On June 8 the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a lower court blocking the congressional districting map Alabama put into place after the 2020 census, agreeing that the map likely violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act and ordering Alabama to redraw the map to include two majority-Black congressional districts.
'Floridians Demand to Know Where Disney Is Going so They Can Come With'
'FLORIDA (The Borowitz Report)—Shortly after the corporate giant cancelled plans for a new campus in Lake Nona, Florida, residents of the state demanded to know where Disney was going so that they could come with.'
'Across the state, Floridians indicated a desperate desire to join Disney in its departure, suggesting that an unprecedented exodus may soon be under way.'
“When I think of Florida, I think of gun violence, draconian abortion laws, and book banning,” Carol Foyler, who lives in Boca Raton, said. “When I think of Disney, I think of teacups, princesses, and singing animals. I want to be where Disney is.”
“I’ve lived in Florida all my life and never considered leaving before,” Harland Dorrinson, a resident of Fort Lauderdale, said. “But, wherever Disney goes, Ron DeSantis won’t be there, and that’s good enough for me.”
'Tracy Klugian, who resides in Tampa, expressed a sentiment echoed by millions of others in the state. “I’d rather live in Disney without Florida than in Florida without Disney,” she said.' (Satire, NewYorker)
Sadly Mother Nature is humbling us as Florida becomes less inhabitable. It’s a clear warning when insurance companies withdraw and Floridians find out the real costs of living on the environmental edge. NOAA meet Noah.
But the water in the Gulf is something like 94 degrees. The reefs are dying. The barrier islands will soon disappear. But, the problem is that transgendered kids are playing sports.
Exactly; the House and Desatan among others focus on nonsense while the planet 🌎 dies. I will not be sorry to leave the living behind soon enough as seems likely because I have no family to worry about except my three senior fur babies. The only reason I go on through hellish days confounded by conflicting news, nuke saber rattling, and intense anxiety about what I will see when I open my eyes one more time. But I do cry for the fate of so many who have never seen lives without threat, fear, insecurity, hunger. Earth cannot support 8 billion people now or ever especially when all they seem to get accomplished is conflict.
Before the "Powell Memo", among other turns of events, there was a fairly salient public conversation about overpopulation that kind of slipped away. I think that increasing plutocratic control of media had a lot to do with that. Some months ago my local newspaper rand a front page story (not the banner headline but still) about predictions that proved to be false, and one of them was world overpopulation. Yet to me a lot of our current global problems seem, at the very least, greatly exacerbated by exact that in early stages, climate change among them.
We certainly have it within our power to significantly reduce our footprint; though we can't eliminate it. Nature deals with major imbalances of population to resources with periodic population crashes, no longer unthinkable as global rather than localized for Homo sapiens. If we are indeed "wise" as our "sapiens" moniker suggests, we will be looking harder at responsible family planning and the larger picture of the common good.
My youngest daughter is so flamboyant that she's been told (in a complimentary way) that she is like a cartoon character come to life. If she was born with XY chromosomes, she would totally be a drag queen!! She's practically one now! :D
Frankly, I don't see the difference between my cartoon-character offspring reading to young kids at the library and a drag queen doing it. In a kids' eyes, either one seems like an other-worldly fairy princess, so what the heck??? *smh*
Sarasota, like Orlando, used to be a liberal stronghold. Now DeSantis is putting a stranglehold on higher education in those cities. Heaven forbid students should be taught to think for themselves!
The whole planet really; we take a lot for granted. But nature really gets flamboyant in the tropics and semi-topics. I have wondered about the evolution of our potentially intense appreciation for beauty, which is very much a thing. I have wondered if beauty really is just "in the eye of the beholder", but I think "Yes" and "no". There was a show on PBS years ago that seemed to try to reduce our capacity for perceiving beauty to be rooted in sexuality, but I think that is, while important, a special case. I think that Keats got closer with "beauty is truth". To me it has something to do with unifying simplicity, same-yet-different variation (think Bach or Mozart) and inherent integrity; the grace of a tiger, or a consummate dancer, or an ocean wave.
This is not just for jollies. Mathematicians and physicists speak of "beauty" in identifying powerful insights. By the same capacities by which we perceive beauty, we recognize fruitful paths in an overwhelming universe. We resonate with what's true, even in a fantasy.
Well said, JL, I find so many disparate things “beautiful”—often it’s form (eg; fractals) or color….or or or….to me there is also an element of wonder or amazement or discovery. How looking at a bug under a microscope and it looks alien….ugly and beautiful a the same time. Our evolved brains/bodies (it’s really all one piece IMHO) are remarkable. I do wonder what/how our fellow species comprehend the world….they might see a beauty far beyond what we can comprehend! So many questions!
Yes the whole planet... Beauty is a feeling that comes from reactions to the world around you in a particular way. I think feeling love, being open and positive, embracing is part of it. It's very personal and maybe too of the moment. Those who cannot see beauty, or feel it, especially the beauty of nature, I imagine to be in a bad place psychically. I agree it's about individual capacity. Because objectively speaking the physical world has endless beauty. I was remembering our many trips to Florida years ago and how we sunk into the beauty of the coastal landscape, the keys, the wildlife, the morning sun, the the sea breezes, the evening shower. DeSantis and the Florida Republicans poison this paradise for many of us.
Republicans sell entitlement, and deliver to the wealthy and connected. They throw bones (mostly of contention) to the serfs. Four plus decades of "Reaganomics", and who has what to show for it? Who has gained? Who has seen their security and quality of life under threat? Who is denied human rights? What the payoff and for who? Woke? You snooze (too long), you lose.
Have you seen this? A new effort, quite detailed (there is a link to the entire publication from this site)…to take back the WH, oh, “and our country” & government, and this, apparently is the game plan. I find their premise mostly ludicrous (was willing to have an open mind, but what I read was pretty weird to me), but seems they are really vested in this view/perception. https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025
Slow and sometimes catastrophically. We memorialize some mass deaths; COVID -19, not so much, even though well more than a million died fighting a heartless, predatory invader. Commonly disaster gets nearly everyone on the same page, but not that one. There were heroes to be sure, but also villains, and the latter still remain unaccountable. There is something of a firestorm of red lights blinking on the dashboard right now, and one-up-obsessed Republicans keep upping their puerile power games as if nothing else mattered; and indeed they seem to think nothing does. They will suffer too, but we with better things to do must step lively, to not go down on their ship of fools.
Sadly, Human Nature is bumbling us in California as the state becomes less inhabitable. It is a clear warning when taxpaying residents leave the state and drive up the cost of living in places like Florida where they bring their corrupted politics to do the same to Florida.
Corrupting the politics into a liberal mess. Florida is no more or less generally corrupt than many other states like New Jersey and New York... where most of the Florida residents derive from.
I would take Rick Scott over hypocrite idiot thief Senators from CA any day.
I love Andy Borowitz, and this doesn’t need to be labeled satire. If not for my only child and only grandchild I’d flee Florida in a heartbeat, likely to Maine. Most recent example, the new history standards approved by the Florida Board of Education:
The new standards require instruction for middle school students to include ‘how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,’ a document listing the standards and posted in the Florida Department of Education website said.
“When high school students learn about events such as the 1920 Ocoee massacre, the new rules require that instruction include ‘acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.’ The massacre is considered the deadliest Election Day violence in US history and, according to several histories of the incident, it started when Moses Norman, a prominent Black landowner in the Ocoee, Florida, community, attempted to cast his ballot and was turned away by White poll workers.”
Suzanne, I just can’t wrap my head around how folks can actually buy into this—what is their logic…oh, wait…. Reading this I had the horrid thought that they would similarly try to say that those in Nazi concentration camps should be grateful for the free room & board they got. Despicable!
I think you’re probably right on that. After being a Republican my entire life, I became a Democrat the day dt was confirmed as the GOP nominee. My only child, age 42, whom I love like my life, recently argued with me about the great replacement, that white men like himself are being replaced in their own country. His father, my best beloved of 46 years, agrees with him. And yet his child’s mother is Vietnamese, and his friend group is beautifully multiracial. I wish I had asked him who he knew, personally, who had been replaced. I have my doubts he or his father know anyone. My heart breaks daily. But I can’t go back.
Thank you, esp. for sharing your heartbreak, but also for helping me with a response to that asks, "whom do you personally know who has been replaced?" Brilliant.
Sadly. A mass exodus would serve him well, I think. I'm not sure that a tourist boycott wouldn't be better, because of the revenue. After all, Florida doesn't have an income tax.
If Florida loses tourism as a primary income source, you can rest assured that DeSantis, et al, will quickly move for a state income tax to address the budget shortfalls. I wonder how many retirees are going to be as supportive of their wannabe dictator when they're having to fork over princely sums every year to keep him in monogrammed campaign shirts?
I went to Florida once to visit my cousin in Stuart. Once was enough. Many empty strip malls and a contrast between Jupiter Island and the many trailer parks. We had a nice visit, but I would never live there. I have one ex-student who lives near Sanibel Island who experienced the hurricane last year. I have a couple ex-classmates who are awful on the west side and frankly I don't care what happens to them. Now the sea level is rising and well, insurance. Then you add Stumpy Boots DeSatan and no sensible person should move there and get out if they can. Tourists should also stay away although there is the allure of Disney.
If DeDumbass doesn't stop harassing Disney, don't be surprised if they shut down and leave, which would be terrible for Florida because Disney generates billions in tourism revenue every year.
I lived in Florida as a child in the 1960s, and we moved back to NY just as Disney broke ground on Disney World. I remember the "old Florida" - a poor state with a lot of seedy tourist attractions (alligator farms, cheap motels, etc.), and our school lunch program relied on army surplus and what was actual garbage - rotten food, eggs half-developed into chicks, kids getting sick in the cafeteria. It was really cheap to live there back then, but the only people Florida attracted were retirees. Most of the people living on my street were old folks from out of state.
As a 22 yr .old, my husband and I lived there with one child in '62, had 2 more children. Lived in Cocoa. I remember my husband-at-the-time asking me if I wanted the paper, it was only 5 cents at the time. I remember that Orlando wanted a convention center more than you can imagine. I remember the day Walt Disney announced he was breaking ground for Disney. My ex worked at Cape Canaveral. It was a fascinating time, I thought. Not so in watching Blacks being hosed on television in a state just above us and the social workers being killed in Mississippi. Civil Rights happened for the Blacks who, before, had not been able to vote. Women were marching for our rights and Vietnam was going on along with sit-in and die-ins. It was a tumultuous time and opinions were flying .in every direction. Had a Floridian friend who told me his father had watched lynchings....both were in favor of it. Dr. Richardson is so right that history is a reminder that time marches on but history remains. Thank you, Dr. Richardson. For a girl from northern Maine, this was all sort of too much, except we lived in Queens, N,Y, where I saw the buses line up for the Freedom rides a few years, maybe on a year, earlier. Wow. Hadn't meant to write all of this.
Your words remind me of a Floridian writer, Carl Hiaasen, who (a former newspaper journalist) pens Florida-based humor filled mystery novels. They are fun to read & is clear he loves Florida, but very much dislikes much of what it has become politically and environmentally. I have not yet read his latest 2020 novel “Squeeze Me”.
Loved reading Hiaasen! I need to read him again. The Florida about which he wrote was full of corrupt people in business and politics who were always scheming to do terribly environmentally unsound things.
I grew up in the midwest in Indiana. Lots of people went there for part of the year even then. It was before Disney, so was as you have described. I have been wondering if Disney would move out. One of my ex-students has a daughter-in-law who is at Johns Hopkins in the Tampa area as it is a top tier pediatric hospital. When we were visiting my cousin, we went out to lunch at a place that might as well have been in Brooklyn. My cousin ended up in Florida because she worked for Grummund (sp?). This after many years living on Long Island.
I lived in St. Petersburg, in the suburb of Clearwater, near Pinellas Park. I loved it. There were only 5 or 6 kids living in the whole neighborhood, and we were all free range. It was the best place to grow up. Our neighborhood was quiet and we had several neighbors who were like grandparents to us. Too bad Florida isn't like that anymore.
A tourist boycott and a corporate one as well. There will never be an income tax in Florida. Here's hoping more and more entities refuse to come to Florida.
Yep, a tourist boycott would be better. Eventually the degrading climate, especially in Florida, will probably do the State in and it will be abandoned to the Anacondas and giant toads. Running for President is Ron’s and Uber-wife Casey’s strategy to get out.
Like the party in Orwell's anti-utopia, Republicans have been very systematically been intensely distorting our language since at least Ronald Reagan. There is a who lexicon of intentionally misapplied language that Republicans never miss an opportunity to popularize; "Supply Side Economics", Operation Iraqi Freedom" Citizens United, Defense of Marriage Act, Free market, Job-Killing, human-rights-free Enemy Combatant, equating AOC with Pol Pot, and warmed-over Romneycare with "Nazi Germany", not to mention words like "militia" (check the Constitution), patriot, "Freedom of Religion", and "Small Government, just off the top of my head. Modern Republicans are experts at defining things in misleading, often antonymical ways; and successful at installing it in public conversation so that even non-MAGAs commonly use the perverse nomenclature by default.
Of course, if the current hot temperatures continue unabated and the overall rises, those folks will not stay because Florida, like parts of Texas and Arizona will become uninhabitable.
I lived in Ft Lauderdale from the age of 9 until I left for college at 18. I knew in 1983 that I did not want to raise a family in Florida. Unfortunately now Texas is just as bad.
I understand from a relative that Tampa is relatively liberal/progressive FWIW.
But I do think people who are liberal minded, older and younger, will not choose to move to Florida, nor attend university there. It's not so easy to pick up and leave once you are planted, especially if you are old.
Florida is in for changes demographically and ecologically, and perhaps politically, faster than other states it seems to me. But the heat slows the brain and that is a factor too.
Well many cannot just pack up and leave..One has a house maybe which has to be sold, connections, doctors ( health care), attachments ( including family, kids in school with their attachments), a job..... it's hard. And if you are old it's formidable.
Yes. And what would happen if all those who could not take the political climate ( never mind the worsening weather come climate changes) just fled... if they could. That would leave Florida to the extremists and their minions. But I do think that people will want to spend their tourist dollars less there and perhaps college kids would not choose Florida. Florida's economy might suffer... especially if immigrants find Florida inhospitable.
I know that Andy Borowitz write satire but this sounds pretty good to me! I used to have to travel to Florida about once a month for work...just another benefit of being retired!
I am happy to be retired too and never have to travel to Texas again. Haven't been to Florida since a training class on taxes for expats in 1979. Never want to go to either state again.
J L, He IS a mobster. He has been for a long time. Greg Olear wrote a beautiful piece in 2020 summing up that history. His odious father was involved with the mob also. Construction in NY and elsewhere was how they maneuvered. Nothing “like a mobster”.
"(Among Cohn’s other clients at the time was Rupert Murdoch, whom he introduced to Trump in the seventies; you would be hard pressed to find three more atrocious human beings)."
Mind boggling read! The Russian mob owns a large percent of the condos in Trump Tower, but ala AG Barr ‘there was no Russian interference’ in the 2016 election! The connections are so blatant, why did Muller tip toe around the evidence? Frat boy Kavanaugh who wrote the final whitewater report on Bill Clinton concluded he should be impeached! Why didn’t Muller categorically called for trumps impeachment??
Mueller was in the early onset on dementia which increasingly affected him and, apparently, no one knew but it was a body of good work. It was Barr who is to blame for the fact that he only touted a part of it. I read the Mueller Report. Nothing wrong with it. He had some people who helped him. Before the Hearing, you could tell he wasn't articulate and strong enough to assert himself. It was very sad, I thought.
A lot to process there, in more detail than I have seen.
I have yet to hear a rational explanation for why "shell corporations" are even legal. I have been assured by several authors that they have "legitimate uses", but even assuming that is true, their usefulness to major crimes surely outweighs whatever can be said in their favor.
After reading that - still wonder how the he** he keeps falling in shit & coming up smelling like a rose - well, no not smelling good - just coming up ahead! So much information of his "wrongdoings" throughout law enforcement - but yet continues to be allowed to do as he pleases (really - president?)
Thank you Elizabeth. I also subscribed. That brilliant article confirms underlines capitalizes that Tfg is indeed the scum descended from scum. I now refuse to call him anything related to animal or any vital living thing.
I see him as more Mob-cosplay. He is very performative, and behaving like he's scary and crazy (well, he really IS crazy!) has served him well over the years, but I really doubt he's all that scary in any kind of a real way.
Anyone can yell and scowl and loom over others (if they're tall enough), but you notice every time he's ever been physically threatened, he flinches or runs away like Brave Sir Robin! :D
This article is a deep dive into DJ Trump's mob associations, an excellent history of his work for the Italian, Russian mobs and also work w the FBI! It may be the one you meant Elisabeth.
Trump is a want-a-be. He would never soil his hands. Wait until he is convicted (the big if). If he actually has to serve some time, the bluster will disappear. If he has to be with intermingled ethnicities . . . .
This is reminding me of the Nazi party rise to power. Why do nations go ugly when faced with hardship. We have weathered covid, but it has changed us. Adolph Hitler had worked out what he was going to do before getting into power or he would not have had the concentration camps running within 3 months of taking power. Trump is dangerous, and I hope he can be brought to justice. I think of the current Republican party, dominated by the MAGAt faction as The New American Nazi Party, just as the AfD in Germany is the New German Nazi party. The anti-immigrant message of this party is all about racism, not about immigration. Immigration is just code for brown and black skinned people, and does not include the Ukrainians or even the Russians or other Europeans coming here.
Alabama is just doing what Alabama has ALWAYS done and, in some ways, what was also always done since the founding throughout the US.
Here is a problem, one that Dr. Richardson does manage to avoid saying.
At the time that the "founding fathers" put in place the "rule of law", human bondage, human whipping, human enslavement and torture was codified either openly in law (like in Virginia), or openly in practice (like in Alabama).
So, even though white men (and only white men) were covered by the "rule of law", LOTS of humans in America were not. Black slaves were not. White women were not. Native human beings were definitely NOT.
And? "the rule of law" that Dr. Richardson lauds remained like that (only for white men) until, well, black folks might say until now. I might say until the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
So? It is not new for white men in MOST of America to feel they are above the law while simultaneously being protected BY the law. Because? They were. For a long time.
Not new at all. One might say; it was the American norm for MOST of American history.
In fact, the absence of the rule of law was built into the founding of our country, although, like I said, Dr. Richardson does routinely avoid pointing this out. I will say, a couple of times she HAS pointed that out. But, when she really wants to highlight the founders intent for themselves, she leaves out the fact that they were quite happy to leave black slaves and women and native Americans out of the "rule of law".
