On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed a “Resolution for Independence” declaring “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
I’d like to see 100 million people show up at rallies around the country to protest the Supreme Court’s most recent disgraceful, disgusting, detestable ruling. Let’s unite! Pick a day!
Protest. And protest by Getting Out The Vote for Democrats (and for independent Sen. Angus King who caucuses with the Democrats.)
Today nominally Democratic Rep. Jared Golden had an op-ed in The Bangor Daily News: Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine.
The only excuse for voting for Golden is that he's kept the seat in the Democratic count. (It's a low population density state and political talent is spread thin up here in CD2.) Golden's only excuse is that he's the Democrat representing the Trumpiest congressional district. CD2 will be the most expensive House race in the nation. All the AIPAC money Golden's been given obliges him to blind himself to the horror in Gaza and prop up the Netanyahu regime. Does taking Adelson dollars also mean ALEC writes Golden's opinion pieces?
Having sat at the knee of the cunning and complicit Susan Collins while prepping to fill her round heeled pumps, Golden may be looking out for No. 1 by preemptively groveling at Trump's feet and pushing the GOP party line.
Donald Trump and his enablers are exponentially accelerating the rate by which they are eroding American democracy. Leonard Leo et al need not bother to 'appeal to god'. The GOP Fifth Column will be having a celebratory 4th.
Vote Blue No Matter Who just got a whole lot harder here in CD2. But no less necessary.
You do understand that the expression “round helped pumps” refers to women who spend a lot of time on their backs - as prostitutes. Not that I mind calling Susan Collin’s a ho, except it’s a very misogynistic reference. Time to update our epithets.
As for Golden - white men are literally the only people who will blithely declare that “we’ll all be fine” in Rumpworld. They will, but only they will. Those that fail to recognize that are the arbiters of White Privilege. Not they get that, but they are.
Thank you, Pamela, for zeroing in on the comments regarding Sen Collin’s shoes. It struck me as soon as I read it. Epithets in general dilute reasoned opinion.
I didn't know about the ho' reference but I had the same reaction about the shoe comment. I tried to think if there's a male equivalent epithet and I couldn't. I've been struggling with this in my small campaign for respectful conversations on X twitter. When folks on the left call tfg The Orange.....it's really tempting to let it go, but if I'm in a conversation, I ask that we keep our comments about actions and behaviors rather than appearance. It's challenging!
I also did know of any hidden meaning to Sen Collins’s shoes, but I do take umbrage at references to anyone’s body or clothing. It distracts from the point. The fact that Trump’s face is orange does not make him unsuitable as much as his actions and complete lack of integrity.
I’m now beginning to rethink that perhaps it is time for Biden to pass the baton to Kamala Harris. I’m not that crazy about either of them but it’s beginning to look like Harris would be a stronger candidate. My guess is as good as yours.
I recommend that Harris and Joe switch places. Joe stays on as "coach" VP. Delegates switch. Joe can stick around as long as he's doing OK. As others are pointing out, Harris should pick up lots of votes from many who might have stayed home. The age problem becomes Trumps alone. And other advantages.
As Thomas Paine wrote: "If we omit it now [i.e. writing a constitution ensuring liberty] some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
I fear that today the "desperate and discontented" include not merely Trump's minions, but many of the wealthy and powerful, including the heads of corporations, who prefer a dictator who'll govern in their favor than trust a functioning democracy that might raise their taxes and rein in their greed.
The Supreme Court has just handed to the potential winner of the next presidential election the essential powers of a dictator. But, according to this ruling, while Joe Biden is still President he could order the assassination of Donald Dump, and claim it as an official act, beyond the reach of the law. "When the President does it," as Richard Nixon famously argued, "it's NOT a crime." Of course, Biden could be impeached, but even if he were convicted and removed from office, he'd have done the Republic a great service. ("But," as Nixon muttered under his breath on one of the Watergate tapes, "it would be wrong.")
Apparently not one head of a FOrtune 500 company has endorsed Trump. They may not like Biden, but none of them want the chaos and self-dealing that would come with Donald.
As HCR has pointed out, the Supremely-demented Court wrote the decision so that they are the ultimate arbiter of what is or is not official duties. They could easily judge that any particular action by Biden is a crime and could judge the same action by Trump is not a crime.
And he should. Plus the remaking of SCOTUS and the arrest of the Insurrectionists Congresspersons. Then he can reestablish the rule of law. But we elected him in 2020 to preserve the Republic, and he decided to gamble on the next election, when we'll have the same problem again, worse.
The “many of the wealthy and powerful, including the heads of corporations, who prefer a dictator who'll govern in their favor than trust a functioning democracy that might raise their taxes and rein in their greed” are totally clueless that a dictator will be more powerful, finally, than all of them put together with all their wealth and power because he is the dictator — nothing safeguards them from his vengefulness and otherwise simply narcissistic wrath, especially any of them not white, not male, non-Christian, or immigrants.
Yes, I agree now, with you & Pamela. I did not know “round toed shoes” referred to a “professional lady of the evening.” While I question the dignity of such a profession,I think it’s not an “across the board” attitude towards an occupation of ancient history that is not always a forced profession. Furthermore,if a former president can obtain any kind of respect despite the most disgusting, dishonourable, slimy, & vile behavior while serving in a position of such worldwide importance & normally a much respected figurehead, then the profession of prostitution should command respect. 💙
It actually doesn't, technically. "round heels" refers to a woman who's easy to push over backwards. A "pushover". And the reason she's so described is that the putative pushing is obviously to use her for sexual gratification. But, yes, even so it's a misogynistic reference from an earlier era. (Say 1940s).
All that notwithstanding, I took the epithet to characterize Collins as a "political whore" -- which, again, does use derogation of special behavior -- this to mean one whose principles are for sale. Which last denotation is I think wholly accurate.
Jared Golden is not a particularly intelligent or well informed person. Nor is he proving to be a particularly ethical one. But - with the help of Ranked Choice Voting and with progressives and others over a barrel - Golden may be the only Democrat (ie non-Republican) on the scene who can attract a sufficient number of relatively moderate right wing leaning independents and of Republicans who are not enthralled by the racist right wing religious extremism and fascist impulses of today's GOP. (Maine voters are infamously and mulishly 'independent' even when it means being irrational and self defeating. Though in truth, there's a lot of that going around. At least leftish Elliot Cutler's giving TeaParty Paul LePage two terms pissed off enough Maine voters to institute Ranked Choice Voting.)
I do not think Golden is a GOP plant. Although each time I vote for him I wonder when he will switch parties. Although the Democratic party might be more willing to make more allowances for him than the Republican party. If Golden survives this contest, the question will be then focus on what happens when Susan Collins decides she's had, or has enough, and retires.
*'Round heeled shoes' refers to a set of people who are unsteady on their feet - 'pushovers.' Of which female prostitutes are one subset. Boxers are another. People are frequently described as 'prostituting themselves'. without reference to sex work. The word 'prostitute' originally derives from publicly putting oneself up for sale. And was not limited to indicating female sex workers. (I looked these up to be sure.) That said, I was sensitive to the possibility of being called out on this but thought it worth the risk - hedging my bets that people might consider the broader definition rather than the more restricted usage which may easily come to mind.
I wonder too, each time I vote for him if he will switch parties.
The one thing I admire that he has done is he spent 2 months studying the Federal budget. Is there money to be saved there? Of course, but there is so much pork for each state and Congressman that nothing ever seems to get cut.
Susan Collins deserves the slur. She rolled over for Leonard Leo’s $$$. lin was witness to the lavish fundraiser he threw her up in lin’s neck of the woods.
U-Kno-it Gail! She rolled over and the (R)ss-hole party 'had its way with her'.., clear and simple. She could have chosen to remain tall, and so could so many others. They didn't. So, here we are.
Pamela -- Picky editor that I am suggests you might want to correct the spelling of your typo in your first sentence -- should be "round heeled pumps". Sorry -- I can't help myself!
Always blame auto-correct. Besides, we all can translate from the autocratic auto-correct into contemporary language without losing the meaning while getting in a few spontaneous chuckles.
Actually, the bitter irony is that even white men *won't* be fine: after they come immediately for the browns and the liberals, they'll come for the Jews and the Catholics. That's how facismworks -- there must always be an Other.
Covertly, they're admitting to what's happening. Personally, I think many of them are peeing in their pants. I also believe, if by some terrible outcome, Trump wins, they will lose control...In another area of concern,I just read Bill McKibben's substack and he mentioned that Greta Thunberg's Sunrise Movement has kicked up their energy. They're really angry with Di Santis. Since 2000, the Harvard Public Opinion Project (HPOP) has provided the most comprehensive look at young Americans’ political opinions and voting trends. It provides essential insight into the concerns of young Americans, the majority of who whom are NOT pro Trump.
Pamela, you are right about only rich white men benefiting under Trump. Everyone else scares him silly. He wants to control everyone and so far in his life, he has been successful at doing that because people though he was far richer than he actually was. Trump without money would have been a nobody, just an ordinary guy, of course privileged to some extent because he is white, but with no skills, no affinity for anyone, no ability to tell the truth, he would not even have made it to the history footnote section.
How can Golden write this?? While decrying “the extremists” in this op-ed piece he, too, is now seduced by the “orange idol” of extremism? How can he fall under the spell of forgetfulness of bellicose lying and violent threats, forgetting that “the dark day of Jan 6” was set fire by Trump. WTF Kool-aid has Golden succumbed to? Argh.
He can write this because his district is trumpy AF and he wants to be re-elected. But all he's doing is revealing 1) his ignorance of how Nazis got control of Germany (and what they did immediately after getting control), and 2) just how cowardly he is.
Golden is terrified that he will lose the election. He doesn't have to worry about that anymore even in our purple district.
I disagree that the election is about the economy. It's is about women's rights and the GOPs need to control them. Across the country, women are being raped and impregmated with impunity. Doctors are fleeing the states that are enforcing total bans on abortion. Idaho has lost over 50% of their Ob/Gyns that deal with high risk pregnancies.
It is also about a Supreme Court that is willing to crown convicted felon Donald Trump king and to take away freedoms while enriching themselves and their friends.
And if it is about, the economy why isn't Biden the clear winner? There is no need to repeat the numbers because they are so lopsided in Biden's favor. Stock markets, GDP, wage growth, unemployment rate, SS income. And all of this with the most do-nothing Congress ever. They punted on the budget for 6 months. They punted on Ukraine and Israel support for 6 months allowing tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and military to die as well as about 100,000 Russians.
I'm sure this is a campaign calculation since his opponents is a fracking NASCAR driver than doesn't have the brains God gave lettuce. But this is in no way and excuse for writing the op-ed.
Thanks Lin for sending both of the links. I run into a paywall with the Bangor Daily News and this time I didn't.
There's a feeling among Jewish Americans that releasing funds to Iran enabled them to conduct war on Israel.
But, another explanation is that Iran's objection to The Abraham Accords and Russia/Iran opening a front against America for empire and conquest in Ukraine is more likely.
All efforts must be made to expand the accords into Syria and Lebanon, and bring freedom between the Black and Caspian Seas, and between Finland and the White Sea, where people want to be free and who believe in the rule of law over despotism.
As Thomas Paine wrote: "If we omit it now [i.e. writing a constitution ensuring liberty] some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
I fear that today the "desperate and discontented" include not merely Trump's minions, but many of the wealthy and powerful, including the heads of corporations, who prefer a dictator who'll govern in their favor than trust a functioning democracy that might raise their taxes and rein in their greed.
The Supreme Court has just handed to the potential winner of the next presidential election the essential powers of a dictator. But, according to this ruling, while Joe Biden is still President he could order the assassination of Donald Dump, and claim it as an official act, beyond the reach of the law. "When the President does it," as Richard Nixon famously argued, "it's NOT a crime." Of course, Biden could be impeached, but even if he were convicted and removed from office, he'd have done the Republic a great service. ("But," as Nixon muttered under his breath on one of the Watergate tapes, "it would be wrong.")
Voting blue has and continues to fail us as the Supreme Court’s decision proves. Hope and change will come by declaring our independence and voting for Kennedy.Voting blue is inept.
I’ve heard that so many times.I believe it originated from the propaganda dispensary at the DNC and was quickly picked up by our historian HCR. Speaking strictly for my vote that is likely going for Kennedy to win, it’s a lie.
Jeri, I'm a little late to the party today. I've been celebrating the worst day Bobby Lee ever had with the ANV on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg. We MUST defeat Trump on Nov 4, it matters not who the candidate is...just get behind him or her and vote. Have a good 4th.
So true, but throwing Joe under the bus is not a good look. And for a sick day, the worst one ever, but he is still the same man. So is chump. Enough said…
RFKJR says Joe isn’t the same now. The Joe he knew would be giving him secret service protection. And did you watch Biden’s speech the day after the debate ? He said he doesn’t debate as well as he used to. That skill is what we need in a president so he said himself he doesn’t have it anymore, essentially.
The list of candidates that can match the depth of experience and character of Joe is not that long. We need rigorously proven foresight and good judgment.
John I prefer as donkey, while you support a jackass. Bob Kennedy Jr. is a disgrace to his father and his family. He is not as bad as Trump, since no one is as bad as Trump. If you adhere to your principles, you will heed RBK Jr. and never get vaccinated. Also, junior Kennedy’s relationships with women link him to Trump.
You want to kill US all off. There WILL BE a next pandemic, given the melting of the permafrost, sooner rather than later. An anti-vaccine president in power could destroy US.
So why did we have the most deaths of any nation percentage wise?the vaccine wasn’t the solution. There were drugs that effectively treated the virus but Fauci was pushing the vaccine. And you should know that Kennedy isn’t anti vaccine. If you listen to him you would know that.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
How can we as a nation pursue liberty or happiness with a man who would be king spewing "hate, anger, resentment and misinformation (HARM)" at us 24/7/365?
The Court has gone rogue and are reconstructing the constitution and the power of their institution and that of the president, or past presidents, as the case may be.
Now are we ready to march? We need a Nationwide march to show our commitment to the constitution and rule of law! I think we should do it on the 4th of July! Send a strong message that this country belongs to WE THE PEOPLE!
Much better if the “March For Democracy and Reproductive Rights” occurs in each State Capitol on Labor Day giving us plenty of time to register the unregistered and to motivate all to Turn Out! See also please nonpartisan www.TurnUp.US run by brilliant Harvard students only in 38 “competitive” election districts & 11 Senate election states to register hundreds of thousands of Community College students to support abortion, gun safety and to fight Climate Change. Tax deductible C3! Please donate generously! Thank you
Donated! Thank you so much for providing the link to this amazing 501(c)3! Everyone who can should donate to help get young voters registered for the upcoming election.
Thank you Pat and everyone! What is essential to www.TurnUp.US is their concentration of registering Community College students only in the 38 truly “competitive” congressional districts and eleven Senate races! Please do not waste your $$ in races that really cannot be won or are already safe! That rule applies to the 412 districts that are impenetrable but those incumbents and candidates hoard or waste your money! I’ve carefully examined every single one of the “competitive” CDs and TurnUp can make a real difference in winning when it registers and then turns out 3,000 to 5,000 new young voters in each District who will protect abortion rights and IVF! Really important and community colleges are where real local voters could be as compared to big universities! Please go to www.TurnUp.US and thank you for really helping us win!! No BS!
Additionally, I wish that Judge Merchan had sentenced Trump anyways today. Some would say that doing so would precipitate a Constitutional crisis. That is wrong. We are already in one. So, let us get it out into the open by defying the Supreme Court and essentially instructing the bastards to go and do something anatomically impossible to themselves.
While I do understand the delay, I think all Merchan had to do is issue and order saying that none of Trump's behavior for which he was convicted had anything to do with carrying out executive functions and was purely personal.
Better than open defiance, if the Judge can do that. My impression, very tentative, is that the Trump attorneys are arguing that some of the evidence used were tweets and were covered by presumptive immunity since the twidiot's bloviation constituted official acts. Without that 'excluded' evidence, there may not be proof of intent behind the hush money payment. So, conservatives (who wet their pants over law and order) willfully erode the legitimacy of the rule-of-law. Helluva "broad perimeter."
I'm not saying I don't agree with you, Ned. Instead, I'm saying dissent must be explicit about its intent. As much as I respect John Adams as a heroic figure in American history, I find his "rule of law" phrase to be too ambiguous, and I think we must be less ambiguous. I'm not sure of the best way to do that, but I am sure of a way to do that.
Instead of saying that America is based on the rule of law, say America is based the principle that the intrinsic value of any one human life is equal to the intrinsic value of every other human life, and that the rule of law is the means to that end.
I came across an article about an APA meta-study of conspiracy theories. The sentence that caught my attention said, "The results strongly supported a tripartite motivational model of conspiratorial ideation. This model posits that conspiratorial thinking is driven by three key needs: understanding one’s environment (epistemic), feeling secure and safe (existential), and maintaining a superior image of oneself and one’s ingroup (social)."
