"In the majority’s view, while all other citizens of the United States must do their jobs and live their lives within the confines of criminal prohibitions, the President cannot be made to do so . . . even more troubling, while Congress (the branch of our Government most accountable to the People) is the entity our Constitution tasks wit…
"In the majority’s view, while all other citizens of the United States must do their jobs and live their lives within the confines of criminal prohibitions, the President cannot be made to do so . . . even more troubling, while Congress (the branch of our Government most accountable to the People) is the entity our Constitution tasks with deciding, as a general matter, what conduct is on or off limits, the Court has now arrogated that power unto itself when that question pertains to the President . . . If the structural consequences of today’s . . . [decision] mark a step in the wrong direction, then the practical consequences are a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance and the normal operations of our Government." Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson 01jul24; Dissent.
"If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other." President Ulysses Grant 1875.
This is a fascist propaganda tactic. Our reward for remaining docile and compliant is a life of servitude to their values, but no blood will be shed. However it will, because it is written into their plans. He calls the Fascist takeover that he and others have planned with Trump at their helm a Revolution. We must respond with our own Project 2025 and a counter revolution. Let us hope that this can be managed with no blood, but thanks to SCOTUS and the NRA we are looking at a heavily armed White Supremacist trained militia and potential militants. Again, I want to understand where the US military stands in all of this. Will they support the office or the court if/when Biden wins and Trump does not accept it. Does anyone have any information on this?
Roberts has to conflate us with a very small left that has a big bark, but not much bite. The “Left” he complains about are a larger group of centrist and liberal Democrats and independents who are very concerned about where our country is headed, and want to fight back using peaceful means. Roberts’s side is the side that wants to perform a hostile takeover, and he and his fellow believers would be the ones pulling out their weapons, and blaming our existence for doing so.
So true. I have a neighbor in the US who is staunch leftist. She told me the left has arms too, I told her not as many as the right. One reason for this is the Left has not made it their mission to send their people through the US military to get specialized training like the Right has. That has led to them stealing a lot of weapons from the military too. Contacts and insiders must be helping this. Read in Prof. Belew's book, the amount of millions of weapons stolen from one base in North Carolina I believe it was. The Left still eschews working with the government for the most part, whereas the Right made it their mission to infiltrate by toning down their rhetoric and saying the ends justifies the means. Roberts needs to be a name on everyone's tongue and not in a good way. My group is committed to learning about Project 2025, countering their plans with what Biden is offering, and disseminating this to as many people as we can. Most Americans apparently don't know about Project 2025.
Thank you for the link. I agree. Have been discussing all repercussions of each outcome that I can think of. Still terrified that Biden will win and SCOTUS will hand it to Trump on some specious reason that they have probably all planned out and will be hatching out further at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. So, I see that Americans need to be prepared for both violence, and violation of the constitution by SCOTUS. Kevin Roberts talks about the right having a second Revolution, well we need a counterrevolution to their revolution.
Thank you for the link. I have been wondering if/how minds greater than mine are planning to respond to the violence I truly believe will follow this year's election. I especially appreciate Kayyem's comments about transparency. It would give me great strength to know that someone, somewhere, is making preparations. Thank you again, Bill.
RE: Bill Alstrom link, for us who tend to not watch youtube, here is this summary: “Looking ahead to the 2024 election, some fear upheaval should Donald Trump lose again. National security expert Juliette Kayyem argues, "The government isn't ready for the violence Trump might unleash." She joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss what President Biden must do to plan for the worst.
Originally aired on April 11, 2024”
Also noted, Juliette Kayyem has an April 7 piece in The Atlantic magazine
“The Government Isn’t Ready for the Violence Trump Might Unleash:
The Biden administration should be preparing for the worst.”
As I watched this link, I also came across this one, which spoke to me. One clarification I would ask of the prof. is whether the 50% increase, via polling, among Americans in possibly using violence to save the country also included those of us steeling ourselves to fight to save the republic against those who seek to destroy it. I bet it does. 🤔
At the present time, I'm sure the military is firmly on the side of protecting the nation, it's Constitution, and the laws which underpin them.
Back to Kevin Robert's and the Heritage Foundation. If you watched his pronouncement informing us of their ongoing civil war, or as he named it, the second American revolution, you may have noticed the banner behind him, advertising the Christian Nationalists.
