah, but still, no cheating. I dimly recall playing that game long ago. Then there is the Japanese game of Go. Deceptively simple in appearance; very hard to fully master.
Scott Perry should be in jail for his roles in the treasonous failed insurrection of 2020/21. DOJ is allowing these criminals power over us all by not acting with appropriate speed.
Congresspersons who actively engaged in the attempted coup -- Perry etc -- need to be shut down and kicked out of office. Instead, they are sanctimoniously imposing their bigotry on every aspect of our lives.
Scott Perry is a zealot. Unfortunately, his brand appeals to some voters in PA.District 10, (formerly District 4) so he retains his seat in the US House of Representatives. Perry likes to drape himself in the cloak of patriotism and "godliness" but the fact is he is neither a patriot nor a person of God. He is a fanatical weasel hell bent on creating our country in his own image, and he is not above attacking democratic norms or national security to do it. He serves the interests of those constituents whose belief systems align with his and the rest be damned. Literally in Perry's mind.
Hello, Richard. My condolences for living in PA. District 10. I live in PA.District 16, represented ( I use the term loosely) by the odious Mike Kelly who is cut from the same cloth as Scott Perry. They're the dynamic duo of false conspiracy theories, fake electors, and a failed insurrection. In my opinion, those who continue to support them do so partly because they're low information voters but also because they're fans. They like what Perry and Kelly are selling. Facts mean nothing and fear and hate mongering mean everything. Ultimately, Perry and Kelly won't succeed but they are willing to burn it all down while trying.
Thanks, Kamili, My condolences also to you for having Kelly as the so-called rep. in District 16. The folks in our two districts obviously must burn up the airways of Fox radio and TV. I this a precursor to what George Orwell wrote in his great book "1984." Let's hope to hell not. Have a good day!
Thank you, Richard. Some folks in our districts support Perry and Kelly but there are others who do not. They are kindred spirits and I'm happy we've connected here.
Joan: We here in Michigan's 1st District have another excellent Democratic candidate to oust oil man U.S. Rep.Jack Bergman! Callie Barr could beat him! Her husband is a vet, great campaign video of their story:
I flagged that reference to “righteous causes” also. So often people who believe they are tasked by God to do things are unable to see any other way but theirs. It does not matter to these people what the majority of their constituents think—their beliefs must triumph for God. Interestingly, my definition of a leader is “someone who takes people where they need to go.” Unfortunately, these people are taking things in the wrong direction.
That's it in a nutshell (pun intended): "One has to wonder what these folks in the Congress think their constituents elected them to do." Period.......
It’s not so much “what their constituents elected them to do”, as “What their big money donors EXPECT them to do.” Blow up the government. It helps business to get away with not only murder, but destroying the planet.
Don't get your hopes up. Every day, all day, Fox is pounding on Biden's age, Biden's "communist" agenda, Hunter Biden's long list of crimes (never mind that he was just trying to operate at 1/10 of Trump's level of corruption)....
Even the NY Times recently had an editorial that Biden is too old to run and should step aside.
Actually, I also think he should have responsibly groomed someone to take his place but, hey, Ginsberg's ego killed the Supreme Court too. I guess maybe he tried with Kamala Harris, and, honestly, she is well spoken, but, for reasons I don't fully get, is widely unpopular.
So, I really don't think there will be any crushing defeats in an America where 73 million people voted for Trump in the last election. More votes, as he points out constantly, than any sitting President in history. (I don't actually know if that is true, but, his followers believe it).
I respectfully disagree. I had my "optimistic coffee" today. I think that the outrages of Tuberville, this defense budget vote and especially the Dobbs deal will be part of a large package that moves the pendulum in the correct direction. My wife reminds me of the pendulum and that everything returns to the "mean" eventually. She's wicked smart.
I think the vast majority of Americans are going to vote to return to sanity. I know I keep repeating this, but it's my mental life line. About 45% of the eligible voters in 2024 will be Gen Y or Gen Z. They overwhelmingly support diversity. They are not religious. Women's rights are a given for them. They are fond of truth and are repelled by stupidity.
If we all get just one or two people who don't normally vote to the voting booth, victory is ours. (I drink Trader Joe's organic medium strength coffee)
If the economy is strong, Trump faces more criminal charges, and no GOP candidate emerges and catches fire, Biden's age shouldn't be a big factor. The Republicans are facing a Blue Wave based on their policies and behavior in general. Trump won't come close to his previous vote totals.
My biggest concern is a third-party candidate of candidates pulling votes that Biden would normally receive. Such candidates cemented Trump's victory in 2016.
I honestly think that Trump's victory in 2016 was because of the very weak candidate, Hillary Clinton, that the Democrats put forward.
As my Republican brother-in-law note: If the Democrats had run the dogcatcher from any town in America against Trump, the dogcatcher would have won, but, no, they ran one of the most unpopular figures in modern American history on their ticket.
Hillary was just profoundly unpopular and for some good reasons honestly.
I agree and disagree. She ran a very poor campaign, especially for winning the Electoral College. For example, she never visited Wisconsin and essentially blew things in Michigan. Many other problems, too. But the media, with a major last-minute assist from James Comey, inflated the email issue — an issue that ultimately was triggered by her bad judgment. The GOP in Congress also unfairly skewered her over Benghazi.
I question that she was "one of the most unpopular figures in modern American history" on the Democratic ticket. She won 2.9 million more votes than Trump and 48.2% of the popular vote.
"She won 2.9 million more votes than Trump and 48.2% of the popular vote."
Michael, yes, but, many of those votes were like mine: After wiping the stench of her husband off of the ballot, with a shaky hand, we went ahead and filled in the little circle next to her name without enthusiasm, gusto and, in my case, with trepidation.
After all, it was her judgement that started the war in Syria which ultimately has burdened the western world with a giant crush of refugees from that area. As Obama once said: Arming Syria was his worst foreign policy mistake.
I am a Democrat now. But, it was all I could do to vote for Hillary Michael. I almost just did not vote. Lots of folks felt like this and enough of them did NOT vote that Trump won.
That and, as a society, raising the bar quite a bit, for those we entrust our collective power to shape our own destiny, as well as future for our own posterity.
Yet I agree with Joe. The reason is that like all fanatics working to destroy the good, these people are being lied to. But at the end of the day, they are still Americans. As madding as that reality is.
It is really upsetting that people so evil exist on this planet and call themselves Americans. The Republican extremists are what I refer to as Bad Americans. We must hope that our politicians are able to hammer out something that is more healthy for our nation and its people. Why are there so many female Republicans who seem to hate women? Is this self-loathing? Or just hatred of poor people? Whatever it is, it is sick, and degrades us all.
Linda, it is incomprehensible and yet explainable, I think — by toxic religion. A few of them don't believe and are power mad (like Thatcher was) but patriarchal fundamentalism is the main problem.
It is eerie that so many famous dystopian novels seem to reflect our times. Perhaps they always have and we were less aware of it. The writers seem increasingly brilliant to me to portray our society. I am thinking 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and The Handmaids Tale particularly. The concept of Doublespeak becomes clearer and clearer. I have always had a sense of the sacrifices that people before me made so that I could have opportunities. I could not reject the promise of those sacrifices to live in utter subservience to a man, nor raise my daughter to believe in this either. The destruction of our education system is shocking to me. Democracies realize that democracy is supported by a well educated population, and yet, we have a whole contingent who would have the children of our military raised in ignorance. I have a former colleague who just took a job teaching with the DOD in Germany. They will live off base and send their children to German schools, so that they can learn German and go to University for free. They have 4 children under 6, and they know they will not be able to afford to send them to university in the states. But, there is another sort of "affording" that they consider too, which is that our education is not going in the direction it should be as these evil politicians get ahold of it. I am thinking of how DeSatan is defining himself as a modern day Hitler, or Stalin. These are not people to be emulating, but clearly he and his ilk think they are. That is quite frightening.
Linda, yes, those three novels especially are chillingly perfect for the times. But you know, film and TV and novels don't have to be so overt and complex to be effective in fighting the creep of fascism. I write, and I teach writing, and I'm always struck by how effectively anti-authoritarian classic films like Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Wizard of Oz (yes, really!) are.
And you can call me crazy, but I am wildly enthusiastic about the Barbie movie. It's going to be huge, and you couldn't ask for a more "woke" pop film – Greta Gerwig and most of her cast are ardent feminists, it is going to bathe little girls in girl power, it's diverse, and it is joyfully gay. These things matter. They change minds. I'm actually shocked that DeFascist hasn't banned it in Florida yet, because it is democracy in action. Film and TV was a huge factor in moving gay rights forward. It still is.
Btw, we live in Scotland - when it came time to choose between permanent residence in California or here, there was no question. I won't live in a country where women don't have bodily autonomy, and the kids will have the free university every child deserves.
Funny that Ireland and Scotland have abortion rights given their fanatical Catholic past is it not? I guess all those babies buried in unmarked graves at the orphanages there impacted folks.
Well, Scotland has been Protestant since 1560 - the Catholic Church was actually outlawed at the end of the Scottish Reformation. But the whole country is much more secular now and women in both countries have fought hard for the basic right to reproductive freedom.
My daughter was 3 when she was exposed to the Wizard of Oz at a friend's house. When I came to get her, the mom took me aside and warned me that she had read a children's version. My daughter was not satisfied with that version and made her dad and her sitter read it to her over and over, until my husband found a Librivox version to record for her.
This is how we know that Dorothy did not really wear Ruby Slippers, but Silver ones, even though we have the book and I had read it. Somehow the movie version takes over though. I totally see what you mean, that these populist messages are helpful. Florida is totally turned into China, Russia and North Korea all rolled into one. They have way too many immigrants from fascist countries to be allowing that. Or, does it feel comfortable. Fascism with capitalist creature comforts, and no restrictions on environmental destruction. Doesn't Olivia Butler take on environmental issues in her books? My nephew who is in grad school, and his friends call Ron DeSantis, DeSatan, and it has stuck in our household. Right on for living in Scotland.
I wouldn't mind living in Scotland, If these Fascists cheat and win in 2024 i may go there, either there or Nova Scotia Canada. I won't live under a Fascist type of government.
A combination of both I think, Linda. I worked for decades in Women's Health Care. Those in denial of their part in their predicament - consensual sex - often adulterous, we're always "Christian". They demanded their abortions and got them but would always cast blame on the 'other' women, somehow beneath them, that long before ( and still ) demanded their bodily autonomy. I've never been able to make sense of the hypocrisy. It angered me but broke my heart even more. It still does.
" We must hope that our politicians are able to hammer out something that is more healthy for our nation..."
Indeed, but also, to retain democracy, we the public need to guide our politicians, set their agenda, and choose them wisely. We also need to come down hard on corruption. I'd call that effort truly "righteous", but I don't like the word.
You are right, I am afraid. Silly me. Rude awakening. My 22 yr old daughter, whose high school es included all sorts of famine, genocide etc classes views this country more harshly than I and i can no longer represent that we have liberties and freedoms unlike any other. My Dad, who passed in Nov 2021 at 90 a true liberal always said the “pendulum swings back”.