Q: What percent of the human population wants to understand one's environment? A: 100%. Q: What percent of the human population wants to feel secure and safe? A: 100%. Q: What percent of conspiracy theorists maintain a superior image of oneself and one's ingroup? A: 100%.
Translation: Anyone who maintains a superior image of oneself and one’s ingroup is—and anyone who maintains that the intrinsic value of any one human life is equal to the intrinsic value of every other human life (and that the rule of law is the means to that end) is not—a conspiracy theorist.
King George III, the colonial British parliament, slaveholders, supporters of Jim Crow, MAGA Republicans, and anyone attempting to benefit at the expense of the greater good, are all conspiracy theorist.
In conclusion, please stand up for what is right. To do otherwise is wrong. But be explicit about the difference between right and wrong.
Good idea, Susan! The Federal Judge's oath -- I assume the model for state Judges -- is quite clear where the judicial loyalty is supposed to lie.
Oath of Office for Federal Judges: “I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [a United States District Judge or United States Magistrate Judge] under the Constitution(link is external) and laws of the United States. So help me God."
Good question. I'll see if I can give you a better description of my intent.
If I decide to dissent, I want to make it clear that I am dissenting against a ruling specifically because it is violating the "we are all equal" principle. What the current SCOTUS majority is doing is imposing their will on others, and in the process they are reflexively dismissing legitimate concerns thereby implying that they are important and the SCOTUS dissenters are not.
If they did give serious consideration to legitimate concerns, they would be serving justice. Reflexively dismissing legitimate concerns is a symptom with an easily identifiable cause, and that cause is that they are serving an exclusive interest that excludes those who are expressing those legitimate concerns.
The cure for the symptom is to be explicit about the intent to serve the inclusive interest, aka the greater good, and that the current context demands dissent as a means to achieve that end. Hopefully, the response is for them to suggest a way to serve that end that is a better alternative than dissent, or to reinforce what we already know, which is that they care about three things that don't include justice, and those are "me, myself, and I."
Regardless of the response, the dissenter must make the dissenter's intent to serve the greater good explicit to everyone on the fence and on both sides of the fence. It's not hard to do. Instead, it's something people don't think of doing because they don't think of doing it.
I listen to the dissenters in the media clattering for Biden resignation and they give me no reason to think that their position is not self-serving, implying that "Biden is a fool and I am wise" whereas, even if they're right, they've got me thinking exactly the opposite.
Per the exchange with Susan, below, Judge Merchan would take pains to explain why his defiant dissent is legitimate since he DOES NOT take an oath to the Supreme Court but to the laws (or the rule-of-law) and Constitution.
The arrogation of power by the five Justices (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh), as detailed by Justice Sotomayor, violates the Constitution.
The exclusive thinking, DOES NOT serve the public good but even to a President as occupant of the presidency, the ruling is illegitimate. Therefore, NOT to be accepted as the law of the land.
I agree with everything you and Susan are saying, but it appears that I'm doing an inadequate job of making my point. With your indulgence, I'll give it another try.
To pass the Wisdom Knowledge Test (page 71 of my book) is to know the wisdom principle. Thanks to the guidance of sufficiently mature parents, I would have passed the test as a fifth grader, which is to say that I was sufficiently mature. And a majority of supreme court justices in the most powerful nation on earth are insufficiently mature in a manner that would have been obvious to me as a fifth grader.
In a better world, every child would take the Wisdom Knowledge Test on the first day of grade five, and then we would all be taking the Wisdom Road Test (answering the "Is my behavior consistent with my knowledge?" question) every day for the rest of our lives. Nobody's perfect, but it would be obvious to everyone with a valid fifth grade graduation certificate that a member of a team who reflexively ignores good advice from a teammate should have their fifth grade graduation certificate suspended. And the law society needs to ask itself how it allowed those six insufficiently mature SCOTUS justices to get into law school, let alone pass the bar, and then make it all the way to the supreme court where they're now trying to destroy the justice system that we all rely on, including them.
That better world is not going to magically materialize between now and the election, but my assumption is that it can become a widely shared vision for the future in less than four months, and if that happens, the six immature SCOTUS "justices," the MAGA crew, and the wisdom of Joe Biden would be viewed much differently than now.
My frustration is expressed in Bob Dylan's "how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see" lyric. But the answer, my friend, is no longer blowin' in the wind. Not to me. The answer is everyone of us holding everyone of us accountable the way I image every fifth grade classmate holding every other fifth grade classmate accountable.
So, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. Instead, I'm suggesting that it doesn't matter what Judge Merchan says if not enough people are listening. He needs our help. A society detached from the wisdom principle is detached from reality. To be attached is to adhere to the wisdom principle, and vice versa. I think the Wisdom Knowledge Test is one sufficiently simple way of reminding ourselves of something we are all born knowing, and it is in the "as simple as possible without being too simple" Goldilocks zone.
Our strengths in one context are our weaknesses in other contexts. That's why we need to work together toward serving the greater good. IMHO, John Adams' greatest weakness of character would have been offset if he had paid more attention to Abigail Adams.
"I long to hear that you have declared an independency — and by the way in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands." —Abigail Adams
To that I can add what I learned from Michael Gelb and Raj Sisodia's book, The Healing Organization (2019). This is really, really important:
The essential elements of the constitution existed nowhere else in the world, but the founding fathers eventually found them in existence in their own backyard. Seven warring tribes came together under the leadership of a peacemaker to form the Iroquois Confederacy two centuries before the writing of the constitution that would structure the US government.
So, the founding fathers copied the elements of the confederacy and incorporated them in the US constitution. But there was one key element that they left out, which was the council of mothers and grandmothers that actually selected the leader of the confederacy and had the power to replace a leader that was too warlike, or not being inclusive, or not thinking enough about the long-term.
The Iroquois Confederacy defined "the long term" as thinking about what the consequence of an action would be after seven generations. That's hard to do, but the harder thing to do is to live with the consequences of not doing it.
Ally, I'm late to the party today. I've been celebrating Bobby Lee loses at Gettysburg Day today. We MUST defeat Trump on Nov 4. I don't care who the Democratic candidate is. I'll vote for and work for him or her. There is NO other choice. Have a good 4th
Brad-Thanks so much for sharing this story! It really highlights the depth of our history and the importance of political organization. It’s also good to know that America has a tradition of being “wide awake” or in today’s language “woke”.
The "Wide Awakes" were also mentioned in Heather's book, "Democracy Awakening" (Chapter 26 "Of the People, by the People, For the People," page 201) and seem a great historical link to the opposition to the Slave holder power grabs attempting to spread slavery through all the new states (and enforce Fugitive Slave laws in the older non-slave states).
Instead of just being "Woke," I prefer joining a new "Wide Awake" opposition coalition to the disgusting Supreme Court attempt to turn us back at least 184 years.
This disgusting SCOTUS opinion hopefully makes the already "Woke," and very many more now "Wide Awake."
P.S. The people running for the 34th Congress in 1854 had little time to run under the newly forming Republican party name. They were so opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that tried to break all the old bargains (that were bad enough, but expected to eventually get closer to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that, though none ran as "Republicans" on the Ballot, they formed an Opposition Coalition that became the majority in the 34th Congress.
The only labelled Republican in the House during that term was a replacement for a deceased member. That newly forming party was the polar opposite of what passes for the Republican party today.
No, it is not enough to vote, contribute money to political campaigns and participate in blogs, Facebook etc. by preaching to the choir, wringing our hands and wondering where to resettle (not as easy as it looks unless you are seriously rich). No, it is time to hit the streets.
Assuming there's enough gas in Joe Biden's tank (charge in his battery?) to get him to the end of his term, he should participate in ensuring a smooth transition from his presidency to the presidency of one of the many talented Democrats who could surely kick Trump's ass in any debate and earn the trust of a sizeable majority of Americans. There is nothing scandalous about responding to changed circumstances by changing course. An open convention might actually be a breath of fresh air for a Democratic Party leadership that has become a bit sclerotic.
You have obviously never been involved in the nuts-amnd-bolts creation of a national political campaign, which I am here to tell you cannot be done with any hope of success in 129 days, which is what is there.
If you can't support the guy you voted for, get the hell out of the way!
It is way too late in the process to change candidates — likely just what the Supreme Asswipes were counting on. Throw the Dems into chaos.
Biden has a great team in place. This is no longer about who’s too old to deliver the policy message — this is a constitutional crisis! Fight the Orange Menace on every level, but for Democracy’s sake, don’t switch horses in midstream. The lucky ones will drown.
"Biden has a great team in place" .... maybe so but somebody in the debate prep team should have been able to predict what Trump would do and coach for that. Instead they all ran him ragged until their candidate was ill, exhausted, and fully prepped with facts that were never going to be relevant.
We're dealing with a colossal narcissist. Every campaign tactic should be aimed at exploiting the massive weaknesses of a narcissist. Be assured, That Man's team is coaching to Biden's weaknesses. That's why we're all discussing this now.
TCinLA you are being foolish. Doubling down on Biden, hoping for the best regarding his mental health, then tripling down, and on and on, until losing to Trump on election day, and then democracy is gone.
Let's all be honest and ask ourselves, as Democrat supporters as most everyone here is, what should be done.
I love most of what he's done this far, and I don't see a more effective candidate waiting in the wings. I want Joe to keep on keepin' on, for as long as he can. My only advice to the President is to try to avoid giving 45 any oxygen. The political center was pulled to the right ever since William F. Buckley in the '50s, and the Democrats allowed it to happen, too reluctant to keep to the left, afraid of being accused as "socialists". Joe is the first President in a long time to really push that boundary back toward The Left, where it needs to go. Joe has some good people working for him, and as far as I can see, all he needs to do is confer with them, encourage them, let them do most of the heavy lifting. If you are impatient for him to collect his thoughts, just chill and wait for him to make his point. It will be worth the wait. If Joe and I were friends, I would not push him toward any particular course. But if he wants to keep going, I would do everything I can to help him keep going, thereby to take advantage of every bit of experience and wisdom he has garnered over his lifetime. Keep on, Joe!
I also agree that Joe Biden has done a great job. But when it is time to hang it up, it is time! People do retire after all! And then it is time to pass on your legacy, if you believe in that.
Joe got more done for the common folk especially the under served in 3.5 years than any President since FDR! Kamala is highly qualified to continue his legacy after he is re-elected!
I agree TC. The takeaway that the mainstream media is spinning is heavy on optics but is without substance.
That view is promoted by the MAGA and a few democrats overcome with fear.
They say Joe lost the debate. How can that be? If Trump had told any truth then yes, Joe would be considered the loser. But that was not the case. Nothing Trump said was true (which disqualified it as a debate).
Most of the nation had prepared for Trump to be drawn and quartered by a force greater than Trump’s using the same technique as Trump uses —loud bombast unmasking the man for what he truly is. They had unrealistic expectations, so naturally they were shocked and disappointed when that didn’t happen.
To me Joe’s reaction to Trump’s non stop lying one after another leaves no place for a response. How do you rebut nonsense that’s machine-gunned at you by a 300 pound Orangutan who has been practicing his lies for 7 years? You don’t. You can’t. There’s no there there.
Joe’s reaction was correct.
There are plenty of old folks on these Substacks. Only the old are in the position to watch our own physicality change, weaken, and slow. We watch that happen while at the same time we notice that the watcher is full of the force of who he or she has always been but with more knowledge, savvy and grace now.
What most of the younger people see is the exterior only, the surface. Old is bad they’ve been taught all their lives. And that my friends is one of our culture’s biggest errors. The senior citizens are where accurate history lives. We are where experience lives. And we are not afraid.
Well, the “orange” guy has been lying for almost all his life, and attacking those who stand in his way. From my 88 y.o. view, we are experiencing, as a nation, the revival of Hitler’s rise to power. If he is not stopped by our votes in a substantial way there will again be the bloodshed of the opposition and the innocent.
You stated what I’ve been saying. There was no debate, the was Trump doing what he always does. He spits out his rants, projecting his evil, criminal, behavior on those who oppose him.
There are so many moving parts here and it’s hard to explain. I don’t disagree about age. As Reagan said about how he wouldn’t exploit youth and inexperience when referring to his opponent. Then he went on to clearly develop dementia and Alzheimer’s in his second term. In terms of age, Trump is only 3 years and months younger. But we age differently, too. At 70,I feel a big difference from only 4 years ago. Another point made to me by a very well read friend was that Biden intimated that he would be a transitional president. I can’t substantiate that.
The more importance here is optics and the only goal is winning. But you also have media that has two fundamental goals: inform the reader as well as sell advertising. They do at times conflict with each other.
We are at a long sad, unfortunate modern-day recognizing of long simmering socio/economic/political conflicts. Perhaps it’s always been in existence and I believe so. But the shock of it today is intense. The evil side has chosen as their standard bearer, a most insipid, dangerous; a full miscasting of character ever in our political history and we have had bad ones. This one not only is the perfect of imperfection but now has transformed himself successfully as a martyr to his supporters. This is a clash which could have been predicted when the Court passed allowing unlimited money in campaigns. Now only those most financially successful have the advantage. But again, has t it always been this way?
I would be neglectful if I didn’t add that we democrats haven’t exactly been the brightest bulbs when we refused to acknowledge fundamentally unpopular issues like border transgressions. No society supports this. ObserveFrance now tittering on a far right government. What is the issue: too many migrants. UK? Brexit and why? Too many migrants allowed under the European Union. Hungry? Same. Germany? Same. Italy? Same.
I wonder how long will it take to wake up. And I can already anticipate the responses here. “We did our best.” The law didn’t allow Biden to do more and that’s all bullshit. If Biden doesn’t get re-elected, it won’t be because he stumbled in a debate. It will be because he had a callus attitude towards border issues.
1) Biden, who has been an excellent president, will finally acknowledge that, were he to run, he would virtually assure Trump’s election and severely damage Dem prospects in the House and Senate.
2) The selection of a replacement candidate will be messy at the Chicago convention;
3) A younger candidate can run on the Biden administration accomplishments, clearly contrasting these with Trump’s wild claims, viscerally highlight Trump’s physical and mental incapacities, and point out specifically how Trump’s shot gun pronouncements would harm the great majority of Americans.
I am modestly hopeful that this is a scenario that will elect a Democrat on November 5th AND assist the Dem House and Senate candidates.
I’ll bet you a modest $100 that my ‘miracle’ scenario will prevail.
And who do you imagine will step up, be accepted by all, and defeat Trump in November? I cannot conceive of an "open convention" not leading to chaos and defeat. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Herrick, and everyone else who wants to push Joe Biden out the door. I'd happily be wrong, but I think that it is highly unlikely that a savior will appear between now and the convention who will unite us all. Think seriously about what the world under King Donald I will be like if we live in fantasy land about how to win this election and keep our democracy.
On one hand you chastise David Herrick “and everyone else who wants to push Joe Biden out the door,” yet you infer that you would be happily wrong if a savior would pop up. Herein you’ve captured the conundrum of the century. Joe Biden was humiliated at the debate and his own people are calling for his ouster. That’s really bad…and sad. But true. It’s hard to prop up such a figure (Frank Bruni’s piece, Biden Cannot Go on Like This, perfectly reflects this reality with compassion but offers no solution). Whether Biden stubbornly shuffles forth or Democrats desperately seek an alternative, I feel we’re screwed either way. In my own desperation I feel the need to offer SOMETHING. I dream that the sensible and elegant Daniel Goldberg of New York be president one day, but now is not his time. Two that might pull it off are Amy Klobuchar and Gavin Newsome as a team, not caring which one runs for pres. or VP. They have track records and IMO they would win….
Joe had a bad day. But he got better -- he was back to his usual self just hours later. Being on the stage with 45 would have made me sick as well.
We should venerate our elder statesmen and stateswomen.
We've been taught, conditioned, to adore youth and beauty, by advertising and merchandising. What do they know? Not much that I care about.
Joe is a few years older than I, and I'm sticking with him as long as he wants to keep going. If he decides to call it a day, we'll figure out what to do next, but until that day arrives, I want him to keep doing everything he can to move America forward toward a better future.
David-I agree. It’s so disappointing to watch the Ds shoot themselves and aim a firing squad at Biden. This is just what the Rs want -chaos among the Ds instead of unity.
Most are panicked because they know White people will flock to Trump and they skip over Harris because they know White people won’t accept another “colored” person (or woman) in what is a “white job”.
So sad for our democracy where racism is tied to all of our upheavals from the Civil War to Civil Rights. This election will surely determine if American
I respectfully disagree -- the debate was not just a bad night -- it showed a wonderful man who has done great things for the country, but who is now - at least episodically - infirm. This is not about Joe Biden any longer - it's about the country. I don't think Biden has a hope of winning and I wish he would anoint another Democrat as his successor.
He can win if we stop saying that he can’t. We’re poisoning the air with our negativity. If something happens to Biden we have a VP and team to carry on.
PLEASE keep the faith in the best of humanity instead of helping the worst in humanity to win.