So, in some ways, Alabama is just doing what Alabama has ALWAYS done.
It’s obvious by being Alabama and by being Texas these states replicate what in 1860 represented rebellion against the United States. Texas is demonstrating threat also to international Law along with open and defiant violation of the River and Harbor Act of 1899.
President Biden by being a Peaceful Law Abiding President allows the DOJ and the Federal Courts to adjudicate these seditious criminal acts. But the country has every right to consider these Acts of Defiance to the Union as menaces to Public Safety and could begin activating military Federal Action just as John F Kennedy and Lyndon Baynes Johnson were forced to do to end open segregation in the former Slave Holding States.
It appears Alabama is operating on the same principles of exaggerated States Rights fostered by the current Republican Party and considers itself free of the constraints of United States Constitutional Law if it applies to Black Americans.
George Wallace’ declaration "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” is obviously a permanent motto for Alabama.
In late 1860 South Caroline did secede from the United States formally. However, prior to that, from that "state's" inception, white men were protected by the rule of law, and only white men were protected by the rule of law in that state (and probably not even all white men, just wealthy ones).
Texas and Alabama, today, are NOT seceding from the US. They are just doing what has always been done in America. They are applying the "rule of law" to white men and nobody else.
Which was exactly how the law was applied since South Carolina inception and exactly the way the rule of law was applied after Reconstruction was over and the Union Army moved out UNTIL 1965 when black folks could, sort of, almost, go to school with white folks (not really) and sort of, almost vote with white folks (not really).
So, 1860 is not really special where the "rule of law" is relevant. Only during Reconstruction was the rule of law attempted to be properly applied in SC during its ENTIRE history basically.
Black folks, native humans, women?
Did not get the rule of law. At any time really. Up to and including now.
This is all pretty terrifying especially early in the morning. Until trump reared his ugly little head, there was room to believe that minorities/women/immigrants could feel that they had made traction and were protected in this country. But when this narcissistic hormonal toddler on steroids actually became president (I still can't believe it), his behavior, expunged of any semblance of decency, gave permission to every White A*****E to get rid of any false veneer of civility they had been hiding under and expose themselves as the real bigots/misogynists/xenophobes they truly are.
As much as oppression and nastiness have spurted up throughout our history, so has the forces of goodness, compassion, and the kind of anger, that properly channeled, produce change. I'm putting all of my eggs in the basket of our youth. They are watching all of this...and they are getting ready to vote....
If TX and AL are openly violating federa! Laws, why not withhold federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act they openly voted against until they begin obeying federal laws?
Prior to that event, and after the Union Army pulled out, SC was NOT in open rebellion BUT was still not applying the rule of law to anyone but white men, and, mostly just wealthy white men.
Let's not forget that Eisenhower, a Republican president, sent troops to Little Rock to ensure that Black students integrating the pubic high school were safe.
Yes, and in many cases those black students were the only students in those schools. White children were kept home. And it was not only the southern states. South Boston was wracked by anti busing riots. Truman had desegregated the Armed Forces by executive order.And we women had to wait a few more years to enter federally funded service academies. It was an ugly time for sure.
Now school segregation exists in Chicago, which has always had segregated schools in many places because the communities are segregated. I live in the Obama's former community and here the public schools are integrated, but predominantly Black. My friend told me that when her daughter was little and on their way to her ethnically and color integrated private school in our neighborhood they would walk by the local public school, and her daughter would ask why all the children there were Black. Not all were, but most. That is what one notices. That is how segregation was kept in Chicago when schools integrated, by White people sending their children to private schools and allowing, fighting for disinvestment in the public schools. This has allowed Charter schools to develop and most of them are not worthy of the children that attend them. A lot of money is spent on select enrollment schools, which are less integrated than one would think. The high schools are competitive test in places, and are filled with students coming to them have been so segregated growing up that there is a lot of color and ethnic tension in the schools which gets reported on occasionally by the local press.
To undo this we would have to get rid of housing segregation, and that is slow to happen. However the biggest segregation is by income so that is quite telling. I have always felt that restitution to descendants of slaves in the USA, should not be for everyone, but for those living below a certain income level, because they are the ones who have been truly harmed by systemic racism. Those who are doing well financially, whatever it has taken are not the ones who have been held back. I think that we need to be paying for at least 20 years for a group to get income, health insurance covering eye care, mental care and teeth care too paid for by the government, as well as a middle class income. I know this is not the political climate for this to happen though. However, it is school desegregation that creates the understanding that moves us beyond the issue of race in a larger way.
Clearly, Ike was an outlier to the Repubs mind set! The man and his staff planned the D-day invasion! He had hundreds of thousands of troops to command! He knew evil first hand!
Heather, in her podcasts, as well as in these pages, repeatedly makes the point that the founders intent for control of the rule of law was for white male citizens only. I don't know how you could miss that, Mike S.
Yes, I noted that, intermittently here, she does point out that the Constitution was written for the Founders themselves and white men. But, she leaves that out in some cases where it might be helpful to include it. Like today.
Yes, Mike. The U.S. was built this way. I often think it is reverting--getting back it’s figure as it were--losing the human rights lbs. It is snapping back to it’s original form. It seems like such a long time since those early exploiters (and I do mean exploiters, not explorers) first set foot here but it hasn’t been all that long given the span of human life on this planet. When States start picking and choosing which federal laws they want to follow we no longer have a Union. We are delusional if we tell ourselves what AL is doing it is just a one-off or what TX is doing is just a two-off or it’s all going to work itself out eventually. We are just getting back our youthful figure.
"I often think it is reverting--getting back it’s figure as it were--losing the human rights lbs. It is snapping back to it’s original form."
I wonder if that is the case OR, if it is the case that you and I were just blind to the way it actually was and is.
For example, when I went to Texas A&M, College Station, 1978-1982, it was widely known that there were only 38 black young people on campus: ALL of them on the football team.
Honestly, I bet that there were MORE black folks at A&M than Harvard then.
Then, when I went to grad school at UT Austin, my Chemical Engineering department had ONE black guy as a grad student (under my own professor). And? That was super rare back then, most grad schools had ZERO black guys.
Then??? When I went to work, in a 40 year career in engineering, I met?
THREE black engineers TOTAL out of HUNDREDS at three big corporations.
So, perhaps it is not that we are "snapping back" but that we "ALWAYS WERE and ARE".
This is what being “woke” is all about. The half has never been told. We’ll never “overcome” as long as people are sleepwalking through the American history.
Human rights have always taken a backseat to power and greed. We’ve been living with lies and propaganda for way too long.
Now we have an entire political party ready to tear it all down for the sake of maintaining white supremacy and patriarchy.
It remains to be seen what will happen to the “American Experiment”.
Yes, indeed, the American experiment is ongoing. Me? My skin is light skinned (although I have a minority name). So, my exposure to the lack of human rights is mostly limited to odd comments, a very low rate of promotion relative to my white colleagues, and, once, a real estate agent that would not show me houses in white areas.
Also, when I first moved to Rochester, nobody would rent to me.
But, that is minor compared to dark skinned folks who are shut out of white housing, white schools, white money, white jobs, you name it.
Yes and the founders (white supremacist, racist) world was forever challenged in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln stood tall in the middle of the Civil War and pledged " a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that 'all men are created equal' ".
Yes, I did point out she includes the exclusive nature of the "rule of law" sometimes. Today, she left it out. Even though Alabama has always functioned in the manner of exclusive application of the "rule of law".
Republicans are BIG on cutting welfare, so, I say lets extend those cuts to include welfare for white people. Like construction grants to white owned companies, etc.
My theory has more to do with the how than the why. Almost 12% of the adult US population is illiterate. And almost 50% of the adult US population reads at or below 6th grade level. So 1/4 of that 50% are illiterate.
This is not a bug of the Republican education model. It is a feature.
How do these people get their political information? Word of mouth and through the telly.
And these people aren't hanging around with the woke woke for the most part. And when they watch the telly? I'm guessing Fox News or other right wing babble.
The FL Dept of Education just released new standards on teaching the history of slavery requiring teachers to mention the skills slaves learned that could make them valuable to society.
The big difference is that Hitler actually helped Germany recover from the post-WWI depression by rebuilding and getting inflation under control before he tore it to hell. The Republicans just want to be in power without the hard work of MAGA. Of course, they don't have a clue how to make America great, so their counting on the uneducated to put them back in power.
When you read The Death of Democracy and Strongmen, you find what Hitler did for Germany was done at the expense of targeted groups. Sure he rebuilt the economy, but do not ignore how he did it. What we are fighting right now from the previous administration is the sunami of corruption from the top down. Virtually every person in that administration could and should be charged and tried for breaking laws. They just thought their oath as a bunch of words and not to be followed.
Obviously the Republicans are doing the same thing. And Trump has already signaled he would pull the FCC licenses for any network that isn't toeing the Trumpian line.
After watching Trump fire the non-sycophants in the administration, it seems likely he would try to silence CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc.
The truth is that Africans brought skills with them including rice cultivation and all types of agricultural and other knowledge. Interesting that White folks allowed Black people to nurture their children and white men made it a practice to force sexual relations on Black women.
The idea that slavery was a benefit to Black people is not just insulting-it’s vicious. Law and order is a code word for keeping people in their place. Have you ever read any of the laws during slavery or the Black Codes established after Reconstruction.
The law (and flouting the law) is what keeps certain White men in power.
May I say that as an American I find this attempt to lie to children, officially, by their schools, deeply offensive? I'm not Black, and I loathe what DeSauron, backed by those in Fla state legislature, is attempting to do to Florida's children. Our history is what actually happened, and trying to lie about it - to CHILDREN - to perpetuate the lie that slavery wasn't really all that bad for those enslaved, is despicable, and beneath contempt. Ignorance would be better than falling victim to a lie of this magnitude.
And this particular lie, as it is phrased, is insidious, because children do not have the years of learning or the critical analytical skills to see it for the lie that it is. Of course people, free and enslaved, were learning trades at the time, willingly or because they had to obtain skills to keep body and soul together, but the schoolbook's implication is that, first, enslaved people chose the skills they wanted to learn, and, second, after learning the subject skills, enslaved persons were able to use those skills for their own personal benefit in their own discretion. This is the lie. Enslaved persons' skills, like their bodies, were used at the whim of and for the exclusive benefit of their masters; their masters might permit them to use these skills for the enslaved person's benefit, but that permission was not a given and could be limited or withdrawn in the master's sole discretion. Free people with the same skills were able to choose to remain in that profession, remain in the area or leave, or leave the profession altogether. Enslaved persons were not able to do any of these things, and their dis-ability to do so was enforced by law. That is the very definition of slavery. to teach children that the skills they learned they could use for their personal benefit is to imply that somehow enslaved persons were not actually enslaved. This is a lie. And lying to children is despicable, if not worse.
Their, they’re, there now; grammar and spelling are one thing, and are very nearly universally mangled at one time or another. One of my favorite adages is “knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” Catching yourself is knowledge. Wisdom is calling yourself out for it.
The grammar police will give you a warning today. 😜
We ignore typos, and some wordos. Someone on the thread wrote "flaunting" when he meant "flouting", and, so as to avoid having to put ANOTHER $5 in my "Correcting Other People's Grammer Without Being Asked" jar, I let it go, although my gracious I was tempted! Anyway, chill - it's fine.
Illiteracy is the direct result of defunding our public schools. Which in some communities is the direct result of desegregation - in the thread somewhere above, the segregation of Chicago schools is discussed. I remember the busing riots in Boston, although they didn't affect me directly, and the rise of exactly what the commentor was discussing - white parents removing their children from the public schools and either homeschooling them or sending them to some private, sometimes religious-affiliated school, the rise of the so-called Charter schools - all of which drained funds from the public school system. And then, horrifyingly, just in June of 2022, SCOTUS, in yet another of its indefensible rulings (Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. ___, see, https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/carson-v-makin/ ), held that the State of Maine cannot withhold taxpayer funds for tuition for students attending religious-affiliated schools. So, instead of all my my tax dollars going to the Maine public schools, some is paying for kids to receive religious instruction, or dare I say indoctrination, because otherwise some parents' free exercise of their religion is interfered with by the State. And this increases literacy throughout Maine how?
The defiance of Alabama and Texas, as noted by Professor Richardson, is a signal that this movement (its moved beyond being labeled MAGA now) is on a war footing. In 2020 Trump and his crowd were seditious. Now the constituted public authority in two states is defying the law openly. They are no doubt counting on Project 2025 to come to fruition and thus they feel invulnerable.
The United States, in the parlance of the day, is getting bitch-slapped.
I agree. I was just commenting on the Hartmann Report Substack that this escalating of outrageous behavior is in the Nazi party playbook, so that when they actually take power they have all systems go. These governors are inviting the Feds to shut them down, counting on that to make them look like victims of Federal overreach to their people. I am hoping that it has the opposite effect of taking their power away. They should both be governing from prison the way I see it. That is also true of the states that are ignoring their state courts and the supreme court in fixing their racist, anti democratic gerrymandered maps. It is clearly a battle of the red and the blue ideologies. It is the cold war as a civil war. Fascism or freedom.
I think this is a brilliant statement by you - a ruthless plain cutting through to the hear of the matter. I could not be more in agreement (and was surprised it wasn’t the topic wasn’t the most galvanizing of Today’s newsletter.
No longer do governors respect the Supreme Court - it’s been co-opted. Sure, we will see the odd bone thrown to people desperately hopeful for a return to legitimacy, as we did in late spring decisions this year before the bombshells of the final week reasserted the agenda. Those are “smokescreen decisions” - designed to obscure a chillingly precise ideology. And they inevitably come in the less important case. And now we see the state governments ignoring them entirely. “See you in [our] court, Mr. President.”
I no longer see a future without violence. The redcoats are becoming more brazen in issuing decisions that promulgate their worldview. DeSantis’ approved slavery curriculum is so anti-historical that one suspects he has used it as a trial balloon, ready to pivot to a less extreme but still bloody untruthful version which will earn him white brownie points.
These slum dwellers of the mind and heart do not yet own the core of the American heart. There must be a swift and legally savage, thoroughly co-ordinated response that shows that justice can bare its fangs. We need a leader in the Churchillian mode:
In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.
But there will be moments of teeth chattering nerves.
This bravado and willingness to always push farther must be stopped.
Eric, thank you for posting about Project 2025–I posted a link a couple of times upthread; whoa, it’s insidious. I’ve only read bits—mostly the Heritage Foundation intro & scanned the table of contents of the whole publication & a few pages (a lot to digest), but it seems like they are going for everything from the big Kahuna down to the janitor in “remaking” this country’s govt.
20s and 30s Germany in the wake of Germany's defeat, punishment in the Versailles Treaty, threats from the successful Communist revolution in Russia, the massive inflation of the early 20s wiping out savings of millions of ordinary Germans, the insane collapse of the American financial system which spread worldwide esp into Europe, all contributed to the rise of the Nazis, one fascist, anti-democratic movement among others which swept much of Europe... are a very different situation from what even the GOP are working on today, or likely in Europe, though for sure it's a big deal. Dictatorship Nazi style though? And do remember that while modern autocratic movements are Pro traditional Christian, Naziism crushed religious institutions into utter subservience. Dissenters were fodder for the concentration games / gang violence.
More directly I just see the Dixiecrats on the rise. But, the ideology is the same as the Nazi party. It is an openly racist government. The behavior of the governors in Texas and Florida are about getting rid of people, and if they die so be it. It is not the same as open extermination, but right now they don't have the power to do that, other than through their prison system and I would say, many are unfairly in those prisons who will then lose their lives. Watching the behavior of the MAGAt Republican party, which is continuously escalating the outrageous things they do, they are acclimating their people to just such atrocities.
Linda, I posted this link up-thread, but am posting it again. Apparently this is what the Heritage Foundation and Republicans are going to be organizing to take back the WH in 2025. I find it very unnerving: https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025 (this site also links to the full publication). At first I thought it might be a parody, but I guess not (tho’ who knows these days!).
This may explain one reason why TFG wants to purge the FBI. To also destroy any documentation of his status as a CI and anything else with his name in it.
Being born and raised in South Jersey (Philly suburbs) I can say this piece hit Trump smack head on. Once a mobster, always a mobster but as a probable CI he burns the candle at both ends.... soon to extinguish with lack of fuel.
Very interesting piece. I have always said Trump should be tried by the RICO act, but I can see why he would not be if he is a CI. Still, his mobster behavior is very obvious. One of them being to threaten people's physical well-being if they don't capitulate to his demands.
I think I remember Prof. Joyce Vance talking about that too. I was relieved to see that she mentioned RICO, because as I had been thinking about charges for Trump, before the investigation was very far, I did look up the RICO laws and felt they applied. Not being a lawyer it is hard to know these things. I am glad he is not able to quash her indictment of him.
JL, he has asked repeatedly (starting when he was displeased with Jeff Sessions) “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” He also said that JFK had the right idea when he installed his brother as Attorney General. With Trump, the overriding concern is that he gets to do as he wants and that he looks good doing it—if that requires breaking a few laws, that’s what his Roy Cohn is for.
In my view, anyone who doesn’t acknowledge we’re on the precipice, both of a fatal weakening of American civic institutions and also of a presidency eager and conceivably able to consolidate power, wherein the rule of law could be subjugated to an individual, either is ignorant or in denial.
Considering I believe we have but a small window to protect the key mechanisms of American democracy, we have no choice but to use every resource to fight as though ours and everybody else’s lives depend on us, because they do.
I agree, we do need to fight and use every resource possible as though our lives depend on it, the United States is sounding more and more like Hitler's Nazi Germany by the day. I have watch many documentaries with actual film footage of Hitler and the methods and force he used when he became the ruthless Dictator in Germany. The concentration camps, the genocide and his hatred of the Jewish people and the horrible deaths. Many Americans didn't believe this was happening until the last months of world war 2. I am not saying these horrific acts will be repeated here, but if TUMP goes back into the White House, things will not be good here either, i don't even like to think about that. I hope there will be a way to inform as many voters as possible to the horrors of Fascism and a Dictatorship are. We certainly can't depend on the MSM to broadcast to what is really happening with these insane nut jobs in the Fascist Rethuglican party.
Fur, While I revere the virtues of the Enlightenment era (freedom, democracy, tolerance, and diversity), I also see in its vices (inequality, hegemony, cultural imperialism, and materialism) the potential undoing of the revolutionary promise of the republic.