Reading through this letter, I had difficulty breathing, but at least we can take comfort from this, from Politico:
“I take solace in the fact that this is not going to become law and we have an opportunity to correct it,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, of the path forward. “But it’s really very disturbing how divisive all this has become, the degree to which the Republican majority wants to attack diversity. Bottom line. Attack trans people. Attack women. Attack people of color.”
More from the article: "Once both the House and Senate pass their versions of the bill, lawmakers will work out a compromise version of the two. It’s widely expected that most of the controversial provisions will be watered down to make it more palatable for the Democratic-controlled Senate."
'We know that this bill is going nowhere in the Senate because it is disgusting and outrageous,” Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said Friday on CNN. 'So we will have a chance to work with the Senate and bring a national security bill back that we can support'.”
Divide and conquer. Is this really the way we would choose to do with our "one wild and precocious" lives? What if we had agreed that "unalienable rights" are for all? Like literally all.
AGAIN ! The dEVILS TIME ! is REAL SHORT !! JESUS SAYS ; LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, as THYSELF !! GODS Son, is NOT Apparent, in the White Nationalist "Religious" AGENDA !
This is indeed (another) sad day for America. It seems that the Republicans have lost the “script”. Instead of believing that they are elected to serve the good of the country, they believe they are elected to do everything in their power to get re-elected. I heard a comment made by a House Republican to Tommy Tuberville that “we’ve got your back”, referring to Tuberville’s holding military appointments hostage. They are not thinking about about national defense, they are thinking about sticking it to the libs.
They are thinking about achieving total domination and "freedom" from accountability. It has a long and infamous role in human history, embodying the "Mr. Hyde" proclivities of human nature.
Thanks Dr. Richardson. There is an expression in economic theory that bad money drives out good. We have a lot of bad money in Washington, it will require a huge effort to get it out of the system. The battle has only begun.
Following the money isn’t as easy as it used to be. Dark money has flooded and further corrupted our political system. Groups like Moms for Liberty--a tax-exempt “educational” enterprise--can legally hide the identities of their contributors. PACs with patriotic-sounding names are buying seats in ridiculously gerrymandered districts. But the biggest threat, IMO, is the explosion of social media and the largely unedited or outright false “news” the public at large now relies on for information. Add emerging AI technology and it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate between what is true and what is false. The arcane Electoral College system, a packed, vote-splitting Republican field, and a mass of grievance-driven MAGA supporters have Trump in a good position to win the Republican nomination. Even if Democrats, Independents, and more traditional Republicans band together to defeat him in the general election, he will not accept defeat, and Jan. 6 will look like a quaint dress rehearsal.
He won’t accept defeat but I doubt that he will be anymore successful than on J6. He has lost the element of a surprise, direct attack, on the system. Many will not be eager to join the insurrectionists, in jail or in court right now. We will be treated to another horror show, in some fashion, nonetheless .
Too many of us let this happen, both by voting for con-men like Reagan, and not saying a strong enough collective "NO" to bullies. Nevertheless, charting the general flow of money to the degree it is discoverable reveals screaming conflicts of interest as with Clarence Thomas, and overall trends, such as the decline in the portion of middle class, and the portion of the entire combined assets of our entire society increasingly captured by a few individuals. There are mentions of this in the wind, but it has yet to become a central, cultural issue.
Some of that money is buying adds against TFG, this time. Some of the bad money is personified by Congressional reps. and senators, they also drive out the good ones.
"the main culprit, the cancer on the body politic, is money: Money, money, money"
Fmr. Sen. Fritz Hollings
Somehow that has not been a popular political message, though I think there is wide grudging agreement with it. The raps seems to be, so far as I have noticed, is that the scale of error needed to alter the antidemocratic influence of something that pervasive must be set aside to address more immanent crises; but the problem is that the corrupting influence of unregulated money applied to altering political outcomes is either the cause or a component of some many in-progress fires we are called to put out. Yes, we need to run to the fires, but also go after the arsonists, or we will never prevail. The human body constantly sends fighters to sites of corruption to vanquish infection; a process that is needed as long as we live; but sepsis, which occurs if corruption grows beyond our ability to arrest it, is easily fatal.
How many honorable national ideals, how many groups and individuals are injured by money allowed to be applied to antidemocratic, sociopathic ends? How can we not afford to address it? I take the seemingly reasonable Biblical condemnation of the "love of money" as an obsession with accumulating money (and power) that throws everything and anything else under the bus; and do we not see current examples?
If you decide that you want to run for congress and you approach party leaders with your proposed candidacy, the first thing they ask is do you have a list of people , that you can ask for campaign contributions and can you raise half a million dollars in one month? If your answer is no, then you are told that the party does not consider you a viable candidate. The job only pays $ 176k and you generally need $2 million to run.
Having spent time on fishing vessels on the Oregon coast, Ally, one cannot put the weight of one’s catch above empty bilges. The vessel will capsize when the load weight becomes critical. The idiots have loaded too much too fast and their catch is now what will sink them. Except for the drowning and freezing part it is over.
One person's righteousness is another person's version of evil. In my mind, Perry, Greene and Tuberville are the very essence and distillation of evil. If I believed in a god or a devil, I would say they were sent here to "test us". But I think it is simpler than that. They are just arrogant ambitious scum with no idea of the principles this nation was founded on.
Which is why the founders established a separation of church and state. Oh my. Do I sound like an "originalist"?
Heather, thank you for including fiery quotes from Representatives Sherill, Houlahan, and Casten. The acquiescence from GOP Representatives is especially notable and shameful. Their loyalty to power and party again triumphs over duty to country and military.
58,500 young men died trying to maintain the colonial yoke on Vietnam while Ho Chi Minh tried to throw off the yoke of European colonialism (French).
58,500 died for the wrong reasons. The Vietnamese who died fighting our boys died for their freedom (and that is also why they won, they were motivated).
A tragedy for sure. It was also a crime against humanity.
If we had listened to Ho Chi Minh instead of McNamara, Vietnam could have been an ally in containing China. And, we learned later that our own Secretary of Defense privately doubted our ability to win. 58,500 Americans dead for nothing - except for the Military Industrial Complex to get richer.
And in classic arrogant American fashion, we don't talk about what we DID TO THEM.
"In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died." Jun 16, 2023
It was easier for me Bill, Mike. The war I mean. It really wasn’t a complicated thing. I made the Ho Che Minh Trail my home. I sat among the 50000 plus in the central highlands. I went with the quarter million South Vietnamese as they were slaughtered. I carried men women and children to safety as they were being slaughtered by the invading Chinese Russian and North Vietnamese soldiers. You can paint us any stripe you want but we died in a grace together, defending not colonialism but human dignity. I hold the hands we were unable to save then still today.
My condemnation of the war is not a condemnation of the men and women who served with honor and respect. If we as a nation don't have a military that follows orders from civilians, we won't have a nation for long.
My anger is assigned to the top level politicians and gangster oligarchs who pushed us into the war. All those deaths. All those horrors. And now we buy their T-Shirts and iPhones.
As a mother of a gay man and a daughter of a man who landed on Omaha Beach on D-day and survived to meet my mother, this particular essay is more troubling than usual not so much about the crazies or McCarthy but about the so called moderate Republicans who are too cowardly to stand up for our armed forces. I think there is a level of corruption existing in Congress that our founding fathers didn’t foresee. Instead of standing up for the principles deeply embedded in the US history, these people who appear to be moderates—are actually harming our government because their primary objective is keeping their jobs and not rocking the Republican boat. Biden’s optimism is comforting but these so called American leaders are very bad news.
This extremist right wing values packing into one of the most important legislative bills is quite simply unacceptable.
Every single American needs to be made aware of this dangerous voting agenda and be confronted with the reality of just how genuinely damaging this vote is to our common National Security and will become if the Republican extremism is allowed to continue.
Supporters of the Republican Party must be confronted with a choice; either keep their values out of National Security or else they risk losing their securities and the freedoms that are truly dependent upon a nonpartisan National Defense Authorization Bill.
As for Democratic voters throughout the country this cowardly agenda as seen in the vote for conservative values over and above National Security should be a clarion call wake up alert that should galvanize everyone of them into political action activism that is fully focused on dismantling, dismissing, and disintegrating the entire Republican Party establishment while treating any and all of its conservative supporters as if they are a deadly unwelcome disease poisoning the American body and soul of our democratic society.
These republicans are off the rails. I will never understand the people that vote to put these cowardly bigots in office.
Tosha, I don't understand them either. But I have to face the facts - they've been there since legal enslavement, they never went away, and they represent a huge number of Americans. Not as many as they pretend to, but still, horrifyingly huge. So I'm realizing that instead of trying to understand them it might be more productive to unpack and understand how for a few decades this country was able to shame the worst of them into containing their outright bigotry, to make it unacceptable in public office. Because Fox and the Christofascists and tfg dissolved those restraints so quickly I don't even recognize the country anymore.
How did we manage to box them, and how can we put them back in that box?
I’m not too sure re boxing the worst of the already terrible can happen; at least not for a few more voting cycles of Dems and indies sending the MAGAT’s back to the Hell they all came from and subsequently put us through.
We didn’t get here overnight so we won’t climb out of it fast either. I do believe we’ve all been given sufficient time to realize that the system of government that most of us will require constant work, involvement and giving enough of a damn about so that if given another chance to make things right, we do just that. We must resolve to learn about all of our history and strive to do better for everyone. We will then deserve the Perfect Union that was once envisioned so long ago.
SPW, I agree with every word you just wrote, but I have to wonder if enough good people have enough energy left to fight that fight. That's got to be a huge part of the evil master plan, of course - make just getting through the day so hard for ordinary people that they don't have time to fight the Christofascist takeover.
The energy to go after this "backwards looking plan" is a real problem. I remember the days before retirement with work and raising a family I didn't have much time to keep on top the news or anything else but day to day living. We old farts have got to keep working to get the message through. It is our job Now.
Amen, Dave🙏🏽👍🏽
As Jessica Craven says, “Chop wood, Carry water.” This is our work til our last breath. To paraphrase the Torah, “ we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to abandon it.”
Why does anyone think we reached the “Perfect Union” and our work was done? Because we elected a Black president?There is still grinding poverty in this country, still people who don’t have enough to eat, still predatory capitalism, still sick people who need medical care they cannot afford, still people living paycheck-to-paycheck! There has always been evil in the world; I dare say there always will be.
Those of us who are retired and can contribute, we have no time to be depressed, stay in bed with the covers over our heads. We have important work to do. We all do what we can.
Chop wood, Carry Water!
We are the most backward of the major industrialized western nations, as you, Paula Mandell, have so eloquently stated.
We started to come out of it under FDR, and, really, we were doing pretty well. And then RFK was assassinated. That was followed by Nixon stealing the 1968 election. And then Reagan stole the 1980 election, and among other things killed the Fairness Doctrine, and undercut unions. And then SCOTUS stole the 2000 election for Bush2, who got us into wars for the sake of his weak sense of manhood... And a multiplicity of bad actors stole the 2016 election...
Biden has done amazing things. Lets hope we can keep the momentum going!
I think rising tempereatures and floods will send a message to MAGATs that fox isn't telling them everything that's going on.