Alito and Thomas are activist in promoting the takeover of democracy and the education system. It has been on their (the church) agenda since the first American Revolution. I'm sure they are involved in fulfilling Rushdooney's vision of taking over the Seven Moutains of governance. The GOP and Christian Nationalists Evangelicals identify it as the "deconstruction of the administrative state" and we identify it as the destruction of government of the people, by the people, for the people. I remind you that Steve Bannon announced it to a group of business leaders in April of 2017. Weeks after the inauguration, promising them full benefits if they could support the administration. They were so happy to oblige.
I'm not about attacking anyone's religion. The Christian Nationalists Evangelicals are not religiously driven. Their aim is power, influence, and control of the masses. It is a matter of historical fact that authoritarians and religious leaders always find themselves in agreement to oppress society. Religious leaders love to stand in the shadow of tyrants.
I think it was Henry VIII who ran the papist out of England and immediately created the Anglican Church. Same Christ, religious trappings, selling the same mythological entity to the people. The Crown on one side, the church on the other and both stripping the people of the fruits of their labor, hopes, and dignity.
A different time and place, yet here we are again.
"It is certain in any case, that ignorance allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy of justice. "
What about all us poor, dumb Christians ( you know, like Biden) who pray, work, and vote for Biden's victory? And whose liberalism is informed by our faith? While we're at it, let's not forget that Biden and Alito are of the same Church. As am I.
I am Catholic, and OD is a cancer on the church. My objections have nothing to do with the DaVinci Code, poorly written fiction based on a hoax, and rather more how to do with how they actually engage in power seeking and the manipulative treatment of their numeraries. They are a cult who got official approval and canonization of Josemaria Escriva because they bailed out the Vatican in the early 1980s. Josemaria Escriva was the Boss from Hell who treated his subordinates like crap. He wasn’t sexually abusive, he was more like an abusive executive who would constantly ridicule, put down, undercut and verbally abuse his subordinates. They engage in “love bombing” to get people to join.
Yes. I agree on the DaVinci Code. I was in grad school with a guy from Spain whom a classmate that was Catholic and used to give me rides told me was a member of Opus Dei. I got to hear his viewpoints on contraception, as it came up in class, and he felt it was wrong. I see that as one of the many things SCOTUS will get rid of. Though I checked how many children the members have and it seems to me they are using some form of birth control or they would have more kids. Hypocrites to the nth degree.
P.S., please pardon my rudeness for not answering your electronic with the information about Liz Cheney. 🫣 I get swamped with e-mails these days and am becoming forgetful. 😳 Aside from having a thousand excuses and a hundred explanations but not one good reason (🤭),please know, that, even at this late date, I appreciate your taking time out for me. 🤝⚖️🙏
I'm not so sure about the military. I'm certain dumoty and his minions will target taking that over first thing, and installing a trumpanzee. Those of lower rank will also be replaced.
And the line officers? They'll do as they're told. Remember the Seal team 4 scandal, as I recall.
Yeah, I read that essay, too, Linda. I do not subscribe, so, fortunately for the good counsel Vance, I can not comment. My reaxion was: hey, they can not kill all of us.
“ We need a coordinated strategy to save America and stop this coup before it’s too late,” said Rep. Huffman. “Through this Task Force, leaders across the ideological spectrum and experts in every policy area that’s under attack are uniting to protect democracy as we know it. Donald Trump and those behind Project 2025 are ready to turn America into a theocratic regime if they get the chance – and we are going to be ready to stop them.”
Members of the Task Force represent the diversity of the Democratic Caucus and are leaders on many of the issues currently under attack by Project 2025. Founding members joining Rep. Huffman are Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA-36), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Nanette Barragán (CA-44), Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Judy Chu (CA-28), Equality Caucus and Labor Caucus Chair Mark Pocan (WI-02), Pro-Choice Caucus Co-Chair Diana DeGette (CO-01), Co-Chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus and Ranking Member of Oversight Jamie Raskin (MD-08), and Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (WA-07).
In Joyce Vance’s substack, there is a subscriber-only content where she interviewed Huffman.
“ Congressman Huffman: Please follow the work of our Task Force, and our individual members, on social media, and keep supporting trusted sources of information like Joyce Vance. The groups our Task Force is working with also deserve support, and many of them are putting out outstanding summaries and analyses on Project 2025 which you can find on their websites:
General Mark Hertling (Ret.) posed a most challenging "rhetorical" question: ¿what happens of the Commander-in-Chief gives an illegal order as an 'official' act?
