On Friday, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump begged the members of the audience to “vote.
Kamala calls Trump & company out so clearly and effectively. She is the right leader for this pivotal moment in our country. Thank you, Joe Biden, for passing the torch to Kamala , and to we, the people. Let’s go!
I just couldn’t read through all this mumbo jumbo about Trumpism. Some of us are getting Trumped-out. What we all need to do:
1. Find one friend or family member that is not very political but would likely vote blue and chat with them of the next few months and convince them of the importance of voting. At least one person this is not naturally interested voting.
2. Pa-lease my fellow Democrats, leave the “woke” issues (I know using this term is an insult just bear with me) alone and concentrate on the most popular issues.
3. Those of you interested in local leadership either run for school boards or support liberal-minded candidates. Be active up and down the ballot. No matter how insignificant.
Every time I mention “woke” issues, someone deletes from my blog. I guess since we are all full of opinions here, one expressed divergent opinion and you get a lashing. It goes with the territory.
I do believe in Indiana our elections our safe...but we have a bunch or radical racists and far "right" please in this state. It is very difficult to convince the uneducated and many educated middle and below class in our state that the Republicans are not our friends. The county I live in is rated as one of the poorest in Indiana. I have seen the decline of our area since the Republicans have taken over the statehouse. It is nearly impossible to be a Democrat and win an election in the state of Indiana. So very sad! The decline began with Mitch Daniels. Indiana State University has eliminated many studies recently. I learned this morning that our high school seniors are not qualified to enter Purdue University upon graduation. Sure sounds like a Republican plan for our public schools has been put in place! I hope this information I received today is wrong.
You can still ask the question to your local officials? "Joe Doe is a known election denier....should he be in charge of verifying our elections." Ask the question in a public forum...to a sympathetic reporter...write an ope-d in your local newspaper. Recruit people to email your S.O.S. asking that question. Propose it to a sympathetic legislator. You don't even have to worry about the answer....just keep asking.
Sharon, as you know, I am Hoosier born and I am glad that I no longer live there. I do know some Ds there. One of them jokes about being the only D in her family....lives south of Indy in Greenwood. I find your latter bit of info interesting. When I graduated in 1961, public universities had to accept anyone who had graduated. They didn't have to keep you and at IU, the flunk out course was frosh English. What is the reasoning for not allowing kids to enter Purdue.
Susan, we are fortunate here in Oregon as the sec of state is a D. Our county clerk is a D who has done a great job for years. Clackastan (Clackamus County near Portland) has finally gotten rid of the R biddy who was there clerk and regularly made a mess of things.
I am worried here in red Ohio. We have a lot of fraudster Rs in our local and state governments. We after all have Gym Jordan and J D Vance. Ugh! How can I find out if these election officials are deniers?
Ask the question to your local officials? "Joe Doe is a known election denier....should he be in charge of verifying our elections." Ask the question in a public forum...to a sympathetic reporter...write an op-ed in your local newspaper. Recruit people to email your S.O.S. asking that question. Propose it to a sympathetic legislator. You don't even have to worry about the
Start by contacting your election officials, however you can do that, and ask them if the 2020 election was stolen, or if it was illegitimate due to widespread voter fraud.
Following up, there's a good video on youtube from late last night on PoliticsGirl/Meidas Touch featuring Joanna Lydgate of States United Democracy Center, https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/, concerning who has what role in elections and protecting elections from the kind of insanity we saw far too much of around (before and after) the last presidential election (and Arizona is STILL seeing, courtesy of Kari Lake, who has won the republican primary for Senate, godhelpus).
And....what if they ARE??? Is there recourse??? For instance.....is there a way to tamp down the impact of the 70 officials, (so far?) across the 6 swing states of AZ GA MI NC PS NV who are election denialists? Per Rachel Maddow, 22 of these people have already refused certification results of previous elections. Most of us by now have heard tfg claiming that he does not NEED the votes in the upcoming election, that they "already have it figured out". Once again, just like last time, he is telegraphing the plan and coupled with the recent SCOTUS decision about a President being free from prosecution for his actions, I am left wondering if the orangetan is right??? What defenses are there in this election plan that can guard against current or potential plans to overtake the free and fair electoral process, yet again, but this time, with the kinks worked out?