John, Because, in many respects, I view Trump’s rise as the culmination of a backlash that dates back to the Warren Court (1953-1969), I believe we can render MAGA irrelevant by directing our engagement, our energy, our caring, our work to creating a far more cooperative environment in which there is a modicum of social and economic justice for increasingly large numbers of people today who feel oppressed and marginalized by systemically oppressive forces that are largely beyond their individual control.
I agree, Barbara. My grandparents lived in Alabama, south of Montgomery, and I can remember as a child riding down the road in the back seat of our Pontiac as the Impeach Earl Warren and Get the US out of the UN signs rolled by. Sometimes they alternated with Prepare to Meet Thy God. Interstate highways did away with all that signage, but not necessarily the sentiments.
I fully agree with you, and another thing i was thinking about was that ''John Birch Society'' thing that rose up in the 1960's. Do you think some of this mayhem with these Fascist/NAZI Rethugs have roots in that?? That John Birch Society from what i remember about it, was condemned and scoffed at then. I was a young boy in the 1960's and didn't care about news much then, but i overheard adults saying what an awful thing that was. I do not think TUMP would have been accepted back then and would have been run out of America or been assassinated had he presented his looney crap to the American people. And the insane nut jobs currently in our Congress would have been tarred and feathered. If only the MSM would report what is going on now, these Rethugs would be condemned to the dust bin of history. They are partially responsible for this hellish disaster of the Fascist Rethuglican domestic terrorist party. I do agree with you by directing our engagement, our energy, our caring, our work to creating a far more cooperative environment in which there is a modicum of social and economic justice for large numbers of people today who feel oppressed and marginalized by by systemically oppressive forces that are largely beyond their individual control. I think that can be accomplished to end this insanity that the Fascist Rethuglicans are trying to force upon all of us..
Part of the problem, I think, is that his supporters don't see consequences for themselves, just for their enemies. No public schools? Gun laws? Income tax? Independent federal agencies? Public libraries? Public health directives? Good riddance.
I was just about to write that, then saw your comment! Reminds me of a playground bully hollering “neener neener neener” at someone they *think* they humiliated….only it’s they who look stooopid!
This is what I have been saying. I see the parallels to the rise of Hitler to power. I feel that post Covid we are changed as a people, and many people have lost their minds from it. I see a lot of mental health problems that ensued from it. Let us say we are all recovering from Post traumatic stress.
Barbara, our lives, our freedoms ( and opportunity for freedom for the populations of the world) are being challenged right in front of our faces. I agree the window to protect our freedoms is shrinking before our eyes....are we just so paralyzed that we have turned into statues with "shock" sculpted on our faces? Action is required. I agree with you!
I'm afraid ignorance prevails in America. Ignorance is the basis of Biden's poor ratings. Most people believe we have the worst inflation in the world and our economy isn't doing well compared to other countries. Most people are unaware of Biden's accomplishments. Each morning I tune into Bloomberg and for over 2 years now they've been telling us a recession is upon us.
In my view, a critical turning point came last June, when the Texas Republican Party called for a vote on secession, and almost immediately afterward the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade:
Cracks have begun to appear in the foundation of the Union.
Honestly, is there not some long hook to grab these obnoxious, repugnant Repubs and throw them overboard without a safety net? Abbott has given the finger to the feds and to the international countries. It’s like a game for him. What are they all saying as a group? Is it “We think we can. We think we can!”? We must denounce Abbott, DeSantis, Leo, and McCarthy all of the time.
Marlene, many Republicans in leadership positions have been planning for years to do what is being done now....we especially see this now in the news in Florida, Alabama, Texas and Tennessee. South Carolina should be included as well....it is my state of residence. Daily, I receive several calls to support law enforcement officers....in the past, the calls have been only two to three times a year. Although I respect our law enforcement officers, I have been concerned with the possible negative outcome of so many daily phone requests for support. We have a Republican governer in South Carolina. Everyone knows Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott .
North Carolina is my state of birth and I am the owner of a small farm in that state. NC has a great Democratic governor who is well respected but has had to fight for every vote. The Republican Party is strong there and I know many churchgoers are influenced by their conservative views.
The laws are being stretched to the max and I believe many of our laws are being disobeyed in front of our faces with little to no opposition. This is frightening to me.
Emily, sad to say, but many, if not most, of the calls you are receiving to "support law enforcement officers" are scams. My state (NH) experienced this about a year ago. Our Republican AG had to issue several warnings about it. Finally, the calls subsided. Looks like it is SC's turn now. Good luck.
Steve, I have recently been getting donation requests via text messages, by mail and even emails from Republicans. Several from trump, which luckily show up in my spam folder! I have had "do not call" on my phone for years and have never voted Republican. I find this assault offensive. I am grateful for Heather's great work in her Letters, FB chats and podcasts but on days like this, I (almost) despair.
I do think there will be violence if trump is convicted. Buckle up!
Emily, I too, was born and raised in NC. The town was Lenoir. I left right after graduating from high school, much to my parents chagrin. I never moved back but visited with my folks often. California has been my home for 49 years. Growing up, I saw many revival tents that were pitched in fields. Also had the unfortunate moment of seeing the KKK up close. Shivers went through my spine. I knew at age 15, I would leave the town and I did. My sister did too. She’s in NYC.
Yes, Marlene, there is a "long hook". It's called The Armed Forces of the United States. It's about time Joe Biden send them into both Alabama and Texas and kick some ass, before some of these other red states get the idea they can just drop out. And the penalties for those thumbing their noses at The Constitution should be both swift and severe.
Republicans play Democrats for fools at every turn, like Grand Masters, when the latter want to “make nice”. These radicalized and emboldened rednecks in Alabama, Texas and Florida don’t give a damn about “the rule of law”. Fine. Meet ‘em on their own turf. For a start, Abbott and every single Republican in the Alabama Legislature who voted to ignore the SCOTUS order to redraw the heavily gerrymandered map to realistically represent their voters, thereby violating their oaths to the US Constitution, should be summarily rounded up and locked away in a federal prison pending trial. Due process be damned – and If I’m not mistaken, Biden could declare an emergency and do this. We would then see Tut-Rikki- Mfking-Tic-Suite how keen these Neo Nazi bastards are to engage in stall tactics in the courts. It’s time to take off the gloves, as it’s the only language they understand! And the Border Patrol ain’t gonna cut it.
Good point, Seth, but it's fair to note that Ike and JFK did use (trained) federal personnel to force and enforce integration in schools when locals thumbed their noses and flipped the bird toward federal authority.
LeMoine ! It Is CALLED, EVIL ! GOD ! , for HIS Reasons, is Shoving MANKIND !, THROUGH A " Bottle Neck" , To WAKE US UP ! ( Remember !, GOD!, is ALLOWING These Times, ! To HAPPEN ! ) UNTO HIS GLORY ! BLESSINGS !
Yes, I do. But people are either unaware, uninterested, or unhinged. Not all, of course, but the lethargy I see seems either fear-based or tacit approval. God, I hope I’m wrong. I want Beto’s energy back.
Employing a bit of poetry we can devolve into the Totally Irrational Psychotic States of America and the Rational States of America. As long as the rational among us don't have to pay for the Totally Irrational Psychotic States, and they are left to their own economics and political genius, they'll die on the vine anyway.
Marlene, these "obnoxious, repugnant Repubs" were VOTED INTO OFFICE BY OUR FELLOW misguided AMERICANS.....they either push our laws to the limlt or even break the law infront of our faces and seemingly get away with it.
Yes, Emily, but maybe there are less people who would vote for them now, especially since they are going after their kids who are trans, LGBTQ, and daughters who can’t get an abortion.
WE do denounce them all of the time. It's the redhats (known in prior similar regimes as brownshirts, blackshirts, and grayshirts) who stand by with their yuk-yuk support for Abbott and Ilk™.
It looks like Abbott is seeking an armed confrontation with the federal government. If so, what are he and his minions planning to do? We did not pay enough attention to the machinations in Trump’s coup attempt.
Also, what is the plan behind Alabama’s resistance to the Extreme Court’s order? How is that state’s government conspiring with federal electeds like Tuberville and McCarthy to roll out their game plan? Are red states preparing to declare themselves republics and secede from the United States?
What's the point of taking Abbott to court? That will only give the Supreme Court the opportunity to declare the Rivers and Harbors Act unconstitutional, by a 6-3 party-line vote. Send in workers, and marshals to protect them, and remove the barriers. And put a lien on the Texas National Guard to pay for it.
Thank you Heather. I start each day with copious amounts of coffee, The Guardian news, and your Letters. It seems that the GOP fully believes in a "cafeteria" system of laws -taking whatever is convenient and ignoring anything counter to their primary objective -the concentration of wealth and power in America. In fact, other than enriching themselves, the GOP actions fall into two camps. One is focused on concentrating more wealth to the top. The other relates to keeping the American public divided (and thus conquered) on hot button issues such as immigration, gun ownership, climate, women's rights, and LGBTQ rights.
You are right I didn’t say it, however, sadly it is always visibly there -as plain to see as the GOP’s new gerrymandered redistricting maps in Alabama.
Am I to assume that we are no longer a nation of states that must adhere to the law as written but defy willingly mandates for free and fair elections in AL, and defy immigration policy in Texas? Then we are no longer the “UNITED”states of America but 50 independent governments that share nothing but defiant traitors.
Addendum: because politicians assume the SCOTUS has been successfully hijacked by the right wing and will not enforce the laws of the federal government.
Yesterday 7/21/23 the Pew Research Center documented that favorable opinions of SCOTUS hasd dropped 30% since 2020.
Yesterday, 7/21/23 favorable ratings of SCOTUS dropped to just 44%. Rogue State Legislatures are treating Marbury vs Madison as void all under the work of the scotus'
Sophistry Six & judicial corruption.
We need more like Tom Paine & Abigail & John Adams; we have Heather Cox Richardson.
Jeri your instincts are good with re repect to challenging the format & cohort of any polling data even from a reputable source like Pew. That is one (1) reason I included the data point from Pew's same data-set documenting the sharp reduction in the public's view of the legitimacy of our top Court. I generally look for at leacdt 1500 to 1800 respondents scientifically designed with proven accuracy over time. I will check in with Nate Silver on Pew.
UPDATE: Nate does NOT grade Pew highly only "B/C" as to 25 election polls circa 2016!
Today's Letter covered a series of serious stories. I would like to lighten our load a little bit. How often do you find a funny story in one of our top papers, such as the Washington Post and The New York Times? I came across this one in the Washington Post a few hours ago. It is a real news story and something of a mystery.
'Centuries-old artifacts meant for a 2019 White House Hanukkah party ended up at Mar-a-Lago'
‘Earlier this week, a minor — but still majorly awkward — diplomatic kerfuffle surfaced when Israeli media reported that officials there were struggling to get back some ancient artifacts from Mar-a-Lago.'
‘Details remain murky of how Israeli officials lost track of the centuries-old oil lamps and coins at former president Donald Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla. But cultural heritage experts say the episode shows what can go wrong when ancient artifacts are not handled properly.’
‘The items were to be displayed at a Hanukkah party at the White House in 2019. ‘…the items never made it into the White House, though it’s not clear why. Haaretz initially reported that Americans officials were concerned the items may have been taken from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, then later said there was a “bureaucratic difficulty raised by the Americans.”
‘A Trump spokesman Friday said the items had been presented “with the full support of the [Antiquities Authority]. The items were on loan for permanent exhibition at the behest of the organization, to honor and celebrate American-Jewish heritage and the close friendship between Israel and President Trump.’
‘The resurfacing of the items comes as the former president is facing a 38-count indictment for allegedly improperly stashing classified documents at his Florida residence, including in a bathroom, and enlisting his aide to help him secretly keep some of the materials despite government efforts to have them returned.’
‘Israeli antiquities officials offered inconsistent reports about the arrangement. Hasson told Haaretz the initial 2019 deal required the items to be returned within weeks. The authority’s statements this week to The Post say nothing about a specific contract, saying only that the items were “presented” to Trump.’
“It is possible that the IAA officials overstepped their authority in lending the objects and/or in implying that they did not need to be returned and may therefore have been trying to operate outside of legal and diplomatic channels to get them back,” Gerstenblith told The Post. “It sounds like they didn’t want to offend Trump.’ (WAPO) See link below.
Wouldn't it be hysterical to see Trump and Netanyahu haggling over some old coins and lamps and to hear their argument about who owns what?
Sorry, gifted link is not available, but there are no surprises in the article Much of it was copied for this post.
Pearls before swine. I don't care what kind of favor the Israelis were trying to curry, offering precious objects to a thief is always a mistake. They should have known by 2019 that Trump always plays with a weighted dreidel :)
What I had read in Rolling Stone, is that the artifacts were *loaned* by the Israeli government to the White House temporarily, initially in connection with a celebration of Chanukah in late 2019, for a period of several months. By the time those months were done, covid had hit, and the artifacts were not returned as planned. They were never, ever “presented to “ Trump. I strongly suspect any account with that language of having been planted by Trump’s people to justify his theft.
This was mentioned once Thursday morning on MSNBC and never again. I was sure it would be picked up by CNN also and be aired all day. Never heard it mentioned again. I thought it hilarious at the time and wanted my husband to hear it also but no luck. Wonder what else is in all of Trump’s “happy boxes.”
New lamps for old! If tfg had ever read any children's literature - at the appropriate stage of life - he'd have known that when you rub the dirty old lamp a huge genie emerges and says, What is your will, O master?" He didn't even try it.
One solution to the Alabama, and Texas, problems is a simple one. Both the Alabama Legislature and Governor, along with the Texas Governor, have violated numerous Federal laws. What needs to happen now is the U. S. Marshals need to be sent into the states and arrest them for violating the laws of the United States. Then, Governor Abbott will get his wish. He’d be seen in court. Only difference is that he will be the Defendant.
These people need to be held accountable for their actions. They need to be arrested, just exactly like any of us would be arrested, jailed, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The exact same thing needs to happen with Frumpy. It’s sickening the power that this country has given this narcissistic sociopath. He’s a wanna-be dictator who is hell-bent to destroy this nation. He has duped millions of people into believing his crap and these people will do anything he tells them to, including send him billions of dollars for his ‘campaign’. That money is going to one of his formed PACs to pay all his legal bills. Frumpy isn’t paying anything out of his pocket. Once again, he has everybody else paying for his criminal activity, just like he’s always done. Having someone else carry out his activities and he walks around free.
Frumpy needs to be jailed. You can bet your bottom dollar if any of us violated the Espionage Act even one count, we would be jailed until after trial.
Of course the Republicans in Alabama want to keep the power. Kevin McCarthy wants to keep the power. All the Republicans in all these states are scrambling now to get these maps redone so they maintain, or gain, the majority.
Rest assured, folks, if the day ever comes where we have a Republican president, Republican majority in the House and Senate, plus Republican majorities in the states, the election process will be gone. There will be no more elections in this nation. This GQP Party now will take completely over and have a Dictatorship formed. Frumpy’s already stated what he will do. He’s intending to bring control of all government agencies, federal and state, under the direct control and oversight of the president.
Folks, this is a Dictatorship. It’s that simple.
Greg Abbott has violated laws, violated treaties, and his building this barrier has also caused the loss of life. That’s murder. I don’t care if it’s a citizen of this, or any other country. It’s a human being. It’s a life. And in this case, it’s a child. He’s is killing people and no one is doing anything about it.
Our laws are being rewritten before our very eyes. Now, you can commit murder and nothing will happen. You won’t be arrested. You won’t be jailed. You won’t be tried. You won’t have anything happen to you. The precedent has been established by our government leaders in our states.
You can now commit Treason, violate the Espionage Act, and not be arrested. Here again, it’s turned into a farce. If you are ‘arrested’ you simply will be asked to appear in court to be processed, then arraigned, and released to go about your business as usual. No bond. No jail cell. No nothing.
This is sickening. I put people in jail for a hell of a lot less than this. And they deserved to be jailed! These people need to be buried in a jail cell without any privilege of phone, internet, cell phones, nothing.
It’s high time our government officials become accountable for their actions. If the people rise up as they did on January 6th, then that can be handled as it should have been handled back then. If bodies are left lying in the path of the soldiers taking back the capital building, there wouldn’t be time wasted trying to identify and prosecute the little people. They will be there laying in the ground.
History is rewriting itself in this country. It took a Civil War to end slavery. Now, it’s beginning to look like it will take a civil war to end thus attempted takeover of our Democracy.
You express very well the rage most of us feel. To this day, I still don't understand why the Capitol Police only shot and killed one person. Why weren't all of those who broke into OUR sacred government building fired upon after they had been given a warning?
And why are those barriers in the river still there? The Border Patrol, National Guard and whatever Federal agencies needed should be hauling them out and parking them on the front lawn of the governors mansion. And send Abbott the bill for the effort.
We march into foreign countries, oust leaders, remake nations...and we can't control a putz like Abbott?
And the media that propped up the lie that the participants were “unarmed and peaceful” ... what 💩. We learned A YEAR LATER during the House investigation they were armed and the government KNEW they were armed. The President said so what? They weren’t there to hurt him. No arrests were made that day. Everyone goes home. Not normal. Venezuela learned from us and arrested people THE DAY of their uprising.
Exactly. One problem we had that day was the time it finally took for emergency response from other agencies. That came out in the January 6 hearings.
What should have happened was the Capital Police should have made a line inside the building. The first people that broke through the doors and windows would have been found there after it was over. That’s where they would have been shot.
A wild guess tells me that emergency response would have shown up sooner had there been gunfire, dispensing of the need for the so called President to intervene and send relief.
I agree with all you say and share your well written outrage.
However, the Feds are limited in what they can do. Eventually, Lincoln decided that it was worth a HUGE number of dead bodies to have a Union.
BUT, what if Lincoln had decided to just let the south go? I mean, after Reconstruction the south basically reverted to slavery through the "peonage" process and because it was legal to use slavery with "convicted felons".
So, was it worth all those dead bodies? I would argue the answer is NO.
Maybe it is time to let Texas people deal with Texas. Let Alabama people deal with Alabama.
Personally, let them rebuild their own roads and bridges, feed their homeless, poor, and take care of all the federal assistance they currently get from the government. If you pull all the federal funding, federal medical assistance, federal military bases, everything out of those states. Let them handle it all on their own. Things might be looked at a bit differently if they lose all federal support.
Neither Texas nor Alabama could afford to lose federal assistance. Especially with hurricane season upon us. Both of those states have received billions in relief after major hurricane damage. Not to mention all the billions each has recently received in President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill!