Well, one would hope. However, there are people who think what is happening was foretold in Revelation in the Bible. FOX News pales in comparison to the word of God. Of course, many of these same folks have been sitting in their lawn chairs waiting to be air lifted to Heaven, so there's that to consider.
We can only hope!
I just re-read Dr. Heather’s second paragraph which talks to “loading the bill with a wish list from the far right.” As horrible as this is, it is nothing new. The term EARMARKS applies here. An earmark is a congressional directive that funds should be spent on a specific project. Basically, it’s a way for legislators to get funding for pet projects. Going back in my time machine, I recall the SAFETEA-LU legislation for funding the interstate highways, etc. The acronym stands for Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users. It was introduced by Don Young (R-AK) in February 2005 and passed in March. Scandals surround this legislation. Don Young was crazy about his wife LU. So initially, the LU at the tail end was to honor his wife. One of the infamous earmarks was THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE in Alaska to connect sparsely populated regions at tremendous cost – good example of Pork Barrel Politics. Then there is the case of Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives (2006). He championed for the construction of a $207 Million earmark for the Prairie Parkway in his Illinois District which would benefit a land investment that Hastert and his wife made. Their net worth went from $300,000 to $6.2 Million. His resignation was called for but he had support from President Bush.
This isn't earmarks. This is hatred of the Other.
These crazies are way worse than the pork barrel hogs
Yes, Jeri they are because the former may to out to be in some cases a form of corruption while this is an attempt to undermine democracy that applies to everyone and force their views on abortion on everyone as well. What about the Rs in swing districts. This will surely count against them.
Earmarks (aka pork) is generally a project or organization in a particular legislative district, designed to win votes for that legislator. This is something entirely different, designed to force a policy on the entire Nation.
Despite the anecdotal scandals like the Bridge to Nowhere, earmarks turned out to be a very effective way of keeping major infrastructure modernized throughout the country, so in recent years, they have been reintroduced.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/earmarks-are-back-and-americans-should-be-glad/
Thank you for sharing this explanation about Earmarks. In the case of this legislation it seems that the repubs aren’t building bridges, but tearing down social structure that is changing. Fear and a host of isms are parts of the repub reasoning.
Grrrrrrrr
Agreed. Too tired, too ill-informed, too discouraged by SCOTUS decisions, lacking paid vacations, overwhelmed by worry about their and their children’s futures, etc., etc. Meanwhile, remembering WWII and the efforts we as children made as the fear our parents had seeped down to us, a fear that DeSantis is trying to stir about learning our history so that we will look to him if we don’t look to Trump to “save” US. This morning I woke to an interview about a book on climate change (6:15 MSNBC, weekly rerun of segments of “Morning Joe”). If anyone knows this book, which reports why President Carter had solar panels put on the White House, please post it and alert me. It’s the kind of history all of us need to spur us to action, no matter how turned off we may be.
Wishing for everyone who is reading this that you are safe in the current disasters.
It is hot here in the Willamette Valley today, but not like other places because the humidity is absent. Of course, that means wildfires can easily get going and spread with wind. We are also under a wildfire alert. This week my husband and I took a drive up the Santiam Canyon east of Salem which had a terrible wildfire in 2020, making our sky red and filled with ash here in Salem. We hadn't been up there since then. It is our old hiking area where we spent many a time in the Mt. Jefferson wilderness. We went as far as Detroit and back. When we got there, the place still smelled strongly of wood smoke and the mountains all around were covered with dead trees. Landmarks had disappeared and the restaurant where we did many pre or post hike meals is only the sign. We saw lots of new construction as people try to get their lives back together. The people affected by the fires recently won a large suit against the electric company which failed to shut off the power. The utility offered some pretty weak tea excuses. It will be a long time before this area recovers although we did see lots of new construction. This will be the case in any area now which has suffered destruction. The heat, however, is another story. Saw an article in The Atlantic about when the Southwest will become unlivable. I would say we are well on our way. So what do we have from the party of death.....lots of stirring of the culture wars pot and attempts to undermine, at least here in Oregon, every attempt to further doing something about climate change.
Thank you for this account. Perhaps it will push more of HCR’s readers to get involved. Anyone who can still write can write postcards to get out the vote. If you don’t have a local Indivisible chapter, you can find one online that will lead you to postcards and voter lists (Democrats, of course, although the organization was begun by congressional staffers in November 2016).
We also live in the Willamette Valley near Portland, and I just drove back from Bend down Highway 22 back to Salem. We have vivid memories of the Labor Day 2020 fires and the aftermath. Besides the hills covered with dead trees, what also struck me was the evidence that the MAGA cult is still alive and well in the Santiam Canyon. Trump 2024 flags and the like. What is it going to take to pierce the bubble of the alternative reality that these people live in?
Virginia, the book is called “The Heat Will Kill You First,” by Jeff Goodell.
Terrifying. The first paragraph made me nauseous.
I want to add in this context: have you any idea how many books are being banned? The MoveOn book mobile came to my neighborhood this week so I went to see it. First book I saw was George Takei’s on being part of the Japanese internment in 1942; I got Malala’s “Magic Pencil” for a small friend; saw “To Kill a Mockingbird” and had to leave before learning more. Can we survive this idiocy?
Jeff, thank you very much. When I learned from the interview about Carter’s asking the Academy of Science to give him “the word,” I immediately thought of the 15 minutes Congress “gave” James Hansen in 1988, the fight Jon Tester (the only “real” farmer that I know of in Congress is having in Montana, Al Gore’s 1980 (?) book which I read in 1999 (he was another farmer in summer when he wasn’t in DC with his farmer father, Senator Al Gore, Sr.) and knew I have to read and get the book to as many as possible before it gets banned.
SLWeston, thank you for ID’ing this book. And Virginia, thanks for elevating the “Morning Joe” interview & asking about the title of this book. Adding it to my list of What To Read.
Just ordered it....thank you for the suggestion. We have invested in a solar farm, have a tesla (which many don't agree with, but gotta start somewhere), have a garden, buy organic as much as possible, vegetarian as much as possible, recycle, yada yada. All this is an investment, of course, and we are lucky enough to be able to invest in the future. If we don't come together as a people of the planet, we will be but a memory for the life in the forest that goes on after us.
This book is the lead review in the NYT book review section today.
Ironically, we behave as though it is 70/30 Fascism over decent Americans, when the reality is the reverse.
There is no denying the sledgehammer of money in the tens of billions and how it overwhelms the senses to the point of now making Orwell dystopia real.
The genuine tragedy is that despite our genuine majority, and despite voter suppression, we can still win handily and send these cockroaches back under the rocks from which they crawled.
All we have to do is get off our collective asses and VOTE! and VOTE repeatedly.
This is the only peaceful franchise we have left.
OOPS! when I stated repeatedly ? I meant , turn our for each and every election. NOT cast more than one vote in a given one🤣. I’ll leave that BS fantasy to Fascist Republicans
Wasn’t it Stalin who said. It matters not who votes, it matters who counts the votes. Repubs know this, and, boy, have they been busy. Get on it Jack Smith
I’ve heard this quote attributed to Stalin before, but I think it is false. Stalin could have cared less about voting or elections.
Sounds more like what a Tammany Hall or Chicago precinct boss might say.
Getting out to vote is almost impossible for many thousands/millions of Americans in red states or half and half states. Why can't the Fed's step in or it is the supremes who are in control of this country? Obviously the answer is yes. Maybe that is where we should all start
I am certain part of the plan is keeping us too broke and too busy to care.
I agree. Add to that, too depressed and deflated. As horrific as today's letter is, I am thankful that we have Heather to keep us apprised of "the good, the bad, and the ugly."Non-violent acts of resistance are needed now more than ever. We know the enemy is bad and ugly and must deal with them daily accordingly.
This is my prayer: When it comes to giving up on democracy, we all have fight left no matter what our age. This is NOT happening! Even if it takes a long game. True democracy is too precious an ideal for thinking people just to roll over!
To really suck the life and hope outta this July morning: The climate crisis is quickly zapping the energy and fight and future out of all sides of this battle.
No matter how emotionally fatigued we all are, we MUST fight on! It is our only hope.
Thanks, Colette. One day at a time.
Just as we have passed the “tipping point” on climate change and damage to the planet can only be mitigated to some degree, I fear we have reached the “tipping point” of our republic. Awash in dark money, corrupted by gerrymandering, fueled by misinformation, disinformation, prejudice, and hate, our elections no longer hinge on ideas but on grievances. A clown car of vote-splintering Republican candidates, the arcane Electoral College, and a vast cadre of MAGA ideologues put Trump in a good position to win the nomination. Even if Democrats, Independents, and more traditional Republicans band to defeat him in the general election, Trump will never concede defeat, and January 6 will look like a quaint dress rehearsal. As Franklin supposedly said, we have a Republic, if we can keep it. Keeping it depends on honest, civil, full-throated debate on matters of interest to all Americans, not fact-free rants by self-centered, self-serving ideologues.
I’m seeing cracks in the wall of dumpty support. It helps.
Fox is getting b-slapped not only by corporations but the J6 marauders themselves who claim they wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for Fox. Whatever happened to the party of personal responsibility? Dude, that starts in your head.
Dumpty is terrified as the Smith investigation grows around him. His attorneys are finding no sympathy for his increasingly desperate legal briefs and I’m sure he’s starting to wonder if they’ll really incarcerate an elderly man.. well know he’s truly despairing when he pulls that one out.
One thing this rabid mob hates is a loser who can’t protect them. They’ll eat him alive.
Those thoughts give me hope the fever will break. Or at least the MAGAts will go back underground.
You've cheered me right up, Jen!
I hope you are right, but Trump’s popularity among his hardcore supporters grows with each indictment and conviction. Gutless Republican “leaders” either repeat his baseless persecution lies or mumble vague criticisms, off the record, of course. His well-armed, grievance-driven followers are, at best, unpredictable. Some are unstable. Some are white supremacists itching for conflict. Some are just happy about the chaos he creates because it helps their bottom line. We’re devolving into a nation with many of the hallmarks of the “shit-hole countries” Trump deplored: violence as a political tool; a popular media outlet that loyally mouths the leader’s lies; labeling other media as the enemy of the people; denial of election results; distrust of law enforcement agencies and the courts; divisions of class, race, and gender; widespread homelessness and crushing poverty amid outrageous wealth for a few. I’m not saying we’re finished, but there are signs of serious trouble ahead. And, oh yeah, the planet is burning.
Well there went my tiny bit of hope.
Here’s a counter:
Yes his witless sycophants become more crazed with every attack on Der Fuhrer. But remember they are only a minority percent of a minority oarty, and they are elderly themselves. Maybe they will forget to vote.
The Extreme Court is a disgrace, but I think the House may flip in the next election, and maybe…the rethugs will forget to vote.
But yes the planet is burning. The ocean temperatures are truly alarming; we got away with the CO2 greenhouse for decades because the oceans sucked up so much of it. When you consider how much energy it takes to increase the temp of water, and the planet is 70% water…I don’t think this can be turned back.
I feel immense grief for every child I see.