You can still ask the question to your local officials? "John Doe is a known election denier....should he be in charge of verifying our elections." Ask the question in a public forum...to a sympathetic reporter...write an op-ed in your local newspaper. Recruit people to email your S.O.S. asking that question. Propose it to a sympathetic legislator. You don't even have to worry about the answer....just keep asking.
Your #1. I am not related to anyone who plans to vote for tRump (aka Fart in the UK, if you tRumping you are farting). Most of my friends and family were raised as Dems. Maybe that could be yout number 3 or 4? I have neighbors who are them - but I am very careful of our friendly neighborlyness and try to show by example rather than talk.
#2. I have never referred to 'WOKE" - i honestly don't really know what it means, nor care.
#3. Great suggestion! I also have been trained to work in a voting station - anyone can do this and volunteers are needed.
My wife's side of the family are all Texas Maga - for Trump and Abbott etc. They only look for confirmation of their beliefs, not facts. I am pleased with Kamala, like me, she goes after them bluntly, politely and with conviction.
The term "woke" was originally coined by progressive Black Americans and used in racial justice movements in the early to mid-1900s. To be "woke" politically in the Black community means that someone is informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality.
The use of the term in its pejorative sense (as a slur towards people who are "woke") came about recently by right wing Republicans, in particular Maga-type GOPer who support Trump.
Can we here, who are probably all Democrats, and almost certainly identify as progressive, not buy in to the Right’s framing of our priorities by denigrating the word “woke?” Democrats prioritize issues and policies that seek to benefit everyone, especially those populations whose rights have historically been oppressed. Personally, I’m proud of that. If that makes me “woke,” so be it.
To me it means we are awake and present … we are active in making our aspirational founding documents reality. The opposite of woke is asleep or nightmares - aka Maga - now that is bad karma!
I agree with everything you said, but I am not a "progressive". That assumption you're making is reasonable, but might alienate "centrists" like me after we win in November. To solidify our progress and protect individual rights, economic sanity, and environmental safety, the Democratic tent has to stay big.
I am a conservative by nature and an erstwhile Republican, Jerry, so I am sympathetic. Wendy makes a point that the Democratic candidates really should take a more active rather than reactive stance. On the tent staying big, Jerry, you hit on a key point. Only a coalition of people opposed to the M.A.G.A. movement -- and opposed for different reasons -- can prevail.
Look what they did in France. The far right was going to win the election. I'm sure the champagne was on ice BUT the two other parties (one of which Macron was heading) joined forces and beat the far right party. This is what we need to do.
We could just respond to anyone who thinks accusing us of being woke is an insult, by saying, yes I am aware and educated about social issues. Are you?
Bill, my garden helper is now going to vote for Harris. She would not vote if it were Biden because she doesn't understand the good things he has done. The awful Joe Kent running against Perez in Washington's third district, is using a woke issue against her. It has to do with trans athletes and I don't know what her position is. She is popular with the police and fire people and she is an auto mechanic, so she can relate to working class people. Also letting people know that I am one of those psychotic and deranged women.
I don’t have all issues resolved and frankly some perplex me. The trans issues is one. It’s terribly divisive. Often it can lose an election. I don’t want to lose elections over one or two issues. I have an answer to trans sports. Trans might have their own sports. In my opinion, they just don’t fit otherwise. Putting trans girls in biological female sports is a deal breaker for most. Like it or not. To wit: Trans men are rarely if ever, found on men’s teams for a good reason. They are not strong enough. Conversely, trans women will easily overpower females in sport events. But the bigger issue is that it’s a deal breaker more often than not. And that’s just the easy it it’s.