"let them rebuild their own roads and bridges, feed their homeless, poor, and take care of all the federal assistance they currently get from the government. If you pull all the federal funding, federal medical assistance, federal military bases, everything out of those states. Let them handle it all on their own. Things might be looked at a bit differently if they lose all federal support."
Cut the welfare for white people going to the southern states! I am totally in.
Actually, Mike, I was referring to Texas and Alabama. If all federal assistance was cut off since they refuse to abide by Federal Law, or the orders of the SCOTUS, then they apparently don’t need the Federal funding they so graciously received to use to rebuild their towns and feed their people after a disaster, or the federal funding they just received to rebuild all the derelict roads and bridges that are crumbling because of age. If all this federal money is cut off, these governors and state legislators would change their way of thinking, I’m sure.
Daniel, I am still waiting to learn just exactly the degree of command and control failure of the DC law enforcement community. The situation is compounded by the multi-jurisdictional law enforcement responsibilities of that area, and was hamstrung by the lack of intelligence information disseminated prior to 6 January. I knew that there was going to be trouble beyond the norm that day; how did they not???
Ally, the failure was the intelligence. No one paid any attention to it. No one acted on it. No one planned because no one actually believed there was going to be an attempted coup. This was the fault of every agency involved. Plus, there was no “SOP” for such an event.
I bet there’s one in place now. I guarantee you that an “SOP” has been written for the next one, fir every agency to go by.
Ally, the failure was the intelligence. No one paid any attention to it. No one acted on it. No one planned because no one actually believed there was going to be an attempted coup.
"Federalist Society Leonard Leo funded a “a coordinated and sophisticated public relations campaign to defend and celebrate” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas"
....................Lipstick on a pig..................
GERRYMANDERING needs a house cleaning. Kick it to the curb.
Decades aho, Ohio, was a solid blue state until the Repubs started playing Shuffleboard with the designated districts. So, they’re now nicely rearranged so that Dem areas are grouped together ( 1 district) and the
Repubs are sprinkled about ( multiple districts). It highway robbery... straight down US 71 into the southern counties. Well, the House Leader just got his tit in the ringer and his ass is in prison for 20+ years. There are more Repubs lined up to be prosecuted for corruption. FOLLOW THE MONEY. Gerrymandering is how states got this heinous, lopsided power. We’ve got to end it ...mprobsbly federally. I’d like to posta picture here: DUCK. Gerrmandered Ohio looks like ... a duck.
GERRYMANDERING is blatant cheating, pure and simple. The Fascist Rethugs are good at that. Otherwise, they are good for nothing, but to stir up hate and division. And to think these scumbag criminals are getting paid to do this with our tax dollars.
Penny, we need to pass a law decreeing that requires a bipartisan drawing of maps every 10 years based on census data.
While we’re at it, we need to install ranked choice voting nationwide. As shown in Alaska, ranked choice open primaries dilutes the power of fringe candidates.
Additionally, we need the electoral college votes to be apportioned by the popular votes in each state. Example: state has 10 electoral votes and popular votes are 60% for candidate A and 40% for candidate B. Instead of all the electoral votes going for candidate A, candidate A would get 6 votes and candidate B would get 4 votes.
Surprising how few people on this list responded to the need for proportional representation voting. First-past-the-post and single-member districts seems the only option Americans can think of for running elections. These are the tools cartels use for strangling democracy and maintaining a ruling class oligarchy by calling the system "democracy.". Americans have never received education about any other system.
If it seems odd that people don't advocate for election reforms, it could be that most of us don't even understand the system(s?) in place currently. I certainly don't. We need Katie or Sheldon up front with their white boards to shed some light. Help!
Well, I would call the system currently in place a rather loose system. Electoral college is useless and only valuable a few hundred years ago based on the structure and maturity of the states. Having each state devise their own rules is madness now. What we have is easily gamed on J6 as we have seen. Only one guy stood in the way. Just Pence. Never thought I could appreciate a spineless person before. Our country was hanging by a thread and it could happen again. God help us. Cheers.
Mary, I am curious about the process in AK for primaries but cannot find specific details (rules). I haven't done a deep search yet for myself. But what is the history of that issue , if you know, and why not for the general election as well? For example, what if there are six candidates for one slot. Is the voter instructed (prevented) from replicating a single choice for all six ranked choices? What are the statistical reasons for no rules or that suggested rule or some other rule? Frankly, I am skeptical about leaving each state to devise their own rule(s). Can you imagine how a state could manipulate to suit their own situation ala gerrymandering? I would like to see the constitution changed to reflect nationwide standards. I know that is a heavy lift and I offer ERA as one example. It's like trying to heard cats. Isn't it? Anyway, it is an important enough issue to require a feasibility study at the very least. What do you think?
F. Reynolds, as I understand it, you rank the six in order of your preferences. You don’t get to vote more than once for a candidate. It allows you to vote for a specialized candidate to express your preferences. If that candidate is not in the top five, their votes are awarded to the candidates that were choice #2 on each ballot. Then the resulting #5 has their votes distributed, then #4, then #3…. Since the way votes are tallied is not in the Constitution, it wouldn’t need to be a Constitutional amendment. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to iron out the details before proposing making it an amendment.
Another idea would be to have an open primary with no indication of party.
DOJ should arrest Abbott and Ivey - along with the entire Alabama Legislature. Is the US a nation of laws? Or a collection of states that get to flip the finger at their own nation whenever it suits them? Lincoln probably would have offered an opportunity for them to abide by the laws they swore to uphold. If they refused, he might have sent in the troops.
And while our proud people in uniform are collecting traitors, they could harvest Tuberville.
There is a problem though, one that Dr. Richardson does manage to avoid saying.
At the time that the "founding fathers" put in place the "rule of law", human bondage, human whipping, human enslavement and torture was codified either openly in law (like in Virginia), or openly in practice (like in Alabama).
So, even though white men (and only white men) were covered by the "rule of law", LOTS of humans in America were not.
And? It remained like that until, well, black folks might say until now. I might say until the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
So? It is not new for white men in parts of America to feel they are above the law while simultaneously being protected BY the law.
Not new at all. It was built into the founding of our country, although, like I said, Dr. Richardson does routinely avoid pointing this out. I will say, a couple of times she HAS pointed that out. But, when she really wants to highlight the founders intent for themselves, she leaves out the fact that they were quite happy to leave black slaves and women and native Americans out of the "rule of law".
So, in some ways, Alabama is just doing what Alabama has ALWAYS done.
Mike, you speak the truth. And women were considered chattel until quite recently in the grand scheme of history. And all of that should be taught in every school. Knowledge is power and provide the ability to correct course.
But none of that changes the fact that Abbot and Ivey are essentially withdrawing from the US. So we either let them leave altogether or we bust them. The former would be unfair to the millions in those states who are Patriots. So what's next?
Here's what I wrote to President Biden:
"Dear Mr. President,
The governor of Texas is violating Federal and International laws by erecting barriers in the river that endanger humans. He is defying the Federal Government.
The governor of Alabama just signed into law another racially gerrymandered voting map - in direct defiance of a US Supreme Court decision. Defying the Federal Government.
What is the Federal Government going to do now? What are you going to do now? I suggest the arrest and prosecution of these two traitorous governors. Their actions threaten the integrity of the entire US.
And why isn't the Army Corps of Engineers or some other Federal Law Enforcement agency removing those cruel river barriers right now?"
Not me either. Except there are a lot of folks in those states who are on the right side of justice. Don't we have an obligation to protect their US citizenship? Or do we spend billions offering them relocation assistance? Massachusetts is advertising: "All are Welcome"!
This really isn't much different than the US just before the Civil War. Terrible choices caused by terrible people.
Better yet, who would want to live in those states when they have to stand alone and not get government assistance. In a very short time, they'd be begging to come back into the union.
by ignoring the SCOTUS ruling that their district map goes against the Constitution of the United States of America. It is also taxing ALL of its citizens but clearly not representing all citizens. So it seems Alabama has essentially declared itself a fascist State. By the time any lawsuits fighting the Governor’s decision is over, it will be too late [AGAIN] since the 2024 election will be over and many the voter’s denied a fair election. Its leadership wants all the benefits of being part of the United States, such as protection by National/ Federal Government during disasters, accepting part of the overflow of other State’s tax money, they enjoy the pause the United State’s Military gives other countries who might otherwise feel free to attack us, etc., but Alabama does not want to honor the nation’s rules & laws of democracy, even when the rules are set by a SCOTUS that’s almost entirely in their favor.
Regarding Texas’s water barriers, it seems Texas is also declaring they are a fascist State but also want the benefits of the National/Federal Government. If Abbott doesn’t respect the nation’s laws, why should the Army Core of Engineers respect the Texas Governor? There’s nothing stopping the Army Core of Engineers from building a moat around Abbott’s home and relocating the barriers to the moat within a week after the Tuesday deadline.
What a lose, lose for Texas tax payers. Just think what those millions of dollars could have done if invested into the infrastructure that directly serves Texas constituents.
Why not? Because there are good, honest Republicans and Democrats in Texas who are just as upset about what is happening in their state as enacted by the criminal Abbott. Cutting off Federal money to the entirety of Texas, (even if it was possible, which I doubt,) would hurt these folks as well. They are our fellow citizens, ill-served by their elected officials. Should the dire forecasts of autocracy and dictatorship come to pass in 2025, then is the time to rise up and take matters in our own hands.
Right now we must do what we can to vote these criminals out of office and pursue legal means to restrict or end their illegality. The Gilded Turd® made it possible for the rocks to be overturned and the evil creatures underneath to crawl out and feel free to enact their crimes with seeming impunity. This will not stand, or we will cease to be a nation of laws.
Bear in mind that many countries which look attractive for possible expat residence (Canada, New Zealand, etc) have extremely strict immigration law. One can't simply move to Toronto or Christchurch to live there.
I agree. But President Biden probably wouldn’t do that. I think he could make Texas sign a contract which stipulates money must be spent only on certain things though.
How is this today's reality?! We the People cannot let this happen, and must work together to prevent the Rethugs from turning our country into a dictatorship run by essentially a psychopathic mobster, and also prevent him from escaping all consequences of his self-serving, traitorous actions. It is incredible that any average American with even a smidgeon of care for the future of this nation could support tfg, yet here we are, again.
"The Republican governor of Texas is defying both federal law and international treaties. After rampant scandals, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court refuses to adopt an ethics system that might restore some confidence in their decisions. And, aided by his loyalists, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is threatening mob violence if he is held legally accountable for his behavior. "
How MUCH MORE! Proof ? , Does Justice ! , have to Have, ! , to Do SOMTHING ! about the KADYWHUMPUS Leader !,, & his ILK ! WOW ! ( Thanks JustJanice ! )
An outstanding summation of current events going into a miid-summer weekend that seems like it should encapsulate a year’s worth of news, not the end of a week.
Make no mistake, White Christian Authoritarian Nationalism has taken over the Republican Party and democracy and the rule of law is the target.
Unlike the Civil War, fought over slavery and the cultural and economic benefits of white supremacy, today’s treason is strongest in Red States but marbled throughout all 50 with ties to Christian Nationalism internationally.
It’s hypocrisy is as readily apparent as it is ignored by its adherents. It is imbued with a sense of victimization that is acted out every day in a political theatre of the absurd by their leader, Donald Trump.
Every American needs to be asked, “which side are you on? Do you stand with constitutional law, order and democracy or with DJ Trump?” We need the Republican Party to fracture and for sensible Republicans to chose the path paved by Cheney and Kinzinger and for a true moral majority to stand against White Christian Authoritarian Nationalism. If not, we risk losing democracy at home and abroad.
'Floridians Demand to Know Where Disney Is Going so They Can Come With'
'FLORIDA (The Borowitz Report)—Shortly after the corporate giant cancelled plans for a new campus in Lake Nona, Florida, residents of the state demanded to know where Disney was going so that they could come with.'
'Across the state, Floridians indicated a desperate desire to join Disney in its departure, suggesting that an unprecedented exodus may soon be under way.'
“When I think of Florida, I think of gun violence, draconian abortion laws, and book banning,” Carol Foyler, who lives in Boca Raton, said. “When I think of Disney, I think of teacups, princesses, and singing animals. I want to be where Disney is.”
“I’ve lived in Florida all my life and never considered leaving before,” Harland Dorrinson, a resident of Fort Lauderdale, said. “But, wherever Disney goes, Ron DeSantis won’t be there, and that’s good enough for me.”
'Tracy Klugian, who resides in Tampa, expressed a sentiment echoed by millions of others in the state. “I’d rather live in Disney without Florida than in Florida without Disney,” she said.' (Satire, NewYorker)
Sadly Mother Nature is humbling us as Florida becomes less inhabitable. It’s a clear warning when insurance companies withdraw and Floridians find out the real costs of living on the environmental edge. NOAA meet Noah.
Truth. Sad truth. I live ten miles in from the Gulf, in Hernando County, and it may not be far enough to avoid a flood of Biblical proportions.
Love the Gulf side of Florida!
But the water in the Gulf is something like 94 degrees. The reefs are dying. The barrier islands will soon disappear. But, the problem is that transgendered kids are playing sports.
Exactly; the House and Desatan among others focus on nonsense while the planet 🌎 dies. I will not be sorry to leave the living behind soon enough as seems likely because I have no family to worry about except my three senior fur babies. The only reason I go on through hellish days confounded by conflicting news, nuke saber rattling, and intense anxiety about what I will see when I open my eyes one more time. But I do cry for the fate of so many who have never seen lives without threat, fear, insecurity, hunger. Earth cannot support 8 billion people now or ever especially when all they seem to get accomplished is conflict.
Before the "Powell Memo", among other turns of events, there was a fairly salient public conversation about overpopulation that kind of slipped away. I think that increasing plutocratic control of media had a lot to do with that. Some months ago my local newspaper rand a front page story (not the banner headline but still) about predictions that proved to be false, and one of them was world overpopulation. Yet to me a lot of our current global problems seem, at the very least, greatly exacerbated by exact that in early stages, climate change among them.
We certainly have it within our power to significantly reduce our footprint; though we can't eliminate it. Nature deals with major imbalances of population to resources with periodic population crashes, no longer unthinkable as global rather than localized for Homo sapiens. If we are indeed "wise" as our "sapiens" moniker suggests, we will be looking harder at responsible family planning and the larger picture of the common good.
And that drag queens are reading kids books at the library.
Seriously.
My youngest daughter is so flamboyant that she's been told (in a complimentary way) that she is like a cartoon character come to life. If she was born with XY chromosomes, she would totally be a drag queen!! She's practically one now! :D
Frankly, I don't see the difference between my cartoon-character offspring reading to young kids at the library and a drag queen doing it. In a kids' eyes, either one seems like an other-worldly fairy princess, so what the heck??? *smh*
Sarasota, like Orlando, used to be a liberal stronghold. Now DeSantis is putting a stranglehold on higher education in those cities. Heaven forbid students should be taught to think for themselves!
One of these right wing puritans condemned "Mrs. Doubtfire" recently as being a film that promotes drag and - get this - stalking.
Also RedTide and dead fish.
Lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH9YRpz757Y
Florida is, or was, ecologically gorgeous.
Was
Sad to hear that if true..
The whole planet really; we take a lot for granted. But nature really gets flamboyant in the tropics and semi-topics. I have wondered about the evolution of our potentially intense appreciation for beauty, which is very much a thing. I have wondered if beauty really is just "in the eye of the beholder", but I think "Yes" and "no". There was a show on PBS years ago that seemed to try to reduce our capacity for perceiving beauty to be rooted in sexuality, but I think that is, while important, a special case. I think that Keats got closer with "beauty is truth". To me it has something to do with unifying simplicity, same-yet-different variation (think Bach or Mozart) and inherent integrity; the grace of a tiger, or a consummate dancer, or an ocean wave.
This is not just for jollies. Mathematicians and physicists speak of "beauty" in identifying powerful insights. By the same capacities by which we perceive beauty, we recognize fruitful paths in an overwhelming universe. We resonate with what's true, even in a fantasy.
Well said, JL, I find so many disparate things “beautiful”—often it’s form (eg; fractals) or color….or or or….to me there is also an element of wonder or amazement or discovery. How looking at a bug under a microscope and it looks alien….ugly and beautiful a the same time. Our evolved brains/bodies (it’s really all one piece IMHO) are remarkable. I do wonder what/how our fellow species comprehend the world….they might see a beauty far beyond what we can comprehend! So many questions!
Yes the whole planet... Beauty is a feeling that comes from reactions to the world around you in a particular way. I think feeling love, being open and positive, embracing is part of it. It's very personal and maybe too of the moment. Those who cannot see beauty, or feel it, especially the beauty of nature, I imagine to be in a bad place psychically. I agree it's about individual capacity. Because objectively speaking the physical world has endless beauty. I was remembering our many trips to Florida years ago and how we sunk into the beauty of the coastal landscape, the keys, the wildlife, the morning sun, the the sea breezes, the evening shower. DeSantis and the Florida Republicans poison this paradise for many of us.
I don't know that it's all that sad, there are some Floridians who could use a little humbling, starting with the Governor and both Senators.
! AMEN !! ,Dave !
Republicans sell entitlement, and deliver to the wealthy and connected. They throw bones (mostly of contention) to the serfs. Four plus decades of "Reaganomics", and who has what to show for it? Who has gained? Who has seen their security and quality of life under threat? Who is denied human rights? What the payoff and for who? Woke? You snooze (too long), you lose.
Have you seen this? A new effort, quite detailed (there is a link to the entire publication from this site)…to take back the WH, oh, “and our country” & government, and this, apparently is the game plan. I find their premise mostly ludicrous (was willing to have an open mind, but what I read was pretty weird to me), but seems they are really vested in this view/perception. https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025
True. But as the saying goes “The mills of God grind exceeding slow...” Will Florida survive until that humbling happens?
Slow and sometimes catastrophically. We memorialize some mass deaths; COVID -19, not so much, even though well more than a million died fighting a heartless, predatory invader. Commonly disaster gets nearly everyone on the same page, but not that one. There were heroes to be sure, but also villains, and the latter still remain unaccountable. There is something of a firestorm of red lights blinking on the dashboard right now, and one-up-obsessed Republicans keep upping their puerile power games as if nothing else mattered; and indeed they seem to think nothing does. They will suffer too, but we with better things to do must step lively, to not go down on their ship of fools.
Sadly, Human Nature is bumbling us in California as the state becomes less inhabitable. It is a clear warning when taxpaying residents leave the state and drive up the cost of living in places like Florida where they bring their corrupted politics to do the same to Florida.