So I’d rather think about Eric Holders contention that sure, the federal penal system can handle a dumpty in prison.
Great vision, I’ll sign on
John Adams prediction is coming true. Our democracy can only fail through "self-suicide." The blood drops from our self-inflicted wrist slashing are increasing by the day.
Yes: “... our elections no longer hinge on ideas but on grievances.”
A concise summary of how I too see it.
SPW, beautiful ❤️. I'm ready to work "like the dickens" to stop the magat onslaught. Register Gen Z and all other voters and get them to the polls. I don't see any other way.
Thank you!
see my comment above yours. The problem began with Reagan's rescinding of the fairness doctrine
I was outraged when RR tore Jimmy Carter's solar panels off the White House roof... And when RR, the former president of SAG, fired all the striking air traffic controllers. Hypocrisy seems to be in R DNA.
Reagan was a truly loathsome person.
That certainly didn’t help but our problems began way before that. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. While that is a law of physics, the same tends to hold true in politics as well. As you probably know, there was a huge and to many, quite fearful, move to the Left in the middle of the Viet Nam war. There were violent protests, bombings and the killings of four Kent State students by a National Guard unit. In the wake of all that upheaval was Nixon’s resignation over Watergate and Ford’s pardon of him. The time was right for the Moral Majority to step in to soothe the “troubled beast” that was this country. They got behind Jimmy Carter but found that his honest faith would not align with theirs therefore the nasty bit of business between the Ayatollah of Iran and Reagan over the US hostages taken in Iranian revolution. James Earl Carter III was way too good for the direction this country was set to head. The Right had 12 years to put their plans into place and the technology was ready and waiting for them to weaponize early. Rush Limbaugh had softened up those who found him on the airwaves then along came Ailes. The rest is just generational(30 yrs)history and look at what all has happened in these last 30 years. Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it.
Well said, and the analogy between physics and politics is one of my favorites. I'm a handful of years younger than you (conceived in Truman, born in during Eisenhower's first summer) but I do remember almost all of what you're saying, although you sound to me like your knowledge on this is deeper than mine. If you're in or near the Boston area maybe we should have coffee, and if you're so inclined, you can find me at supernova1@aol.com. And if you want to subscribe to one more, try Robert Hubbell, who I find to be the most consistently and widely illuminating. (Joyce Vance is also superb, though her focus is narrower, and Hubbell often refers readers to her.)
I’m a leading edge Boomer; parents married on VJ Day and I came along exactly 9 months later. I vaguely remember comments about Truman or his daughter but really got into the “I Like Ike” slogan and thought the conventions made for good entertainment on the radio. All my family were typical ‘50s Republicans. I do remember how conflicted they were with the Kennedy/Nixon election. They hated Nixon(crook)AND Kennedy(Catholic). That was the one election I followed and was thrilled when Kennedy won. Thing is, down here in NC we believed that one never discussed politics or religion outside of immediate family. I couldn’t vote until I was 21, I voted split ticket usually and only declared a party when the board of elections said they needed a registrar in the main district of our town. Eye-opener, that! Those were the good old days of hand counted ballots too. After about 3 years of putting up with all sorts of BS, I got fired-for not being partisan enough. I guess since I was the republican registrar, I was supposed to have my finger on the Republican scale.
I moved back to my hometown after my separation, got a job, remarried(for 39 yrs)and since my husbands death last year I’ve just been trying to readjust to single and MUCH OLDER living.
TMI most likely but since you’re in Boston and I’m in NC, we’ll have to forego our coffee and let this be our conversation.
Well put, SPW. We must all work for the ideals of the Constitution. That means, besides being informed on the issues, working to get out the vote, and voting ourselves in every election especially the local ones where these wing nuts can spread their dreck into schools, etc.
Good comment, needs a little proofreading.
Don’t think it’s a typo, think it’s a play on words…. Maggot.
Alexandra: exactly! With 70 to 80 percent of American women insisting that they urgently want our laws to protect--not harm--pregnant women and their own individual choices as their own bodies with the advice of her doctor, yet yesterday virtually the entire Republican caucus in Congress--205 of them--gleefully voted NO!
If you are serving in our Armed Forces, we won’t even let you take medical leave to go to another state for an abortion! Disgraceful!Shame on each and every one of them forever!
And let's not forget the high rate of sexual assault against women in the military.
...which often is why abortions are needed! That is something that should be highlighted. Somehow, I doubt it was even mentioned in any discussions in Congress.
Exactly so, progwoman.
Very important column. It appears clear that the ultimate agenda of the former Republican Party, now the NAF ( New Authoritarian Fascist) party is to drive all decent sane patriotic American out of the military and saturate our armed forces with white supremacist Christian Nationalists. Very terrifying and ominous times.
And remember: “abortion care” includes treatment for miscarriage and ensuring a woman’s right to have more children.
And meanwhile, what's going to happen to the people who needed this help?
Is Viagra covered by the military health plan? If yes it tells you all you need to know.
Think that might be next on SCOTUS list of banning...? I’d lay bets
Somebody please help me understand, are there no republican women in the military who get raped and need to take time off to have an abortion? Aren't there any republican gays in the military? Isn't it about time that a revolt mushroomed within the armed forces? This "Christian" crusade is the most un-Christian concept imaginable--its extreme members have molded themselves into the repugnant Pharisees of the Bible. But I believe in karma. Let's see what happens when one of Ron DeSantis' kids announces that they are transgender....
DeSantis will force his kid to endure conversion therapy and disown them if that doesn’t work.
The cruelty knows no bounds....
Vote them out!
People used to be ashamed of such , now they just revel in it, Pandora’s Box flung wide open…
And that sums it up Jeri. Those Americans who love to hate are all over the streets, the news, the talk shows, talking about how hate is the way.
Every day, all day, on Fox, they spew it out and Americans absolutely LOVE to HATE.
There are 2 local FB forums here in a more conservative part of our notedly liberal state that feast on Fox. For some, Fox is now passé as they have moved farther to the right. The hate on these forums is so obvious it has been reduced to an echo chamber. ANY and ALL reasonable comments by even centrist folks will immediately trigger disgusting memes - Biden in diapers and clown shoes, grooming children - an on-going borderline harassment of a forum member who shared that for environmental reasons, she prefers to have her coffee in a recycled cup at the Dunkin’s drive through. The over-all ‘take away’ is that it is becoming very obvious that each of these small minds has fallen for the whole package - abortion. 2A rights. Free Speech. Climate change, LGBTQ issues. Public school curriculum. Definitions of “patriotism”….. And now, creeping in around the edges - criticism of Ukraine’s fight for their own democracy - (thereby celebrating Putin’s politics). They buy it all — no nuance, no restrictions - same phrasing used by each and every one of them. A lesson in the power of”free speech”!
If they hate democracy here why defend it in Ukraine?
They don't. They want to give Ukraine to Russia.
A lesson in the power of propaganda and political power!
Chilling.
A lesson in the power of propaganda. Fox metastasized long ago.
The "power of propaganda" was cleverly put in place by Roger Ailes. I read The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman when it first came out in 2014. It's all about how Fox News got to be the way it is. I was trying desperately to understand why all the people I kept encountering in Florida (I had just moved here) were so taken in by what they were seeing and hearing on Fox News. Repetition of images and words results in brainwashing big time! Facts don't matter. I encouraged Fox News watchers to read it, but none wanted to believe it once they opened the book. Not sure any of them got through it. It is a long book, but it's well written and referenced. It had the scoop on Bill O'Reilly way before he was ousted by Fox.
😘
See anything Christian about that. I parted company with the Pharisees years ago. Golden Rule does it for me.
I’m assuming that you live by the real Golden Rule; not “Do unto others before they do unto you”?
I guess so, even my magat relatives seem to like me...
Great comment Alexandra. You're right, what did we do right in the 60's and 70's? How did we become complacent, and how do we turn it around now?
Fay, I'm asking the question without knowing the answers, but I think one important answer is that there was a growing secularization—abandoning religion for spirituality and a morality based on doing what is right rather than what a patriarchal church tells you to do. It's no accident the Rs are weaponizing religion to crush that progress.
I agree, that is a good part of the problem. Those of us with some intelligence, do not want someone assuming authority and telling us how to think and act. While others still cling to the need for "daddy" telling them what to do while assuring them everything will be alright, just leave it to father.
The attack on public schools, denying facts, banning books that offer another view of the world, all lead to blind voters.
Blind, obedient voters.
Excellent point, my cogent friend!
Alexandra, excellent comment. Expresses my thoughts perfectly. Slavery is only possible if those who are enslaved are believed to be inferior sub humans. And I believe that is the basis of all the racists that exists today.
Harvey, yes. Direct line.
Great job isolating the central question! How did we place guardrails around the hate filled, misogynistic, bigotry? Can we do so again?
One of the strongest set of guardrails was the FCC fairness doctrine. Growing up in the 80s & 90s, I recall American’s disagreeing on all things political, as we do today, but we formed a consensus around basic facts. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, our network TV anchors were trusted by virtually all Americans. That trust gave us a shared set of facts as a spring board from which the public could make their opinions & debate topics & from which policy makers could form their decisions.
Slowly since 1987 when the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine, our guardrails have disappeared & cable news (mostly Fox) has polarized us, misinformed & radicalized many.
Tfg’s embrace of hate & bigotry ripped down the remaining guardrails, making some conflate cruelty & viciousness with masculinity. Men searching for validation of there manhood, and women, falling for the ruse, also came to believe that loud equates to proud & bullying equals bravery.
Social media, the religious right & exploiting a fear some white peoples held (many unbeknownst to themselves) or becoming a minority have also been significant agitators, influencing the climate & chaos we find ourselves in.
As for how to get those guardrails back, the only solutions I can come up with are long term, beginning with education reform. Teaching students at every level how to discern fact from fiction, making newspaper reading a part of their reading instruction, constant practice in identifying misinformation & disinformation, repeated lessons on journalistic integrity & bias, teaching student to find and use reputable sources of information.
Also, a continued push for SEL (Social Emotional Learning), helping students to practice empathy, strength their social skills & lean to self regulate.
They're going after education because they KNOW it's the antidote to their agenda.
Alexandra, I’m reasonably sure that it’s true that racism and intolerance have always been simmering among conservatives, but the level of vitriol they express today has been deliberately cultivated. In other words, it’s not that resentment wasn’t always there, it’s that it has been stoked actively to a higher intensity than it’s been in decades. I think that’s an important point to keep in mind. The problem is better understood as one of psychological warfare. The crazier the right gets, the more ludicrous the rationalizations with which they justify themselves become. We are never going to put them in a box, but perhaps we can put this unhinged psychology in a box. The Biden administration has opted to demonstrate the difference between crazy and not crazy, and call out the cowards who do know the difference but pretend otherwise. I think the strategy is something like holding the fire line until the fire burns itself out.
Jim, thanks for that - you're so right! It has been stoked. And maybe the far right being so crazy helps ordinary bigot conservatives get what they want because we're all so freaking grateful when the agenda gets pulled back from the brink even a little. I do appreciate every day that Biden is holding the line. I hope to god you're right about the fire burning itself out. I'll try to hold that thought.