It's a shame that it's getting so much media attention, that it takes all the oxygen away from basic issues that concern everyone. Of course everyone is equal and should be treated fairly. But this 'cultural wedge issue' is not helpful
EDIT / B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front). Why in hades-hell would Vice President Harris NOT call President Trump to account for lying about a border crisis or for placing his interests ahead of those of the country? 🤔
I absolutely disagree, Bill. If there really is the crisis at the border, why would President Trump seek to scuttle the bi-partisan bill? Was it perfect? Compromises always fall short for anyone. Just pass the thing and work to improve it over time. 🤞
Senator Vance blamed Vice President Harris for many thousands of fentanyl over-doses; a crime wave by illegal immigrants; workers' salaries being depressed by the influx of immigrants. Trump calls this crisis an invasion. 🤢
If these assertions be true, is President Trump's request and the Republicans scuttling of the bill to use the 'crisis' as a political issue six or eight months down the road NOT traitorous? I certainly think it is. 😰
Yes, I am Trumped out, too. Yet President Trump is walking click-bait, always seeking attention. Yes, some of the woke stuff is tiresome. Yet, as a conservative by nature, even I understand that it seeks to improve our society. So, just disagree. 🤝
Your not alone. We're all Trump out but knowledge is power and its critical and important especially now that the American people are made aware of project 25 and Trumps agenda for this country. I have many friends who were undecided voters and were not well informed. Reading Heather's newsletters and doing my own research has been a great asset for me to help my friends understand and to have a better perspective about Trumps agenda. I am happy to say that they will be voting for Harris. The more people we reach out to the better off we will be for the salvation of our freedom and our Democracy.
Those "woke issues" are Republican talking(yelling) points. Its a word they USE to put down anyone who is different! Offensive? maybe to Repubs. Frankly, I'm sick and tired and fed up with their(Rs) "version" of Others - you know, anyone who has a different color skin, different lifestyle - different THOUGHTS at this point.
Now I'm 86 years old - I've been around for some time - and honestly? I've had enough of this routine that is only meant to divide us - ALL of us.\
I am not even sure what "woke" is except it seems to be an insult. Personally, I would like to chat with someone who is a republican and see what their views are on some topics. I live in a very blue town and my friends are trump haters, so talking with them is like preaching to the choir. I know it is probably a bad idea, but I often thought of leaving a note on the mail box stating a fact that trumpers don't know. One idea would be that a lot of undocumented workers pay federal taxes (social security) and get no benefit from it. All I hear is that undocumented workers are using up our social security. Not true.
Good one. Lincoln Project had a good one yesterday too. Simple statements, clear contrasts, a touch of snark but not too much. To my eyes Midas Touch's ads often don't have enough content and the images are off by a split second, but there needs to be a range of appeal so they're probably all good.
I agree.I like that she calls him out immediately not letting time or journalism fester the words from his mouth.She is exactly what we need now at this time in our history.
Yes ...as a democrat I am deeply appreciative of her willingness to call him out. No more pussyfooting around. I love she is calling a spade a spade...without hesitation. She is emboldening the party. Thank God
And I think it is changing the tone of the media. So perhaps our ignoring his behavior and minimizing it was a media enabler.
I love that Biden seems unleashed....finally attacking issues I felt should have been attacked before. Better late than never.
Kamila speaks with truth. She speaks from experience and she speaks with a vision of America ...one in which the wealthy pay their FAIR SHARE of taxes as well as the middle class.
She is encouraging us regarding the nurture and care and respect we can avail to one another.
Our teachers should have education opportunities to help them "keep up" with technology or classes needed to expand the teaching of science or to understand more fully bills being "up for vote" that will affect their ability to teach TRUTH and FACTS in the classroom....etc.
An excellent education is necessary for the hope that our children will be ready to engage in working in the jobs of the future. Two years of study, following High School can be an excellent beginning and foundation for a well paying job for our young adults. President Joe Biden has encouraged this path. Joe Biden walked the picket line with the UAW. He loves this country. He and Kamila have been about the business of helping the average family. HOPE and SUCCESS and WORKING TOGETHER and JOBS have been on his agenda.
President Biden and Vice President Harris and their great team continue to work on cost of living issues that affect each of us. He has not stopped serving and giving. He is running the race. He will finish this Presidency having accomplished so much for America and for our relationships throughout the world.
"Our legal system is a creature of the 19th Century and was never meant to deal with a malefactor like Trump -- but there's still a way to win. Donald Trump cannot win his cases fair and square, because he doesn’t have the facts behind him and he doesn’t have the law behind him either. He can’t win clean, so he has to win dirty. That’s generally been his M.O. for 50 years of evading justice: delay, distract, destroy." TRISTANT SNELL Substack & Podcast
Passing the torch? You mean where the voters get the middle finger and the party elites pick the candidate? Kamala didn't get a single vote from anyone and yet she is the party nominee?