Respectfully, this is being pushed by the pundits. Shut them out. I have faith that if Biden doesn’t feel up to the task he’d bow out. I’ve had to go back to listening to music in the car.
The problem with Joe's health has been steadily growing since originally being elected. But yet the can has steadily and repeatedly been kicked down the road. And here we now find ourselves, with loyal aids saying everyone should just accept the fact that Joe is at his best between 10am and 4pm, and not expect much outside of those times! No, it is time to take action, and for Joe Biden to realize this is the case, and fully be in support!
Has anyone stopped to consider that President Biden understands the overwhelming need to avoid turmoil at this critical juncture in American history? That he is trying to rally the sensible to turn out in mass numbers this November to soundly defeat the NAZIs? And that shortly after January '25, he will cite health and fitness issues, resign, and turn the nation over to the exceptionally qualified Vice President Harris? And that he will do so with the understanding that she would probably NOT be elected on her own, sadly, and this is NOT the time to risk the unthinkable. C'mon folks; trust the man! We KNOW he has the best interests of America in mind and heart. Let's get out in mass numbers, defeat the NAZIs, and trust our dear President to do what is in the best interests of ALL!
Jeri, I hope we learned something from that one. If Joe bows out, it has to be his pick. No friggin fight on the Convention floor. That's insane. Have a good 4th
Granted, polling is flawed in some important respects, but the polling we have at this point still suggests that Biden has a better chance against Trump than does any other prominent Democrat.
I do not -- I saw it on TV, and I don't recall which polling outfit did it, although I recall that it was one of the better-known ones. But I do know that it said Biden was 2 points behind Trump, i.e., within the margin of error, whereas in head-to-head matchups with other Dems, Trump led by more than the margin of error in every case.
I would refer you all to Bill Maher’s recent editorial where he suggests that an open Democratic convention might well be a bit chaotic, but at the same time would energize American politics on both sides of the current divide in ways that might well be hugely beneficial to us. There is no clear right answer to this current mess except in the minds of those already so set in their views that nothing short of WWIII would alter them (which alteration would, of course, be both permanent and terminal). For the rest of, to break out of this awful Trump/Biden binary in a way reminiscent of our greatest periods of democratic debate might be just what we all need. Remember that there were four candidates in 1860, with four very different platforms, and we got out of that brouhaha the best president the United States has ever had. No historical parallel is ever perfect, but just think on this.
Well, Bill, as I recall, his popular, liberal and once well-loved vice-president Hubert Humphrey got the 1968 Democratric nomination while LBJ really did try to end the Vietnam War, and then Tricky Dick Nixon won the election quite handily. The Democratic convention in Chicago had been a disastrous showcase of division within the Democratic party, as Eugene McCarthy ran out of steam on the left after Bobby Kennedy (the one with the best chance to defeat Nixon in my opinion) was assassinated in Los Angeles. Humphrey had had to go along with Johnson's war for too many years to be a credible peace candidate, McCarthy was all too credible a peace candidate, so it's likely some leftwing Democrats stayed home, southern Democrats liked Dick Nixon better than Humphrey - a major figure in getting civil rights legislation passed earlier in the 60's - and I could go on and write yet another book about the summer of my 16th year.
Of course there are similarities between then and now. Johnson already had serious health issues (he died of a heart attack in 1973 at the tender age of 64) but no one knows how he might have held up during a second full term as President. The country was sharply divided ideologically and politically (as we are now). Dick Nixon was slippery and sleazy and knew how to lie with a straight face, but he was neither an ignoramus, nor suffering from a serious psychological illness (terminal narcissism), nor given to doubling down on the same big pathological lies at every speaking engagement.
On balance I'd say Chicago was an example of what can go wrong, but that if Democrats are too stupid to learn from that experience, unable to emphasize the things that unite us rather than our differences as we face our first truly existential election against a lunatic and a rogue Court in a recently unimagined information environment, then... I guess we'll get what we get.
I'm sorry, and it pains me, that the look on Biden's face as he mispoke while reciting numbers he had memorized for the occasion, no doubt realizing in real time that he had lost his train of thought at just the wrong moment and was totally blowing it before a very large national audience who would remember that more than anything he could say for the rest of the debate,... that look was surely the whole story for many potential voters.
I voted for Bernie twice in primaries. I voted (without the slightest second thought) for Hillary against Trump, and (enthusiastically) for Joe Biden against Trump. If Biden remains the Democratic candidate, I will vote for him, as I will for whomever else the Democrats might nominate. But I'm not everyone.
Right I get it. Johnson and most politicians were victims of the war years in which the mentally was that communism had to be checked. RFK I considered a spoiler in 1968. Eugene McCarthy could have and should have pulled it off. The street radicals chose the wrong convention to exhibit themselves. At my own tender age of 15, I already knew that.
When I lived and worked in a nightclub in Florence, Italy in the mid 1970s, I had a chance to meet people from all over the world. Frequently bus loads of Australians came in and after observing them, I wrote in my journals that I finally found a bunch of nationals worse than Americans.
If the subtext of HCRs letter is a call for mass demonstrations against SCOTUS I think that’s a fine idea.I wish I could participate, in the protest, but I’m a Canadian…
People have to do something though, for Jaysus Sakes. It’s all on the line .. and it’s coming apart very quickly.
Be careful though, lest the All-Supreme Ruling Court declares that these protests are illegal, that they feel threatened by them, and that the military should be deployed. The next president-in-waiting will more than gladly summon the army to deal with these 'traitors'...
"On January 30th, the Federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a lower court ruling that people denied their right to vote cannot sue. This court action diminishes Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The three- judge panel of the 8th Circuit included a Trump appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras. It’s an appeal of another Trump appointee’s original ruling in November. According to Reuters:
U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras, another Trump appointee, the 8th Circuit held that the law does not lay out a “private right of action,” even though courts including the Supreme Court have taken on such cases for decades.
The ruling says private citizens have no standing to sue unless they could show monetary losses. Apparently, that’s the only conservative standard for any case involving the denial of rights by a government entity. "
I have organized plenty of marches - including the one in NYC on February 15 2003, one of hundreds in cities all over the world, calling on the US not to invade Iraq. This worldwide effort was months of work by thousands of people, and it was beautiful. We negotiated for weeks to get a permit for a march to the UN, and in the end we were denied. 60,000 of us decided it was a nice day and got off the subway at Columbus Circle to walk the rest of the way anyway. We also happened to be carrying signs and singing. We were met by cops on horses.
The next day, George W. Bush was quoted as saying in response "I don't listen to focus groups," and the invasion proceeded.
Marches are fine. I like them. They also take time and tons of energy, and people walk away thinking they did something, when maybe they didn't really do all that much. We might have better luck if we all just individually march up to doors in our neighborhoods and ask our neighbors to join us walking to the polls. Bring something you made, or something you grew, and listen to what they have to say.
I'm working on friends and family first, in the hopes of convincing them and then they share the result with their friends. Going door to door wouldn't convince anyone in my neighborhood, unfortunately. I'd just be the bipolar guy who only mows his lawn once every week or two and doesn't weed properly, as I cannot always keep up with the neighbors in this regard.
But I'm in awe that you have organized marches for these reasons!
I'll be there! Not at rallies across the country, but 10 million people in DC! Demand that they go back and rethink this grotesque excuse for legal reasoning. Show the Heritage Foundation that we will not be owned by minority rule and we won't bow to their anointed king!
It's interesting to me how hard has become to spread the word about a "day...for a huge protest." As recently as four years ago, the summer of 2020, when George Floyd's murder shook the nation and millions turned out to push back. This year, on June 24, the second anniversary of the end of US women's bodily autonomy, many of us aimed to organize a women's strike, protest, and "spend no money" day. We spread the word via the usual social media routes. If I had to guess, TikToks garnered the most attention. Strangely, a disheartening debate about what color to wear rose to the top of every thread I saw, even on those sponsored by the actual Women's March organization. It was just plain weird.
On the day, the protests, though heartfelt, were atomized and even anemic, a few hundred here, a handful there. My community of working/middle class horsewomen, both online and IRL, all of whom favor a woman's right to choose, had no idea it was happening.
Does anyone know whether something fundamental has changed in the algorithms over the last couple years?
"...the Lee Resolution marked the delegates’ ultimate conviction that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law."
Are you listening Trump, you wannabe dictator? And you too, Supreme Court justices intent on paving the way for Trump to put himself above the law?
We the people are coming for you, before you take away our right to vote and self-govern — and so much more. Nov. 5th is your day of reckoning.
That was sour grapes after the Confederacy was defeated, a futile gasp. We are now at the Fort Sumter point in the present civil war. It will be a long fight. Many battles to come, many casualties. We must find our Thomas Paines, Abraham Lincolns, and Franklin Delano Roosevelts. They will appear.
Yes, they will appear, esp. if we continue to express ourselves in creative, non violent ways that appeal to others who also want the greatest good. The messaging and how we rspond to the opposition is very important. And THE most important thing to remember, change is the only constant in life..
For now we might just end up with angry mobs making ropes with the black robes of the Supreme Court. What we've been taught as the rule of law will eventually take its honorable place again after much pain.
Is this Virginian the only one who remembers Lighthorse Harry Lee? He was one of George Washington’s Calvary generals. Robert Edward Lee, the much maligned was his son.
We here know who the real patriots are...they are not the mob that stormed the capitol on J6, with their Rebel Battle flags and Trump banners...they are Rush's "snowflakes"...who together can become an avalanche. We must defeat DJT. It matters not, who the candidate is.
Don’t count on it. We need to have a back up plan. They already have one in place to put Trump in office regardless of the outcome of the vote on Nov 5th.
We need something in place (perhaps as did those minutemen in Concord/ Lexington) to counter their intent, their plan to take over our country. Worse they’ve already stated there will be blood shed if democrats (“the left”) show any resistance to their takeover. So… what do we do? Scary stuff.
And we should critically realize that in Robert’s admonition of their justified dissent, -his accusation that the women were “Fear mongering” - Robert’s represented the destructiveness, and active grip of patriarchy. Enough!
I believe with everything in me that the current onslaught we are witnessing will fail just like it did 200years and 150 years ago in the civil war. I believe there are enough men and women of all races in this country who will turn out to vote and turn back this latest onslaught on our freedoms and liberties,
Exactly, and keep in mind there are trolls here who will pick up on our vulnerabilities and use them against us. Like the threat of there not being an election. Remember, T WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING TO CREAT INSECURITY AND CHAOS so keep your messages confident so he cannot tell the difference!
Here’s a Heritage guy on Twitter. They’re openly declaring war on our rights. They’ve already dropped bombshells via SCrOTUS, so they’re clearly comfortable telling us the rest of the coming attractions they’re bought with bribes.https://x.com/mikefreemannfl/status/1808493772902125809?s=46
I am trying to imagine, right now, what will happen in the Democratic National Convention, if the debate over Joe Biden is not mainly resolved by that point. I think Biden was both ill and ill prepared for Trump's onslaught, a huge exception to his usual pose and energy, but only a supportive and mainly unified party will carry him forward. What terrifies Dems right now is how will the polls weigh out across the country. Dems infighting over Joe will not help their case. If he's replaced, the best i can see is for an internal unifying effort to collect around a "best chance" candidate, so that the convention doesn't become a prolonged contest with multiple votes whittling down to a winner few backed in the first place.
Isn’t it interesting that this is the most media coverage Biden has received? He’s practically knocked DJT off of the front pages with of all the calls for him to step down. It’s really amusing and sad-the media’s influence is beyond the pale.
Who ever “debated” trump and came out looking strong? Who?!? Replacing Biden guarantees a loss. Sticking with BIden got a lot harder after the debate, for sure. Biden was elected because Rep Jim Clyburn gave black people the confidence Biden was the best choice for them. Biden honored that confidence by choosing the first black female VP, AND the first black female SCOTUS. Unless this “unified decision” has Harris at the top of the ticket, we are sunk. If Harris is at the top of the ticket, white liberals will suddenly not be sooooo liberal, because of course “Harris is not quite right.” And the MAGA crowd laugh all the way to the ballot box because they KNOW we are our own worst enemy. Like it or not, Biden is our only hope to kill this Death Star called MAGA.
At this point is it a very bad idea to replace J, however we the people need to send a specific message to J that we need and want bolder action. I would think would listen to 200 million people. Also, keep in mind this is the year 2024 and a march needs to be updated and tweaked to be as effective as it was in earlier years. If there is to be planning for this it should be on an encrypted platform.
This July 4th and the anti-American acts that surround it certainly feel like rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you already paid, the good advice that you just didn’t take. Sorry. Alanis Morrisette in town here in Philly tonight. Trying to keep the mood light because I’m actually devastated.
This democracy, can we keep it?
One thing is for certain… the historians will be writing about these times in the future.
Let us not be the sunshine patriots.
And PS to anyone who is still Covid conscious. Another wave predicted this month, so be careful out there and be prepared to treat:
I had Covid a couple of weeks ago. I believe that, because I have been vaccinated and had several boosters, it wasn't bad. My only risk factor is that I am over 50. Still, it's nothing to fool with, so be careful!
As Trump brags about his performance on the cognitive testing, I keep wondering if Biden has done MMSE or neuropsychometric testing. If his performance is good, certainly this can be documented. If he is seriously in decline 4 more years of this demanding position would be a disaster for him.
You and Mr Graham are reminding me to write that Covid will be enhanced by the bugs coming from melting permafrost. Climate change will drive us into one epidemic after another. Attention to scientists’ recommendations will become increasingly important. Current blame on isolation as the reason for lack of motor and cognitive skills I find questionable, particularly if their mothers were exposed to or were sick with Covid. Good nutrition is important, less prevalent with climate change. I’m watching the growing season here in IL and not seeing enough sun for many vegetables and fruits to mature. Calling on DC for price controls on fresh produce and, if necessary, rationing of some. It is time for Americans to relearn food in the world of climate change.
Thank you, Anne Marie. The endless ads for meat dishes drive me as wild as the asks for the president to quit. Reality is climate change and only one candidate is concerned about it. PS I ate what I called “climate change lettuce” in France in 2008 and have friends there who grow more wheat and have fewer cows and sheep because the EU has asked that they grow more wheat (2018).
Last week was a banner week for Covid in my circle. On Thursday evening, both one of our tuba players and one of our euphonium player's wife tested positive. On Saturday, my best friend's brother (visiting from Alaska) and their 92 year old mother both tested positive. It took until yesterday for my friend to test "faintly positive". All involved were vaccinated. Mom got her antivirals yesterday.
My wife and I got all the vaccines shots (two types), masked up more than about 90 % of the people, and I always carry a mask to put on if anyone else is wearing one (assuming they may be more vulnerable, as I assume I will become on my new prescription for a clinical trial followup).
We were able to dodge the virus until 4 days after they declared the pandemic over, then we both got positive Covid test results, though the symptoms were mild enough that they could have passed for a light to medium impact flu.
We're totally convinced the vaccines made the cases so much milder then the ones that we lost friends and relatives to before vaccines became available. Other friends and relatives caught Covid either before vaccines became available, or in one case, got symptoms within a day of the first available shot they could get (no where near enough time to get adequate immunity). At least two ended up with Long Covid and multiple repeat cases. We found out 2 years after the fact that the first reported Covid death in Maine was a distant relative we had met a few times at reunions or other events at the Norlands Living History Museum.
"If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.” Thomas Paine seems to have been clairvoyant unto today. Like Sotomeyer, I fear for our freedom, our way of life, and for any chance that America is what it has said it was--an instrument for human dignity.
The true effect of the Supreme Court decision on immunity is a declaration that our country is a country run by outlaws, governed by wealth not laws, and caring not for the common sense of which Paine wrote, nor for the common man and woman.
Against these great odds, we will continue the fight, but truly only with God's help will we win. You can define "God" however you wish, but it is clear that the moral strength to prevail must come from some force greater than human rationality which is so prone to manipulation by the influence of others. It must come from a deep and compelling, intrinsic and undeniable awareness of survival.
Damn, I was wrong. I thought that the SC decision giving chump a get-out-of-jail-free card would wipe the debate off the headlines. Instead the entertainment-for-profit news is ignoring the SC treason and continuing to savage Joe with increased venom. Damn the country, we’ve got a bottom line to boost.
Jeri-I agree-can’t believe how much they’re harping on this one debate vs. the existential threat to our nation by the folks who gave birth to DJT’s presidency (including foreign actors) and Project 2025.
They certainly have a set narrative, and it’s all about Joe. It’s not coming from The Lincoln Project but it’s certainly coming from The Bulwark, CNN, MSNBC.
It’s like they are deliberately blind to the 200% existential threat versus the not perfect but capable, decent candidate. I know many are undone by the possibility of chump (as am I), but turn off your amygdala, turn on your reasoning ability and drop any pretenders and rally around our man. Divided we fall.
I was so disappointed in MSNBC....the channel I thought was the most fair of all. Joy Reid (will she ever shut up?), Ari Melber. Joe Scarborough. And the ridiculous Claire McCaskill.