Yeah. There are no guarantees. But Biden has been on a winning streak lately and the crazies are desperate to make themselves look relevant. More crazy is all they have. Holding up the defense bill over an abortion issue is making Tuberville a lot of enemies in both parties. On the GOP side it’s not just because he’s got a really bad idea, but because he’s putting a face on stupidity and it makes the whole party look stupid. So there, we have some agreement with people on the right. It’s a start.
I have posted this before, but i return to it because, like many of Lincoln's thoughts, it gets to the root of our most persistent behaviors:
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings."
How I look at it, it does not just apply to kings, but any top-down, autocratic stratification of society as opposed to a very different base up society in which those with authority are lent it by the will of the public and a social contract agreement pertaining to universal, unalienable, human rights. The thing is that they both haev staying power, they both "get things done", they both attract a base of adherents who will fight to maintain the method. I think that history illustrates this. The problem with power in the hands of a few is the lack of limits to what they may be inclined to do with it, and the desire to live like kings is seductive, I'm not immune to it. Politicians aren't either. when one has the power to make rules, it is tempting to advance self-serving components. And don't we see a whole lot of that, even with within our republican (SMALL "r") governmental infrastructure?
Also, as human beings, we have the capacity for both compassionate and sociopathic behavior. History indicates that both can spread in human societies. Compassion and democracy is the harder row to hoe, requiring a tolerance for more ambiguity, a lot of effort, and far less certainty and defined "order". Despite horrifying historical object lessons, many seem to find the more authoritarian options more comforting, but a lot of that comfort depends on misleading one's self.
I worry it’s too late. We are in the dying stages of capitalism that has allowed a few billionaires to influence everything up to and including the Supreme Court. Meanwhile Mother Earth doesn’t have the decades it may take to right the wrongs of the last 40 years. I’m not sure we put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point but we can certainly work with our children to plan navigation of this new reality.
It's my fear too, Tosha. Climate change and AI might make everything else null.
the problem goes back to Reagan's rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine, where the media had to give equal time to both sides (or something close to that). That enabled the MAGAts to be unaware of what the other side had to say. MAGAts in other parts of the country may not even be aware that temperatures in places like Phoenix and Florida have spiked dangerously, because Fox probably doesn't report on this, and it may be hard for MAGATs feeling the heat to avoid finding out the cause from their neighbors. And those elsewhere may hear what's going on from friends in such places, and the information may begin to seep into their ranks.
Thanks David and Gina - for pointing out the rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine as an important cause of the horrific mess we're in.
The republicans of today are the dems of the pre-civil war era. I am sorry to say that it was the democrats who defended slavery, started the civil war, and then the klu klux klan. It was Abraham Lincoln who built the republican party to abolish slavery and it was John Wilkes Booth, a democrat who assassinated him. In the 1857 Supreme Court case, Dred Scott vs Stanford, that ruled slaves weren't citizens but property, the seven justices that ruled for were democrats and the two against were republicans. This has always perplexed me. I need to learn more about how these two parties turned on their heads to where today most Blacks vote with the party that once oppressed them, and the republicans of today have become the scum that are hell bent on oppressing them and keep them from voting....
Please study what is known as the "Southern Strategy" and Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President in 1964
www.studentsofhistory.com/ideologies-flip-Democratic-Republican-parties
sharon tobin -- Thank you very much for this fabulous article! To see the history of The Great Switch so concisely written is highly illuminating, as well as (for me) to see/learn that it was FDR who was pivotal, and how quickly it happened. It's interesting to think about our tendencies (as humans) to pigeon-hole and hold onto our thinking and beliefs -- how restrictive that action is. Carl Jung (Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst) introduced the West to the concept of "enantiodromia" -- "the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time." This certainly applies to our politics. (Wikipedia has an informative entry on the word, if you're interested.)
Thank you for exactly the information I needed!
Sophia, Sharon's article will fill you in. Everyone does need to know how the Southern Strategy flipped the parties.
I think we need to form focused coalitions with, what I continue to believe are sane people who don’t think ignorance and bigotry are cool. One interesting coalition is beginning to form between the humanists and mainstream religious groups who are open to change. The Republican noise machine has been great at grabbing headlines, but their empty-headed braying of bad old news is wearing thin in a lot of quarters.
BRILLIANTLY stated, Alexandra. They’ve been so clever about hiding their true nature that I was absolutely CLUELESS that this, this, this terrifying contagion of hate and revenge was roiling under the surface. So well described …. Ugh.
SL, I was naive about the numbers of them. And I lived in the South for a while and I still didn't believe it.
MT is full of them & cheered on by Congressional Rep Rosendale. We need Monica Tranel & Jon Tester elected to the House & Senate to stop the madness.
Alexandra, I believe they were boxed after World War Two, by Dwight Eisenhower and a broad consensus. But what created that consensus? Was it backlash to the extremism of the war? Could backlash to Trump, January 6, and an extreme SCOTUS create a new consensus?
That's true, Nancy, and FDR (and Eleanor, and Frances Perkins, and the team) also had a lot to do with it, presenting a positive and humanitarian alternative in a really dire time.
I have wondered if Heather and the students of history (us) will contribute to a new consensus.
These people are the same people H.L. Menken described 99 years ago during another period of social insanity, "The Scopes Monkey Trial": "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American."
Or to quote the courageous German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,who was executed in Germany during WWII, “Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed- in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.”
This is the best explanation of stupidity I have ever read! Thank you.
I've been thinking a lot about Bonhoeffer recently. He could have stayed at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he studied when the war broke out, but he went back to Germany because he thought he could influence the Lutheran Church, which never put up significant resistance to Hitler.
In sum: you can’t fix stupid.
Stupid people don't believe they are stupid. They don't question themselves and believe everything they do is right.
The problem in a nutshell!
I had not seen this before. Thank you!
Thank you for quoting Bonhoeffer. I only know the “...they came for me...” quote. Having been railing against stupidity since waking today, particularly delighted to add this.
Jerry Carbone -- Thank you for this very up-to-date contribution from Bonhoeffer! On the dot true.
This quote gave me goosebumps. Thank you Jerry Carbone. I wish you could somehow get this quote into the hands of my heroes in Congress, Jamie Raskin and/or Adam Schiff. Or Biden himself. It is beyond apropos in dealing with the far right all over this country but especially in Congress. Maybe Heather could pull some strings. . . .
This is chilling enough but seeing it in action, as we so often experience now, brings the force of it home. I'm not at all familiar with Bonhoeffer but this quote makes absolute sense to me in the context of reactions I experience when trying to reason with anyone who supports MAGAt ideology.
Oh, that IS what we are seeing, hearing. SO dangerous. Thank you, I think.
Good comment. Thanks for the Bonhoeffer quote. I c & pasted it to use somewhere later. I supposedly studied him in my college philosophy class a zillion years ago but I was far more interested in playing cards than going to class. Guess I should have stayed in class.
That's very good.
Fantastic quote, Jerry! Thanks!
These people with zero critical thinking skills are made stupid and being brainwashed by Fox News.
Speaking of stupid, perhaps the model for today's doctors who slice off the breasts and penises of teenagers should be the Nazi doctors who were hanged at Nuremberg.
I don't know how Republicans came with the rule of jungle to the Congress and get away with it easily.
Their partisanship is born out of superiority.
But, history can give us a hint of their modern behaviour.
Currently, Republicans continue to move to the far right more than Democrats to the left wing. As a per the Pew Research Center, when the 92nd (1971-1972) and the current Congress (117th) are compared, both parties are shifting further away from their ideological identity, but Republicans are worst hit by their political seismic movements. Statistically, House Democrats have shifted from 0.31 to 0.38 to imply that their shift is modest on average. However, House Republicans have moved from 0.25 to 0.51 and this represents the biggest increase towards a more conservative direction.
"As Democrats have grown more liberal over time and Republicans much more conservative, the “middle” – where moderate-to-liberal Republicans could sometimes find common ground with moderate-to-conservative Democrats on contentious issues – has vanished."
As we move forward, ideological overlap zone continues to decrease or has already been lost as occasioned by less liberal Democrats and less conservative Republicans getting out of touch with their caucases and voters in their respective party regions. As a result, most of them have perhaps retired, lost reelection, or shift to other parties. Thus, the middle ground of bipartisanship is so minimal to the extent that partisan polarisation is extreme. As obvious, Republicans will shoot down overwhelmingly abortion bills meant for military.
50 years ago, there were only 144 less conservative Republicans, but that number has shrink to the lowest level of not more than 20 based on how to they vote on must-have bills.
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It’s 18th century French mob radicalism, not “conservatism.” Please make the distinction. Conservatives conserve; Radicals destroy as the Republicans are doing.
This is a good explanation of where “the middle” went and why we are at such extreme polarization.
"Since 2002, when Republican Rep. Constance Morella of Maryland was defeated for reelection and GOP Rep. Benjamin Gilman of New York retired, there’s been no overlap at all between the least liberal Democrats and the least conservative Republicans in the House. In the Senate, the end of overlap came in 2004, when Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia retired."
"The gaps between the least conservative Republicans and least liberal Democrats in both the House and Senate have widened – making it ever less likely that there’s any common ground to find. This is partly due to geographical and demographic shifts."
But they are there. The stones are weeping.
MAGA Republicans are simply the grandchildren of the KKK. Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland" about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the Midwest in the early 1920's is a must read to understand today's MAGAs. What motivates MAGA people? Race, religion, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and anti-LGBTQ sentiments. D.C. Hutchinson, the leader of the Indiana KKK said: " "I did not sell the Klan in Indiana on hatreds. I sold it on Americanism." In other words, white Protestant supremacy.
I so agree-Egan is a masterful storyteller. His book gives us a look behind the curtain of racism, greed and political power grabs.
Well stated. Egan's book is a real page-turner.
We have 219 white supremacists in the House. Unbelievable.
Well,
If you read the 1619 Book Project, maybe it is not so unbelievable.
White supremacy is a mental disorder that motivates too many people. We’ve all been conditioned for more than 200 years to divide people according to skin color. Obama’s election was the “wake up” call for racists-that’s why they viciously came out of their box.
If we don’t face the truth about the way racism is destroying our democracy then we’ll all go over the cliff with these folks who want to gain and hold power to keep people down including women and LGBTQ folks. We’re living in perilous times.
Racists are frightened ignorant people. When they band together they are formidable without insight - the worst combination. If they weren't so dangerous, they would just be pathetic - people unable to see how they allow their own ignorance and fear to control themselves. I know there are many people who are trying to figure out how to shift this way of thinking (reactionary) in racists, since our very survival may depend on that. It may not be possible, so perhaps the only way forward for those of us who see the danger is to get out and work like heck to unseat their leadership. And then we might try to address the actual source of their fears.
Agree 100%. We must win at the polls.
It's just $$$$$$$$. They have sold their souls to the Devil.
Money is a factor, but it's more than that. Why did Evangelicals vote for Trump, a sinner if ever there was one? Google "The Anger Games, Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" In short, the Big Three are racism, misogyny and xenophobia.
ABSOLUTE MAMMONITES and POWER SNATCHERS !! The dEVILS TIME ! is REAL SHORT !!