You think OUTSIDERS are making Florida corrupt?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You all never seemed to have a problem with Rick Scott and he was a known thief when he ran for office.
Corrupting the politics into a liberal mess. Florida is no more or less generally corrupt than many other states like New Jersey and New York... where most of the Florida residents derive from.
I would take Rick Scott over hypocrite idiot thief Senators from CA any day.
Of course, you would.
Which is why the phrase "Florida Man" came into existence.
Care to link to any corruption from the California senators?
It should be on the scale of this:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/
https://www.newsweek.com/rick-scotts-connection-massive-medicare-fraud-scandal-resurfaces-1780279
$1.7 BILLION in fines.
Florida - where they don't want ex felons to vote but they happily elect them to the Senate.
Florida - where they don't want ex felons to vote but they happily elect them to the Senate.
In a nutshell.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-03-28-mn-43046-story.html
COME ON ! That is GREAT !! Seth !
Meant to say “less habitable” pangs of conscience about my grammatical error :)
I love Andy Borowitz, and this doesn’t need to be labeled satire. If not for my only child and only grandchild I’d flee Florida in a heartbeat, likely to Maine. Most recent example, the new history standards approved by the Florida Board of Education:
The new standards require instruction for middle school students to include ‘how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,’ a document listing the standards and posted in the Florida Department of Education website said.
“When high school students learn about events such as the 1920 Ocoee massacre, the new rules require that instruction include ‘acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.’ The massacre is considered the deadliest Election Day violence in US history and, according to several histories of the incident, it started when Moses Norman, a prominent Black landowner in the Ocoee, Florida, community, attempted to cast his ballot and was turned away by White poll workers.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/us/florida-black-history-education-standards-reaj/index.html
Concerning the new standards: The Lost Cause Movement is alive and well in America today.
Which is the point
Suzanne, I just can’t wrap my head around how folks can actually buy into this—what is their logic…oh, wait…. Reading this I had the horrid thought that they would similarly try to say that those in Nazi concentration camps should be grateful for the free room & board they got. Despicable!
I think you’re probably right on that. After being a Republican my entire life, I became a Democrat the day dt was confirmed as the GOP nominee. My only child, age 42, whom I love like my life, recently argued with me about the great replacement, that white men like himself are being replaced in their own country. His father, my best beloved of 46 years, agrees with him. And yet his child’s mother is Vietnamese, and his friend group is beautifully multiracial. I wish I had asked him who he knew, personally, who had been replaced. I have my doubts he or his father know anyone. My heart breaks daily. But I can’t go back.
Thank you, esp. for sharing your heartbreak, but also for helping me with a response to that asks, "whom do you personally know who has been replaced?" Brilliant.
Sigh.
But that’s what DeSantis wants. He wants you to leave. He’s an authoritarian. He does not care about you.
Sadly. A mass exodus would serve him well, I think. I'm not sure that a tourist boycott wouldn't be better, because of the revenue. After all, Florida doesn't have an income tax.
If Florida loses tourism as a primary income source, you can rest assured that DeSantis, et al, will quickly move for a state income tax to address the budget shortfalls. I wonder how many retirees are going to be as supportive of their wannabe dictator when they're having to fork over princely sums every year to keep him in monogrammed campaign shirts?
I think he would just move he and his family. Which is what I thought you were going to say.
I went to Florida once to visit my cousin in Stuart. Once was enough. Many empty strip malls and a contrast between Jupiter Island and the many trailer parks. We had a nice visit, but I would never live there. I have one ex-student who lives near Sanibel Island who experienced the hurricane last year. I have a couple ex-classmates who are awful on the west side and frankly I don't care what happens to them. Now the sea level is rising and well, insurance. Then you add Stumpy Boots DeSatan and no sensible person should move there and get out if they can. Tourists should also stay away although there is the allure of Disney.
If DeDumbass doesn't stop harassing Disney, don't be surprised if they shut down and leave, which would be terrible for Florida because Disney generates billions in tourism revenue every year.
I lived in Florida as a child in the 1960s, and we moved back to NY just as Disney broke ground on Disney World. I remember the "old Florida" - a poor state with a lot of seedy tourist attractions (alligator farms, cheap motels, etc.), and our school lunch program relied on army surplus and what was actual garbage - rotten food, eggs half-developed into chicks, kids getting sick in the cafeteria. It was really cheap to live there back then, but the only people Florida attracted were retirees. Most of the people living on my street were old folks from out of state.
As a 22 yr .old, my husband and I lived there with one child in '62, had 2 more children. Lived in Cocoa. I remember my husband-at-the-time asking me if I wanted the paper, it was only 5 cents at the time. I remember that Orlando wanted a convention center more than you can imagine. I remember the day Walt Disney announced he was breaking ground for Disney. My ex worked at Cape Canaveral. It was a fascinating time, I thought. Not so in watching Blacks being hosed on television in a state just above us and the social workers being killed in Mississippi. Civil Rights happened for the Blacks who, before, had not been able to vote. Women were marching for our rights and Vietnam was going on along with sit-in and die-ins. It was a tumultuous time and opinions were flying .in every direction. Had a Floridian friend who told me his father had watched lynchings....both were in favor of it. Dr. Richardson is so right that history is a reminder that time marches on but history remains. Thank you, Dr. Richardson. For a girl from northern Maine, this was all sort of too much, except we lived in Queens, N,Y, where I saw the buses line up for the Freedom rides a few years, maybe on a year, earlier. Wow. Hadn't meant to write all of this.
Your words remind me of a Floridian writer, Carl Hiaasen, who (a former newspaper journalist) pens Florida-based humor filled mystery novels. They are fun to read & is clear he loves Florida, but very much dislikes much of what it has become politically and environmentally. I have not yet read his latest 2020 novel “Squeeze Me”.
Loved reading Hiaasen! I need to read him again. The Florida about which he wrote was full of corrupt people in business and politics who were always scheming to do terribly environmentally unsound things.
I grew up in the midwest in Indiana. Lots of people went there for part of the year even then. It was before Disney, so was as you have described. I have been wondering if Disney would move out. One of my ex-students has a daughter-in-law who is at Johns Hopkins in the Tampa area as it is a top tier pediatric hospital. When we were visiting my cousin, we went out to lunch at a place that might as well have been in Brooklyn. My cousin ended up in Florida because she worked for Grummund (sp?). This after many years living on Long Island.
I lived in St. Petersburg, in the suburb of Clearwater, near Pinellas Park. I loved it. There were only 5 or 6 kids living in the whole neighborhood, and we were all free range. It was the best place to grow up. Our neighborhood was quiet and we had several neighbors who were like grandparents to us. Too bad Florida isn't like that anymore.
A tourist boycott and a corporate one as well. There will never be an income tax in Florida. Here's hoping more and more entities refuse to come to Florida.
Yep, a tourist boycott would be better. Eventually the degrading climate, especially in Florida, will probably do the State in and it will be abandoned to the Anacondas and giant toads. Running for President is Ron’s and Uber-wife Casey’s strategy to get out.
It is easier to govern with an iron fist if your opposition relocates...
You bet
Sadly, this might also be looked on as a self-cleansing of Democratic party voters. Here's a business world article on Florida's population growth, not a word on politics. https://www.southwestjournal.com/florida-why-more-americans-are-choosing-to-move-south/#:~:text=A%20significant%20increase%20in%20migration,not%20simply%20there%20for%20relaxation.
DemocratIC party voters.
It’s just awful how Trump has changed our language.
Yup, I hear non-MAGAs repeat that one.
Like the party in Orwell's anti-utopia, Republicans have been very systematically been intensely distorting our language since at least Ronald Reagan. There is a who lexicon of intentionally misapplied language that Republicans never miss an opportunity to popularize; "Supply Side Economics", Operation Iraqi Freedom" Citizens United, Defense of Marriage Act, Free market, Job-Killing, human-rights-free Enemy Combatant, equating AOC with Pol Pot, and warmed-over Romneycare with "Nazi Germany", not to mention words like "militia" (check the Constitution), patriot, "Freedom of Religion", and "Small Government, just off the top of my head. Modern Republicans are experts at defining things in misleading, often antonymical ways; and successful at installing it in public conversation so that even non-MAGAs commonly use the perverse nomenclature by default.
Sorry abt that. Will fix
Thank you!
It wasn't Trump. It comes from racist Republicans back in the 1950s, I think.
That is very easy to believe. Let me add that disrespecting and even dehumanizing one’s adversaries comes as second nature to “these people.”
That is the intention of “strongmen/authoritarians: to chill or get rid of dissenting voices.
Pretty much, it's also a reflection of intensity of their convictions and denigration of their opponents. "existential" in other words, "them or us"
In service of absolute power. Lacking real world support, big lies require maintenance by wishful thinking and oppression.
Of course, if the current hot temperatures continue unabated and the overall rises, those folks will not stay because Florida, like parts of Texas and Arizona will become uninhabitable.
Andy nails it every time.
Borowitz tells the truth with humor, a certain cynicism.
Fern, this should have had a 'spew alert'! I almost blew coffee all over my screen! Thanks for starting my day of with a bang!
Happy to oblige, Sandra; it matters 100% to front Andy.
Let's all go where Disney goes!The lawlessness of red states is making it increasingly hard to live there with the cruelty and despair.
The cruelty is the point. Heartbreaking here every day.
Trump (among others) never seems more pleased with himself as when he is breaking rules and getting away with it.
" EXODUS" To WHEREVER
O ur TRUE LORD/GOD ! is Present !JESUS, said " LOVE! Your NEIGHBOR ! Just as YOU ! LOVE YOURSELF ! BLESSINGS !
Or we could just impeach DeSantis and rename the state Flori-Disney!
Or Disorida
or DeS-orida
I lived in Ft Lauderdale from the age of 9 until I left for college at 18. I knew in 1983 that I did not want to raise a family in Florida. Unfortunately now Texas is just as bad.
Borowitz.....
I understand from a relative that Tampa is relatively liberal/progressive FWIW.
But I do think people who are liberal minded, older and younger, will not choose to move to Florida, nor attend university there. It's not so easy to pick up and leave once you are planted, especially if you are old.
Florida is in for changes demographically and ecologically, and perhaps politically, faster than other states it seems to me. But the heat slows the brain and that is a factor too.
Not that hard. We packed up and left.
Well many cannot just pack up and leave..One has a house maybe which has to be sold, connections, doctors ( health care), attachments ( including family, kids in school with their attachments), a job..... it's hard. And if you are old it's formidable.
You mean it was not that hard for you.
We have our house, the kids have their homes, their ex's live here, the grandkids are going to college here. We can't just leave.
Yes. And what would happen if all those who could not take the political climate ( never mind the worsening weather come climate changes) just fled... if they could. That would leave Florida to the extremists and their minions. But I do think that people will want to spend their tourist dollars less there and perhaps college kids would not choose Florida. Florida's economy might suffer... especially if immigrants find Florida inhospitable.
"GOP" fever-dreams seem the big risk factor there.
I know that Andy Borowitz write satire but this sounds pretty good to me! I used to have to travel to Florida about once a month for work...just another benefit of being retired!
I am happy to be retired too and never have to travel to Texas again. Haven't been to Florida since a training class on taxes for expats in 1979. Never want to go to either state again.
Love these citizen responses... they offer hope that FLA hasn't yet become a dead zone! Got its Mojo workin'!
; D
Satire? No matter. DeSantis is beyond belief
Ah, but not beyond Andy's satires!
Trump talks like a mobster. It would not be his only connection with the "mob".
J L, He IS a mobster. He has been for a long time. Greg Olear wrote a beautiful piece in 2020 summing up that history. His odious father was involved with the mob also. Construction in NY and elsewhere was how they maneuvered. Nothing “like a mobster”.
Great Olear article
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump
For anyone to read. Worth it!
Just got started reading this, Elisabeth. “1947, when Donald was still in diapers (the first time around).” Already loving it! Thanks for the link.
This is entirely too precious!
"(Among Cohn’s other clients at the time was Rupert Murdoch, whom he introduced to Trump in the seventies; you would be hard pressed to find three more atrocious human beings)."
Bob Levinson is mentioned. Can be traced to his death in Iran, He was a member of the FBI-Intelligence and very knowledgeable about Russia.
Elisabeth, this article explains so much, like tfg’s assertion that he could shoot someone and get away with it!
Elisabeth , that was probably my favorite O'Lear article. It perfectly summed up Trump.
I agree, Linda. He gave just the right nicknames to them all and hit the proverbial mob nail on its mob head!
Double Thanks!. I was looking for that..in the meantime, now I'm a subscriber.
He is great
Mind boggling read! The Russian mob owns a large percent of the condos in Trump Tower, but ala AG Barr ‘there was no Russian interference’ in the 2016 election! The connections are so blatant, why did Muller tip toe around the evidence? Frat boy Kavanaugh who wrote the final whitewater report on Bill Clinton concluded he should be impeached! Why didn’t Muller categorically called for trumps impeachment??
Mueller was in the early onset on dementia which increasingly affected him and, apparently, no one knew but it was a body of good work. It was Barr who is to blame for the fact that he only touted a part of it. I read the Mueller Report. Nothing wrong with it. He had some people who helped him. Before the Hearing, you could tell he wasn't articulate and strong enough to assert himself. It was very sad, I thought.
Because Trump is a Confidential Informant???
Thanks Jeri and Elisabeth. Olear is definately worth subscribing to, too.
Good grief!!
This is a long read, but everyone reading the comment area should take the time to read this!!!!!!!!
I did. It was very, very good.
Thank you so much
Thank you! Eye-opener, indeed.
This was an incredible article and thank you for posting. Frightening for sure but being informed is vital.
re-reading it. Thanks for posting it.
I read it. OMG!
No wonder Trump wants to get rid of the FBI!
Of covert it to a loyalist "Republican Guard".
Wow, good blog! Donny Two-Scoops has always been about doing whatever would benefit him, so this is right in keeping with how he does stuff!
Thanks!
Wow! Thanks!!!!!
A lot to process there, in more detail than I have seen.
I have yet to hear a rational explanation for why "shell corporations" are even legal. I have been assured by several authors that they have "legitimate uses", but even assuming that is true, their usefulness to major crimes surely outweighs whatever can be said in their favor.
After reading that - still wonder how the he** he keeps falling in shit & coming up smelling like a rose - well, no not smelling good - just coming up ahead! So much information of his "wrongdoings" throughout law enforcement - but yet continues to be allowed to do as he pleases (really - president?)
Entrenched plutocratic corruption.
Thanks so much for this link! I've shared it with my fb friends who will also profit from it. 😊
2nd Generation Mobster.
Maybe third
Thank you Elizabeth. I also subscribed. That brilliant article confirms underlines capitalizes that Tfg is indeed the scum descended from scum. I now refuse to call him anything related to animal or any vital living thing.
My two are death star and mafia don.
Real mobsters would consider him soft and a looser. (except for that POTUS thing)
The bully pulpit was a perk that he still thinks he has. So does MSM. A vicious bully with the repubs on board.
I always thought the mob wouldn't want him or give him anything important - to self-involved. He'd never do what he was told.
If Olear’s article is true (and it certainly reads so,) about Trump being a CI, do we assume that Wray, Garland, and Smith have that knowledge?
Yes.
I missed this article. Do you have the link to it?
Go back to beginning of comments. Elizabeth Iler posted the link.
I see him as more Mob-cosplay. He is very performative, and behaving like he's scary and crazy (well, he really IS crazy!) has served him well over the years, but I really doubt he's all that scary in any kind of a real way.
Anyone can yell and scowl and loom over others (if they're tall enough), but you notice every time he's ever been physically threatened, he flinches or runs away like Brave Sir Robin! :D
A useful stooge for a number of unsavory actors. Dangerous nevertheless.
He can’t even fire people in person (to me a common courtesy), unless it’s scripted and on TV….no he has to Tweet it or make an offhand announcement.
This article is a deep dive into DJ Trump's mob associations, an excellent history of his work for the Italian, Russian mobs and also work w the FBI! It may be the one you meant Elisabeth.
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/from-trump-to-trump-how-the-mobs
Elisabeth:
Trump is a want-a-be. He would never soil his hands. Wait until he is convicted (the big if). If he actually has to serve some time, the bluster will disappear. If he has to be with intermingled ethnicities . . . .
I just want him someplace he doesn’t get hair dye or hairspray.
This is reminding me of the Nazi party rise to power. Why do nations go ugly when faced with hardship. We have weathered covid, but it has changed us. Adolph Hitler had worked out what he was going to do before getting into power or he would not have had the concentration camps running within 3 months of taking power. Trump is dangerous, and I hope he can be brought to justice. I think of the current Republican party, dominated by the MAGAt faction as The New American Nazi Party, just as the AfD in Germany is the New German Nazi party. The anti-immigrant message of this party is all about racism, not about immigration. Immigration is just code for brown and black skinned people, and does not include the Ukrainians or even the Russians or other Europeans coming here.
Linda,
Alabama is just doing what Alabama has ALWAYS done and, in some ways, what was also always done since the founding throughout the US.
Here is a problem, one that Dr. Richardson does manage to avoid saying.
At the time that the "founding fathers" put in place the "rule of law", human bondage, human whipping, human enslavement and torture was codified either openly in law (like in Virginia), or openly in practice (like in Alabama).
So, even though white men (and only white men) were covered by the "rule of law", LOTS of humans in America were not. Black slaves were not. White women were not. Native human beings were definitely NOT.
And? "the rule of law" that Dr. Richardson lauds remained like that (only for white men) until, well, black folks might say until now. I might say until the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
So? It is not new for white men in MOST of America to feel they are above the law while simultaneously being protected BY the law. Because? They were. For a long time.
Not new at all. One might say; it was the American norm for MOST of American history.
In fact, the absence of the rule of law was built into the founding of our country, although, like I said, Dr. Richardson does routinely avoid pointing this out. I will say, a couple of times she HAS pointed that out. But, when she really wants to highlight the founders intent for themselves, she leaves out the fact that they were quite happy to leave black slaves and women and native Americans out of the "rule of law".
So, in some ways, Alabama is just doing what Alabama has ALWAYS done.
It’s obvious by being Alabama and by being Texas these states replicate what in 1860 represented rebellion against the United States. Texas is demonstrating threat also to international Law along with open and defiant violation of the River and Harbor Act of 1899.
President Biden by being a Peaceful Law Abiding President allows the DOJ and the Federal Courts to adjudicate these seditious criminal acts. But the country has every right to consider these Acts of Defiance to the Union as menaces to Public Safety and could begin activating military Federal Action just as John F Kennedy and Lyndon Baynes Johnson were forced to do to end open segregation in the former Slave Holding States.