I suspect the problem of those who devise to subjugate is older that the stone age, and democracies of one sort or another hark back to tribal life, but I think that Paine and other influential people in the colonies had a particular pragmatic clarity about a common-person-centered version of governance.
That's why We The People need to work our butts off to register voters, educate them on the down ballot, and Get Out The Vote to achieve a Democratic super-majority in the Senate, majority in the House, and of course Biden/Harris at the top. Then Congress can right the ship with expanding the Court, establishing ethics code for SCOTUS, and impeaching at least Thomas.
We don't really need a Dem super-majority in the Senate. We just need fifty-one REAL Democrats with the courage to suspend filibuster rules and add four justices to the SCOTUS. Of course, a super majority would be nice if it enabled us to investigate and impeach the play-for-pay gang. Sheldon Whitehouse for Senate Judiciary chair!
And lets talk about corruption. Political corruption, which I define as abuse of power, haas become so commonplace and so deep in the "GOP" we seem to be inured to it. Certainly the press seems to take it for granted. The buzz around Watergate was a different era.
Abuse has indeed been 'normalized'. We went from not long speaking of such things, considering them such ugly anomalies, directly to enabling them further by saying it's 'human nature' & business as usual. A hell of an escalation in 50 years. It's time to stop the buzz of scandal & address corruption. Good point.
Thank you! And start with Roberts. He’s the most evil. Smiling and pretending he’s not part of the group Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett. He’s the leader.
With the GOP - impeachment has died. It is a political process. The GOP has now corrupted the legal ability to hold their people accountable with all the recent court rulings. Bribery - okay, insurrection okay, using the POTUS office to plan illegal acts- okay.
I email my Congressman every week asking him o draw up Articles of Impeachment against Alito and Thomas, on failure to keep their oaths of office, accepting bribes of more than $400 in value, and denying the Constitution as written. I will continue to do so. I have told Congressman Bera I do not expect the Articles to be heard in the House this year but if the Dems will publicize those Articles it might help to convince undecideds and independents to think about their vote,.
And also that ' to secure these (unalienable) rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
No king nor royal jurist has legitimate power to tr#mp that.
Unfortunately, lovely though it is as a phrase, "the consent of the governed" is not part of the law because it's in the Declaration of Independence, not in the Constitution. So it can be ignored, as we are finding out.
Great job tonight, Heather, speaking truth to power on the PBS News Hour! Thank you for being so emphatic and so clear about this momentous Supreme Court decision and the potential danger and great fall out for our nation and democracy that may result from it.
" . . . that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law."
Why did the Clarence court betray the very best underpinning of the new America? Of course it's a corrupt, bribed, perjured court -- but something worse has been going on -- how total lack of humanities allows the corrupt, bribed, and perjured all the more their madness.
Billionaires, despots, and the corrupt serving them all want us to avoid individuals, to have no respect for them, not even see them.
The 1971 Powell memo and its far-right foundations engineered humanities out of our schools. Dems acceded to that removal, and agreed to the herding of all instead into standardized testing’s neutered, linear, group, categorical regimes. Shorn themselves, too, of any humanities for public use, Dem elites never saw the mass human hurt from the billionaires and corporations offshoring millions of American working-class jobs.
American novelists, composers, film makers, and memoirists, saw the human hurt. Elites blinded without humanities did not, could not.
More untethered from humanities, Clarence court theocrats ruled packaging of American women. Congressional Republicans upped inflation by historic tax-cuts to billionaires. MAGA world fed ignorance-based hatreds of immigrants.
If any have humanities, just seeing others could check the madness. And I hope our best Dems will refer well to our humanities for the human, humane energy needed before us.
"In early January 2000, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt."
A five-star beach resort is a great place to worry about being deep in debt.
"At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money. In other private conversations, Thomas repeatedly talked about removing a ban on justices giving paid speeches."
It's hard to scrape by. Maybe with "food stamps"?
"George Priest, a Yale Law School professor who has vacationed with Thomas and Crow, told ProPublica he believes Crow’s generosity was not intended to influence Thomas’ views but rather to make his life more comfortable. “He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary,” Priest said. “So he provides benefits for him.”
Thanks, J L. Good, your ironic comments accompanying.
Though of course not a single reader here will shed any tears for the inordinate luxury poor Clarence needs, feels he's entitled to.
The bastard has no sympathy for any other human beings. He's illiterate as to humanities -- never in any of his opinions any couching of opinion with any awareness of any similar human being in any novel, film, song, or other arts.
Arts? The corrupt bastard knows only porn. Remember his notorious bothering women in his office with constant and crude references to Long Dong Silver?
Suck-up to the rich, especially the criminal rich, Long Dong Clarence. Traitor to American democracy.
Human, humane energy. Needed but energy used for infighting only aids the Billionaires and despots. Are we our own worst enemy.
Phil, you are a one-trick dog and pony show. And a great one. I’m not complaining because what you say desperately needs to be acknowledged. Our citizenry has been dumbed-down in a sense by the focus on vocational/practical instead of liberal arts. For lack of a better term, a back up plan (as many parents want for their creative children). As Einstein said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” Can’t live on fun, can we? But I remember poetry from my high school and jr college days. No Ivy League here, but just inspired teachers. I always watched CBS Sunday Morning (a show with art, music segments and stories not found anywhere else). Even 60 Minutes even has some art and music segments. Bill Moyers was not only a great political analyst, but his shows on literature and poetry were awesome, and I always came away enlightened. Now, it’s streaming bs or network bs. PBS (due to Repub budget cuts) no longer is the beacon for what TV could be, but has joined the begging crowd and is careful not to offend the money bags. CBS still has my favs, but their focus is on reality crap which is anything but. The stage on which we Americans live our lives has changed as you say. And the scripts are propaganda at the Goebbels level.
We may have to leave the stage if we can’t change the script. Our short term goal is an emergency rewrite. But a long term goal is remake of a play conceived and written for us at our conception. Thank you for your focus on who we have been and who we want to be.
I think there is also the very big problem that many (most? all?) conservative lawyers and judges hail from the Federalist Society. I'm no expert, but I think that is where the theory of the "Unitary Executive" arises, in other words a King above the law.
The cognitive dissonance regarding the worship of the Founding Fathers among conservatives, given the above, is so astounding.
I've called on my brass quintet to get together to discuss, and then play the hell out of Ewald, for whatever that is worth. I do think, though, that civil relentless discourse is needed.
But look again at what the far-right foundations sought following the 1971 Powell memo.
Of course it was to put the interests of commercial America above all other interests. That also meant treating all Americans as but units in the great assembly lines of profit taking.
To reduce America to such vulgarity meant systemic disregard for people as people. Makes sense that by the time those far-right foundations had killed humanities in schools (and substituted standardized testing) a Federalist Society should next seek to kill all law which yet nurtured equal opportunities among diverse peoples, and to kill all law which aimed to preserve and protect individuals and communities from our most rapacious.
Sorry, Americans, but with that Federalist Society, democracy was doomed as were first its schools.
The most corrupt, the most abstracted in their madnesses, the most adept in lying and raping, would rule.
It’s true that 2 ships with EIC tea turned back to England (Philly, NYC) but a ship landed in Charleston where its tea was confiscated by customs officers. Also a ship headed for Boston wrecked on Cape Cod. The full story of the 1773 tea ships can be followed in recent books by myself, Mary Beth Norton, and by James Fichter.
Professor Norton, with your expertise on the Founding Era of breaking away from the repressive monarchy, you remind me that infuriatingly, the reactionary Republican justices disregarded the amicus brief submitted by 9 historians who argued that "Trump’s claim of criminal immunity would transform the presidency into a monarchy—exactly what the Framers of the Constitution sought to avoid."
Thanks to HCR's Letters and a very concerted effort to remain optimistic, I have been OK the past 9 years...until yesterday. It's so hard. So very hard to believe how we are in this position. Part of me wants to give the MAGATS what they ask for, so they can see how it will most certainly backfire...only if we could then rewind and try again once they are no longer indoctrinated. UGH!
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flags to April's wind unfurled, here the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world"
Ole Ralph Waldo earned his perpetual keep within the primers of schoolchildren forever more, did he not?
Cast against the ossified corruption of Sullen Sam Alito and his not-so-Calpurnian wife, the first flag (in the face of April's wind) that truly represented American roots was the flag of Massachusetts and/or the "Bedford" flag. No Kingdom of Heaven silliness for these rough hewn children of the Enlightenment.
Thomas Paine, perhaps the most famous and certainly the most eloquent corset maker in history, was a magnificent bundle of buzzing contradictions. A free thinker, who did more to fulfill the zealotry of the Puritan concept of the "City on the Hill" than anyone else; a commoner who both hobnobbed with, and was a close friend and influence upon both the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington; and a man whose perpetually burning revolutionary nature took him from Europe to the Americas and back again as a true man without a Country---was perhaps beyond Washington himself--the most indispensable American in the Revolutionary era.
Without the publication of "Common Sense", the first American best seller, the Tories would most likely have held sway, Sam Adams and John Hancock would have been hanged from the highest yardarm (depriving future Americans not only of their independence, but also a good lager and a perpetual guide for flairing signatures), and the Revolution would have petered out not with a bang, but a whimper.
Paine was also, as the greatest of writers oft are, unusually prescient, as Heather points out.
Warning of "...laying hold of popular disquietudes" and "collecting together the desperate and discontented, by assuming to himself the powers of government, may SWEEP AWAY THE LIBERTIES OF THE CONTINENT LIKE A DELUGE."
Batten down the hatches. It feels like rain. Or perhaps better described as Roberts' Rules of DISORDER
HCR spoke Truth to PBS Newshour correspondent Jeffrey Brown yesterday, leaving him speechless and quickly ending the interview. Thank you Dr Richardson for speaking clearly and precisely to the seriousness of this decision of the Supreme Court. Certainly worth watching if you missed it.
Bravo, HCR, for the perfect history lesson to remind us all of the true beginnings of our great nation. Take heart, true patriots, and prepare to stand up!
I’d like to see 100 million people show up at rallies around the country to protest the Supreme Court’s most recent disgraceful, disgusting, detestable ruling. Let’s unite! Pick a day!
Protest. And protest by Getting Out The Vote for Democrats (and for independent Sen. Angus King who caucuses with the Democrats.)
Today nominally Democratic Rep. Jared Golden had an op-ed in The Bangor Daily News: Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine.
The only excuse for voting for Golden is that he's kept the seat in the Democratic count. (It's a low population density state and political talent is spread thin up here in CD2.) Golden's only excuse is that he's the Democrat representing the Trumpiest congressional district. CD2 will be the most expensive House race in the nation. All the AIPAC money Golden's been given obliges him to blind himself to the horror in Gaza and prop up the Netanyahu regime. Does taking Adelson dollars also mean ALEC writes Golden's opinion pieces?
Having sat at the knee of the cunning and complicit Susan Collins while prepping to fill her round heeled pumps, Golden may be looking out for No. 1 by preemptively groveling at Trump's feet and pushing the GOP party line.
Donald Trump and his enablers are exponentially accelerating the rate by which they are eroding American democracy. Leonard Leo et al need not bother to 'appeal to god'. The GOP Fifth Column will be having a celebratory 4th.
Vote Blue No Matter Who just got a whole lot harder here in CD2. But no less necessary.
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/07/02/opinion/opinion-contributor/jared-golden-donald-trump-going-to-win-election-democracy-be-just-fine/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/understanding-democratic-decline-in-the-united-states/
You do understand that the expression “round helped pumps” refers to women who spend a lot of time on their backs - as prostitutes. Not that I mind calling Susan Collin’s a ho, except it’s a very misogynistic reference. Time to update our epithets.
As for Golden - white men are literally the only people who will blithely declare that “we’ll all be fine” in Rumpworld. They will, but only they will. Those that fail to recognize that are the arbiters of White Privilege. Not they get that, but they are.
Thank you, Pamela, for zeroing in on the comments regarding Sen Collin’s shoes. It struck me as soon as I read it. Epithets in general dilute reasoned opinion.
Me too. It's also why I try not to make nasty comments about trump's appearance - that's really not the point, and while fun, doesn't help anything.
I didn't know about the ho' reference but I had the same reaction about the shoe comment. I tried to think if there's a male equivalent epithet and I couldn't. I've been struggling with this in my small campaign for respectful conversations on X twitter. When folks on the left call tfg The Orange.....it's really tempting to let it go, but if I'm in a conversation, I ask that we keep our comments about actions and behaviors rather than appearance. It's challenging!
I also did know of any hidden meaning to Sen Collins’s shoes, but I do take umbrage at references to anyone’s body or clothing. It distracts from the point. The fact that Trump’s face is orange does not make him unsuitable as much as his actions and complete lack of integrity.
RE: the ho' reference 'small hands' works for those of the male persuasion. YMMV.
I’m now beginning to rethink that perhaps it is time for Biden to pass the baton to Kamala Harris. I’m not that crazy about either of them but it’s beginning to look like Harris would be a stronger candidate. My guess is as good as yours.
Bill, I respectfully disagree with you. Also, I refer you to Robert Hubbell's column of 7/3. https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/step-outside-the-bubble
I recommend that Harris and Joe switch places. Joe stays on as "coach" VP. Delegates switch. Joe can stick around as long as he's doing OK. As others are pointing out, Harris should pick up lots of votes from many who might have stayed home. The age problem becomes Trumps alone. And other advantages.
As Thomas Paine wrote: "If we omit it now [i.e. writing a constitution ensuring liberty] some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
I fear that today the "desperate and discontented" include not merely Trump's minions, but many of the wealthy and powerful, including the heads of corporations, who prefer a dictator who'll govern in their favor than trust a functioning democracy that might raise their taxes and rein in their greed.
The Supreme Court has just handed to the potential winner of the next presidential election the essential powers of a dictator. But, according to this ruling, while Joe Biden is still President he could order the assassination of Donald Dump, and claim it as an official act, beyond the reach of the law. "When the President does it," as Richard Nixon famously argued, "it's NOT a crime." Of course, Biden could be impeached, but even if he were convicted and removed from office, he'd have done the Republic a great service. ("But," as Nixon muttered under his breath on one of the Watergate tapes, "it would be wrong.")
Apparently not one head of a FOrtune 500 company has endorsed Trump. They may not like Biden, but none of them want the chaos and self-dealing that would come with Donald.
Joan, I don't believe it's because they don't like him. I believe they're worried about Biden. And YES to your comment about Trump!
I'm not surprised! What about Gretchen Whitmer?
That is good to know.
As HCR has pointed out, the Supremely-demented Court wrote the decision so that they are the ultimate arbiter of what is or is not official duties. They could easily judge that any particular action by Biden is a crime and could judge the same action by Trump is not a crime.
Exactly! Sure like to find out who wrote this decision. A lot of work went into it. Sheldon Whitehouse is thinking Leonard Leo handled it.
Not only wrong, but most likely declared illegal by this particular SCOTUS. Tempting to imagine, though....
And he should. Plus the remaking of SCOTUS and the arrest of the Insurrectionists Congresspersons. Then he can reestablish the rule of law. But we elected him in 2020 to preserve the Republic, and he decided to gamble on the next election, when we'll have the same problem again, worse.
The “many of the wealthy and powerful, including the heads of corporations, who prefer a dictator who'll govern in their favor than trust a functioning democracy that might raise their taxes and rein in their greed” are totally clueless that a dictator will be more powerful, finally, than all of them put together with all their wealth and power because he is the dictator — nothing safeguards them from his vengefulness and otherwise simply narcissistic wrath, especially any of them not white, not male, non-Christian, or immigrants.
Yes, I agree now, with you & Pamela. I did not know “round toed shoes” referred to a “professional lady of the evening.” While I question the dignity of such a profession,I think it’s not an “across the board” attitude towards an occupation of ancient history that is not always a forced profession. Furthermore,if a former president can obtain any kind of respect despite the most disgusting, dishonourable, slimy, & vile behavior while serving in a position of such worldwide importance & normally a much respected figurehead, then the profession of prostitution should command respect. 💙
It actually doesn't, technically. "round heels" refers to a woman who's easy to push over backwards. A "pushover". And the reason she's so described is that the putative pushing is obviously to use her for sexual gratification. But, yes, even so it's a misogynistic reference from an earlier era. (Say 1940s).
All that notwithstanding, I took the epithet to characterize Collins as a "political whore" -- which, again, does use derogation of special behavior -- this to mean one whose principles are for sale. Which last denotation is I think wholly accurate.
* sexual behaviour
Jared Golden is not a particularly intelligent or well informed person. Nor is he proving to be a particularly ethical one. But - with the help of Ranked Choice Voting and with progressives and others over a barrel - Golden may be the only Democrat (ie non-Republican) on the scene who can attract a sufficient number of relatively moderate right wing leaning independents and of Republicans who are not enthralled by the racist right wing religious extremism and fascist impulses of today's GOP. (Maine voters are infamously and mulishly 'independent' even when it means being irrational and self defeating. Though in truth, there's a lot of that going around. At least leftish Elliot Cutler's giving TeaParty Paul LePage two terms pissed off enough Maine voters to institute Ranked Choice Voting.)