That song brought tears this morning, and spurred a search for more details on exactly where MLK had worked in tobacco fields (the next town over from the tobacco fields I worked 16 years later). Simsbury CT like Granby and Suffield, where my brother and I worked in 1960-61, are in Hartford County. The way he was treated well in the Hartford area (where the Wide Awakes started a major boost to Lincoln's win in 1860), inspired him to become a preacher and become a non-violent Civil Rights leader), as I read the article at https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/mlk-was-inspired-by-time-in-connecticut/1885278/
"...In a letter to his mother three days after he wrote his father, King marveled over a trip he took to Hartford.
"I never thought that a person of my race could eat anywhere but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford," King wrote. "And we went to the largest shows there."
He wrote a week earlier of going to the same church in Simsbury as white people. His new calling as a religious leader was emerging, too.
"I have to speak on some text every Sunday to 107 boys. We really have good meetings," he wrote.
William Duschaneck, an 88-year-old Simsbury resident interviewed by the students, said he played baseball with King in town. King was a strong pitcher, though the future preacher of nonviolence never drilled a batter, he said.
"He was a good ballplayer. He beat us a couple times," Duschaneck said, laughing. "It was interesting to hear him talk. He had a nice voice. He talked about God and so forth."
King described the work on the tobacco farm as easy.
"I have a job in the kitchen so I get better food than any of the boys and more. I get as much as I want," he wrote to his mother.
In a speech in Hartford in 1959, King recalled how hot it was working on the tobacco field and how he looked forward to relaxing on weekends in Hartford.
Byer said King and other students often worked in temperatures that reached 100 degrees or higher. The students, who were earning money to pay for college, made about $4 per day, Byer said. They lived in a dormitory built at the edge of the tobacco field.
King was nicknamed "Tweed" by his friends because he often wore a tweed suit to church, said Alexis Kellam, whose late father, Ennis Proctor, worked with King that summer in Connecticut.
King's friends teased him that the hot sun in the tobacco fields caused him to preach, his sister, Christine Farris, said.
In her book "Through It All: Reflections on My Life, My Family, and My Faith," Ferris wrote that her brother underwent a "metamorphosis" as a result of his time in Connecticut..."
My only disagreement with his words were that he thought it was easy working in those fields, at least for me and my brother. It made us far stronger but it was never easy to us.
Wow. I was born in Hartford and currently live here too. My very first attempt at employment was in one of those Windsor tobacco fields. I was about 12 years old and too young to work. So I took my birth certificate and scratched out the year and typed in an earlier year. I lasted all of 3 hours in the tobacco field when I was called into the office and shown my forged birth certificate. But they did pay me for thhose 3 short hours.
I wonder which restaurant King ate at. There was a well known fish restaurant downtown, right, Honiss Oyster Bar. The place to go I’ll bet he ate there among other places.
WOWerful story, there, Jim. Thank you so very much for taking the time to write it down, making it a quiet legacy for those of us lucky enough to read it. I attended that old-line Yankee Congregational church in Simsbury. What an amazing group its members were fifteen years ago . . . and are. Thank you for blessing us.
20 years after MLK, (who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize), worked the fields in Simsbury, Hartford County delivered the Commencement Speech at Springfield College Massachusetts, just 20 miles north east of Simsbury. Dr. Glen A. Olds of the College at the time is one of the lasting inspirations for me because of what he did on July 14, 1964.
“…The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Springfield on July 14, 1964 under heavy police guard to deliver the 78th annual commencement at Springfield College. Scores of telephone threats against the civil rights leader had been received at the college and the FBI attempted to dissuade college President Glenn Olds to retract his invitation to Dr. King.
Olds and Springfield College offered the civil rights leader an honorary doctorate, the first school to do so. But it was not without incident. In an effort to get Springfield to rescind the invitation, the FBI called Olds. A scratchy audiotape - allegedly of King - filled with vulgarity was played over Glenn’s phone. A vague threat made that it was foolish for Springfield College “A YMCA-type school” to honor such a man.
Former Springfield College President Glenn Olds
“In my America, the accused gets to meet his accuser,” Glenn Olds told the man on the other end of the phone. “Are you ready to step out in the white light of day and say what you’ve just told me?” The next thing Glenn Olds heard on the other end of the line was a dial tone.
Years later, when tapes and documents were released of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s campaign against Dr. King, the FBI involvement was confirmed.