It appears Alabama is operating on the same principles of exaggerated States Rights fostered by the current Republican Party and considers itself free of the constraints of United States Constitutional Law if it applies to Black Americans.
George Wallace’ declaration "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” is obviously a permanent motto for Alabama.
Art,
In late 1860 South Caroline did secede from the United States formally. However, prior to that, from that "state's" inception, white men were protected by the rule of law, and only white men were protected by the rule of law in that state (and probably not even all white men, just wealthy ones).
Texas and Alabama, today, are NOT seceding from the US. They are just doing what has always been done in America. They are applying the "rule of law" to white men and nobody else.
Which was exactly how the law was applied since South Carolina inception and exactly the way the rule of law was applied after Reconstruction was over and the Union Army moved out UNTIL 1965 when black folks could, sort of, almost, go to school with white folks (not really) and sort of, almost vote with white folks (not really).
So, 1860 is not really special where the "rule of law" is relevant. Only during Reconstruction was the rule of law attempted to be properly applied in SC during its ENTIRE history basically.
Black folks, native humans, women?
Did not get the rule of law. At any time really. Up to and including now.
This is all pretty terrifying especially early in the morning. Until trump reared his ugly little head, there was room to believe that minorities/women/immigrants could feel that they had made traction and were protected in this country. But when this narcissistic hormonal toddler on steroids actually became president (I still can't believe it), his behavior, expunged of any semblance of decency, gave permission to every White A*****E to get rid of any false veneer of civility they had been hiding under and expose themselves as the real bigots/misogynists/xenophobes they truly are.
As much as oppression and nastiness have spurted up throughout our history, so has the forces of goodness, compassion, and the kind of anger, that properly channeled, produce change. I'm putting all of my eggs in the basket of our youth. They are watching all of this...and they are getting ready to vote....
If TX and AL are openly violating federa! Laws, why not withhold federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act they openly voted against until they begin obeying federal laws?
Excellent idea! Or why not just throw them out of a federal government they disdain and openly reject?
But they were in open rebellion.
Yes, Art, SC was in open rebellion by seceding.
Prior to that event, and after the Union Army pulled out, SC was NOT in open rebellion BUT was still not applying the rule of law to anyone but white men, and, mostly just wealthy white men.
Let's not forget that Eisenhower, a Republican president, sent troops to Little Rock to ensure that Black students integrating the pubic high school were safe.
Yes, and in many cases those black students were the only students in those schools. White children were kept home. And it was not only the southern states. South Boston was wracked by anti busing riots. Truman had desegregated the Armed Forces by executive order.And we women had to wait a few more years to enter federally funded service academies. It was an ugly time for sure.
Now school segregation exists in Chicago, which has always had segregated schools in many places because the communities are segregated. I live in the Obama's former community and here the public schools are integrated, but predominantly Black. My friend told me that when her daughter was little and on their way to her ethnically and color integrated private school in our neighborhood they would walk by the local public school, and her daughter would ask why all the children there were Black. Not all were, but most. That is what one notices. That is how segregation was kept in Chicago when schools integrated, by White people sending their children to private schools and allowing, fighting for disinvestment in the public schools. This has allowed Charter schools to develop and most of them are not worthy of the children that attend them. A lot of money is spent on select enrollment schools, which are less integrated than one would think. The high schools are competitive test in places, and are filled with students coming to them have been so segregated growing up that there is a lot of color and ethnic tension in the schools which gets reported on occasionally by the local press.
https://courses.lsa.umich.edu/urop-spring-symposium-2021/symposium-presentati/discrimination-in-selective-enrollment-chicago-public-high-schools/
https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/09/26/764447510/after-desegregation-ends-at-chicago-s-top-schools-more-racial-isolation
https://www.npr.org/local/309/2022/05/04/1096740581/racial-issues-unaddressed-at-c-p-s-jones-college-prep-students-say
I assume Chicago, the Blue Capital in a True Blue state is not so different from other cities in this country.
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1111060299/school-segregation-report
https://www.thirteen.org/blog-post/segregation-new-york-city-schools-continues/
https://news.usc.edu/199812/new-segregation-index-shows-u-s-schools-remain-highly-segregated-by-race-ethnicity-and-economic-status/#:~:text=Since%201991%2C%20LAUSD%20has%20been,schools%20inside%20LAUSD's%20geographic%20boundaries.
https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/detroits-school-crisis-century-making#:~:text=After%20these%20schools%20finally%20were,the%20school%20board%20to%20integrate.
https://www.minnpost.com/education/2023/05/minnesota-supreme-court-takes-school-desegregation-case-to-the-kids/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/11/opinion/massachusetts-public-schools-are-highly-segregated-its-time-we-treated-that-like-crisis-it-is/
To undo this we would have to get rid of housing segregation, and that is slow to happen. However the biggest segregation is by income so that is quite telling. I have always felt that restitution to descendants of slaves in the USA, should not be for everyone, but for those living below a certain income level, because they are the ones who have been truly harmed by systemic racism. Those who are doing well financially, whatever it has taken are not the ones who have been held back. I think that we need to be paying for at least 20 years for a group to get income, health insurance covering eye care, mental care and teeth care too paid for by the government, as well as a middle class income. I know this is not the political climate for this to happen though. However, it is school desegregation that creates the understanding that moves us beyond the issue of race in a larger way.
Clearly, Ike was an outlier to the Repubs mind set! The man and his staff planned the D-day invasion! He had hundreds of thousands of troops to command! He knew evil first hand!
Yes, and as I think was pointed out here, he wrote a letter taking full responsibility if D-Day failed. Uncommon, indeed.
Wallace admitted he was wrong about segregation when he got older, as I recall. So it is possible for rockheads to learn.
Yes, he lamented but not Alabama
I was getting ready to draw out that George Wallace quote myself, Art.
Heather, in her podcasts, as well as in these pages, repeatedly makes the point that the founders intent for control of the rule of law was for white male citizens only. I don't know how you could miss that, Mike S.
Hi MaryPat,
Yes, I noted that, intermittently here, she does point out that the Constitution was written for the Founders themselves and white men. But, she leaves that out in some cases where it might be helpful to include it. Like today.
On her podcasts, with no word limit, she expounds on it at length. Here she does not have that luxury.
Yes, Mike. The U.S. was built this way. I often think it is reverting--getting back it’s figure as it were--losing the human rights lbs. It is snapping back to it’s original form. It seems like such a long time since those early exploiters (and I do mean exploiters, not explorers) first set foot here but it hasn’t been all that long given the span of human life on this planet. When States start picking and choosing which federal laws they want to follow we no longer have a Union. We are delusional if we tell ourselves what AL is doing it is just a one-off or what TX is doing is just a two-off or it’s all going to work itself out eventually. We are just getting back our youthful figure.
"I often think it is reverting--getting back it’s figure as it were--losing the human rights lbs. It is snapping back to it’s original form."
I wonder if that is the case OR, if it is the case that you and I were just blind to the way it actually was and is.
For example, when I went to Texas A&M, College Station, 1978-1982, it was widely known that there were only 38 black young people on campus: ALL of them on the football team.
Honestly, I bet that there were MORE black folks at A&M than Harvard then.
Then, when I went to grad school at UT Austin, my Chemical Engineering department had ONE black guy as a grad student (under my own professor). And? That was super rare back then, most grad schools had ZERO black guys.
Then??? When I went to work, in a 40 year career in engineering, I met?
THREE black engineers TOTAL out of HUNDREDS at three big corporations.
So, perhaps it is not that we are "snapping back" but that we "ALWAYS WERE and ARE".
Thanks Mike for stating the truth.
This is what being “woke” is all about. The half has never been told. We’ll never “overcome” as long as people are sleepwalking through the American history.
Human rights have always taken a backseat to power and greed. We’ve been living with lies and propaganda for way too long.
Now we have an entire political party ready to tear it all down for the sake of maintaining white supremacy and patriarchy.
It remains to be seen what will happen to the “American Experiment”.
Gina,
Yes, indeed, the American experiment is ongoing. Me? My skin is light skinned (although I have a minority name). So, my exposure to the lack of human rights is mostly limited to odd comments, a very low rate of promotion relative to my white colleagues, and, once, a real estate agent that would not show me houses in white areas.
Also, when I first moved to Rochester, nobody would rent to me.
But, that is minor compared to dark skinned folks who are shut out of white housing, white schools, white money, white jobs, you name it.
Yes and the founders (white supremacist, racist) world was forever challenged in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln stood tall in the middle of the Civil War and pledged " a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that 'all men are created equal' ".
- How the South Won the Civil War by HCR
MC,
Jim Crow laws were put in place immediately following Reconstruction.
https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws
Lincoln was dead, his words blown away by gun of a murderer who was angry about the possibility that black men would be equal to him.
So true MIKE S but there's the rub. Were his ideas blown away ? or are they foundational to USA?
MC,
I would say: His ideas were blown away for blacks in the south, without a doubt. But, for white men, his words, sometimes, rang true.
:-)
True enough, Mike, but Dr. Richardson has analyzed that very matter in much, maybe most of her writing in this series.
In her podcasts she does not have the word limits of this Substack site, and goes into great (and adamant) detail on this issue.
Yes, I did point out she includes the exclusive nature of the "rule of law" sometimes. Today, she left it out. Even though Alabama has always functioned in the manner of exclusive application of the "rule of law".
Today is nothing new.
for sure. Cut off federal dollars.
Republicans are BIG on cutting welfare, so, I say lets extend those cuts to include welfare for white people. Like construction grants to white owned companies, etc.
My theory has more to do with the how than the why. Almost 12% of the adult US population is illiterate. And almost 50% of the adult US population reads at or below 6th grade level. So 1/4 of that 50% are illiterate.
This is not a bug of the Republican education model. It is a feature.
How do these people get their political information? Word of mouth and through the telly.
And these people aren't hanging around with the woke woke for the most part. And when they watch the telly? I'm guessing Fox News or other right wing babble.
The FL Dept of Education just released new standards on teaching the history of slavery requiring teachers to mention the skills slaves learned that could make them valuable to society.
The big difference is that Hitler actually helped Germany recover from the post-WWI depression by rebuilding and getting inflation under control before he tore it to hell. The Republicans just want to be in power without the hard work of MAGA. Of course, they don't have a clue how to make America great, so their counting on the uneducated to put them back in power.
When you read The Death of Democracy and Strongmen, you find what Hitler did for Germany was done at the expense of targeted groups. Sure he rebuilt the economy, but do not ignore how he did it. What we are fighting right now from the previous administration is the sunami of corruption from the top down. Virtually every person in that administration could and should be charged and tried for breaking laws. They just thought their oath as a bunch of words and not to be followed.
Obviously the Republicans are doing the same thing. And Trump has already signaled he would pull the FCC licenses for any network that isn't toeing the Trumpian line.
After watching Trump fire the non-sycophants in the administration, it seems likely he would try to silence CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc.
The truth is that Africans brought skills with them including rice cultivation and all types of agricultural and other knowledge. Interesting that White folks allowed Black people to nurture their children and white men made it a practice to force sexual relations on Black women.
The idea that slavery was a benefit to Black people is not just insulting-it’s vicious. Law and order is a code word for keeping people in their place. Have you ever read any of the laws during slavery or the Black Codes established after Reconstruction.
The law (and flouting the law) is what keeps certain White men in power.
May I say that as an American I find this attempt to lie to children, officially, by their schools, deeply offensive? I'm not Black, and I loathe what DeSauron, backed by those in Fla state legislature, is attempting to do to Florida's children. Our history is what actually happened, and trying to lie about it - to CHILDREN - to perpetuate the lie that slavery wasn't really all that bad for those enslaved, is despicable, and beneath contempt. Ignorance would be better than falling victim to a lie of this magnitude.
And this particular lie, as it is phrased, is insidious, because children do not have the years of learning or the critical analytical skills to see it for the lie that it is. Of course people, free and enslaved, were learning trades at the time, willingly or because they had to obtain skills to keep body and soul together, but the schoolbook's implication is that, first, enslaved people chose the skills they wanted to learn, and, second, after learning the subject skills, enslaved persons were able to use those skills for their own personal benefit in their own discretion. This is the lie. Enslaved persons' skills, like their bodies, were used at the whim of and for the exclusive benefit of their masters; their masters might permit them to use these skills for the enslaved person's benefit, but that permission was not a given and could be limited or withdrawn in the master's sole discretion. Free people with the same skills were able to choose to remain in that profession, remain in the area or leave, or leave the profession altogether. Enslaved persons were not able to do any of these things, and their dis-ability to do so was enforced by law. That is the very definition of slavery. to teach children that the skills they learned they could use for their personal benefit is to imply that somehow enslaved persons were not actually enslaved. This is a lie. And lying to children is despicable, if not worse.
Worse, I notice the Florida Board of Education defends the vicious lie by releasing a statement that their claim is based on the “historical record.”
I am very anxious to learn just what historical record they used in their research.
Speaking of uneducated, I noticed I used "their" instead of "they're". Ouch.
There, there now 😉
too funny John.
Their, they’re, there now; grammar and spelling are one thing, and are very nearly universally mangled at one time or another. One of my favorite adages is “knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” Catching yourself is knowledge. Wisdom is calling yourself out for it.
The grammar police will give you a warning today. 😜
We ignore typos, and some wordos. Someone on the thread wrote "flaunting" when he meant "flouting", and, so as to avoid having to put ANOTHER $5 in my "Correcting Other People's Grammer Without Being Asked" jar, I let it go, although my gracious I was tempted! Anyway, chill - it's fine.
You mean "grammar." ;)
See! (although I spelled it that way deliberately on the jar as a reminder).
Illiteracy is the direct result of defunding our public schools. Which in some communities is the direct result of desegregation - in the thread somewhere above, the segregation of Chicago schools is discussed. I remember the busing riots in Boston, although they didn't affect me directly, and the rise of exactly what the commentor was discussing - white parents removing their children from the public schools and either homeschooling them or sending them to some private, sometimes religious-affiliated school, the rise of the so-called Charter schools - all of which drained funds from the public school system. And then, horrifyingly, just in June of 2022, SCOTUS, in yet another of its indefensible rulings (Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. ___, see, https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/carson-v-makin/ ), held that the State of Maine cannot withhold taxpayer funds for tuition for students attending religious-affiliated schools. So, instead of all my my tax dollars going to the Maine public schools, some is paying for kids to receive religious instruction, or dare I say indoctrination, because otherwise some parents' free exercise of their religion is interfered with by the State. And this increases literacy throughout Maine how?
Been saying this for years, Twitter and fb didn’t like it.
The defiance of Alabama and Texas, as noted by Professor Richardson, is a signal that this movement (its moved beyond being labeled MAGA now) is on a war footing. In 2020 Trump and his crowd were seditious. Now the constituted public authority in two states is defying the law openly. They are no doubt counting on Project 2025 to come to fruition and thus they feel invulnerable.
The United States, in the parlance of the day, is getting bitch-slapped.
I find these stories exceptionally worrisome.
I agree. I was just commenting on the Hartmann Report Substack that this escalating of outrageous behavior is in the Nazi party playbook, so that when they actually take power they have all systems go. These governors are inviting the Feds to shut them down, counting on that to make them look like victims of Federal overreach to their people. I am hoping that it has the opposite effect of taking their power away. They should both be governing from prison the way I see it. That is also true of the states that are ignoring their state courts and the supreme court in fixing their racist, anti democratic gerrymandered maps. It is clearly a battle of the red and the blue ideologies. It is the cold war as a civil war. Fascism or freedom.
I think this is a brilliant statement by you - a ruthless plain cutting through to the hear of the matter. I could not be more in agreement (and was surprised it wasn’t the topic wasn’t the most galvanizing of Today’s newsletter.
No longer do governors respect the Supreme Court - it’s been co-opted. Sure, we will see the odd bone thrown to people desperately hopeful for a return to legitimacy, as we did in late spring decisions this year before the bombshells of the final week reasserted the agenda. Those are “smokescreen decisions” - designed to obscure a chillingly precise ideology. And they inevitably come in the less important case. And now we see the state governments ignoring them entirely. “See you in [our] court, Mr. President.”
I no longer see a future without violence. The redcoats are becoming more brazen in issuing decisions that promulgate their worldview. DeSantis’ approved slavery curriculum is so anti-historical that one suspects he has used it as a trial balloon, ready to pivot to a less extreme but still bloody untruthful version which will earn him white brownie points.
These slum dwellers of the mind and heart do not yet own the core of the American heart. There must be a swift and legally savage, thoroughly co-ordinated response that shows that justice can bare its fangs. We need a leader in the Churchillian mode:
In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.
But there will be moments of teeth chattering nerves.
This bravado and willingness to always push farther must be stopped.
Eric, thank you for posting about Project 2025–I posted a link a couple of times upthread; whoa, it’s insidious. I’ve only read bits—mostly the Heritage Foundation intro & scanned the table of contents of the whole publication & a few pages (a lot to digest), but it seems like they are going for everything from the big Kahuna down to the janitor in “remaking” this country’s govt.
20s and 30s Germany in the wake of Germany's defeat, punishment in the Versailles Treaty, threats from the successful Communist revolution in Russia, the massive inflation of the early 20s wiping out savings of millions of ordinary Germans, the insane collapse of the American financial system which spread worldwide esp into Europe, all contributed to the rise of the Nazis, one fascist, anti-democratic movement among others which swept much of Europe... are a very different situation from what even the GOP are working on today, or likely in Europe, though for sure it's a big deal. Dictatorship Nazi style though? And do remember that while modern autocratic movements are Pro traditional Christian, Naziism crushed religious institutions into utter subservience. Dissenters were fodder for the concentration games / gang violence.
More directly I just see the Dixiecrats on the rise. But, the ideology is the same as the Nazi party. It is an openly racist government. The behavior of the governors in Texas and Florida are about getting rid of people, and if they die so be it. It is not the same as open extermination, but right now they don't have the power to do that, other than through their prison system and I would say, many are unfairly in those prisons who will then lose their lives. Watching the behavior of the MAGAt Republican party, which is continuously escalating the outrageous things they do, they are acclimating their people to just such atrocities.
Good observation, Linda.
ALL ! of MANKIND !, Have GOT TO WAKE UP !! The SHOAH ! cannot ! Be REPEATED !!! ( THANKS ! Linda W. )
Linda, I posted this link up-thread, but am posting it again. Apparently this is what the Heritage Foundation and Republicans are going to be organizing to take back the WH in 2025. I find it very unnerving: https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025 (this site also links to the full publication). At first I thought it might be a parody, but I guess not (tho’ who knows these days!).