I do not think Golden is a GOP plant. Although each time I vote for him I wonder when he will switch parties. Although the Democratic party might be more willing to make more allowances for him than the Republican party. If Golden survives this contest, the question will be then focus on what happens when Susan Collins decides she's had, or has enough, and retires.
*'Round heeled shoes' refers to a set of people who are unsteady on their feet - 'pushovers.' Of which female prostitutes are one subset. Boxers are another. People are frequently described as 'prostituting themselves'. without reference to sex work. The word 'prostitute' originally derives from publicly putting oneself up for sale. And was not limited to indicating female sex workers. (I looked these up to be sure.) That said, I was sensitive to the possibility of being called out on this but thought it worth the risk - hedging my bets that people might consider the broader definition rather than the more restricted usage which may easily come to mind.
I wonder too, each time I vote for him if he will switch parties.
The one thing I admire that he has done is he spent 2 months studying the Federal budget. Is there money to be saved there? Of course, but there is so much pork for each state and Congressman that nothing ever seems to get cut.
Susan Collins deserves the slur. She rolled over for Leonard Leo’s $$$. lin was witness to the lavish fundraiser he threw her up in lin’s neck of the woods.
U-Kno-it Gail! She rolled over and the (R)ss-hole party 'had its way with her'.., clear and simple. She could have chosen to remain tall, and so could so many others. They didn't. So, here we are.
Susan Collins is a traitor and has no brain of her own.
Pamela -- Picky editor that I am suggests you might want to correct the spelling of your typo in your first sentence -- should be "round heeled pumps". Sorry -- I can't help myself!
try- try to help yourself. Comments can't be edited on the phone and really, who cares?
Always blame auto-correct. Besides, we all can translate from the autocratic auto-correct into contemporary language without losing the meaning while getting in a few spontaneous chuckles.
I agree that pointing out typos is overboard, but comments can be edited. Click the “…” and select Edit.
As I noted, does not work on the iphone, only on the computer but thanks.
Thanks—-I run into the typo frequently!💙
Actually, the bitter irony is that even white men *won't* be fine: after they come immediately for the browns and the liberals, they'll come for the Jews and the Catholics. That's how facismworks -- there must always be an Other.
Precisely. Anyone can be the next scapegoat.
True - has to be white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian men - but not Catholics.
Covertly, they're admitting to what's happening. Personally, I think many of them are peeing in their pants. I also believe, if by some terrible outcome, Trump wins, they will lose control...In another area of concern,I just read Bill McKibben's substack and he mentioned that Greta Thunberg's Sunrise Movement has kicked up their energy. They're really angry with Di Santis. Since 2000, the Harvard Public Opinion Project (HPOP) has provided the most comprehensive look at young Americans’ political opinions and voting trends. It provides essential insight into the concerns of young Americans, the majority of who whom are NOT pro Trump.
Pamela, you are right about only rich white men benefiting under Trump. Everyone else scares him silly. He wants to control everyone and so far in his life, he has been successful at doing that because people though he was far richer than he actually was. Trump without money would have been a nobody, just an ordinary guy, of course privileged to some extent because he is white, but with no skills, no affinity for anyone, no ability to tell the truth, he would not even have made it to the history footnote section.
How can Golden write this?? While decrying “the extremists” in this op-ed piece he, too, is now seduced by the “orange idol” of extremism? How can he fall under the spell of forgetfulness of bellicose lying and violent threats, forgetting that “the dark day of Jan 6” was set fire by Trump. WTF Kool-aid has Golden succumbed to? Argh.
He can write this because his district is trumpy AF and he wants to be re-elected. But all he's doing is revealing 1) his ignorance of how Nazis got control of Germany (and what they did immediately after getting control), and 2) just how cowardly he is.
Good god, either Jaren Golden is terribly naive or cunning and complicit like Susan Collins. We deserve better.
Golden is playing the game. He’s a gop plant.
It certainly sounds like it.
Golden is terrified that he will lose the election. He doesn't have to worry about that anymore even in our purple district.
I disagree that the election is about the economy. It's is about women's rights and the GOPs need to control them. Across the country, women are being raped and impregmated with impunity. Doctors are fleeing the states that are enforcing total bans on abortion. Idaho has lost over 50% of their Ob/Gyns that deal with high risk pregnancies.
It is also about a Supreme Court that is willing to crown convicted felon Donald Trump king and to take away freedoms while enriching themselves and their friends.
And if it is about, the economy why isn't Biden the clear winner? There is no need to repeat the numbers because they are so lopsided in Biden's favor. Stock markets, GDP, wage growth, unemployment rate, SS income. And all of this with the most do-nothing Congress ever. They punted on the budget for 6 months. They punted on Ukraine and Israel support for 6 months allowing tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and military to die as well as about 100,000 Russians.
I'm sure this is a campaign calculation since his opponents is a fracking NASCAR driver than doesn't have the brains God gave lettuce. But this is in no way and excuse for writing the op-ed.
Thanks Lin for sending both of the links. I run into a paywall with the Bangor Daily News and this time I didn't.
I hope, desperately, that you are right about the Dobbs effect.
Blue is the only way to go!
There's a feeling among Jewish Americans that releasing funds to Iran enabled them to conduct war on Israel.
But, another explanation is that Iran's objection to The Abraham Accords and Russia/Iran opening a front against America for empire and conquest in Ukraine is more likely.
All efforts must be made to expand the accords into Syria and Lebanon, and bring freedom between the Black and Caspian Seas, and between Finland and the White Sea, where people want to be free and who believe in the rule of law over despotism.
I'm confused. I thought ALEC was a Koch Brothers endeavor.
Shorter Golden:
January 6 was a nothingburger; Coal Baron Joe Manchin and I saved the economy;
Medicare, Social Security and ACA will be fine; Trump is too weak to do what everyone fears.
Not one of these is the flex he thinks it is.
Guessing the BDN made this accessible to boost their hate-click numbers.
As Thomas Paine wrote: "If we omit it now [i.e. writing a constitution ensuring liberty] some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
I fear that today the "desperate and discontented" include not merely Trump's minions, but many of the wealthy and powerful, including the heads of corporations, who prefer a dictator who'll govern in their favor than trust a functioning democracy that might raise their taxes and rein in their greed.
The Supreme Court has just handed to the potential winner of the next presidential election the essential powers of a dictator. But, according to this ruling, while Joe Biden is still President he could order the assassination of Donald Dump, and claim it as an official act, beyond the reach of the law. "When the President does it," as Richard Nixon famously argued, "it's NOT a crime." Of course, Biden could be impeached, but even if he were convicted and removed from office, he'd have done the Republic a great service. ("But," as Nixon muttered under his breath on one of the Watergate tapes, "it would be wrong.")
I'm Blue!
Voting blue has and continues to fail us as the Supreme Court’s decision proves. Hope and change will come by declaring our independence and voting for Kennedy.Voting blue is inept.
Kennedy? WTF?
Don’t get trolled Rickey
He's baaaack
A vote for Kennedy is a vote for trump
I’ve heard that so many times.I believe it originated from the propaganda dispensary at the DNC and was quickly picked up by our historian HCR. Speaking strictly for my vote that is likely going for Kennedy to win, it’s a lie.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/01/rfk-jr-2024-campaign-donors-00124621
We have met the enemy and it is us. At least the turncoats
Jeri, I'm a little late to the party today. I've been celebrating the worst day Bobby Lee ever had with the ANV on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg. We MUST defeat Trump on Nov 4, it matters not who the candidate is...just get behind him or her and vote. Have a good 4th.
So true, but throwing Joe under the bus is not a good look. And for a sick day, the worst one ever, but he is still the same man. So is chump. Enough said…
RFKJR says Joe isn’t the same now. The Joe he knew would be giving him secret service protection. And did you watch Biden’s speech the day after the debate ? He said he doesn’t debate as well as he used to. That skill is what we need in a president so he said himself he doesn’t have it anymore, essentially.
Vote for wormhead? Yeah, I rather think not.
Kennedy has zero chance of winning, so why vote for him?
Do you want him to win? OMG...he's a Trump puppet.
Yes he is
Gawd, but yer a moran!
You are name calling and that is what Trump does.
He runs in the same circles as Steve Bannon!
A vote for Kennedy is a vote for Trump.
You must be lonely.
The list of candidates that can match the depth of experience and character of Joe is not that long. We need rigorously proven foresight and good judgment.
I'd vote for --Hakeem
https://jeffries.house.gov/about/
https://youtu.be/yRozJwSef54?si=7SjwJJqACCVymDGa
Well voting blue is ineffective if your goal is to elect Donald Trump.
My goal is not to elect Trump. My goal is to elect Kennedy. Your fear of Trump will not change my mind.
John I prefer as donkey, while you support a jackass. Bob Kennedy Jr. is a disgrace to his father and his family. He is not as bad as Trump, since no one is as bad as Trump. If you adhere to your principles, you will heed RBK Jr. and never get vaccinated. Also, junior Kennedy’s relationships with women link him to Trump.
As somebody said a day or two ago, Joe in a coma would be better than chump. I add RFKJ
You want to kill US all off. There WILL BE a next pandemic, given the melting of the permafrost, sooner rather than later. An anti-vaccine president in power could destroy US.
So why did we have the most deaths of any nation percentage wise?the vaccine wasn’t the solution. There were drugs that effectively treated the virus but Fauci was pushing the vaccine. And you should know that Kennedy isn’t anti vaccine. If you listen to him you would know that.
Yes! Let’s protest this abomination!
Give me Liberty and/or Give Me Death against the Supreme Court.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
How can we as a nation pursue liberty or happiness with a man who would be king spewing "hate, anger, resentment and misinformation (HARM)" at us 24/7/365?
If it were just Trump, there would be no problem. The problem is that upwards of 74 million Americans are as bad or worse than he in HARM business.
Well, those 74 million are lemmings, and will follow any voice that catches their fancy. But Trump is a master of evil, chaos, dishonor and HARM.
Read NYT David Brook's interview with Steve Bannon and you will understand. It was recently published so you can google it.
I never read anything that namby-pamby pollyanna writes.
The Court has gone rogue and are reconstructing the constitution and the power of their institution and that of the president, or past presidents, as the case may be.
@Bill Katz: If you change the “or” in your comment to “and”, drop “Me”, and change “against” to “to”, that would be something I could get behind.
Now are we ready to march? We need a Nationwide march to show our commitment to the constitution and rule of law! I think we should do it on the 4th of July! Send a strong message that this country belongs to WE THE PEOPLE!
This may be the last year we are allowed to march.
😢😢😢
Much better if the “March For Democracy and Reproductive Rights” occurs in each State Capitol on Labor Day giving us plenty of time to register the unregistered and to motivate all to Turn Out! See also please nonpartisan www.TurnUp.US run by brilliant Harvard students only in 38 “competitive” election districts & 11 Senate election states to register hundreds of thousands of Community College students to support abortion, gun safety and to fight Climate Change. Tax deductible C3! Please donate generously! Thank you
Donated! Thank you so much for providing the link to this amazing 501(c)3! Everyone who can should donate to help get young voters registered for the upcoming election.
Thank you Pat and everyone! What is essential to www.TurnUp.US is their concentration of registering Community College students only in the 38 truly “competitive” congressional districts and eleven Senate races! Please do not waste your $$ in races that really cannot be won or are already safe! That rule applies to the 412 districts that are impenetrable but those incumbents and candidates hoard or waste your money! I’ve carefully examined every single one of the “competitive” CDs and TurnUp can make a real difference in winning when it registers and then turns out 3,000 to 5,000 new young voters in each District who will protect abortion rights and IVF! Really important and community colleges are where real local voters could be as compared to big universities! Please go to www.TurnUp.US and thank you for really helping us win!! No BS!
We marched in great numbers worldwide in 2021. It felt good, but what good did it do?
Additionally, I wish that Judge Merchan had sentenced Trump anyways today. Some would say that doing so would precipitate a Constitutional crisis. That is wrong. We are already in one. So, let us get it out into the open by defying the Supreme Court and essentially instructing the bastards to go and do something anatomically impossible to themselves.
While I do understand the delay, I think all Merchan had to do is issue and order saying that none of Trump's behavior for which he was convicted had anything to do with carrying out executive functions and was purely personal.
Better than open defiance, if the Judge can do that. My impression, very tentative, is that the Trump attorneys are arguing that some of the evidence used were tweets and were covered by presumptive immunity since the twidiot's bloviation constituted official acts. Without that 'excluded' evidence, there may not be proof of intent behind the hush money payment. So, conservatives (who wet their pants over law and order) willfully erode the legitimacy of the rule-of-law. Helluva "broad perimeter."
I'm not saying I don't agree with you, Ned. Instead, I'm saying dissent must be explicit about its intent. As much as I respect John Adams as a heroic figure in American history, I find his "rule of law" phrase to be too ambiguous, and I think we must be less ambiguous. I'm not sure of the best way to do that, but I am sure of a way to do that.
Instead of saying that America is based on the rule of law, say America is based the principle that the intrinsic value of any one human life is equal to the intrinsic value of every other human life, and that the rule of law is the means to that end.
I came across an article about an APA meta-study of conspiracy theories. The sentence that caught my attention said, "The results strongly supported a tripartite motivational model of conspiratorial ideation. This model posits that conspiratorial thinking is driven by three key needs: understanding one’s environment (epistemic), feeling secure and safe (existential), and maintaining a superior image of oneself and one’s ingroup (social)."
Q: What percent of the human population wants to understand one's environment? A: 100%. Q: What percent of the human population wants to feel secure and safe? A: 100%. Q: What percent of conspiracy theorists maintain a superior image of oneself and one's ingroup? A: 100%.
Translation: Anyone who maintains a superior image of oneself and one’s ingroup is—and anyone who maintains that the intrinsic value of any one human life is equal to the intrinsic value of every other human life (and that the rule of law is the means to that end) is not—a conspiracy theorist.
King George III, the colonial British parliament, slaveholders, supporters of Jim Crow, MAGA Republicans, and anyone attempting to benefit at the expense of the greater good, are all conspiracy theorist.
In conclusion, please stand up for what is right. To do otherwise is wrong. But be explicit about the difference between right and wrong.
References:
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-bul0000392.pdf.
https://www.psypost.org/why-do-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-heres-what-the-science-says/
I am not sure I understand what you are saying.
I do think that open defiance would be explicit in its intent.
Judge Merchan would be openly disregarding the Supreme Court's ruling, in which the Court is acting way beyond its judicial authority.
And the Supreme Court has no enforcement ability. All a lower court would have to do is disregard their decision and call it a illegitimate decision
Good idea, Susan! The Federal Judge's oath -- I assume the model for state Judges -- is quite clear where the judicial loyalty is supposed to lie.
Oath of Office for Federal Judges: “I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [a United States District Judge or United States Magistrate Judge] under the Constitution(link is external) and laws of the United States. So help me God."
Good question. I'll see if I can give you a better description of my intent.
If I decide to dissent, I want to make it clear that I am dissenting against a ruling specifically because it is violating the "we are all equal" principle. What the current SCOTUS majority is doing is imposing their will on others, and in the process they are reflexively dismissing legitimate concerns thereby implying that they are important and the SCOTUS dissenters are not.
If they did give serious consideration to legitimate concerns, they would be serving justice. Reflexively dismissing legitimate concerns is a symptom with an easily identifiable cause, and that cause is that they are serving an exclusive interest that excludes those who are expressing those legitimate concerns.
The cure for the symptom is to be explicit about the intent to serve the inclusive interest, aka the greater good, and that the current context demands dissent as a means to achieve that end. Hopefully, the response is for them to suggest a way to serve that end that is a better alternative than dissent, or to reinforce what we already know, which is that they care about three things that don't include justice, and those are "me, myself, and I."
Regardless of the response, the dissenter must make the dissenter's intent to serve the greater good explicit to everyone on the fence and on both sides of the fence. It's not hard to do. Instead, it's something people don't think of doing because they don't think of doing it.
I listen to the dissenters in the media clattering for Biden resignation and they give me no reason to think that their position is not self-serving, implying that "Biden is a fool and I am wise" whereas, even if they're right, they've got me thinking exactly the opposite.
Hope that helps.
Per the exchange with Susan, below, Judge Merchan would take pains to explain why his defiant dissent is legitimate since he DOES NOT take an oath to the Supreme Court but to the laws (or the rule-of-law) and Constitution.
The arrogation of power by the five Justices (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh), as detailed by Justice Sotomayor, violates the Constitution.
The exclusive thinking, DOES NOT serve the public good but even to a President as occupant of the presidency, the ruling is illegitimate. Therefore, NOT to be accepted as the law of the land.
I agree with everything you and Susan are saying, but it appears that I'm doing an inadequate job of making my point. With your indulgence, I'll give it another try.