How dare Heather lecture anyone on democracy when the Democrats continually thwart democracy. The used super delegates to prevent a Bernie victory in 2016, and the party threw up a firewall to beat Bernie in 2020. Now they let Joe run unopposed and when they didn't like his polling, Pelosi, Obama, and Schumer pulled the plug.
BS. We voted for a ticket that includes her. With an 81 yo candidate we all new the chances of her taking the reins was significant. Here we are and we're happy with it.
Stupid logic. You don't get to be the de facto nominee because you are an incumbent. That is the logic of dictatorships. This is a republic. You are required to win by the will of the voters, not the party elites.
That the sitting president gets to run for s second term is the norm followed in this country for over two hundred years.
You seem to think you are making your arguments in front of ignorant idiots. Please, go read a history or Civics book. Your second sentence flies in the face of history.
Your rudeness and insults won’t win you any converts here. In fact, you’re just exemplifying the worst qualities of MAGA folks and driving. Speaking as a retired psychologist, I can say with confidence that you appear to know nothing about how to get people to take you say seriously. Please change your approach or stop wasting your time.
James, it sounds like you’re saying you feel frustrated that other people have points of view different from your own. Is that what you’re saying? If so, my response to you is that people will disagree with you on a regular basis. I try to remember that other people are just that—other people—and they have their own perspectives. I’m entitled to mine and they theirs.
Joe Biden stepped aside in the face of consistent year-long polling that said he was too old to run. By the time he stepped aside, nearly 75% of Dem voters held that opinion. While it was polling and not a vote, listening to voters is democratic.
Biden stepped down 15 weeks before the election. No time (or money) to re-run primaries. No one challenged Kamala for the nomination, believing that there was no time, no established process, and no chance to win.
I understand you’re saying that party elites picked the candidate. I know a few delegates. One is my dentist, for heaven’s sake. Believe me, this guy is no elite. He did get a call from Kamala, a fact that has made him extremely proud.
And of course the 14 million votes were—in the minds of voters—for Biden, or for Biden-Harris, or for the Dem ticket. In my case, even though I have been a 35-year admirer of his, my vote was for the Dem ticket, hoping Biden would stand down.
Finally, in May of 2016, CNN had reporting that said, with Bernie 500 delegates behind in the primaries, Bernie would have to win 110% of the remaining delegates to win the nomination. Bernie then loudly proposed a change to the voting process within the convention. So, how democratic is that, trying to change the rules in your favor as the clock runs out? At least Kamala followed today’s rules.
“Let Joe run unopposed”? It’s very rare for a sitting president to have an opponent in his/her same party. Three times in the 20th century? You seem to think parties exist in the same form they did in the 1960s. They don’t. They are money-raising, message-developing campaign-coordinating bureaucrats.
There have been 2 major reforms in the last 40 years, and a few minor ones in the Dem party. The primary process is more democratic. But even those reforms didn’t fully anticipate an 81 year-old, running in the face of significant voter opposition, finally realize—at the eleventh hour—that he doesn’t have the energy or stamina for a modern-day campaign.
And subbing out an 81 year-old Biden gor an older Bernie?
This is spin. Joe was forced out by Obama/Pelosi/Schumer under the threat of the 25th amendment.
Incumbents don't get an automatic path to victory, they have to be voted in.
Harris doesn't get to be the nominee because she is incumbent and Joe doesn't get to appoint her - this isn't the crown where the queen chooses her heir.
This was stolen from the American voters plain and simple.
Please provide a link to this claim. Personally, the approval ratings we are seeing now for her candidacy suggest she would have become the candidate and all the delegates I've heard from said yes to her candidacy and all the potential (i.e., likely chosen, could run, might win) alternative candidates,said, Yeh, she is our choice. Your logic seems to be one searching for the perfect system and candidate (not Harris) and, IMIO, would only be completed after election date. The encumbant passed the torch. The consensus comes about as our always is a representative democracy or republic. Our (my) delegates acted on my (our) behalf in the necessity of time ... and to be able to win.
I not sure you understand how the US votes for its president but the final pick is not done by the voter but by the electoral college. I’m glad you have made sport of constant comments here as it’s a cheaper form of therapy than seeing a psychiatrist.
He didn't say nominee James. He said the "final pick."