Barbara, thank you for posting this link. The dystopia that we live in laid out in Black and White.
Trump and mobsters shared the same lawyer: Roy Cohn
Here’s the link to Olear piece: https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump
This may explain one reason why TFG wants to purge the FBI. To also destroy any documentation of his status as a CI and anything else with his name in it.
Wow, Elizabeth. That is quite a read! Thanks for sharing. And yes, The Wire is one of the best of all time.
Being born and raised in South Jersey (Philly suburbs) I can say this piece hit Trump smack head on. Once a mobster, always a mobster but as a probable CI he burns the candle at both ends.... soon to extinguish with lack of fuel.
Very interesting piece. I have always said Trump should be tried by the RICO act, but I can see why he would not be if he is a CI. Still, his mobster behavior is very obvious. One of them being to threaten people's physical well-being if they don't capitulate to his demands.
I believe Fani in GA is about to do a local RICO charge against the dumpster.
I think I remember Prof. Joyce Vance talking about that too. I was relieved to see that she mentioned RICO, because as I had been thinking about charges for Trump, before the investigation was very far, I did look up the RICO laws and felt they applied. Not being a lawyer it is hard to know these things. I am glad he is not able to quash her indictment of him.
Or like King Louis XIV: "L'état, c'est moi" (I am the state). Trump, however, is no Sun King. Sin King, maybe. The Sin King is sinking . . .
Nice wordplay, Susanna
Trump worked with and publicly admired mobsters. It’s no surprise he emulates them.
JL, he has asked repeatedly (starting when he was displeased with Jeff Sessions) “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” He also said that JFK had the right idea when he installed his brother as Attorney General. With Trump, the overriding concern is that he gets to do as he wants and that he looks good doing it—if that requires breaking a few laws, that’s what his Roy Cohn is for.
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/07/576209428/president-trump-called-for-roy-cohn-but-roy-cohn-was-gone
Yes, his statement is certainly his mafia don persona.
That Roy Cohn was his mentor, and his ideal for an attorney says it very well
Trump has always been a mobster.
In my view, anyone who doesn’t acknowledge we’re on the precipice, both of a fatal weakening of American civic institutions and also of a presidency eager and conceivably able to consolidate power, wherein the rule of law could be subjugated to an individual, either is ignorant or in denial.
Considering I believe we have but a small window to protect the key mechanisms of American democracy, we have no choice but to use every resource to fight as though ours and everybody else’s lives depend on us, because they do.
I agree, we do need to fight and use every resource possible as though our lives depend on it, the United States is sounding more and more like Hitler's Nazi Germany by the day. I have watch many documentaries with actual film footage of Hitler and the methods and force he used when he became the ruthless Dictator in Germany. The concentration camps, the genocide and his hatred of the Jewish people and the horrible deaths. Many Americans didn't believe this was happening until the last months of world war 2. I am not saying these horrific acts will be repeated here, but if TUMP goes back into the White House, things will not be good here either, i don't even like to think about that. I hope there will be a way to inform as many voters as possible to the horrors of Fascism and a Dictatorship are. We certainly can't depend on the MSM to broadcast to what is really happening with these insane nut jobs in the Fascist Rethuglican party.
We are a young and stupid species and unfortunately have to learn again and again, the hard way. May the ghosts of the framers help us.
Fur, While I revere the virtues of the Enlightenment era (freedom, democracy, tolerance, and diversity), I also see in its vices (inequality, hegemony, cultural imperialism, and materialism) the potential undoing of the revolutionary promise of the republic.
I agree with that.
John, Because, in many respects, I view Trump’s rise as the culmination of a backlash that dates back to the Warren Court (1953-1969), I believe we can render MAGA irrelevant by directing our engagement, our energy, our caring, our work to creating a far more cooperative environment in which there is a modicum of social and economic justice for increasingly large numbers of people today who feel oppressed and marginalized by systemically oppressive forces that are largely beyond their individual control.
I agree, Barbara. My grandparents lived in Alabama, south of Montgomery, and I can remember as a child riding down the road in the back seat of our Pontiac as the Impeach Earl Warren and Get the US out of the UN signs rolled by. Sometimes they alternated with Prepare to Meet Thy God. Interstate highways did away with all that signage, but not necessarily the sentiments.
I fully agree with you, and another thing i was thinking about was that ''John Birch Society'' thing that rose up in the 1960's. Do you think some of this mayhem with these Fascist/NAZI Rethugs have roots in that?? That John Birch Society from what i remember about it, was condemned and scoffed at then. I was a young boy in the 1960's and didn't care about news much then, but i overheard adults saying what an awful thing that was. I do not think TUMP would have been accepted back then and would have been run out of America or been assassinated had he presented his looney crap to the American people. And the insane nut jobs currently in our Congress would have been tarred and feathered. If only the MSM would report what is going on now, these Rethugs would be condemned to the dust bin of history. They are partially responsible for this hellish disaster of the Fascist Rethuglican domestic terrorist party. I do agree with you by directing our engagement, our energy, our caring, our work to creating a far more cooperative environment in which there is a modicum of social and economic justice for large numbers of people today who feel oppressed and marginalized by by systemically oppressive forces that are largely beyond their individual control. I think that can be accomplished to end this insanity that the Fascist Rethuglicans are trying to force upon all of us..
Part of the problem, I think, is that his supporters don't see consequences for themselves, just for their enemies. No public schools? Gun laws? Income tax? Independent federal agencies? Public libraries? Public health directives? Good riddance.
You have hit the nail on the head. Don't they see that chaos will ensue? Do they want to go back to the robber baron era with no protections?
No, they don’t see that......they see nothing beyond “Owning the libs” and impeaching Biden
I was just about to write that, then saw your comment! Reminds me of a playground bully hollering “neener neener neener” at someone they *think* they humiliated….only it’s they who look stooopid!
This is what I have been saying. I see the parallels to the rise of Hitler to power. I feel that post Covid we are changed as a people, and many people have lost their minds from it. I see a lot of mental health problems that ensued from it. Let us say we are all recovering from Post traumatic stress.
Barbara, our lives, our freedoms ( and opportunity for freedom for the populations of the world) are being challenged right in front of our faces. I agree the window to protect our freedoms is shrinking before our eyes....are we just so paralyzed that we have turned into statues with "shock" sculpted on our faces? Action is required. I agree with you!
PRAYER ! , Then ! , TRUE ACTION !! ( Thanks !, Emily ! )
I'm afraid ignorance prevails in America. Ignorance is the basis of Biden's poor ratings. Most people believe we have the worst inflation in the world and our economy isn't doing well compared to other countries. Most people are unaware of Biden's accomplishments. Each morning I tune into Bloomberg and for over 2 years now they've been telling us a recession is upon us.
Ignorant, in denial, or decidedly against democracy.
Barbara Jo Krieger,
In my view, a critical turning point came last June, when the Texas Republican Party called for a vote on secession, and almost immediately afterward the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade:
Cracks have begun to appear in the foundation of the Union.
Honestly, is there not some long hook to grab these obnoxious, repugnant Repubs and throw them overboard without a safety net? Abbott has given the finger to the feds and to the international countries. It’s like a game for him. What are they all saying as a group? Is it “We think we can. We think we can!”? We must denounce Abbott, DeSantis, Leo, and McCarthy all of the time.
Marlene, many Republicans in leadership positions have been planning for years to do what is being done now....we especially see this now in the news in Florida, Alabama, Texas and Tennessee. South Carolina should be included as well....it is my state of residence. Daily, I receive several calls to support law enforcement officers....in the past, the calls have been only two to three times a year. Although I respect our law enforcement officers, I have been concerned with the possible negative outcome of so many daily phone requests for support. We have a Republican governer in South Carolina. Everyone knows Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott .
North Carolina is my state of birth and I am the owner of a small farm in that state. NC has a great Democratic governor who is well respected but has had to fight for every vote. The Republican Party is strong there and I know many churchgoers are influenced by their conservative views.
The laws are being stretched to the max and I believe many of our laws are being disobeyed in front of our faces with little to no opposition. This is frightening to me.
Emily, sad to say, but many, if not most, of the calls you are receiving to "support law enforcement officers" are scams. My state (NH) experienced this about a year ago. Our Republican AG had to issue several warnings about it. Finally, the calls subsided. Looks like it is SC's turn now. Good luck.
Steve, I have recently been getting donation requests via text messages, by mail and even emails from Republicans. Several from trump, which luckily show up in my spam folder! I have had "do not call" on my phone for years and have never voted Republican. I find this assault offensive. I am grateful for Heather's great work in her Letters, FB chats and podcasts but on days like this, I (almost) despair.
I do think there will be violence if trump is convicted. Buckle up!
I think I might get violent myself if he is not.
I can't imagine he won't be. Where would the rule of law be if he and his cronies (in Congress and elsewhere) are not held accountable?
GOOD REBUTTLE !! ( BLESSINGS ! BK !)
Emily, I too, was born and raised in NC. The town was Lenoir. I left right after graduating from high school, much to my parents chagrin. I never moved back but visited with my folks often. California has been my home for 49 years. Growing up, I saw many revival tents that were pitched in fields. Also had the unfortunate moment of seeing the KKK up close. Shivers went through my spine. I knew at age 15, I would leave the town and I did. My sister did too. She’s in NYC.
Yes, Marlene, there is a "long hook". It's called The Armed Forces of the United States. It's about time Joe Biden send them into both Alabama and Texas and kick some ass, before some of these other red states get the idea they can just drop out. And the penalties for those thumbing their noses at The Constitution should be both swift and severe.
Slow down. Start with Federal Marshalls and Border Patrol
Republicans play Democrats for fools at every turn, like Grand Masters, when the latter want to “make nice”. These radicalized and emboldened rednecks in Alabama, Texas and Florida don’t give a damn about “the rule of law”. Fine. Meet ‘em on their own turf. For a start, Abbott and every single Republican in the Alabama Legislature who voted to ignore the SCOTUS order to redraw the heavily gerrymandered map to realistically represent their voters, thereby violating their oaths to the US Constitution, should be summarily rounded up and locked away in a federal prison pending trial. Due process be damned – and If I’m not mistaken, Biden could declare an emergency and do this. We would then see Tut-Rikki- Mfking-Tic-Suite how keen these Neo Nazi bastards are to engage in stall tactics in the courts. It’s time to take off the gloves, as it’s the only language they understand! And the Border Patrol ain’t gonna cut it.
LeMoine, I am right there with you! Way past time to take the gloves off. My dukes are up!
" JACK JOHNSON, !" Baby ! ( Thanks! LeMoine !)
Good point, Seth, but it's fair to note that Ike and JFK did use (trained) federal personnel to force and enforce integration in schools when locals thumbed their noses and flipped the bird toward federal authority.
WHY, for god's sake, Seth? How's the "slow-walking" of Trump's egregious crimes working out?
LeMoine ! It Is CALLED, EVIL ! GOD ! , for HIS Reasons, is Shoving MANKIND !, THROUGH A " Bottle Neck" , To WAKE US UP ! ( Remember !, GOD!, is ALLOWING These Times, ! To HAPPEN ! ) UNTO HIS GLORY ! BLESSINGS !
Yes, I do. But people are either unaware, uninterested, or unhinged. Not all, of course, but the lethargy I see seems either fear-based or tacit approval. God, I hope I’m wrong. I want Beto’s energy back.
Employing a bit of poetry we can devolve into the Totally Irrational Psychotic States of America and the Rational States of America. As long as the rational among us don't have to pay for the Totally Irrational Psychotic States, and they are left to their own economics and political genius, they'll die on the vine anyway.
A HOUSE DIVIDED, will NOT ! , STAND ! Cool !, Craig !
Marlene, these "obnoxious, repugnant Repubs" were VOTED INTO OFFICE BY OUR FELLOW misguided AMERICANS.....they either push our laws to the limlt or even break the law infront of our faces and seemingly get away with it.
This is where Gerry meandering & dark $$$$$$ come into play
Yes, Emily, but maybe there are less people who would vote for them now, especially since they are going after their kids who are trans, LGBTQ, and daughters who can’t get an abortion.
WE do denounce them all of the time. It's the redhats (known in prior similar regimes as brownshirts, blackshirts, and grayshirts) who stand by with their yuk-yuk support for Abbott and Ilk™.
It looks like Abbott is seeking an armed confrontation with the federal government. If so, what are he and his minions planning to do? We did not pay enough attention to the machinations in Trump’s coup attempt.
Also, what is the plan behind Alabama’s resistance to the Extreme Court’s order? How is that state’s government conspiring with federal electeds like Tuberville and McCarthy to roll out their game plan? Are red states preparing to declare themselves republics and secede from the United States?
What's the point of taking Abbott to court? That will only give the Supreme Court the opportunity to declare the Rivers and Harbors Act unconstitutional, by a 6-3 party-line vote. Send in workers, and marshals to protect them, and remove the barriers. And put a lien on the Texas National Guard to pay for it.
Hard ball, way past time
100% agree!
Thank you Heather. I start each day with copious amounts of coffee, The Guardian news, and your Letters. It seems that the GOP fully believes in a "cafeteria" system of laws -taking whatever is convenient and ignoring anything counter to their primary objective -the concentration of wealth and power in America. In fact, other than enriching themselves, the GOP actions fall into two camps. One is focused on concentrating more wealth to the top. The other relates to keeping the American public divided (and thus conquered) on hot button issues such as immigration, gun ownership, climate, women's rights, and LGBTQ rights.
Well summarized.
The GOP is trying to get all their damage done before Big Blue hits in '24. Tick tick tick.
You forgot RACISM, George.
You are right I didn’t say it, however, sadly it is always visibly there -as plain to see as the GOP’s new gerrymandered redistricting maps in Alabama.
Am I to assume that we are no longer a nation of states that must adhere to the law as written but defy willingly mandates for free and fair elections in AL, and defy immigration policy in Texas? Then we are no longer the “UNITED”states of America but 50 independent governments that share nothing but defiant traitors.
Addendum: because politicians assume the SCOTUS has been successfully hijacked by the right wing and will not enforce the laws of the federal government.
Yesterday 7/21/23 the Pew Research Center documented that favorable opinions of SCOTUS hasd dropped 30% since 2020.
Yesterday, 7/21/23 favorable ratings of SCOTUS dropped to just 44%. Rogue State Legislatures are treating Marbury vs Madison as void all under the work of the scotus'
Sophistry Six & judicial corruption.
We need more like Tom Paine & Abigail & John Adams; we have Heather Cox Richardson.
You mean 44% are favorable, how can it possibly be that high??
Jeri your instincts are good with re repect to challenging the format & cohort of any polling data even from a reputable source like Pew. That is one (1) reason I included the data point from Pew's same data-set documenting the sharp reduction in the public's view of the legitimacy of our top Court. I generally look for at leacdt 1500 to 1800 respondents scientifically designed with proven accuracy over time. I will check in with Nate Silver on Pew.
UPDATE: Nate does NOT grade Pew highly only "B/C" as to 25 election polls circa 2016!
I participated in a Pew poll about five years ago, not too impressed
Judith..not only must we believe what we see...but we must act...and not allow the blatant acts of disrespect of law to go without response.
Looks and feels like it.
Today's Letter covered a series of serious stories. I would like to lighten our load a little bit. How often do you find a funny story in one of our top papers, such as the Washington Post and The New York Times? I came across this one in the Washington Post a few hours ago. It is a real news story and something of a mystery.
'Centuries-old artifacts meant for a 2019 White House Hanukkah party ended up at Mar-a-Lago'
‘Earlier this week, a minor — but still majorly awkward — diplomatic kerfuffle surfaced when Israeli media reported that officials there were struggling to get back some ancient artifacts from Mar-a-Lago.'
‘Details remain murky of how Israeli officials lost track of the centuries-old oil lamps and coins at former president Donald Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla. But cultural heritage experts say the episode shows what can go wrong when ancient artifacts are not handled properly.’
‘The items were to be displayed at a Hanukkah party at the White House in 2019. ‘…the items never made it into the White House, though it’s not clear why. Haaretz initially reported that Americans officials were concerned the items may have been taken from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, then later said there was a “bureaucratic difficulty raised by the Americans.”
‘A Trump spokesman Friday said the items had been presented “with the full support of the [Antiquities Authority]. The items were on loan for permanent exhibition at the behest of the organization, to honor and celebrate American-Jewish heritage and the close friendship between Israel and President Trump.’
‘The resurfacing of the items comes as the former president is facing a 38-count indictment for allegedly improperly stashing classified documents at his Florida residence, including in a bathroom, and enlisting his aide to help him secretly keep some of the materials despite government efforts to have them returned.’
‘Israeli antiquities officials offered inconsistent reports about the arrangement. Hasson told Haaretz the initial 2019 deal required the items to be returned within weeks. The authority’s statements this week to The Post say nothing about a specific contract, saying only that the items were “presented” to Trump.’
“It is possible that the IAA officials overstepped their authority in lending the objects and/or in implying that they did not need to be returned and may therefore have been trying to operate outside of legal and diplomatic channels to get them back,” Gerstenblith told The Post. “It sounds like they didn’t want to offend Trump.’ (WAPO) See link below.
Wouldn't it be hysterical to see Trump and Netanyahu haggling over some old coins and lamps and to hear their argument about who owns what?
Sorry, gifted link is not available, but there are no surprises in the article Much of it was copied for this post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2023/07/21/trump-israel-artifacts-return/
"the items never made it into the White House, though it’s not clear why."
Ha, Fern, because Trump literally stole them.
“They’re MINE!”
Pearls before swine. I don't care what kind of favor the Israelis were trying to curry, offering precious objects to a thief is always a mistake. They should have known by 2019 that Trump always plays with a weighted dreidel :)
…don't cast your pearls before swine... between Trump and Netanyahu, are there one or two swines, Steve?
What I had read in Rolling Stone, is that the artifacts were *loaned* by the Israeli government to the White House temporarily, initially in connection with a celebration of Chanukah in late 2019, for a period of several months. By the time those months were done, covid had hit, and the artifacts were not returned as planned. They were never, ever “presented to “ Trump. I strongly suspect any account with that language of having been planted by Trump’s people to justify his theft.
Why does nothing surprise me anymore. The con man cons
This was mentioned once Thursday morning on MSNBC and never again. I was sure it would be picked up by CNN also and be aired all day. Never heard it mentioned again. I thought it hilarious at the time and wanted my husband to hear it also but no luck. Wonder what else is in all of Trump’s “happy boxes.”