To pass the Wisdom Knowledge Test (page 71 of my book) is to know the wisdom principle. Thanks to the guidance of sufficiently mature parents, I would have passed the test as a fifth grader, which is to say that I was sufficiently mature. And a majority of supreme court justices in the most powerful nation on earth are insufficiently mature in a manner that would have been obvious to me as a fifth grader.
In a better world, every child would take the Wisdom Knowledge Test on the first day of grade five, and then we would all be taking the Wisdom Road Test (answering the "Is my behavior consistent with my knowledge?" question) every day for the rest of our lives. Nobody's perfect, but it would be obvious to everyone with a valid fifth grade graduation certificate that a member of a team who reflexively ignores good advice from a teammate should have their fifth grade graduation certificate suspended. And the law society needs to ask itself how it allowed those six insufficiently mature SCOTUS justices to get into law school, let alone pass the bar, and then make it all the way to the supreme court where they're now trying to destroy the justice system that we all rely on, including them.
That better world is not going to magically materialize between now and the election, but my assumption is that it can become a widely shared vision for the future in less than four months, and if that happens, the six immature SCOTUS "justices," the MAGA crew, and the wisdom of Joe Biden would be viewed much differently than now.
My frustration is expressed in Bob Dylan's "how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see" lyric. But the answer, my friend, is no longer blowin' in the wind. Not to me. The answer is everyone of us holding everyone of us accountable the way I image every fifth grade classmate holding every other fifth grade classmate accountable.
So, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. Instead, I'm suggesting that it doesn't matter what Judge Merchan says if not enough people are listening. He needs our help. A society detached from the wisdom principle is detached from reality. To be attached is to adhere to the wisdom principle, and vice versa. I think the Wisdom Knowledge Test is one sufficiently simple way of reminding ourselves of something we are all born knowing, and it is in the "as simple as possible without being too simple" Goldilocks zone.
I believe John Adams was the author of the Insurrection Act, a weakness of character being responsible for that.
Our strengths in one context are our weaknesses in other contexts. That's why we need to work together toward serving the greater good. IMHO, John Adams' greatest weakness of character would have been offset if he had paid more attention to Abigail Adams.
"I long to hear that you have declared an independency — and by the way in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands." —Abigail Adams
Whenever I think of John Adams I think of exactly this quote. We wouldn't be in quite the mess had he listened and heeded her.
Thanks James.
To that I can add what I learned from Michael Gelb and Raj Sisodia's book, The Healing Organization (2019). This is really, really important:
The essential elements of the constitution existed nowhere else in the world, but the founding fathers eventually found them in existence in their own backyard. Seven warring tribes came together under the leadership of a peacemaker to form the Iroquois Confederacy two centuries before the writing of the constitution that would structure the US government.
So, the founding fathers copied the elements of the confederacy and incorporated them in the US constitution. But there was one key element that they left out, which was the council of mothers and grandmothers that actually selected the leader of the confederacy and had the power to replace a leader that was too warlike, or not being inclusive, or not thinking enough about the long-term.
The Iroquois Confederacy defined "the long term" as thinking about what the consequence of an action would be after seven generations. That's hard to do, but the harder thing to do is to live with the consequences of not doing it.
If I may draw on "1776":
John Adams: "I'm obnoxious and disliked you know that's so."
Bej. Franklin: "Yes, I know."
Ally, I'm late to the party today. I've been celebrating Bobby Lee loses at Gettysburg Day today. We MUST defeat Trump on Nov 4. I don't care who the Democratic candidate is. I'll vote for and work for him or her. There is NO other choice. Have a good 4th
You too, Mike!
"1776" is on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow at 11:45 AM Eastern. One of my very favorite movies!
Yay!!! Mine too!
😂, but not funny,😢😱😤
Good. There should be protests. Maybe we need a new Wide Awake movement <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/club-cape-wearing-activists-helped-elect-lincoln-spark-civil-war-180984000/> -- b.rad
Brad-Thanks so much for sharing this story! It really highlights the depth of our history and the importance of political organization. It’s also good to know that America has a tradition of being “wide awake” or in today’s language “woke”.
How about “WideWoke” ?!
The "Wide Awakes" were also mentioned in Heather's book, "Democracy Awakening" (Chapter 26 "Of the People, by the People, For the People," page 201) and seem a great historical link to the opposition to the Slave holder power grabs attempting to spread slavery through all the new states (and enforce Fugitive Slave laws in the older non-slave states).
Instead of just being "Woke," I prefer joining a new "Wide Awake" opposition coalition to the disgusting Supreme Court attempt to turn us back at least 184 years.
This disgusting SCOTUS opinion hopefully makes the already "Woke," and very many more now "Wide Awake."
P.S. The people running for the 34th Congress in 1854 had little time to run under the newly forming Republican party name. They were so opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that tried to break all the old bargains (that were bad enough, but expected to eventually get closer to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that, though none ran as "Republicans" on the Ballot, they formed an Opposition Coalition that became the majority in the 34th Congress.
The only labelled Republican in the House during that term was a replacement for a deceased member. That newly forming party was the polar opposite of what passes for the Republican party today.
No, it is not enough to vote, contribute money to political campaigns and participate in blogs, Facebook etc. by preaching to the choir, wringing our hands and wondering where to resettle (not as easy as it looks unless you are seriously rich). No, it is time to hit the streets.
Assuming there's enough gas in Joe Biden's tank (charge in his battery?) to get him to the end of his term, he should participate in ensuring a smooth transition from his presidency to the presidency of one of the many talented Democrats who could surely kick Trump's ass in any debate and earn the trust of a sizeable majority of Americans. There is nothing scandalous about responding to changed circumstances by changing course. An open convention might actually be a breath of fresh air for a Democratic Party leadership that has become a bit sclerotic.
You have obviously never been involved in the nuts-amnd-bolts creation of a national political campaign, which I am here to tell you cannot be done with any hope of success in 129 days, which is what is there.
If you can't support the guy you voted for, get the hell out of the way!
A M E N, TC!
It is way too late in the process to change candidates — likely just what the Supreme Asswipes were counting on. Throw the Dems into chaos.
Biden has a great team in place. This is no longer about who’s too old to deliver the policy message — this is a constitutional crisis! Fight the Orange Menace on every level, but for Democracy’s sake, don’t switch horses in midstream. The lucky ones will drown.
And if something should happen to Biden after he is elected, there is no doubt that Harris could move in to fit the bill.
ABSOLUTELY, Kathy Clark. VP Harris record should be more completely and frequently circulated. Too bad so many Dems are bad at bragging.
"Biden has a great team in place" .... maybe so but somebody in the debate prep team should have been able to predict what Trump would do and coach for that. Instead they all ran him ragged until their candidate was ill, exhausted, and fully prepped with facts that were never going to be relevant.
We're dealing with a colossal narcissist. Every campaign tactic should be aimed at exploiting the massive weaknesses of a narcissist. Be assured, That Man's team is coaching to Biden's weaknesses. That's why we're all discussing this now.
G E E Z, was I ever wrong! Mea culpa, and I couldn’t be happier to be so misguided — or more relieved.
TCinLA you are being foolish. Doubling down on Biden, hoping for the best regarding his mental health, then tripling down, and on and on, until losing to Trump on election day, and then democracy is gone.
Let's all be honest and ask ourselves, as Democrat supporters as most everyone here is, what should be done.
What should be done? Support the President!
I love most of what he's done this far, and I don't see a more effective candidate waiting in the wings. I want Joe to keep on keepin' on, for as long as he can. My only advice to the President is to try to avoid giving 45 any oxygen. The political center was pulled to the right ever since William F. Buckley in the '50s, and the Democrats allowed it to happen, too reluctant to keep to the left, afraid of being accused as "socialists". Joe is the first President in a long time to really push that boundary back toward The Left, where it needs to go. Joe has some good people working for him, and as far as I can see, all he needs to do is confer with them, encourage them, let them do most of the heavy lifting. If you are impatient for him to collect his thoughts, just chill and wait for him to make his point. It will be worth the wait. If Joe and I were friends, I would not push him toward any particular course. But if he wants to keep going, I would do everything I can to help him keep going, thereby to take advantage of every bit of experience and wisdom he has garnered over his lifetime. Keep on, Joe!
I also agree that Joe Biden has done a great job. But when it is time to hang it up, it is time! People do retire after all! And then it is time to pass on your legacy, if you believe in that.
And Dems would certainly lose if done now. Magical thinking is a waste of time.
Joe got more done for the common folk especially the under served in 3.5 years than any President since FDR! Kamala is highly qualified to continue his legacy after he is re-elected!
I agree. My husband is a 59 year old pipefitter. He says Joe has done more for the working man than any other president in his lifetime.
Go away, you spineless yuppie.
I agree TC. The takeaway that the mainstream media is spinning is heavy on optics but is without substance.
That view is promoted by the MAGA and a few democrats overcome with fear.
They say Joe lost the debate. How can that be? If Trump had told any truth then yes, Joe would be considered the loser. But that was not the case. Nothing Trump said was true (which disqualified it as a debate).
Most of the nation had prepared for Trump to be drawn and quartered by a force greater than Trump’s using the same technique as Trump uses —loud bombast unmasking the man for what he truly is. They had unrealistic expectations, so naturally they were shocked and disappointed when that didn’t happen.
To me Joe’s reaction to Trump’s non stop lying one after another leaves no place for a response. How do you rebut nonsense that’s machine-gunned at you by a 300 pound Orangutan who has been practicing his lies for 7 years? You don’t. You can’t. There’s no there there.
Joe’s reaction was correct.
There are plenty of old folks on these Substacks. Only the old are in the position to watch our own physicality change, weaken, and slow. We watch that happen while at the same time we notice that the watcher is full of the force of who he or she has always been but with more knowledge, savvy and grace now.
What most of the younger people see is the exterior only, the surface. Old is bad they’ve been taught all their lives. And that my friends is one of our culture’s biggest errors. The senior citizens are where accurate history lives. We are where experience lives. And we are not afraid.
Look beyond the spin. Joe Biden is our man.
Well, the “orange” guy has been lying for almost all his life, and attacking those who stand in his way. From my 88 y.o. view, we are experiencing, as a nation, the revival of Hitler’s rise to power. If he is not stopped by our votes in a substantial way there will again be the bloodshed of the opposition and the innocent.
You stated what I’ve been saying. There was no debate, the was Trump doing what he always does. He spits out his rants, projecting his evil, criminal, behavior on those who oppose him.
There are so many moving parts here and it’s hard to explain. I don’t disagree about age. As Reagan said about how he wouldn’t exploit youth and inexperience when referring to his opponent. Then he went on to clearly develop dementia and Alzheimer’s in his second term. In terms of age, Trump is only 3 years and months younger. But we age differently, too. At 70,I feel a big difference from only 4 years ago. Another point made to me by a very well read friend was that Biden intimated that he would be a transitional president. I can’t substantiate that.
The more importance here is optics and the only goal is winning. But you also have media that has two fundamental goals: inform the reader as well as sell advertising. They do at times conflict with each other.
We are at a long sad, unfortunate modern-day recognizing of long simmering socio/economic/political conflicts. Perhaps it’s always been in existence and I believe so. But the shock of it today is intense. The evil side has chosen as their standard bearer, a most insipid, dangerous; a full miscasting of character ever in our political history and we have had bad ones. This one not only is the perfect of imperfection but now has transformed himself successfully as a martyr to his supporters. This is a clash which could have been predicted when the Court passed allowing unlimited money in campaigns. Now only those most financially successful have the advantage. But again, has t it always been this way?
I would be neglectful if I didn’t add that we democrats haven’t exactly been the brightest bulbs when we refused to acknowledge fundamentally unpopular issues like border transgressions. No society supports this. ObserveFrance now tittering on a far right government. What is the issue: too many migrants. UK? Brexit and why? Too many migrants allowed under the European Union. Hungry? Same. Germany? Same. Italy? Same.
I wonder how long will it take to wake up. And I can already anticipate the responses here. “We did our best.” The law didn’t allow Biden to do more and that’s all bullshit. If Biden doesn’t get re-elected, it won’t be because he stumbled in a debate. It will be because he had a callus attitude towards border issues.
Brava!
Heather has spent time with him in the last six weeks and says he is fine.
Vote blue no matter who!!
I agree!
No WAY troll Matt Fullerton I am honest
Strange.
Go back to diddling yourself, you disgusting moron.
Wow, I just state an opinion that probably a very large percentage of Dems are worried about, and you reply like a 5th grade bully.
I will vote Biden if he stays the course.
Tom My personal prediction:
1) Biden, who has been an excellent president, will finally acknowledge that, were he to run, he would virtually assure Trump’s election and severely damage Dem prospects in the House and Senate.
2) The selection of a replacement candidate will be messy at the Chicago convention;
3) A younger candidate can run on the Biden administration accomplishments, clearly contrasting these with Trump’s wild claims, viscerally highlight Trump’s physical and mental incapacities, and point out specifically how Trump’s shot gun pronouncements would harm the great majority of Americans.
I am modestly hopeful that this is a scenario that will elect a Democrat on November 5th AND assist the Dem House and Senate candidates.
I’ll bet you a modest $100 that my ‘miracle’ scenario will prevail.
And who do you imagine will step up, be accepted by all, and defeat Trump in November? I cannot conceive of an "open convention" not leading to chaos and defeat. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Herrick, and everyone else who wants to push Joe Biden out the door. I'd happily be wrong, but I think that it is highly unlikely that a savior will appear between now and the convention who will unite us all. Think seriously about what the world under King Donald I will be like if we live in fantasy land about how to win this election and keep our democracy.
On one hand you chastise David Herrick “and everyone else who wants to push Joe Biden out the door,” yet you infer that you would be happily wrong if a savior would pop up. Herein you’ve captured the conundrum of the century. Joe Biden was humiliated at the debate and his own people are calling for his ouster. That’s really bad…and sad. But true. It’s hard to prop up such a figure (Frank Bruni’s piece, Biden Cannot Go on Like This, perfectly reflects this reality with compassion but offers no solution). Whether Biden stubbornly shuffles forth or Democrats desperately seek an alternative, I feel we’re screwed either way. In my own desperation I feel the need to offer SOMETHING. I dream that the sensible and elegant Daniel Goldberg of New York be president one day, but now is not his time. Two that might pull it off are Amy Klobuchar and Gavin Newsome as a team, not caring which one runs for pres. or VP. They have track records and IMO they would win….
I had a bad day. But I got better.
Joe had a bad day. But he got better -- he was back to his usual self just hours later. Being on the stage with 45 would have made me sick as well.
We should venerate our elder statesmen and stateswomen.
We've been taught, conditioned, to adore youth and beauty, by advertising and merchandising. What do they know? Not much that I care about.
Joe is a few years older than I, and I'm sticking with him as long as he wants to keep going. If he decides to call it a day, we'll figure out what to do next, but until that day arrives, I want him to keep doing everything he can to move America forward toward a better future.
David-I agree. It’s so disappointing to watch the Ds shoot themselves and aim a firing squad at Biden. This is just what the Rs want -chaos among the Ds instead of unity.
Most are panicked because they know White people will flock to Trump and they skip over Harris because they know White people won’t accept another “colored” person (or woman) in what is a “white job”.
So sad for our democracy where racism is tied to all of our upheavals from the Civil War to Civil Rights. This election will surely determine if American
Democracy survives.
What else can you do? I’m operating by the first line of the Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…”
And DJT is only 4 years younger and frail in the mind. Not sure why this doesn’t get more attention.
Gawd forbid that the NYT or WaPo mention THAT!
I respectfully disagree -- the debate was not just a bad night -- it showed a wonderful man who has done great things for the country, but who is now - at least episodically - infirm. This is not about Joe Biden any longer - it's about the country. I don't think Biden has a hope of winning and I wish he would anoint another Democrat as his successor.
He can win if we stop saying that he can’t. We’re poisoning the air with our negativity. If something happens to Biden we have a VP and team to carry on.
PLEASE keep the faith in the best of humanity instead of helping the worst in humanity to win.
Respectfully, this is being pushed by the pundits. Shut them out. I have faith that if Biden doesn’t feel up to the task he’d bow out. I’ve had to go back to listening to music in the car.
Respectfully disagree!
Bruni went to the dark side years ago! Like Howard Cosell did years ago, Bruni thinks he is the ‘show’!
The problem with Joe's health has been steadily growing since originally being elected. But yet the can has steadily and repeatedly been kicked down the road. And here we now find ourselves, with loyal aids saying everyone should just accept the fact that Joe is at his best between 10am and 4pm, and not expect much outside of those times! No, it is time to take action, and for Joe Biden to realize this is the case, and fully be in support!
I'll take Biden at his best between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. over a fascist who slept until noon and spent most of his time tweeting.
I agree! And will vote for Biden of course if he stays the course.