Tosha. The debt ceiling hostage taking didn’t work. Time to up the stakes
Krazytown Republicans hold our National Security hostage to their ideological demands
The only way this ends is when Charles Koch & Company ( their real leaders) tell them he’s cutting off their funding until they straighten up
This was worse than the Norfolk Southern train crash in East Palestine, Ohio.
So what is it to be KrazyTown or Disneyland? My representative Scott Perry, (R, 10th District of PA), is for the former. He's one of the KrazyTown leaders of the Freedom Caucus and a general in the Army National Guard. For him to use the word "righteous" is insanity. Unfortunately, in this district there are far too many MAGA people who vote him. This is where KrazyTown folks predominate.
I didn’t think anything could shock me anymore, but Perry using the word “righteous” did it! They don’t even try to hide their bigotry anymore!
Tosha, I don’t believe the voters for one minute understood or were prepared for what the generally GOP candidates might do or vote for under the influence of the MAGA leadership and Freedom Caucus. It is essential that they all be exposed as risking American lives and the mighty military that defend us. I remain hopeful these nuisance radical right wing “add ons” to an essential funding package will be defeated in the Senate and vetoed by President Biden. That Marjorie Taylor Greene cannot get off her right wing nutcase pulpit is literally making me crazy! She takes Twitter by storm, demeans Biden, she is McCarthy’s go to BFF, and now she is invited to participate in negotiations as a non-committee member? This is so APPALLING at every level. I am beginning to believe she is our worst enemy in the House. But how do we get her out of the sphere of influence?
One of the worst things that we can do is to underestimate their resolve. They are literally "True Believers." Stopping fanaticism isn't easy. Rational discourse doesn't work. Power at the polls itself may not even be enough.
Why bother to understand them? Seriously, don't waste your time. Instead, think about getting them the hell out of politics.
Bigots vote for bigots, that is the answer.
I'm with you in not understanding them at all. I'm afraid gerrymandering in key states helps keep these extremists in Congress
That is the real crux of the problem.
It is because somewhere in their makeup they too are cowardly bigots. All the more need for the 2024 elections to produce strong Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress.
Are their supporters cowardly bigots also?
Yes
For Representative Scott Perry (R-PA), "righteous causes" are obviously more important than governing. One has to wonder what these folks in the Congress think that their constituents elected them to do. Surely some of them represent veterans or current members of the military, and when the emphasis is on righteous causes instead of proposing a bipartisan bill that will provide for the needs of members of the military and their families, it's unclear what their conception of their job is and whom they think they're helping.
"Righteous" = "religious". They are the American Taliban.
Exactly.
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
- John Adams
Not that there are no responsible uses of power, but the will to subjugate is tyranny.
J L Graham, this John Adams quote describes Charles Koch, his donor network and others of the morbidly wealthy class. They throw the public a few bones like funding a museum or supporting a university. Those actions, while commendable in principle, are not a replacement for a fair system that allows the most number of people to prosper.
"morbidly wealthy" 😂
They used to be called robber barons. Glad we have an updated term!
"Reaganomics" was a "U" turn back to the plutocratic "Gilded Age". if not feudalism, cloaked in a cloud of big lies. Those who would "rule the world" never give up.
What a great quote, JL.
Ultimately I think the seeming madness in current "GOP" rhetoric, and the roiling, dark, plutocratic undercurrents, is a product of narcissism run amok, pushing inconvenient "better angels" out of the nest, e.g. logical and evidence-based thinking, integrity, compassion, honor, justice, and "decency" for starters. A fanatical obsession with money, status, and power.
JL, there is a single word in what you have just written that should not be there: what we are seeing is NOT "seeming" madness. It is madness pure and simple. It is part of a wider epidemic of certifiable mass madness.
Enough to send a fleet of ambulances to Congress...
It is high time to identify psychotic behavior for what it is. In this instance, the same kind of phenomenon as swept across Italy when Mussolini proclaimed himself Duce, when Hitler proclaimed the Third Reich, when Putin sent armies hollowed out by endemic corruption at the top of the officer corps to die invading Ukraine.
gonna backfire on them big time!
Black people have lived with tyranny in America since the beginning. It’s no way to live.
Has always been so, it seems
And it's an ongoing struggle in which justice ebbs and flows.
Way past ready for a change
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
ABSOLUTELY
They. Just. Don't. Care. They have made a farce out of governance. Their intention isn't to help people or advance our country's interest or security, whether here or abroad. Rather, it's to shove their malign, narrow, unpopular and misguided beliefs down our throats, damn the consequences. Tuberville has been carrying on this way for months in the Senate, delaying military promotions up to a new Marine Corps commandant. Now McCarthy has allowed the band of broken toys to disrupt defense funding, in their pursuit of an extreme right-wing cultural agenda across the spectrum; that's their only goal. And it is indefensible.
They have made a mockery of the Republican party and should be turned out in 2024.
I'm at the point where there's nothing too bad that can happen to any of them. Just Make America Great Again with their permanent departures, however that happens.
As Oscar Wilde said, "Some spread joy wherever they go, some whenever they go."
Good morning TC! You made my day.
Their permanent departures is the best thing i have heard in long time. I personally would not care how it happens just long as they are gone. Good riddance to those despicable scumbags.
I agree with both you and Oscar Wilde. One of the things I most resent is the way every bit of news about the actions of the extreme right (and I include speech as an action) activates my reaction that something bad enough to knock them out of power would be a welcome development. I don’t like the feeling of wishing something bad on someone, but they’ve earned it. Preferably something like a heart attack — we don’t need any martyrs
There is surely a serious security flaw in our democratic infrastructure that enables a single $#@%&* to imperil the nation in this way.
A tuberville and greene, good Heavens. Insanity...
And asking for “open ended” decision on when the “document” trial begins?
Great comment, i would like to see that sorry piece of crap Kevin McCarthy removed and thrown out of Congress. He is a wimp and a coward and a low life SOB. These fascists have made a mockery of Congress. And these insane and deluded people that vote them in office are just as bad as they are. My disgust and anger toward these scumbags is off the charts right now. I am totally fed up with their crazy clown show. Tuberville is the most ignorant clown of them all.
As my sister recently said to me “...I don’t recognize anything about this country anymore.” It is very, very sad and concerning.
I’m with her. It’s a dystopia I never would have imagined.
I hear you. I have friends (US citizens)living in other countries who most likely will not return here to live. Not their original plan,either….
Have other acquaintances - a gay couple - who are seriously looking to move to Canada if anti-LBGTQ issues loom any larger…
I know quite a few people that have moved to Canada, and all of them are really glad they did. It's not perfect there, they tell me it's a huge relief living there not having to be concerned about the direction the United States is headed. They are no longer concerned about the numerous school shootings when they send their children and grandchildren to school in Canada. Prescription medications are much cheaper in Canada. Also, the work environment is much better too.. I have my personal list of things i like about Canada very much too. If the United States becomes a Fascist, dictatorship, our basic freedoms will be a thing of the past, and i for one am not going to put up with that, they are not going to force their BS Christian Nationalism crap on me. They are not going to tell me what i can and can't do. I have taken the first step already by passing the Canadian citizenship test. There is still much more to do just in case those terrorist Fascist Rethuglicans rig and cheat and suppress voting to win elections in 2024. The Rethug fascists are greedy, corrupt, and evil to the core.
Your sister is right, i was thinking the same thing. When i was young i often think about the way it used to be here in America. Those times seemed so much better than now. If someone had told me that Fascism is trying to take hold here back then, i would have laughed about it and told them they were nuts for even thinking about that kind of thing in America. Look what's happening now. If the Fascist GQP isn't dealt with, it really could happen now.
“Tuberville is the most ignorant clown of them all.” With all due respect, John, it is a close contest.
It’s possible clowns like Scott Perry, a retired brigadier general, is representing the people that put him in office. People in Central PA generally vote R because they always have. They don’t know anything about who they’re voting for other than that the candidate is an R...good enough and the D candidate put up against Perry in 2020 was a joke. These things coupled with PA’s stupid party line primary system fosters
This summation pretty much applies to all the R states.
In that case, it might be worth while for a Democrat to pose as a Republican next election. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Join the clown car. Have a laugh on the traitors.
Some R’s are pretending to be Dems, from some recent party-switching.
Agreed! In PA, if you want to participate in the primaries, you have to be registered as an R or D. As an independent you have no voice in who ends up on the November ballot. Doesn’t seem quite right to me.
Christine, in Florida you can change your affiliation R,D,I to be able to vote in the primary. Can you change it in PA?
You can but as an R you can only vote in the R primary and Ds only can vote for Ds...
This quality of candidate.
I said in an earlier thread:
These MAGA Republicans always have a bad excuse. I just retired from the USAF. In my experience with them, they fall for the the lies (see Big Lie, 6 JAN, Trump lies) and false patriotism that Republicans & GOP misinformation outlets lie to them about. It's delusional...and you can't reason with Delusion. They can't critically think & refuse to read/listen to credible news sources so they're in a MAGA loop that they refuse to get out of.
Righteous causes are non negotiable, hasn’t the church always said so. Pragmatism used to hold sway, no more. Combine the power/greed/righteous causes and they see no downside.
"This year’s budget is $886 billion as the U.S. modernizes the military to compete with new threats such as the rise of China, and it provides a 5.2% increase in pay for military personnel." So will their constituents only see it provides for a 5.2% increase in pay?
Does any of you know which elected officials are on China's payroll? It seems to me that, barring raw stupidity, a good portion of the republican party is playing chinese checkers.
Well certainly McConnell. His wife’s family’s shipping business has been bringing all sorts of stuff to our shores.
I had to look up Chinese Checkers: Complexity: "requires no counting or spelling; even young children can play."[4]
ah, but still, no cheating. I dimly recall playing that game long ago. Then there is the Japanese game of Go. Deceptively simple in appearance; very hard to fully master.
So the Japanese game doesn't appear to make the Chinese Checkers "easy to manipulate parameters... is that right?
Scott Perry is in my district and “righteousness” is definitely his agenda! It is disgusting.
Thanks for the report from there. Disgusting, indeed.
Scott Perry should be in jail for his roles in the treasonous failed insurrection of 2020/21. DOJ is allowing these criminals power over us all by not acting with appropriate speed.
Congresspersons who actively engaged in the attempted coup -- Perry etc -- need to be shut down and kicked out of office. Instead, they are sanctimoniously imposing their bigotry on every aspect of our lives.
Scott Perry is a zealot. Unfortunately, his brand appeals to some voters in PA.District 10, (formerly District 4) so he retains his seat in the US House of Representatives. Perry likes to drape himself in the cloak of patriotism and "godliness" but the fact is he is neither a patriot nor a person of God. He is a fanatical weasel hell bent on creating our country in his own image, and he is not above attacking democratic norms or national security to do it. He serves the interests of those constituents whose belief systems align with his and the rest be damned. Literally in Perry's mind.
Yes, Kamila, you are so right. I, too, live in District 10. We just can't seem to defeat him, as the ignorant masses always vote the party line.