On the day of the commencement and King’s speech, Olds was summoned to meet a school benefactor. At the graduation, it was going to be announced that the man was going to leave a million dollars - the largest donation during Olds’ presidency - earmarked for Springfield College in his will.
“I could see his face was twisted in anger,” Glenn recalled. “He was livid. He tore up his will in my presence. He didn’t want Martin Luther King speaking at Springfield College.” But the civil rights leader did. And Glenn Olds always considered it Springfield College’s finest moment.
Free on $900 bail from a St. Augustine, Fla., jail for refusing to leave a segregated restaurant, Dr. King reaffirmed his commitment to non-violent protest in his Springfield speech before more than 3,200 listeners.
"Violence often wins temporary victories, but in the end it creates more problems than it solves," he told the crowd…”
In the 1920’s in a small town in southern Ohio, my grandfather put a stop to the KKK who wanted to speak at the local high school. According to my mother, he told them they could speak, but only if they showed their faces. That stopped them. My grandfather was a self made attorney and by all accounts a wise and generous soul. That story warms my heart.
Conversely, around 1966/68, when the street troubles were in full bloom, my father was heard to say, “It’s not the ones born here in Hartford that’s causing all the trouble. (He had his once Black friend Art, the bus driver, that he was proud to invite over the house for lunch but not dinner.) It’s the ones comin’ up from the south.” A walking contradiction.
I was severely criticized in an abnormal psychology class when I suggested it would at best take a generation to get some people to accept that "others" were worthy of building bridges to instead of erecting barriers.
Yes, but you see, the population makeup is not static. New generations arrive. New thoughts some good, some bad, are passed around. Much of what has happened in previous generations is forgotten. The old generations die.
Astute observation. A colleague of mine once pointed out that Moses marched the faithful through the desert for forty years because it would take two generations to change a culture.
I see the glass as half-full. My father had many of the same contradictions, as do I. No matter how cosmetic your father's friendship may have been, he was still a good man, on balance, to pursue it.
“…In 1964, Springfield College shared a moment in history often overlooked by historians with honorary degree recipient and commencement speaker Martin Luther King Jr.Despite significant pressure from prominent shareholders and benefactors of the College, college President Glenn A. Olds, a minister and conscientious objector during World War II, refused to waver from his decision to make Martin Luther King Commencement speaker for the 1964 Graduation ceremonies. When King was arrested the day before, Olds contacted law enforcement officials, telling them that if they continued to hold King, school officials would fly down to tape the commencement address, leaving St. Augustine to deal with the attendant publicity. Whether or not his intervention played a role, King was released on a nine hundred dollar bond Saturday afternoon. Met at the airport by Springfield College Economics Professor Robert Randolph, later the first black president of the Massachusetts State College System at Westfield State, King toured the campus, gave a press conference, and shared a brief luncheon with faculty and administration. On the day of commencement, Black Muslim protestors who felt King was too conciliatory and bomb-sniffing dogs greeted the graduating class. Springfield College alumnus Joe Brown (class of 2014) transcribed the speech and made the corrections…”
Thank you for the Grant quote. I only began to appreciate him as other than a general seeing a History Channel documentary. The quotation enhances what I gained from that.
"In the majority’s view, while all other citizens of the United States must do their jobs and live their lives within the confines of criminal prohibitions, the President cannot be made to do so . . . even more troubling, while Congress (the branch of our Government most accountable to the People) is the entity our Constitution tasks with deciding, as a general matter, what conduct is on or off limits, the Court has now arrogated that power unto itself when that question pertains to the President . . . If the structural consequences of today’s . . . [decision] mark a step in the wrong direction, then the practical consequences are a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance and the normal operations of our Government." Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson 01jul24; Dissent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBiH5fsKJB8 ('Abraham, Martin, and John' . . . and Bobby, too)
"If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other." President Ulysses Grant 1875.
In addition, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 leader has made threats to those of us who want to preserve our democracy by calling us "The Left" and telling us that if we allow them to take over with their fascist agenda then there need be no blood. See Law Prof. Joyce Vance's discussion of this today. https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/bloodless-if-the-left-allows-it-to?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
This is a fascist propaganda tactic. Our reward for remaining docile and compliant is a life of servitude to their values, but no blood will be shed. However it will, because it is written into their plans. He calls the Fascist takeover that he and others have planned with Trump at their helm a Revolution. We must respond with our own Project 2025 and a counter revolution. Let us hope that this can be managed with no blood, but thanks to SCOTUS and the NRA we are looking at a heavily armed White Supremacist trained militia and potential militants. Again, I want to understand where the US military stands in all of this. Will they support the office or the court if/when Biden wins and Trump does not accept it. Does anyone have any information on this?