Has anyone stopped to consider that President Biden understands the overwhelming need to avoid turmoil at this critical juncture in American history? That he is trying to rally the sensible to turn out in mass numbers this November to soundly defeat the NAZIs? And that shortly after January '25, he will cite health and fitness issues, resign, and turn the nation over to the exceptionally qualified Vice President Harris? And that he will do so with the understanding that she would probably NOT be elected on her own, sadly, and this is NOT the time to risk the unthinkable. C'mon folks; trust the man! We KNOW he has the best interests of America in mind and heart. Let's get out in mass numbers, defeat the NAZIs, and trust our dear President to do what is in the best interests of ALL!
Daniel K-Thank you. This is a sensible possibility.
I couldn’t agree with you more!
Listen to Heathers fb talk from yesterday, she said she spent considerable time with Joe Biden in the last 6 weeks and he's fine.
I trust her.
And on the PBS News Hour last night
Heather's talk/interview.
1968 all over again. Spare me, for Christ’s sake.
Jeri, I hope we learned something from that one. If Joe bows out, it has to be his pick. No friggin fight on the Convention floor. That's insane. Have a good 4th
No friggin fight on the convention floor. That says it all. I know Dems can act stupid sometimes, but please, don’t try to outdo Repubs.
Granted, polling is flawed in some important respects, but the polling we have at this point still suggests that Biden has a better chance against Trump than does any other prominent Democrat.
Do you know the methodology of that poll?
I do not -- I saw it on TV, and I don't recall which polling outfit did it, although I recall that it was one of the better-known ones. But I do know that it said Biden was 2 points behind Trump, i.e., within the margin of error, whereas in head-to-head matchups with other Dems, Trump led by more than the margin of error in every case.
I would refer you all to Bill Maher’s recent editorial where he suggests that an open Democratic convention might well be a bit chaotic, but at the same time would energize American politics on both sides of the current divide in ways that might well be hugely beneficial to us. There is no clear right answer to this current mess except in the minds of those already so set in their views that nothing short of WWIII would alter them (which alteration would, of course, be both permanent and terminal). For the rest of, to break out of this awful Trump/Biden binary in a way reminiscent of our greatest periods of democratic debate might be just what we all need. Remember that there were four candidates in 1860, with four very different platforms, and we got out of that brouhaha the best president the United States has ever had. No historical parallel is ever perfect, but just think on this.
Please explain what happened when LBJ refused the nomination in 1968.
Well, Bill, as I recall, his popular, liberal and once well-loved vice-president Hubert Humphrey got the 1968 Democratric nomination while LBJ really did try to end the Vietnam War, and then Tricky Dick Nixon won the election quite handily. The Democratic convention in Chicago had been a disastrous showcase of division within the Democratic party, as Eugene McCarthy ran out of steam on the left after Bobby Kennedy (the one with the best chance to defeat Nixon in my opinion) was assassinated in Los Angeles. Humphrey had had to go along with Johnson's war for too many years to be a credible peace candidate, McCarthy was all too credible a peace candidate, so it's likely some leftwing Democrats stayed home, southern Democrats liked Dick Nixon better than Humphrey - a major figure in getting civil rights legislation passed earlier in the 60's - and I could go on and write yet another book about the summer of my 16th year.
Of course there are similarities between then and now. Johnson already had serious health issues (he died of a heart attack in 1973 at the tender age of 64) but no one knows how he might have held up during a second full term as President. The country was sharply divided ideologically and politically (as we are now). Dick Nixon was slippery and sleazy and knew how to lie with a straight face, but he was neither an ignoramus, nor suffering from a serious psychological illness (terminal narcissism), nor given to doubling down on the same big pathological lies at every speaking engagement.
On balance I'd say Chicago was an example of what can go wrong, but that if Democrats are too stupid to learn from that experience, unable to emphasize the things that unite us rather than our differences as we face our first truly existential election against a lunatic and a rogue Court in a recently unimagined information environment, then... I guess we'll get what we get.
I'm sorry, and it pains me, that the look on Biden's face as he mispoke while reciting numbers he had memorized for the occasion, no doubt realizing in real time that he had lost his train of thought at just the wrong moment and was totally blowing it before a very large national audience who would remember that more than anything he could say for the rest of the debate,... that look was surely the whole story for many potential voters.
I voted for Bernie twice in primaries. I voted (without the slightest second thought) for Hillary against Trump, and (enthusiastically) for Joe Biden against Trump. If Biden remains the Democratic candidate, I will vote for him, as I will for whomever else the Democrats might nominate. But I'm not everyone.
Damn, your memory is right on, but your conclusion pains me.
You left out Nixon & Company's treasonous footsie-ing with the North Vietnamese to drag out the peace process until after the election.
Right I get it. Johnson and most politicians were victims of the war years in which the mentally was that communism had to be checked. RFK I considered a spoiler in 1968. Eugene McCarthy could have and should have pulled it off. The street radicals chose the wrong convention to exhibit themselves. At my own tender age of 15, I already knew that.
When I lived and worked in a nightclub in Florence, Italy in the mid 1970s, I had a chance to meet people from all over the world. Frequently bus loads of Australians came in and after observing them, I wrote in my journals that I finally found a bunch of nationals worse than Americans.
Hahaha, thanks for the reminder. Are we really that stupid -again. Nixon will look like an angel compared with chump
Dick Nixon (before he ..... you)
I’d like to see 100 million people read Heather’s Letters every day🙏❤️🤗
Well, fantasy land. But I’ll dream with you
If the subtext of HCRs letter is a call for mass demonstrations against SCOTUS I think that’s a fine idea.I wish I could participate, in the protest, but I’m a Canadian…
People have to do something though, for Jaysus Sakes. It’s all on the line .. and it’s coming apart very quickly.
Be careful though, lest the All-Supreme Ruling Court declares that these protests are illegal, that they feel threatened by them, and that the military should be deployed. The next president-in-waiting will more than gladly summon the army to deal with these 'traitors'...
P.S. The most recent ruling of the Extreme Court may be detestable, but this may, in its essence, be even worse, but got almost no attention: https://medium.com/@charleshaines/ignored-by-the-press-appeals-court-stamps-out-the-voting-rights-act-819f60d39cbd
Can you give us a gift link to that article. please?
I don't know how to do that, but I can give you a link to the ruling: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdvxnnyoyvx/01302024voting.pdf
A quote from the article:
"On January 30th, the Federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a lower court ruling that people denied their right to vote cannot sue. This court action diminishes Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The three- judge panel of the 8th Circuit included a Trump appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras. It’s an appeal of another Trump appointee’s original ruling in November. According to Reuters:
U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras, another Trump appointee, the 8th Circuit held that the law does not lay out a “private right of action,” even though courts including the Supreme Court have taken on such cases for decades.
The ruling says private citizens have no standing to sue unless they could show monetary losses. Apparently, that’s the only conservative standard for any case involving the denial of rights by a government entity. "
Dutch Mike this is making its way through the courts. I believe that ruling was overturned or at least has been appealed.
That would be great news!
@ Joel. July 4 would be perfect. Circulate petitions. Here's our annual message. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOQfGWt8Hc
And while we're at it, register more Democrats. Millions of unregistered folk trend Democratic.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
How about November 5, 2024, Election Day?
Yeh straight to the polls.
I have organized plenty of marches - including the one in NYC on February 15 2003, one of hundreds in cities all over the world, calling on the US not to invade Iraq. This worldwide effort was months of work by thousands of people, and it was beautiful. We negotiated for weeks to get a permit for a march to the UN, and in the end we were denied. 60,000 of us decided it was a nice day and got off the subway at Columbus Circle to walk the rest of the way anyway. We also happened to be carrying signs and singing. We were met by cops on horses.
The next day, George W. Bush was quoted as saying in response "I don't listen to focus groups," and the invasion proceeded.
Marches are fine. I like them. They also take time and tons of energy, and people walk away thinking they did something, when maybe they didn't really do all that much. We might have better luck if we all just individually march up to doors in our neighborhoods and ask our neighbors to join us walking to the polls. Bring something you made, or something you grew, and listen to what they have to say.
I'm working on friends and family first, in the hopes of convincing them and then they share the result with their friends. Going door to door wouldn't convince anyone in my neighborhood, unfortunately. I'd just be the bipolar guy who only mows his lawn once every week or two and doesn't weed properly, as I cannot always keep up with the neighbors in this regard.
But I'm in awe that you have organized marches for these reasons!
Yes, friends and family if they can be trusted
"We might have better luck if we all just individually march up to doors in our neighborhoods and ask our neighbors to join us walking to the polls."
This. ThankYou Eve.
Sooner.
Abso-f***ing-lutely!
I'll be there! Not at rallies across the country, but 10 million people in DC! Demand that they go back and rethink this grotesque excuse for legal reasoning. Show the Heritage Foundation that we will not be owned by minority rule and we won't bow to their anointed king!
We the people!
I'm available and will travel. Who is organizing?
I had to get my knee replaced after Trump was elected so I could keep marching - ready to go!
As soon as the day is announced for a huge protest, my husband and I will make plans to be there!
It's interesting to me how hard has become to spread the word about a "day...for a huge protest." As recently as four years ago, the summer of 2020, when George Floyd's murder shook the nation and millions turned out to push back. This year, on June 24, the second anniversary of the end of US women's bodily autonomy, many of us aimed to organize a women's strike, protest, and "spend no money" day. We spread the word via the usual social media routes. If I had to guess, TikToks garnered the most attention. Strangely, a disheartening debate about what color to wear rose to the top of every thread I saw, even on those sponsored by the actual Women's March organization. It was just plain weird.
On the day, the protests, though heartfelt, were atomized and even anemic, a few hundred here, a handful there. My community of working/middle class horsewomen, both online and IRL, all of whom favor a woman's right to choose, had no idea it was happening.
Does anyone know whether something fundamental has changed in the algorithms over the last couple years?
"...the Lee Resolution marked the delegates’ ultimate conviction that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law."
Are you listening Trump, you wannabe dictator? And you too, Supreme Court justices intent on paving the way for Trump to put himself above the law?
We the people are coming for you, before you take away our right to vote and self-govern — and so much more. Nov. 5th is your day of reckoning.
Inappropriately declared by a mad, partisan extremist, now maybe the appropriate era to declare and enforce "sic semper tyrannis" !
That was sour grapes after the Confederacy was defeated, a futile gasp. We are now at the Fort Sumter point in the present civil war. It will be a long fight. Many battles to come, many casualties. We must find our Thomas Paines, Abraham Lincolns, and Franklin Delano Roosevelts. They will appear.
President Biden is our FDR.
if we recognize them.
They will be obvious. History demands it.
Look in the mirror.
I wish. Rest assured I'll keep my eyes open! :-)
Yes, they will appear, esp. if we continue to express ourselves in creative, non violent ways that appeal to others who also want the greatest good. The messaging and how we rspond to the opposition is very important. And THE most important thing to remember, change is the only constant in life..
For now we might just end up with angry mobs making ropes with the black robes of the Supreme Court. What we've been taught as the rule of law will eventually take its honorable place again after much pain.
1776
The Lees of Old Virginia
https://youtu.be/h5p5PvYGB4w?si=BTIVGoLoi0zNiEKB
Clever-Lee done!
Is this Virginian the only one who remembers Lighthorse Harry Lee? He was one of George Washington’s Calvary generals. Robert Edward Lee, the much maligned was his son.
😁
Every line a gem. And I also immediately thought of 1776 when Heather mentioned Richard Henry Lee. Thanks, Lin.
Thank you for making me laugh out loud. Needed it.
One of my favorites! Thank you, lin•
Thanks for the smile this morning!
We here know who the real patriots are...they are not the mob that stormed the capitol on J6, with their Rebel Battle flags and Trump banners...they are Rush's "snowflakes"...who together can become an avalanche. We must defeat DJT. It matters not, who the candidate is.
“Nov. 5th is your day of reckoning.“
Don’t count on it. We need to have a back up plan. They already have one in place to put Trump in office regardless of the outcome of the vote on Nov 5th.
We need something in place (perhaps as did those minutemen in Concord/ Lexington) to counter their intent, their plan to take over our country. Worse they’ve already stated there will be blood shed if democrats (“the left”) show any resistance to their takeover. So… what do we do? Scary stuff.
In all the anger, we should take time to thank, with respect, the three associate justices who stood up to fight for our freedom.
Yes, agreed.
In her blistering dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Supreme Court majority just made the president "a king above the law"
"With fear for our democracy," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, "I dissent."
And we should critically realize that in Robert’s admonition of their justified dissent, -his accusation that the women were “Fear mongering” - Robert’s represented the destructiveness, and active grip of patriarchy. Enough!
Women, all three. And even Amy Barrett had something good to add.
Yes to the 3. Nope to the handmaiden
I'm curious to know what Amy Barrett had to add, but obviously she should have voted against.
What, pray tell, was that utterance by Amy?
Absolutely!
Bravo, William!
I believe with everything in me that the current onslaught we are witnessing will fail just like it did 200years and 150 years ago in the civil war. I believe there are enough men and women of all races in this country who will turn out to vote and turn back this latest onslaught on our freedoms and liberties,
If they are allowed to vote and the votes get counted. Yes.
Big if’s
You don’t believe SCrOTUS will allow an election this year either?
Exactly, and keep in mind there are trolls here who will pick up on our vulnerabilities and use them against us. Like the threat of there not being an election. Remember, T WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING TO CREAT INSECURITY AND CHAOS so keep your messages confident so he cannot tell the difference!
They’ve already won. No point in worrying over spilt milk when they’ve poisoned all the cows.
For all their talk of election fraud, I have no doubt that the MAGAs will do everything they can to suppress the vote.
They’re already doing it with success. It’s ongoing.
Here’s a Heritage guy on Twitter. They’re openly declaring war on our rights. They’ve already dropped bombshells via SCrOTUS, so they’re clearly comfortable telling us the rest of the coming attractions they’re bought with bribes.https://x.com/mikefreemannfl/status/1808493772902125809?s=46
I am trying to imagine, right now, what will happen in the Democratic National Convention, if the debate over Joe Biden is not mainly resolved by that point. I think Biden was both ill and ill prepared for Trump's onslaught, a huge exception to his usual pose and energy, but only a supportive and mainly unified party will carry him forward. What terrifies Dems right now is how will the polls weigh out across the country. Dems infighting over Joe will not help their case. If he's replaced, the best i can see is for an internal unifying effort to collect around a "best chance" candidate, so that the convention doesn't become a prolonged contest with multiple votes whittling down to a winner few backed in the first place.
I am so sick of the media. Have they ever asked Trump to step down?
Nyet, as Putin might say
Susan, brilliant. Media as Medea. Conspirators to gain attention have aided rump’s spewing while ignoring Biden’s many achievements.
Isn’t it interesting that this is the most media coverage Biden has received? He’s practically knocked DJT off of the front pages with of all the calls for him to step down. It’s really amusing and sad-the media’s influence is beyond the pale.
Not amusing....they are on the wrong side of history, chosing ratings over democracy
Who ever “debated” trump and came out looking strong? Who?!? Replacing Biden guarantees a loss. Sticking with BIden got a lot harder after the debate, for sure. Biden was elected because Rep Jim Clyburn gave black people the confidence Biden was the best choice for them. Biden honored that confidence by choosing the first black female VP, AND the first black female SCOTUS. Unless this “unified decision” has Harris at the top of the ticket, we are sunk. If Harris is at the top of the ticket, white liberals will suddenly not be sooooo liberal, because of course “Harris is not quite right.” And the MAGA crowd laugh all the way to the ballot box because they KNOW we are our own worst enemy. Like it or not, Biden is our only hope to kill this Death Star called MAGA.
At this point is it a very bad idea to replace J, however we the people need to send a specific message to J that we need and want bolder action. I would think would listen to 200 million people. Also, keep in mind this is the year 2024 and a march needs to be updated and tweaked to be as effective as it was in earlier years. If there is to be planning for this it should be on an encrypted platform.
I meant 100 million but 200 would be even better 😉
The wagons circle. All rifles and muskets aimed inward. The disquise must have worked. The enemy that surrounds us are all having tea.
Yeah a circular firing squad is a really bad idea right now, and that's what an open convention would be. Let's not kid ourselves.
I sure hope you are right, it doesn’t help with all the naysayers about President Biden. He is fully capable of continuing to lead our country!
This July 4th and the anti-American acts that surround it certainly feel like rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you already paid, the good advice that you just didn’t take. Sorry. Alanis Morrisette in town here in Philly tonight. Trying to keep the mood light because I’m actually devastated.
This democracy, can we keep it?
One thing is for certain… the historians will be writing about these times in the future.
Let us not be the sunshine patriots.
And PS to anyone who is still Covid conscious. Another wave predicted this month, so be careful out there and be prepared to treat:
https://mccormickmd.substack.com/p/june-in-covidlandia
COVID has hit my circle. I'm still holding out (aided by vaccination) but have been massively exposed.
I had Covid a couple of weeks ago. I believe that, because I have been vaccinated and had several boosters, it wasn't bad. My only risk factor is that I am over 50. Still, it's nothing to fool with, so be careful!
Very glad to hear that!
I hope it doesn’t get too severe in any of you!