Hello, Richard. My condolences for living in PA. District 10. I live in PA.District 16, represented ( I use the term loosely) by the odious Mike Kelly who is cut from the same cloth as Scott Perry. They're the dynamic duo of false conspiracy theories, fake electors, and a failed insurrection. In my opinion, those who continue to support them do so partly because they're low information voters but also because they're fans. They like what Perry and Kelly are selling. Facts mean nothing and fear and hate mongering mean everything. Ultimately, Perry and Kelly won't succeed but they are willing to burn it all down while trying.
Thanks, Kamili, My condolences also to you for having Kelly as the so-called rep. in District 16. The folks in our two districts obviously must burn up the airways of Fox radio and TV. I this a precursor to what George Orwell wrote in his great book "1984." Let's hope to hell not. Have a good day!
BTW, I didn't think that Jesus preached hate.
Thank you, Richard. Some folks in our districts support Perry and Kelly but there are others who do not. They are kindred spirits and I'm happy we've connected here.
They probably plan to trumpet that Democrats opposing their bill are anti- military.
Joan: We here in Michigan's 1st District have another excellent Democratic candidate to oust oil man U.S. Rep.Jack Bergman! Callie Barr could beat him! Her husband is a vet, great campaign video of their story:
https://youtu.be/F0sKsOPptko
wow! great story, great video!
Yes, it would be good to know who bought them.
They are White Christian Crusaders, the Constitution be damned.
I flagged that reference to “righteous causes” also. So often people who believe they are tasked by God to do things are unable to see any other way but theirs. It does not matter to these people what the majority of their constituents think—their beliefs must triumph for God. Interestingly, my definition of a leader is “someone who takes people where they need to go.” Unfortunately, these people are taking things in the wrong direction.
That's it in a nutshell (pun intended): "One has to wonder what these folks in the Congress think their constituents elected them to do." Period.......
It’s not so much “what their constituents elected them to do”, as “What their big money donors EXPECT them to do.” Blow up the government. It helps business to get away with not only murder, but destroying the planet.
Agree!
Republicans will keep trying to destroy whatever they don’t like, consequences be damned. Only one thing will stop them - a crushing defeat in 2024.
Michael,
Don't get your hopes up. Every day, all day, Fox is pounding on Biden's age, Biden's "communist" agenda, Hunter Biden's long list of crimes (never mind that he was just trying to operate at 1/10 of Trump's level of corruption)....
Even the NY Times recently had an editorial that Biden is too old to run and should step aside.
Actually, I also think he should have responsibly groomed someone to take his place but, hey, Ginsberg's ego killed the Supreme Court too. I guess maybe he tried with Kamala Harris, and, honestly, she is well spoken, but, for reasons I don't fully get, is widely unpopular.
So, I really don't think there will be any crushing defeats in an America where 73 million people voted for Trump in the last election. More votes, as he points out constantly, than any sitting President in history. (I don't actually know if that is true, but, his followers believe it).
Morning Mike S,
I respectfully disagree. I had my "optimistic coffee" today. I think that the outrages of Tuberville, this defense budget vote and especially the Dobbs deal will be part of a large package that moves the pendulum in the correct direction. My wife reminds me of the pendulum and that everything returns to the "mean" eventually. She's wicked smart.
I think the vast majority of Americans are going to vote to return to sanity. I know I keep repeating this, but it's my mental life line. About 45% of the eligible voters in 2024 will be Gen Y or Gen Z. They overwhelmingly support diversity. They are not religious. Women's rights are a given for them. They are fond of truth and are repelled by stupidity.
If we all get just one or two people who don't normally vote to the voting booth, victory is ours. (I drink Trader Joe's organic medium strength coffee)
Living in Texas, I have a hard time being as optimistic. But as Churchill said, what good does it do to be anything else (he said it better)
😉🌈🦄 but I’m with you!
Bill,
I hope you are right.
Mike S - "Every day, all day, Fox is pounding on Biden's age"
As an aside, here is proof that age is just a number:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maines-oldest-lobsterwoman-embarks-on-95th-season/?fbclid=IwAR2PEvHY6RUyBTh9wRn3QzYblhSPZC9pGftpo1HWMnY2rf0Q1PGTiuryGTQ
Let’s hope he cannot be President from jail.
Completely agree, Mike S.
If the economy is strong, Trump faces more criminal charges, and no GOP candidate emerges and catches fire, Biden's age shouldn't be a big factor. The Republicans are facing a Blue Wave based on their policies and behavior in general. Trump won't come close to his previous vote totals.
My biggest concern is a third-party candidate of candidates pulling votes that Biden would normally receive. Such candidates cemented Trump's victory in 2016.
Michael,
I just saw this. My apology for slow response.
I honestly think that Trump's victory in 2016 was because of the very weak candidate, Hillary Clinton, that the Democrats put forward.
As my Republican brother-in-law note: If the Democrats had run the dogcatcher from any town in America against Trump, the dogcatcher would have won, but, no, they ran one of the most unpopular figures in modern American history on their ticket.
Hillary was just profoundly unpopular and for some good reasons honestly.
I agree and disagree. She ran a very poor campaign, especially for winning the Electoral College. For example, she never visited Wisconsin and essentially blew things in Michigan. Many other problems, too. But the media, with a major last-minute assist from James Comey, inflated the email issue — an issue that ultimately was triggered by her bad judgment. The GOP in Congress also unfairly skewered her over Benghazi.
I question that she was "one of the most unpopular figures in modern American history" on the Democratic ticket. She won 2.9 million more votes than Trump and 48.2% of the popular vote.
"She won 2.9 million more votes than Trump and 48.2% of the popular vote."
Michael, yes, but, many of those votes were like mine: After wiping the stench of her husband off of the ballot, with a shaky hand, we went ahead and filled in the little circle next to her name without enthusiasm, gusto and, in my case, with trepidation.
After all, it was her judgement that started the war in Syria which ultimately has burdened the western world with a giant crush of refugees from that area. As Obama once said: Arming Syria was his worst foreign policy mistake.
I am a Democrat now. But, it was all I could do to vote for Hillary Michael. I almost just did not vote. Lots of folks felt like this and enough of them did NOT vote that Trump won.
That and, as a society, raising the bar quite a bit, for those we entrust our collective power to shape our own destiny, as well as future for our own posterity.
Joe still thinks we are all in this together; republicans punch holes in the boat that we all are in, while Joe patches as fast as he can
Yet I agree with Joe. The reason is that like all fanatics working to destroy the good, these people are being lied to. But at the end of the day, they are still Americans. As madding as that reality is.
Trojan Horses
It is really upsetting that people so evil exist on this planet and call themselves Americans. The Republican extremists are what I refer to as Bad Americans. We must hope that our politicians are able to hammer out something that is more healthy for our nation and its people. Why are there so many female Republicans who seem to hate women? Is this self-loathing? Or just hatred of poor people? Whatever it is, it is sick, and degrades us all.
Linda, it is incomprehensible and yet explainable, I think — by toxic religion. A few of them don't believe and are power mad (like Thatcher was) but patriarchal fundamentalism is the main problem.
It is eerie that so many famous dystopian novels seem to reflect our times. Perhaps they always have and we were less aware of it. The writers seem increasingly brilliant to me to portray our society. I am thinking 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and The Handmaids Tale particularly. The concept of Doublespeak becomes clearer and clearer. I have always had a sense of the sacrifices that people before me made so that I could have opportunities. I could not reject the promise of those sacrifices to live in utter subservience to a man, nor raise my daughter to believe in this either. The destruction of our education system is shocking to me. Democracies realize that democracy is supported by a well educated population, and yet, we have a whole contingent who would have the children of our military raised in ignorance. I have a former colleague who just took a job teaching with the DOD in Germany. They will live off base and send their children to German schools, so that they can learn German and go to University for free. They have 4 children under 6, and they know they will not be able to afford to send them to university in the states. But, there is another sort of "affording" that they consider too, which is that our education is not going in the direction it should be as these evil politicians get ahold of it. I am thinking of how DeSatan is defining himself as a modern day Hitler, or Stalin. These are not people to be emulating, but clearly he and his ilk think they are. That is quite frightening.
Linda, yes, those three novels especially are chillingly perfect for the times. But you know, film and TV and novels don't have to be so overt and complex to be effective in fighting the creep of fascism. I write, and I teach writing, and I'm always struck by how effectively anti-authoritarian classic films like Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Wizard of Oz (yes, really!) are.
And you can call me crazy, but I am wildly enthusiastic about the Barbie movie. It's going to be huge, and you couldn't ask for a more "woke" pop film – Greta Gerwig and most of her cast are ardent feminists, it is going to bathe little girls in girl power, it's diverse, and it is joyfully gay. These things matter. They change minds. I'm actually shocked that DeFascist hasn't banned it in Florida yet, because it is democracy in action. Film and TV was a huge factor in moving gay rights forward. It still is.
Btw, we live in Scotland - when it came time to choose between permanent residence in California or here, there was no question. I won't live in a country where women don't have bodily autonomy, and the kids will have the free university every child deserves.
Funny that Ireland and Scotland have abortion rights given their fanatical Catholic past is it not? I guess all those babies buried in unmarked graves at the orphanages there impacted folks.
Well, Scotland has been Protestant since 1560 - the Catholic Church was actually outlawed at the end of the Scottish Reformation. But the whole country is much more secular now and women in both countries have fought hard for the basic right to reproductive freedom.
My daughter was 3 when she was exposed to the Wizard of Oz at a friend's house. When I came to get her, the mom took me aside and warned me that she had read a children's version. My daughter was not satisfied with that version and made her dad and her sitter read it to her over and over, until my husband found a Librivox version to record for her.
https://librivox.org/
This is how we know that Dorothy did not really wear Ruby Slippers, but Silver ones, even though we have the book and I had read it. Somehow the movie version takes over though. I totally see what you mean, that these populist messages are helpful. Florida is totally turned into China, Russia and North Korea all rolled into one. They have way too many immigrants from fascist countries to be allowing that. Or, does it feel comfortable. Fascism with capitalist creature comforts, and no restrictions on environmental destruction. Doesn't Olivia Butler take on environmental issues in her books? My nephew who is in grad school, and his friends call Ron DeSantis, DeSatan, and it has stuck in our household. Right on for living in Scotland.
I call him Ron DeSatanist.
Sort of matches his name slightly better and also gives him less prestige and power. He is not Satan, he is just following Satan.
I wouldn't mind living in Scotland, If these Fascists cheat and win in 2024 i may go there, either there or Nova Scotia Canada. I won't live under a Fascist type of government.
Linda George Orwell’s 1984 should be read by any concerned American, with Animal Farm as a chaser and Mein Kampf to square this literary circle.
A combination of both I think, Linda. I worked for decades in Women's Health Care. Those in denial of their part in their predicament - consensual sex - often adulterous, we're always "Christian". They demanded their abortions and got them but would always cast blame on the 'other' women, somehow beneath them, that long before ( and still ) demanded their bodily autonomy. I've never been able to make sense of the hypocrisy. It angered me but broke my heart even more. It still does.
"Or just hatred of poor people?"
An strangely label it "Christianity".
" We must hope that our politicians are able to hammer out something that is more healthy for our nation..."