Roberts has to conflate us with a very small left that has a big bark, but not much bite. The “Left” he complains about are a larger group of centrist and liberal Democrats and independents who are very concerned about where our country is headed, and want to fight back using peaceful means. Roberts’s side is the side that wants to perform a hostile takeover, and he and his fellow believers would be the ones pulling out their weapons, and blaming our existence for doing so.
He used his power to authorize hostile takeover by his crowd.
So true. I have a neighbor in the US who is staunch leftist. She told me the left has arms too, I told her not as many as the right. One reason for this is the Left has not made it their mission to send their people through the US military to get specialized training like the Right has. That has led to them stealing a lot of weapons from the military too. Contacts and insiders must be helping this. Read in Prof. Belew's book, the amount of millions of weapons stolen from one base in North Carolina I believe it was. The Left still eschews working with the government for the most part, whereas the Right made it their mission to infiltrate by toning down their rhetoric and saying the ends justifies the means. Roberts needs to be a name on everyone's tongue and not in a good way. My group is committed to learning about Project 2025, countering their plans with what Biden is offering, and disseminating this to as many people as we can. Most Americans apparently don't know about Project 2025.
I heard somewhere that only 12 % know about Project 2025,
WE MUST INFORM AMERICANS ABOUT PROJECT 2025.
https://youtu.be/QnjdKuQAuq8?si=e7IZ5l0Fx0uox_Vl
OBJECT to project 2025. I won’t give it the honor of capitalizing the first letter. Screw them!
I think we will prevail on November 5th but we best be prepared for the blow back. From a national security expert:
https://youtu.be/MM6JbcSsWAE?si=Tt6B5bSxxl6DlzMz
Thank you for the link. I agree. Have been discussing all repercussions of each outcome that I can think of. Still terrified that Biden will win and SCOTUS will hand it to Trump on some specious reason that they have probably all planned out and will be hatching out further at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. So, I see that Americans need to be prepared for both violence, and violation of the constitution by SCOTUS. Kevin Roberts talks about the right having a second Revolution, well we need a counterrevolution to their revolution.
Thank you for the link. I have been wondering if/how minds greater than mine are planning to respond to the violence I truly believe will follow this year's election. I especially appreciate Kayyem's comments about transparency. It would give me great strength to know that someone, somewhere, is making preparations. Thank you again, Bill.
RE: Bill Alstrom link, for us who tend to not watch youtube, here is this summary: “Looking ahead to the 2024 election, some fear upheaval should Donald Trump lose again. National security expert Juliette Kayyem argues, "The government isn't ready for the violence Trump might unleash." She joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss what President Biden must do to plan for the worst.
Originally aired on April 11, 2024”
Also noted, Juliette Kayyem has an April 7 piece in The Atlantic magazine
“The Government Isn’t Ready for the Violence Trump Might Unleash:
The Biden administration should be preparing for the worst.”
Here . https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/biden-trump-january-6-preparedness/677995/
Yes, I join and echo Kerry and Linda in thanking you, Bill. 🤝
😰
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yilgr2SJ3xQ
😱
As I watched this link, I also came across this one, which spoke to me. One clarification I would ask of the prof. is whether the 50% increase, via polling, among Americans in possibly using violence to save the country also included those of us steeling ourselves to fight to save the republic against those who seek to destroy it. I bet it does. 🤔
At the present time, I'm sure the military is firmly on the side of protecting the nation, it's Constitution, and the laws which underpin them.
Back to Kevin Robert's and the Heritage Foundation. If you watched his pronouncement informing us of their ongoing civil war, or as he named it, the second American revolution, you may have noticed the banner behind him, advertising the Christian Nationalists.
Alito and Thomas are activist in promoting the takeover of democracy and the education system. It has been on their (the church) agenda since the first American Revolution. I'm sure they are involved in fulfilling Rushdooney's vision of taking over the Seven Moutains of governance. The GOP and Christian Nationalists Evangelicals identify it as the "deconstruction of the administrative state" and we identify it as the destruction of government of the people, by the people, for the people. I remind you that Steve Bannon announced it to a group of business leaders in April of 2017. Weeks after the inauguration, promising them full benefits if they could support the administration. They were so happy to oblige.