My wife and her brother (who is here visiting) both got it but took an antiviral that seemed to help a lot. (Langevrio)
Please let us know how. Vaccinations? Where are you? Do you have all 6 vaccinations?
There have been seven (7) Covid vaccinations to date. I expect there will be another one in the fall.
I have had all the vaccinations. Pacific NW.
Same here. Keep safe J L Graham.
As Trump brags about his performance on the cognitive testing, I keep wondering if Biden has done MMSE or neuropsychometric testing. If his performance is good, certainly this can be documented. If he is seriously in decline 4 more years of this demanding position would be a disaster for him.
We've got it here too. Midwinter in Melbourne, Australia.
You and Mr Graham are reminding me to write that Covid will be enhanced by the bugs coming from melting permafrost. Climate change will drive us into one epidemic after another. Attention to scientists’ recommendations will become increasingly important. Current blame on isolation as the reason for lack of motor and cognitive skills I find questionable, particularly if their mothers were exposed to or were sick with Covid. Good nutrition is important, less prevalent with climate change. I’m watching the growing season here in IL and not seeing enough sun for many vegetables and fruits to mature. Calling on DC for price controls on fresh produce and, if necessary, rationing of some. It is time for Americans to relearn food in the world of climate change.
Very good observation, Virginia.
Thank you, Anne Marie. The endless ads for meat dishes drive me as wild as the asks for the president to quit. Reality is climate change and only one candidate is concerned about it. PS I ate what I called “climate change lettuce” in France in 2008 and have friends there who grow more wheat and have fewer cows and sheep because the EU has asked that they grow more wheat (2018).
Last week was a banner week for Covid in my circle. On Thursday evening, both one of our tuba players and one of our euphonium player's wife tested positive. On Saturday, my best friend's brother (visiting from Alaska) and their 92 year old mother both tested positive. It took until yesterday for my friend to test "faintly positive". All involved were vaccinated. Mom got her antivirals yesterday.
My wife and I got all the vaccines shots (two types), masked up more than about 90 % of the people, and I always carry a mask to put on if anyone else is wearing one (assuming they may be more vulnerable, as I assume I will become on my new prescription for a clinical trial followup).
We were able to dodge the virus until 4 days after they declared the pandemic over, then we both got positive Covid test results, though the symptoms were mild enough that they could have passed for a light to medium impact flu.
We're totally convinced the vaccines made the cases so much milder then the ones that we lost friends and relatives to before vaccines became available. Other friends and relatives caught Covid either before vaccines became available, or in one case, got symptoms within a day of the first available shot they could get (no where near enough time to get adequate immunity). At least two ended up with Long Covid and multiple repeat cases. We found out 2 years after the fact that the first reported Covid death in Maine was a distant relative we had met a few times at reunions or other events at the Norlands Living History Museum.
Thank you for sharing this. First person accounts are very important in this crazy vaccination fight.
I have it now. Should be fine in a couple more days as the rest of my household has recovered.
Covid hit us 4 days ago. First time for me.
Congratulations on holding out this long! I believe (and studies support) that the fewer times we get this the better.
"If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.” Thomas Paine seems to have been clairvoyant unto today. Like Sotomeyer, I fear for our freedom, our way of life, and for any chance that America is what it has said it was--an instrument for human dignity.
The true effect of the Supreme Court decision on immunity is a declaration that our country is a country run by outlaws, governed by wealth not laws, and caring not for the common sense of which Paine wrote, nor for the common man and woman.
Against these great odds, we will continue the fight, but truly only with God's help will we win. You can define "God" however you wish, but it is clear that the moral strength to prevail must come from some force greater than human rationality which is so prone to manipulation by the influence of others. It must come from a deep and compelling, intrinsic and undeniable awareness of survival.
Damn, I was wrong. I thought that the SC decision giving chump a get-out-of-jail-free card would wipe the debate off the headlines. Instead the entertainment-for-profit news is ignoring the SC treason and continuing to savage Joe with increased venom. Damn the country, we’ve got a bottom line to boost.
Jeri-I agree-can’t believe how much they’re harping on this one debate vs. the existential threat to our nation by the folks who gave birth to DJT’s presidency (including foreign actors) and Project 2025.
Thought the immunity crap would take the headlines, but not happening. Unreal
Gina, they’re harping because that’s all they have. Its pathetic how they attempt to squeeze the last drop of juice out of it.
They certainly have a set narrative, and it’s all about Joe. It’s not coming from The Lincoln Project but it’s certainly coming from The Bulwark, CNN, MSNBC.
It’s like they are deliberately blind to the 200% existential threat versus the not perfect but capable, decent candidate. I know many are undone by the possibility of chump (as am I), but turn off your amygdala, turn on your reasoning ability and drop any pretenders and rally around our man. Divided we fall.
I was so disappointed in MSNBC....the channel I thought was the most fair of all. Joy Reid (will she ever shut up?), Ari Melber. Joe Scarborough. And the ridiculous Claire McCaskill.
Add Katie Tur and Andrea Mitchell. Tur meant I was listening to yacht rock on the radio. 😂
I suspect the problem of those who devise to subjugate is older that the stone age, and democracies of one sort or another hark back to tribal life, but I think that Paine and other influential people in the colonies had a particular pragmatic clarity about a common-person-centered version of governance.
Well said, KEM. Thanks so much. I'm reaching out to friends and family to discuss what can be done. Maybe some collective brainstorming will help.
Heather,
Let's talk about impeaching Supreme Court justices.
That's why We The People need to work our butts off to register voters, educate them on the down ballot, and Get Out The Vote to achieve a Democratic super-majority in the Senate, majority in the House, and of course Biden/Harris at the top. Then Congress can right the ship with expanding the Court, establishing ethics code for SCOTUS, and impeaching at least Thomas.
We don't really need a Dem super-majority in the Senate. We just need fifty-one REAL Democrats with the courage to suspend filibuster rules and add four justices to the SCOTUS. Of course, a super majority would be nice if it enabled us to investigate and impeach the play-for-pay gang. Sheldon Whitehouse for Senate Judiciary chair!
And lets talk about corruption. Political corruption, which I define as abuse of power, haas become so commonplace and so deep in the "GOP" we seem to be inured to it. Certainly the press seems to take it for granted. The buzz around Watergate was a different era.
Abuse has indeed been 'normalized'. We went from not long speaking of such things, considering them such ugly anomalies, directly to enabling them further by saying it's 'human nature' & business as usual. A hell of an escalation in 50 years. It's time to stop the buzz of scandal & address corruption. Good point.
Thank you! And start with Roberts. He’s the most evil. Smiling and pretending he’s not part of the group Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett. He’s the leader.
With the GOP - impeachment has died. It is a political process. The GOP has now corrupted the legal ability to hold their people accountable with all the recent court rulings. Bribery - okay, insurrection okay, using the POTUS office to plan illegal acts- okay.
Not sure where we go now.
I email my Congressman every week asking him o draw up Articles of Impeachment against Alito and Thomas, on failure to keep their oaths of office, accepting bribes of more than $400 in value, and denying the Constitution as written. I will continue to do so. I have told Congressman Bera I do not expect the Articles to be heard in the House this year but if the Dems will publicize those Articles it might help to convince undecideds and independents to think about their vote,.
Very sad 4th this year. But history teaches us not to give up.
And also that ' to secure these (unalienable) rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
No king nor royal jurist has legitimate power to tr#mp that.
Unfortunately, lovely though it is as a phrase, "the consent of the governed" is not part of the law because it's in the Declaration of Independence, not in the Constitution. So it can be ignored, as we are finding out.
Great job tonight, Heather, speaking truth to power on the PBS News Hour! Thank you for being so emphatic and so clear about this momentous Supreme Court decision and the potential danger and great fall out for our nation and democracy that may result from it.
HCR at 16:00
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=crmas_sfp&p=pbs+newshour+today+full+episode#action=view&id=2&vid=9ab04f660e3798f30e9c8bd99673a6a5
Thank You Ellie Kona for posting this. It’s a must watch!
This video is an essential ingredient to our position.
Thanks Ellie! Chilling.
Thanks. Powerful.
On the July 2, 2024 episode
Beautiful brief history. Beautiful last sentence:
" . . . that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law."
Why did the Clarence court betray the very best underpinning of the new America? Of course it's a corrupt, bribed, perjured court -- but something worse has been going on -- how total lack of humanities allows the corrupt, bribed, and perjured all the more their madness.
Billionaires, despots, and the corrupt serving them all want us to avoid individuals, to have no respect for them, not even see them.
The 1971 Powell memo and its far-right foundations engineered humanities out of our schools. Dems acceded to that removal, and agreed to the herding of all instead into standardized testing’s neutered, linear, group, categorical regimes. Shorn themselves, too, of any humanities for public use, Dem elites never saw the mass human hurt from the billionaires and corporations offshoring millions of American working-class jobs.
American novelists, composers, film makers, and memoirists, saw the human hurt. Elites blinded without humanities did not, could not.
More untethered from humanities, Clarence court theocrats ruled packaging of American women. Congressional Republicans upped inflation by historic tax-cuts to billionaires. MAGA world fed ignorance-based hatreds of immigrants.
If any have humanities, just seeing others could check the madness. And I hope our best Dems will refer well to our humanities for the human, humane energy needed before us.
From Pro Publica:
"In early January 2000, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt."
A five-star beach resort is a great place to worry about being deep in debt.
"At the time, Thomas’ salary was $173,600, equivalent to over $300,000 today. But he was one of the least wealthy members of the court, and on multiple occasions in that period, he pushed for ways to make more money. In other private conversations, Thomas repeatedly talked about removing a ban on justices giving paid speeches."
It's hard to scrape by. Maybe with "food stamps"?
"George Priest, a Yale Law School professor who has vacationed with Thomas and Crow, told ProPublica he believes Crow’s generosity was not intended to influence Thomas’ views but rather to make his life more comfortable. “He views Thomas as a Supreme Court justice as having a limited salary,” Priest said. “So he provides benefits for him.”
All on the up and up then.
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus
Thanks, J L. Good, your ironic comments accompanying.
Though of course not a single reader here will shed any tears for the inordinate luxury poor Clarence needs, feels he's entitled to.
The bastard has no sympathy for any other human beings. He's illiterate as to humanities -- never in any of his opinions any couching of opinion with any awareness of any similar human being in any novel, film, song, or other arts.
Arts? The corrupt bastard knows only porn. Remember his notorious bothering women in his office with constant and crude references to Long Dong Silver?
Suck-up to the rich, especially the criminal rich, Long Dong Clarence. Traitor to American democracy.
It's possible to be comfortable on $173, 600 if you live within your means. People get into personal debt because they spend money they don't have.
should be a legal problem, but the just legalized bribery formally.
Human, humane energy. Needed but energy used for infighting only aids the Billionaires and despots. Are we our own worst enemy.
Phil, you are a one-trick dog and pony show. And a great one. I’m not complaining because what you say desperately needs to be acknowledged. Our citizenry has been dumbed-down in a sense by the focus on vocational/practical instead of liberal arts. For lack of a better term, a back up plan (as many parents want for their creative children). As Einstein said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” Can’t live on fun, can we? But I remember poetry from my high school and jr college days. No Ivy League here, but just inspired teachers. I always watched CBS Sunday Morning (a show with art, music segments and stories not found anywhere else). Even 60 Minutes even has some art and music segments. Bill Moyers was not only a great political analyst, but his shows on literature and poetry were awesome, and I always came away enlightened. Now, it’s streaming bs or network bs. PBS (due to Repub budget cuts) no longer is the beacon for what TV could be, but has joined the begging crowd and is careful not to offend the money bags. CBS still has my favs, but their focus is on reality crap which is anything but. The stage on which we Americans live our lives has changed as you say. And the scripts are propaganda at the Goebbels level.
We may have to leave the stage if we can’t change the script. Our short term goal is an emergency rewrite. But a long term goal is remake of a play conceived and written for us at our conception. Thank you for your focus on who we have been and who we want to be.
Good, Jeri, for the fine nurturing, decency you've been so blessed to have experienced.
I think there is also the very big problem that many (most? all?) conservative lawyers and judges hail from the Federalist Society. I'm no expert, but I think that is where the theory of the "Unitary Executive" arises, in other words a King above the law.
The cognitive dissonance regarding the worship of the Founding Fathers among conservatives, given the above, is so astounding.
I've called on my brass quintet to get together to discuss, and then play the hell out of Ewald, for whatever that is worth. I do think, though, that civil relentless discourse is needed.
Maybe, Matt. Maybe.
But look again at what the far-right foundations sought following the 1971 Powell memo.
Of course it was to put the interests of commercial America above all other interests. That also meant treating all Americans as but units in the great assembly lines of profit taking.
To reduce America to such vulgarity meant systemic disregard for people as people. Makes sense that by the time those far-right foundations had killed humanities in schools (and substituted standardized testing) a Federalist Society should next seek to kill all law which yet nurtured equal opportunities among diverse peoples, and to kill all law which aimed to preserve and protect individuals and communities from our most rapacious.
Sorry, Americans, but with that Federalist Society, democracy was doomed as were first its schools.
The most corrupt, the most abstracted in their madnesses, the most adept in lying and raping, would rule.
It’s true that 2 ships with EIC tea turned back to England (Philly, NYC) but a ship landed in Charleston where its tea was confiscated by customs officers. Also a ship headed for Boston wrecked on Cape Cod. The full story of the 1773 tea ships can be followed in recent books by myself, Mary Beth Norton, and by James Fichter.
Professor Norton, with your expertise on the Founding Era of breaking away from the repressive monarchy, you remind me that infuriatingly, the reactionary Republican justices disregarded the amicus brief submitted by 9 historians who argued that "Trump’s claim of criminal immunity would transform the presidency into a monarchy—exactly what the Framers of the Constitution sought to avoid."
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/historians-amicus-brief-trump-v-united-states
Thanks to HCR's Letters and a very concerted effort to remain optimistic, I have been OK the past 9 years...until yesterday. It's so hard. So very hard to believe how we are in this position. Part of me wants to give the MAGATS what they ask for, so they can see how it will most certainly backfire...only if we could then rewind and try again once they are no longer indoctrinated. UGH!
Never. They will not see it.
Lauren, this is exactly what they want.
Fair point...but don't worry...we are not giving up, and we will not lose.
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flags to April's wind unfurled, here the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world"
Ole Ralph Waldo earned his perpetual keep within the primers of schoolchildren forever more, did he not?
Cast against the ossified corruption of Sullen Sam Alito and his not-so-Calpurnian wife, the first flag (in the face of April's wind) that truly represented American roots was the flag of Massachusetts and/or the "Bedford" flag. No Kingdom of Heaven silliness for these rough hewn children of the Enlightenment.
Thomas Paine, perhaps the most famous and certainly the most eloquent corset maker in history, was a magnificent bundle of buzzing contradictions. A free thinker, who did more to fulfill the zealotry of the Puritan concept of the "City on the Hill" than anyone else; a commoner who both hobnobbed with, and was a close friend and influence upon both the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington; and a man whose perpetually burning revolutionary nature took him from Europe to the Americas and back again as a true man without a Country---was perhaps beyond Washington himself--the most indispensable American in the Revolutionary era.
Without the publication of "Common Sense", the first American best seller, the Tories would most likely have held sway, Sam Adams and John Hancock would have been hanged from the highest yardarm (depriving future Americans not only of their independence, but also a good lager and a perpetual guide for flairing signatures), and the Revolution would have petered out not with a bang, but a whimper.
Paine was also, as the greatest of writers oft are, unusually prescient, as Heather points out.
Warning of "...laying hold of popular disquietudes" and "collecting together the desperate and discontented, by assuming to himself the powers of government, may SWEEP AWAY THE LIBERTIES OF THE CONTINENT LIKE A DELUGE."
Batten down the hatches. It feels like rain. Or perhaps better described as Roberts' Rules of DISORDER
Eloquently written Daniel.
Thank you, Annie. Most kind of you!
Bravo, Dan.
Thank you, James. I truly appreciate that
Cheers Dan!
Thanks, Gail. Right back atcha!🥂
HCR spoke Truth to PBS Newshour correspondent Jeffrey Brown yesterday, leaving him speechless and quickly ending the interview. Thank you Dr Richardson for speaking clearly and precisely to the seriousness of this decision of the Supreme Court. Certainly worth watching if you missed it.
HCR's statement on how SCOTUS ripped up the rule of law is hair on fire and useful for sharing with others.
Thank you for that! Here's the link:
https://www.thirteen.org/programs/pbs-newshour/immunity-fallout-1719959619/
Thanks for the link. I listened to it, and I saved the link. Heather did a wonderful clear description of what SCOTUS has done.
If anyone wants to watch this without the gigantic invasion of privacy, here's the link directly to the Newshour site:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/historian-discusses-supreme-courts-immunity-decision-and-shift-in-presidential-powers
Bravo, HCR, for the perfect history lesson to remind us all of the true beginnings of our great nation. Take heart, true patriots, and prepare to stand up!
This absolutely breaks my heart.