Indeed, but also, to retain democracy, we the public need to guide our politicians, set their agenda, and choose them wisely. We also need to come down hard on corruption. I'd call that effort truly "righteous", but I don't like the word.
Because these women are racists first, and Christian Fundamentalists second. They are not really Americans.
Ellen,
Oh, but they are! Racism is as American as it gets.
You are right, I am afraid. Silly me. Rude awakening. My 22 yr old daughter, whose high school es included all sorts of famine, genocide etc classes views this country more harshly than I and i can no longer represent that we have liberties and freedoms unlike any other. My Dad, who passed in Nov 2021 at 90 a true liberal always said the “pendulum swings back”.
Abused womnen syndrome.
Reading through this letter, I had difficulty breathing, but at least we can take comfort from this, from Politico:
“I take solace in the fact that this is not going to become law and we have an opportunity to correct it,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, of the path forward. “But it’s really very disturbing how divisive all this has become, the degree to which the Republican majority wants to attack diversity. Bottom line. Attack trans people. Attack women. Attack people of color.”
More from the article: "Once both the House and Senate pass their versions of the bill, lawmakers will work out a compromise version of the two. It’s widely expected that most of the controversial provisions will be watered down to make it more palatable for the Democratic-controlled Senate."
'We know that this bill is going nowhere in the Senate because it is disgusting and outrageous,” Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said Friday on CNN. 'So we will have a chance to work with the Senate and bring a national security bill back that we can support'.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/14/house-passes-defense-bill-despite-controversial-abortion-transgender-policies-00106373
Divide and conquer. Is this really the way we would choose to do with our "one wild and precocious" lives? What if we had agreed that "unalienable rights" are for all? Like literally all.
AGAIN ! The dEVILS TIME ! is REAL SHORT !! JESUS SAYS ; LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, as THYSELF !! GODS Son, is NOT Apparent, in the White Nationalist "Religious" AGENDA !
But, Fox News says that you, Mark, and I and Biden are evil communists.
And, Christians believe it. Do you think Christians care about Jesus message?
No, they just care about defining who is, and is not, going to hell. And, of course, everyone else is going to hell.
THEY are going to heaven. And, there you have it.
Well, from that perspective, Mike, when their time comes, they’ll find out whose side they were really on.
“If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”
Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop, Episcopal Church
This is indeed (another) sad day for America. It seems that the Republicans have lost the “script”. Instead of believing that they are elected to serve the good of the country, they believe they are elected to do everything in their power to get re-elected. I heard a comment made by a House Republican to Tommy Tuberville that “we’ve got your back”, referring to Tuberville’s holding military appointments hostage. They are not thinking about about national defense, they are thinking about sticking it to the libs.
A sad, sad day indeed.
They are thinking about achieving total domination and "freedom" from accountability. It has a long and infamous role in human history, embodying the "Mr. Hyde" proclivities of human nature.
Thanks Dr. Richardson. There is an expression in economic theory that bad money drives out good. We have a lot of bad money in Washington, it will require a huge effort to get it out of the system. The battle has only begun.
Follow the money. Where it comes from, where it goes.
Following the money isn’t as easy as it used to be. Dark money has flooded and further corrupted our political system. Groups like Moms for Liberty--a tax-exempt “educational” enterprise--can legally hide the identities of their contributors. PACs with patriotic-sounding names are buying seats in ridiculously gerrymandered districts. But the biggest threat, IMO, is the explosion of social media and the largely unedited or outright false “news” the public at large now relies on for information. Add emerging AI technology and it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate between what is true and what is false. The arcane Electoral College system, a packed, vote-splitting Republican field, and a mass of grievance-driven MAGA supporters have Trump in a good position to win the Republican nomination. Even if Democrats, Independents, and more traditional Republicans band together to defeat him in the general election, he will not accept defeat, and Jan. 6 will look like a quaint dress rehearsal.
He won’t accept defeat but I doubt that he will be anymore successful than on J6. He has lost the element of a surprise, direct attack, on the system. Many will not be eager to join the insurrectionists, in jail or in court right now. We will be treated to another horror show, in some fashion, nonetheless .
I sincerely hope you are right about a direct attack, but agree some sort of horror show is inevitable if he gets the nomination and loses AGAIN.
With millions of people armed to the teeth, and a small number willing to use their weapons, is a frightening reality.
Too many of us let this happen, both by voting for con-men like Reagan, and not saying a strong enough collective "NO" to bullies. Nevertheless, charting the general flow of money to the degree it is discoverable reveals screaming conflicts of interest as with Clarence Thomas, and overall trends, such as the decline in the portion of middle class, and the portion of the entire combined assets of our entire society increasingly captured by a few individuals. There are mentions of this in the wind, but it has yet to become a central, cultural issue.
Some of that money is buying adds against TFG, this time. Some of the bad money is personified by Congressional reps. and senators, they also drive out the good ones.
"the main culprit, the cancer on the body politic, is money: Money, money, money"
Fmr. Sen. Fritz Hollings
Somehow that has not been a popular political message, though I think there is wide grudging agreement with it. The raps seems to be, so far as I have noticed, is that the scale of error needed to alter the antidemocratic influence of something that pervasive must be set aside to address more immanent crises; but the problem is that the corrupting influence of unregulated money applied to altering political outcomes is either the cause or a component of some many in-progress fires we are called to put out. Yes, we need to run to the fires, but also go after the arsonists, or we will never prevail. The human body constantly sends fighters to sites of corruption to vanquish infection; a process that is needed as long as we live; but sepsis, which occurs if corruption grows beyond our ability to arrest it, is easily fatal.
How many honorable national ideals, how many groups and individuals are injured by money allowed to be applied to antidemocratic, sociopathic ends? How can we not afford to address it? I take the seemingly reasonable Biblical condemnation of the "love of money" as an obsession with accumulating money (and power) that throws everything and anything else under the bus; and do we not see current examples?
If you decide that you want to run for congress and you approach party leaders with your proposed candidacy, the first thing they ask is do you have a list of people , that you can ask for campaign contributions and can you raise half a million dollars in one month? If your answer is no, then you are told that the party does not consider you a viable candidate. The job only pays $ 176k and you generally need $2 million to run.
Another day in plutocracyland.
I have no words that are not incoherent or profane, and I will leave it at that. For now.
Having spent time on fishing vessels on the Oregon coast, Ally, one cannot put the weight of one’s catch above empty bilges. The vessel will capsize when the load weight becomes critical. The idiots have loaded too much too fast and their catch is now what will sink them. Except for the drowning and freezing part it is over.
Waiting
Love the analogy, Pat.
Always beware Gail force winds.
Lol my license plate used to read 2flagsup. 😉
Same. Smh... just, wtf.... inarticulate in disbelief and rage.
LOL . . . I'm right with you Ally! I go hit a ball (pickle or golf) as therapy! The balls represent the heads of any and all evil republicans! :)
Now, if I could actually translate their evil into a 200 yard drive on the golf course and a long arm slam on the PB court, I'd be in business! :)
Oh, come on...let loose and feel better!
Righteous is not right.
Correct!
One person's righteousness is another person's version of evil. In my mind, Perry, Greene and Tuberville are the very essence and distillation of evil. If I believed in a god or a devil, I would say they were sent here to "test us". But I think it is simpler than that. They are just arrogant ambitious scum with no idea of the principles this nation was founded on.
Which is why the founders established a separation of church and state. Oh my. Do I sound like an "originalist"?
Heather, thank you for including fiery quotes from Representatives Sherill, Houlahan, and Casten. The acquiescence from GOP Representatives is especially notable and shameful. Their loyalty to power and party again triumphs over duty to country and military.
Well done HCR. Well done Representative Sean Casten. Vote for and support Democrats at all levels.
Good for Rep. Casten.
As for Scott Perry, God willing there's an indictment with his name on it coming soon.
Like x 1,000
Our nation's current and retired military, who fought for our freedoms and rights, must be so proud of Congress right about now.
LOOK AT The 58500 NAMES on THE WALL. Who GAVE IT ALL UP ! For The TRIPE ! Going On, in " OUR NATION !! SAD !
Kinda sad, that wall.
58,500 young men died trying to maintain the colonial yoke on Vietnam while Ho Chi Minh tried to throw off the yoke of European colonialism (French).
58,500 died for the wrong reasons. The Vietnamese who died fighting our boys died for their freedom (and that is also why they won, they were motivated).
A true American Tragedy: The Vietnam War.
A tragedy for sure. It was also a crime against humanity.
If we had listened to Ho Chi Minh instead of McNamara, Vietnam could have been an ally in containing China. And, we learned later that our own Secretary of Defense privately doubted our ability to win. 58,500 Americans dead for nothing - except for the Military Industrial Complex to get richer.
And in classic arrogant American fashion, we don't talk about what we DID TO THEM.
"In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died." Jun 16, 2023
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War
It was easier for me Bill, Mike. The war I mean. It really wasn’t a complicated thing. I made the Ho Che Minh Trail my home. I sat among the 50000 plus in the central highlands. I went with the quarter million South Vietnamese as they were slaughtered. I carried men women and children to safety as they were being slaughtered by the invading Chinese Russian and North Vietnamese soldiers. You can paint us any stripe you want but we died in a grace together, defending not colonialism but human dignity. I hold the hands we were unable to save then still today.
My condemnation of the war is not a condemnation of the men and women who served with honor and respect. If we as a nation don't have a military that follows orders from civilians, we won't have a nation for long.
My anger is assigned to the top level politicians and gangster oligarchs who pushed us into the war. All those deaths. All those horrors. And now we buy their T-Shirts and iPhones.
As a mother of a gay man and a daughter of a man who landed on Omaha Beach on D-day and survived to meet my mother, this particular essay is more troubling than usual not so much about the crazies or McCarthy but about the so called moderate Republicans who are too cowardly to stand up for our armed forces. I think there is a level of corruption existing in Congress that our founding fathers didn’t foresee. Instead of standing up for the principles deeply embedded in the US history, these people who appear to be moderates—are actually harming our government because their primary objective is keeping their jobs and not rocking the Republican boat. Biden’s optimism is comforting but these so called American leaders are very bad news.
This extremist right wing values packing into one of the most important legislative bills is quite simply unacceptable.
Every single American needs to be made aware of this dangerous voting agenda and be confronted with the reality of just how genuinely damaging this vote is to our common National Security and will become if the Republican extremism is allowed to continue.
Supporters of the Republican Party must be confronted with a choice; either keep their values out of National Security or else they risk losing their securities and the freedoms that are truly dependent upon a nonpartisan National Defense Authorization Bill.
As for Democratic voters throughout the country this cowardly agenda as seen in the vote for conservative values over and above National Security should be a clarion call wake up alert that should galvanize everyone of them into political action activism that is fully focused on dismantling, dismissing, and disintegrating the entire Republican Party establishment while treating any and all of its conservative supporters as if they are a deadly unwelcome disease poisoning the American body and soul of our democratic society.
Basically they have adopted tactics of organized crime, holding vital functions of our society hostage in their efforts to extort capitulation.
I would want Sean Casten in my foxhole! What an articulate, spot-on response to the lunacy of the far right.