I'm not about attacking anyone's religion. The Christian Nationalists Evangelicals are not religiously driven. Their aim is power, influence, and control of the masses. It is a matter of historical fact that authoritarians and religious leaders always find themselves in agreement to oppress society. Religious leaders love to stand in the shadow of tyrants.
I think it was Henry VIII who ran the papist out of England and immediately created the Anglican Church. Same Christ, religious trappings, selling the same mythological entity to the people. The Crown on one side, the church on the other and both stripping the people of the fruits of their labor, hopes, and dignity.
A different time and place, yet here we are again.
"It is certain in any case, that ignorance allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy of justice. "
James Baldwin
What about all us poor, dumb Christians ( you know, like Biden) who pray, work, and vote for Biden's victory? And whose liberalism is informed by our faith? While we're at it, let's not forget that Biden and Alito are of the same Church. As am I.
Are you a member of Opus Dei? I do not believe Biden is. That is the branch of the Catholic church that the Federalist Society is connected to.
I am Catholic, and OD is a cancer on the church. My objections have nothing to do with the DaVinci Code, poorly written fiction based on a hoax, and rather more how to do with how they actually engage in power seeking and the manipulative treatment of their numeraries. They are a cult who got official approval and canonization of Josemaria Escriva because they bailed out the Vatican in the early 1980s. Josemaria Escriva was the Boss from Hell who treated his subordinates like crap. He wasn’t sexually abusive, he was more like an abusive executive who would constantly ridicule, put down, undercut and verbally abuse his subordinates. They engage in “love bombing” to get people to join.
Yes. I agree on the DaVinci Code. I was in grad school with a guy from Spain whom a classmate that was Catholic and used to give me rides told me was a member of Opus Dei. I got to hear his viewpoints on contraception, as it came up in class, and he felt it was wrong. I see that as one of the many things SCOTUS will get rid of. Though I checked how many children the members have and it seems to me they are using some form of birth control or they would have more kids. Hypocrites to the nth degree.
Where does the military stand if SCOTUS commits treason? There is no mechanism to handle them handing the election to Trump if he does not win it.
Baldwin’s quote is one of my favorites
Very well thought and said, thank you.
¡Hear, here!
P.S., please pardon my rudeness for not answering your electronic with the information about Liz Cheney. 🫣 I get swamped with e-mails these days and am becoming forgetful. 😳 Aside from having a thousand excuses and a hundred explanations but not one good reason (🤭),please know, that, even at this late date, I appreciate your taking time out for me. 🤝⚖️🙏
I'm not so sure about the military. I'm certain dumoty and his minions will target taking that over first thing, and installing a trumpanzee. Those of lower rank will also be replaced.
And the line officers? They'll do as they're told. Remember the Seal team 4 scandal, as I recall.
Well said.
Yeah, I read that essay, too, Linda. I do not subscribe, so, fortunately for the good counsel Vance, I can not comment. My reaxion was: hey, they can not kill all of us.
Today's column is free. https://joycevance.substack.com/p/five-questions-with-congressman-jared
There is a group in Congress formed to counter the Project 2025 agenda.
https://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressional-leaders-form-task-force-to-counter-project-2025-and-defend-democracy
“ We need a coordinated strategy to save America and stop this coup before it’s too late,” said Rep. Huffman. “Through this Task Force, leaders across the ideological spectrum and experts in every policy area that’s under attack are uniting to protect democracy as we know it. Donald Trump and those behind Project 2025 are ready to turn America into a theocratic regime if they get the chance – and we are going to be ready to stop them.”
Members of the Task Force represent the diversity of the Democratic Caucus and are leaders on many of the issues currently under attack by Project 2025. Founding members joining Rep. Huffman are Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA-36), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Nanette Barragán (CA-44), Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Judy Chu (CA-28), Equality Caucus and Labor Caucus Chair Mark Pocan (WI-02), Pro-Choice Caucus Co-Chair Diana DeGette (CO-01), Co-Chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus and Ranking Member of Oversight Jamie Raskin (MD-08), and Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (WA-07).
In Joyce Vance’s substack, there is a subscriber-only content where she interviewed Huffman.
“ Congressman Huffman: Please follow the work of our Task Force, and our individual members, on social media, and keep supporting trusted sources of information like Joyce Vance. The groups our Task Force is working with also deserve support, and many of them are putting out outstanding summaries and analyses on Project 2025 which you can find on their websites:
Center for American Progress
Accountable.US
Media Matters
More frightening is what will happen if Trump wins again. Will the military refuse to follow an unlawful order?