New lamps for old! If tfg had ever read any children's literature - at the appropriate stage of life - he'd have known that when you rub the dirty old lamp a huge genie emerges and says, What is your will, O master?" He didn't even try it.
Gifted:
https://wapo.st/3pRhVPD
Thank you from subscribers on LFAA's forum, Santa Ally, tuba player from Oregon!
😇
How perfect to cap you with a halo, a beautiful truth, Ally.
One solution to the Alabama, and Texas, problems is a simple one. Both the Alabama Legislature and Governor, along with the Texas Governor, have violated numerous Federal laws. What needs to happen now is the U. S. Marshals need to be sent into the states and arrest them for violating the laws of the United States. Then, Governor Abbott will get his wish. He’d be seen in court. Only difference is that he will be the Defendant.
These people need to be held accountable for their actions. They need to be arrested, just exactly like any of us would be arrested, jailed, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The exact same thing needs to happen with Frumpy. It’s sickening the power that this country has given this narcissistic sociopath. He’s a wanna-be dictator who is hell-bent to destroy this nation. He has duped millions of people into believing his crap and these people will do anything he tells them to, including send him billions of dollars for his ‘campaign’. That money is going to one of his formed PACs to pay all his legal bills. Frumpy isn’t paying anything out of his pocket. Once again, he has everybody else paying for his criminal activity, just like he’s always done. Having someone else carry out his activities and he walks around free.
Frumpy needs to be jailed. You can bet your bottom dollar if any of us violated the Espionage Act even one count, we would be jailed until after trial.
Of course the Republicans in Alabama want to keep the power. Kevin McCarthy wants to keep the power. All the Republicans in all these states are scrambling now to get these maps redone so they maintain, or gain, the majority.
Rest assured, folks, if the day ever comes where we have a Republican president, Republican majority in the House and Senate, plus Republican majorities in the states, the election process will be gone. There will be no more elections in this nation. This GQP Party now will take completely over and have a Dictatorship formed. Frumpy’s already stated what he will do. He’s intending to bring control of all government agencies, federal and state, under the direct control and oversight of the president.
Folks, this is a Dictatorship. It’s that simple.
Greg Abbott has violated laws, violated treaties, and his building this barrier has also caused the loss of life. That’s murder. I don’t care if it’s a citizen of this, or any other country. It’s a human being. It’s a life. And in this case, it’s a child. He’s is killing people and no one is doing anything about it.
Our laws are being rewritten before our very eyes. Now, you can commit murder and nothing will happen. You won’t be arrested. You won’t be jailed. You won’t be tried. You won’t have anything happen to you. The precedent has been established by our government leaders in our states.
You can now commit Treason, violate the Espionage Act, and not be arrested. Here again, it’s turned into a farce. If you are ‘arrested’ you simply will be asked to appear in court to be processed, then arraigned, and released to go about your business as usual. No bond. No jail cell. No nothing.
This is sickening. I put people in jail for a hell of a lot less than this. And they deserved to be jailed! These people need to be buried in a jail cell without any privilege of phone, internet, cell phones, nothing.
It’s high time our government officials become accountable for their actions. If the people rise up as they did on January 6th, then that can be handled as it should have been handled back then. If bodies are left lying in the path of the soldiers taking back the capital building, there wouldn’t be time wasted trying to identify and prosecute the little people. They will be there laying in the ground.
History is rewriting itself in this country. It took a Civil War to end slavery. Now, it’s beginning to look like it will take a civil war to end thus attempted takeover of our Democracy.
You express very well the rage most of us feel. To this day, I still don't understand why the Capitol Police only shot and killed one person. Why weren't all of those who broke into OUR sacred government building fired upon after they had been given a warning?
And why are those barriers in the river still there? The Border Patrol, National Guard and whatever Federal agencies needed should be hauling them out and parking them on the front lawn of the governors mansion. And send Abbott the bill for the effort.
We march into foreign countries, oust leaders, remake nations...and we can't control a putz like Abbott?
And the media that propped up the lie that the participants were “unarmed and peaceful” ... what 💩. We learned A YEAR LATER during the House investigation they were armed and the government KNEW they were armed. The President said so what? They weren’t there to hurt him. No arrests were made that day. Everyone goes home. Not normal. Venezuela learned from us and arrested people THE DAY of their uprising.
Exactly. One problem we had that day was the time it finally took for emergency response from other agencies. That came out in the January 6 hearings.
What should have happened was the Capital Police should have made a line inside the building. The first people that broke through the doors and windows would have been found there after it was over. That’s where they would have been shot.
A wild guess tells me that emergency response would have shown up sooner had there been gunfire, dispensing of the need for the so called President to intervene and send relief.
We’ll said, Bill!!!
I agree with all you say and share your well written outrage.
However, the Feds are limited in what they can do. Eventually, Lincoln decided that it was worth a HUGE number of dead bodies to have a Union.
BUT, what if Lincoln had decided to just let the south go? I mean, after Reconstruction the south basically reverted to slavery through the "peonage" process and because it was legal to use slavery with "convicted felons".
So, was it worth all those dead bodies? I would argue the answer is NO.
Maybe it is time to let Texas people deal with Texas. Let Alabama people deal with Alabama.
If they want fewer rights down there, so be it.
Personally, let them rebuild their own roads and bridges, feed their homeless, poor, and take care of all the federal assistance they currently get from the government. If you pull all the federal funding, federal medical assistance, federal military bases, everything out of those states. Let them handle it all on their own. Things might be looked at a bit differently if they lose all federal support.
Neither Texas nor Alabama could afford to lose federal assistance. Especially with hurricane season upon us. Both of those states have received billions in relief after major hurricane damage. Not to mention all the billions each has recently received in President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill!
"let them rebuild their own roads and bridges, feed their homeless, poor, and take care of all the federal assistance they currently get from the government. If you pull all the federal funding, federal medical assistance, federal military bases, everything out of those states. Let them handle it all on their own. Things might be looked at a bit differently if they lose all federal support."
Cut the welfare for white people going to the southern states! I am totally in.
Actually, Mike, I was referring to Texas and Alabama. If all federal assistance was cut off since they refuse to abide by Federal Law, or the orders of the SCOTUS, then they apparently don’t need the Federal funding they so graciously received to use to rebuild their towns and feed their people after a disaster, or the federal funding they just received to rebuild all the derelict roads and bridges that are crumbling because of age. If all this federal money is cut off, these governors and state legislators would change their way of thinking, I’m sure.
PRAYERS ! LORD ! , HAVE MERCY !! ( Gotta BELIEVE ! , HE ! , is IN CONTROL ! ) GOTTA' Have FAITH ! Thanks Daniel .
Good thought and I agree with the sentiment but you and I know it won't happen.
Daniel, I am still waiting to learn just exactly the degree of command and control failure of the DC law enforcement community. The situation is compounded by the multi-jurisdictional law enforcement responsibilities of that area, and was hamstrung by the lack of intelligence information disseminated prior to 6 January. I knew that there was going to be trouble beyond the norm that day; how did they not???
Ally, the failure was the intelligence. No one paid any attention to it. No one acted on it. No one planned because no one actually believed there was going to be an attempted coup. This was the fault of every agency involved. Plus, there was no “SOP” for such an event.
I bet there’s one in place now. I guarantee you that an “SOP” has been written for the next one, fir every agency to go by.
Ally, the failure was the intelligence. No one paid any attention to it. No one acted on it. No one planned because no one actually believed there was going to be an attempted coup.
Well said!
"Federalist Society Leonard Leo funded a “a coordinated and sophisticated public relations campaign to defend and celebrate” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas"
....................Lipstick on a pig..................
... by a pig!
Ugh.
GERRYMANDERING needs a house cleaning. Kick it to the curb.
Decades aho, Ohio, was a solid blue state until the Repubs started playing Shuffleboard with the designated districts. So, they’re now nicely rearranged so that Dem areas are grouped together ( 1 district) and the
Repubs are sprinkled about ( multiple districts). It highway robbery... straight down US 71 into the southern counties. Well, the House Leader just got his tit in the ringer and his ass is in prison for 20+ years. There are more Repubs lined up to be prosecuted for corruption. FOLLOW THE MONEY. Gerrymandering is how states got this heinous, lopsided power. We’ve got to end it ...mprobsbly federally. I’d like to posta picture here: DUCK. Gerrmandered Ohio looks like ... a duck.
GERRYMANDERING is blatant cheating, pure and simple. The Fascist Rethugs are good at that. Otherwise, they are good for nothing, but to stir up hate and division. And to think these scumbag criminals are getting paid to do this with our tax dollars.
Penny, we need to pass a law decreeing that requires a bipartisan drawing of maps every 10 years based on census data.
While we’re at it, we need to install ranked choice voting nationwide. As shown in Alaska, ranked choice open primaries dilutes the power of fringe candidates.
Additionally, we need the electoral college votes to be apportioned by the popular votes in each state. Example: state has 10 electoral votes and popular votes are 60% for candidate A and 40% for candidate B. Instead of all the electoral votes going for candidate A, candidate A would get 6 votes and candidate B would get 4 votes.
Surprising how few people on this list responded to the need for proportional representation voting. First-past-the-post and single-member districts seems the only option Americans can think of for running elections. These are the tools cartels use for strangling democracy and maintaining a ruling class oligarchy by calling the system "democracy.". Americans have never received education about any other system.
If it seems odd that people don't advocate for election reforms, it could be that most of us don't even understand the system(s?) in place currently. I certainly don't. We need Katie or Sheldon up front with their white boards to shed some light. Help!
Well, I would call the system currently in place a rather loose system. Electoral college is useless and only valuable a few hundred years ago based on the structure and maturity of the states. Having each state devise their own rules is madness now. What we have is easily gamed on J6 as we have seen. Only one guy stood in the way. Just Pence. Never thought I could appreciate a spineless person before. Our country was hanging by a thread and it could happen again. God help us. Cheers.
Mary, I am curious about the process in AK for primaries but cannot find specific details (rules). I haven't done a deep search yet for myself. But what is the history of that issue , if you know, and why not for the general election as well? For example, what if there are six candidates for one slot. Is the voter instructed (prevented) from replicating a single choice for all six ranked choices? What are the statistical reasons for no rules or that suggested rule or some other rule? Frankly, I am skeptical about leaving each state to devise their own rule(s). Can you imagine how a state could manipulate to suit their own situation ala gerrymandering? I would like to see the constitution changed to reflect nationwide standards. I know that is a heavy lift and I offer ERA as one example. It's like trying to heard cats. Isn't it? Anyway, it is an important enough issue to require a feasibility study at the very least. What do you think?
F. Reynolds, as I understand it, you rank the six in order of your preferences. You don’t get to vote more than once for a candidate. It allows you to vote for a specialized candidate to express your preferences. If that candidate is not in the top five, their votes are awarded to the candidates that were choice #2 on each ballot. Then the resulting #5 has their votes distributed, then #4, then #3…. Since the way votes are tallied is not in the Constitution, it wouldn’t need to be a Constitutional amendment. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to iron out the details before proposing making it an amendment.
Another idea would be to have an open primary with no indication of party.
I’ll send it to Buddy.
So, both Alabama and Texas are in open rebellion against The United States...What would Lincoln do?
DOJ should arrest Abbott and Ivey - along with the entire Alabama Legislature. Is the US a nation of laws? Or a collection of states that get to flip the finger at their own nation whenever it suits them? Lincoln probably would have offered an opportunity for them to abide by the laws they swore to uphold. If they refused, he might have sent in the troops.
And while our proud people in uniform are collecting traitors, they could harvest Tuberville.
Bill,
There is a problem though, one that Dr. Richardson does manage to avoid saying.
At the time that the "founding fathers" put in place the "rule of law", human bondage, human whipping, human enslavement and torture was codified either openly in law (like in Virginia), or openly in practice (like in Alabama).
So, even though white men (and only white men) were covered by the "rule of law", LOTS of humans in America were not.
And? It remained like that until, well, black folks might say until now. I might say until the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
So? It is not new for white men in parts of America to feel they are above the law while simultaneously being protected BY the law.
Not new at all. It was built into the founding of our country, although, like I said, Dr. Richardson does routinely avoid pointing this out. I will say, a couple of times she HAS pointed that out. But, when she really wants to highlight the founders intent for themselves, she leaves out the fact that they were quite happy to leave black slaves and women and native Americans out of the "rule of law".
So, in some ways, Alabama is just doing what Alabama has ALWAYS done.
Mike, you speak the truth. And women were considered chattel until quite recently in the grand scheme of history. And all of that should be taught in every school. Knowledge is power and provide the ability to correct course.
But none of that changes the fact that Abbot and Ivey are essentially withdrawing from the US. So we either let them leave altogether or we bust them. The former would be unfair to the millions in those states who are Patriots. So what's next?
Here's what I wrote to President Biden:
"Dear Mr. President,
The governor of Texas is violating Federal and International laws by erecting barriers in the river that endanger humans. He is defying the Federal Government.
The governor of Alabama just signed into law another racially gerrymandered voting map - in direct defiance of a US Supreme Court decision. Defying the Federal Government.
What is the Federal Government going to do now? What are you going to do now? I suggest the arrest and prosecution of these two traitorous governors. Their actions threaten the integrity of the entire US.
And why isn't the Army Corps of Engineers or some other Federal Law Enforcement agency removing those cruel river barriers right now?"
"essentially withdrawing from the US"
Openly defying US law is thumbing the nose at the Feds, but not quite, formal secession. And therein lies the rub.
And, honestly, Bill, if they secede, who would really want to die to keep them in the US?
I rush to say: Not Me.
Not me either. Except there are a lot of folks in those states who are on the right side of justice. Don't we have an obligation to protect their US citizenship? Or do we spend billions offering them relocation assistance? Massachusetts is advertising: "All are Welcome"!
This really isn't much different than the US just before the Civil War. Terrible choices caused by terrible people.
Better yet, who would want to live in those states when they have to stand alone and not get government assistance. In a very short time, they'd be begging to come back into the union.
Problem is what do you do about Austin?
I do not know. What is so special about Austin?
These two, plus Florida, seem to be escalating “hold my beer.”
“legitimacy of the Roberts court” is an oxymoron.
Or needs to finish with the words “is nonexistent”.
Alabama Governor has chosen to break their oath of office (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3331 )
by ignoring the SCOTUS ruling that their district map goes against the Constitution of the United States of America. It is also taxing ALL of its citizens but clearly not representing all citizens. So it seems Alabama has essentially declared itself a fascist State. By the time any lawsuits fighting the Governor’s decision is over, it will be too late [AGAIN] since the 2024 election will be over and many the voter’s denied a fair election. Its leadership wants all the benefits of being part of the United States, such as protection by National/ Federal Government during disasters, accepting part of the overflow of other State’s tax money, they enjoy the pause the United State’s Military gives other countries who might otherwise feel free to attack us, etc., but Alabama does not want to honor the nation’s rules & laws of democracy, even when the rules are set by a SCOTUS that’s almost entirely in their favor.
Regarding Texas’s water barriers, it seems Texas is also declaring they are a fascist State but also want the benefits of the National/Federal Government. If Abbott doesn’t respect the nation’s laws, why should the Army Core of Engineers respect the Texas Governor? There’s nothing stopping the Army Core of Engineers from building a moat around Abbott’s home and relocating the barriers to the moat within a week after the Tuesday deadline.
What a lose, lose for Texas tax payers. Just think what those millions of dollars could have done if invested into the infrastructure that directly serves Texas constituents.
My thought too. I’ll bet many taxpayers are unhappy their tax dollars are being used for such purposes.
Lisa,
There is nothing stopping the USA from cutting off all Federal money to Texas. Why not?
Why not? Because there are good, honest Republicans and Democrats in Texas who are just as upset about what is happening in their state as enacted by the criminal Abbott. Cutting off Federal money to the entirety of Texas, (even if it was possible, which I doubt,) would hurt these folks as well. They are our fellow citizens, ill-served by their elected officials. Should the dire forecasts of autocracy and dictatorship come to pass in 2025, then is the time to rise up and take matters in our own hands.
Right now we must do what we can to vote these criminals out of office and pursue legal means to restrict or end their illegality. The Gilded Turd® made it possible for the rocks to be overturned and the evil creatures underneath to crawl out and feel free to enact their crimes with seeming impunity. This will not stand, or we will cease to be a nation of laws.
Bear in mind that many countries which look attractive for possible expat residence (Canada, New Zealand, etc) have extremely strict immigration law. One can't simply move to Toronto or Christchurch to live there.
Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada.html
New Zealand: https://www.new-zealand-immigration.com/visa/the-points-guide
Be well; Stay safe and VOTE!
I agree. But President Biden probably wouldn’t do that. I think he could make Texas sign a contract which stipulates money must be spent only on certain things though.
How is this today's reality?! We the People cannot let this happen, and must work together to prevent the Rethugs from turning our country into a dictatorship run by essentially a psychopathic mobster, and also prevent him from escaping all consequences of his self-serving, traitorous actions. It is incredible that any average American with even a smidgeon of care for the future of this nation could support tfg, yet here we are, again.
"The Republican governor of Texas is defying both federal law and international treaties. After rampant scandals, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court refuses to adopt an ethics system that might restore some confidence in their decisions. And, aided by his loyalists, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is threatening mob violence if he is held legally accountable for his behavior. "
How MUCH MORE! Proof ? , Does Justice ! , have to Have, ! , to Do SOMTHING ! about the KADYWHUMPUS Leader !,, & his ILK ! WOW ! ( Thanks JustJanice ! )
An outstanding summation of current events going into a miid-summer weekend that seems like it should encapsulate a year’s worth of news, not the end of a week.
Make no mistake, White Christian Authoritarian Nationalism has taken over the Republican Party and democracy and the rule of law is the target.
Unlike the Civil War, fought over slavery and the cultural and economic benefits of white supremacy, today’s treason is strongest in Red States but marbled throughout all 50 with ties to Christian Nationalism internationally.
It’s hypocrisy is as readily apparent as it is ignored by its adherents. It is imbued with a sense of victimization that is acted out every day in a political theatre of the absurd by their leader, Donald Trump.
Every American needs to be asked, “which side are you on? Do you stand with constitutional law, order and democracy or with DJ Trump?” We need the Republican Party to fracture and for sensible Republicans to chose the path paved by Cheney and Kinzinger and for a true moral majority to stand against White Christian Authoritarian Nationalism. If not, we risk losing democracy at home and abroad.