Ah.. but will t be unlawful.
General Mark Hertling (Ret.) posed a most challenging "rhetorical" question: ¿what happens of the Commander-in-Chief gives an illegal order as an 'official' act?
Grant was prescient.
Yes! The stupidity defies understanding.
No, he was President, Linda. 😉
Bad, Neddy, very bad. 🤭
🤣🤣🤣
That song brought tears this morning, and spurred a search for more details on exactly where MLK had worked in tobacco fields (the next town over from the tobacco fields I worked 16 years later). Simsbury CT like Granby and Suffield, where my brother and I worked in 1960-61, are in Hartford County. The way he was treated well in the Hartford area (where the Wide Awakes started a major boost to Lincoln's win in 1860), inspired him to become a preacher and become a non-violent Civil Rights leader), as I read the article at https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/mlk-was-inspired-by-time-in-connecticut/1885278/
"...In a letter to his mother three days after he wrote his father, King marveled over a trip he took to Hartford.
"I never thought that a person of my race could eat anywhere but we ate in one of the finest restaurants in Hartford," King wrote. "And we went to the largest shows there."
He wrote a week earlier of going to the same church in Simsbury as white people. His new calling as a religious leader was emerging, too.
"I have to speak on some text every Sunday to 107 boys. We really have good meetings," he wrote.
William Duschaneck, an 88-year-old Simsbury resident interviewed by the students, said he played baseball with King in town. King was a strong pitcher, though the future preacher of nonviolence never drilled a batter, he said.
"He was a good ballplayer. He beat us a couple times," Duschaneck said, laughing. "It was interesting to hear him talk. He had a nice voice. He talked about God and so forth."
King described the work on the tobacco farm as easy.
"I have a job in the kitchen so I get better food than any of the boys and more. I get as much as I want," he wrote to his mother.
In a speech in Hartford in 1959, King recalled how hot it was working on the tobacco field and how he looked forward to relaxing on weekends in Hartford.
Byer said King and other students often worked in temperatures that reached 100 degrees or higher. The students, who were earning money to pay for college, made about $4 per day, Byer said. They lived in a dormitory built at the edge of the tobacco field.
King was nicknamed "Tweed" by his friends because he often wore a tweed suit to church, said Alexis Kellam, whose late father, Ennis Proctor, worked with King that summer in Connecticut.
King's friends teased him that the hot sun in the tobacco fields caused him to preach, his sister, Christine Farris, said.
In her book "Through It All: Reflections on My Life, My Family, and My Faith," Ferris wrote that her brother underwent a "metamorphosis" as a result of his time in Connecticut..."
My only disagreement with his words were that he thought it was easy working in those fields, at least for me and my brother. It made us far stronger but it was never easy to us.
Wow. I was born in Hartford and currently live here too. My very first attempt at employment was in one of those Windsor tobacco fields. I was about 12 years old and too young to work. So I took my birth certificate and scratched out the year and typed in an earlier year. I lasted all of 3 hours in the tobacco field when I was called into the office and shown my forged birth certificate. But they did pay me for thhose 3 short hours.
I wonder which restaurant King ate at. There was a well known fish restaurant downtown, right, Honiss Oyster Bar. The place to go I’ll bet he ate there among other places.
Another article only mentioned the Bushnell (assuming the show he mentioned), and a brown-bag lunch when he spoke at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church. See https://www.hartfordhistory.net/blog/2019/01/21/mlk-and-hartford/
WOWerful story, there, Jim. Thank you so very much for taking the time to write it down, making it a quiet legacy for those of us lucky enough to read it. I attended that old-line Yankee Congregational church in Simsbury. What an amazing group its members were fifteen years ago . . . and are. Thank you for blessing us.
20 years after MLK, (who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize), worked the fields in Simsbury, Hartford County delivered the Commencement Speech at Springfield College Massachusetts, just 20 miles north east of Simsbury. Dr. Glen A. Olds of the College at the time is one of the lasting inspirations for me because of what he did on July 14, 1964.
See https://www.masslive.com/history/2015/01/martin_luther_king_jr_defies_threats_and_prejudice_to_deliver_springfield_college_commencement_speec.html
“…The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Springfield on July 14, 1964 under heavy police guard to deliver the 78th annual commencement at Springfield College. Scores of telephone threats against the civil rights leader had been received at the college and the FBI attempted to dissuade college President Glenn Olds to retract his invitation to Dr. King.
Olds and Springfield College offered the civil rights leader an honorary doctorate, the first school to do so. But it was not without incident. In an effort to get Springfield to rescind the invitation, the FBI called Olds. A scratchy audiotape - allegedly of King - filled with vulgarity was played over Glenn’s phone. A vague threat made that it was foolish for Springfield College “A YMCA-type school” to honor such a man.
Former Springfield College President Glenn Olds
“In my America, the accused gets to meet his accuser,” Glenn Olds told the man on the other end of the phone. “Are you ready to step out in the white light of day and say what you’ve just told me?” The next thing Glenn Olds heard on the other end of the line was a dial tone.
Years later, when tapes and documents were released of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s campaign against Dr. King, the FBI involvement was confirmed.
On the day of the commencement and King’s speech, Olds was summoned to meet a school benefactor. At the graduation, it was going to be announced that the man was going to leave a million dollars - the largest donation during Olds’ presidency - earmarked for Springfield College in his will.
“I could see his face was twisted in anger,” Glenn recalled. “He was livid. He tore up his will in my presence. He didn’t want Martin Luther King speaking at Springfield College.” But the civil rights leader did. And Glenn Olds always considered it Springfield College’s finest moment.
Free on $900 bail from a St. Augustine, Fla., jail for refusing to leave a segregated restaurant, Dr. King reaffirmed his commitment to non-violent protest in his Springfield speech before more than 3,200 listeners.
"Violence often wins temporary victories, but in the end it creates more problems than it solves," he told the crowd…”
In the 1920’s in a small town in southern Ohio, my grandfather put a stop to the KKK who wanted to speak at the local high school. According to my mother, he told them they could speak, but only if they showed their faces. That stopped them. My grandfather was a self made attorney and by all accounts a wise and generous soul. That story warms my heart.
Conversely, around 1966/68, when the street troubles were in full bloom, my father was heard to say, “It’s not the ones born here in Hartford that’s causing all the trouble. (He had his once Black friend Art, the bus driver, that he was proud to invite over the house for lunch but not dinner.) It’s the ones comin’ up from the south.” A walking contradiction.
I was severely criticized in an abnormal psychology class when I suggested it would at best take a generation to get some people to accept that "others" were worthy of building bridges to instead of erecting barriers.
Yes, but you see, the population makeup is not static. New generations arrive. New thoughts some good, some bad, are passed around. Much of what has happened in previous generations is forgotten. The old generations die.
Astute observation. A colleague of mine once pointed out that Moses marched the faithful through the desert for forty years because it would take two generations to change a culture.
I remember folks saying that the upcoming generations will be sure to be "colour-blind".
I see the glass as half-full. My father had many of the same contradictions, as do I. No matter how cosmetic your father's friendship may have been, he was still a good man, on balance, to pursue it.
A new bit of info on DR. Glen A. Olds that I hadn’t heard before (helping getting him released from jail), is at
https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15370coll2/id/7849
“…In 1964, Springfield College shared a moment in history often overlooked by historians with honorary degree recipient and commencement speaker Martin Luther King Jr.Despite significant pressure from prominent shareholders and benefactors of the College, college President Glenn A. Olds, a minister and conscientious objector during World War II, refused to waver from his decision to make Martin Luther King Commencement speaker for the 1964 Graduation ceremonies. When King was arrested the day before, Olds contacted law enforcement officials, telling them that if they continued to hold King, school officials would fly down to tape the commencement address, leaving St. Augustine to deal with the attendant publicity. Whether or not his intervention played a role, King was released on a nine hundred dollar bond Saturday afternoon. Met at the airport by Springfield College Economics Professor Robert Randolph, later the first black president of the Massachusetts State College System at Westfield State, King toured the campus, gave a press conference, and shared a brief luncheon with faculty and administration. On the day of commencement, Black Muslim protestors who felt King was too conciliatory and bomb-sniffing dogs greeted the graduating class. Springfield College alumnus Joe Brown (class of 2014) transcribed the speech and made the corrections…”
Thank you for the Grant quote. I only began to appreciate him as other than a general seeing a History Channel documentary. The quotation enhances what I gained from that.
Thank you, Ma'am, for a gracious response. 🙏🗽✌️
EDIT: President / General Grant is one of the few heroes whom I have come to cherish in my adult years.