The entire process is arcane to say the least. Whatever, that BS is that happened on January 6th with Congress pretending like they can change the will of the people, is totally unnecessary. When the electoral college votes, that should be the end of it.
Bernie lost, I am so sorry to inform you. He lost several times, including to Ms Clinton. Bernie is a wonderful human but he is not a majority pick. He is smart, he is truly liberal but he has never won a majority vote for President in a race.
Nor is JFK Jr whom I personally disagree with on many points. His published platform was anti-abortion- they have since removed that section but he is anti-womens rights.
please paint a picture of how you think it should go. Maybe hash it out and decide sometime around December who is the best candidate? Just put Bernie in and hope Republicans don't notice his age? What is your preferred alternate approach?
Did they try to stage a coup to prevent American's votes from being counted? Have they gerrymandered every black community so their votes don't matter? Have they purged certain voters just because? Have they outlawed giving water to people standing in line to vote? Have they blocked appointments to the SCOTUS, then giving their guy 3 justices to sweep in, and take away as many rights as they can? Do they justify using violence to get their aims? Are they the ones opposing widely popular issues like gun control, a woman's right to choose, childhood education, criminal reform, maintaining Social Security and Medicare, controlling drug prices. The list is endless. James you aren't reading the room here. We are for democracy. republicans are NOT.
No point in responding. Giving this guy rent-free space in your head merely feeds the beast . . . with yeast . . . so he can puff himself up. How come I never see a woman acting out like this?
Troll alert! Speaking of giving the finger, you are giving it to Truth, Justice and the American Way…she in on the ballot, we voted for her/them…get over it!
Make no mistake - if Trump wins they will implement every single detail of Project 2025. They can fire all the directors they want, hide the thing in a drawer, take down the website and deny all they want. It is their game plan and the only way to prevent it from becoming a reality is to work every single day between now and Nov 5th to get out the vote and overwhelming defeat this agenda.
I challenge everyone reading this to go to the various websites for Harris and volunteer to do something. Donate, Write postcards, phone bank, text bank or go to a battleground state and knock on doors. Everyone here will vote but we also need everyone to do everything in their power to win.
My ASK ME ABOUT PROJECT 2025 t-shirt arrived today. They're available at: https://store.indivisible.org/ask-me-about-project-2025-unisex-black-tee/. I'm going to wear it tomorrow when I go out to brunch with a friend. Will anyone ask me about Project 2025, and if they do, will they be friendly or hostile? Wish me luck...
I would not be wearing a Project 2025 tee shirt in public if you can”t give an explanation of it”s racist propaganda wrapped behind the extremist superiority of intolerance. There is a podcast that explains PROJECT 2025 in digestible chunks called:
MAGA's Master Plan: Decoding the Dangers of Project 2025
Taking Down Trump - TRISTEN SNELL. PODCAST check my spelling)
…In this bonus episode, we begin a deep dive into Project 2025, the controversial blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. We’ll expose alarming plans to dismantle the civil service system, politicize government agencies, and reshape the military. From gutting worker protections to imposing extreme ideological tests, we analyze the far-reaching implications of Project 2025 for American democracy and institutions. Join us for the first installment of this critical examination of Trump's vision for reshaping the federal government.
I would like to write some stories about the effects. Let us look into Education for example. What is the effect of taking the funding from that department and giving it directly to parents? How will it effect parents who want to send their children to public schools? Still, I would want to wear this, because my Democrats Abroad Project 2025 Book Club group is reading and discussing it so we can go out and tell people about it. So, that would be the perfect shirt to wear!
Let's see - giving the ed money to parents to educate their kids as they want? Is that what is done in Sunday School? Pretty obvious that the religious right are pissed that their faith cannot withstand the scrutiny of education.
Kathy, thank you for this article. I retained some ideas, but not the details. In Project 2025 it claims that the DOE is spending around $22,000 a pupil, and that is what they propose to give. But, this not only will effect charter and home schoolers (which is the target population for this legislation, as well as religious schools), but elite private schools as well. The pool of teachers to hire from will be people who have no experience in a public school classroom, one that is regulated and gives a good opportunity for student teaching as well. I am wondering where all of these great teachers will come from who have useful experiences creating curriculum etc... I just cannot believe that the US is allowing its schools to be so loosey goosey. It is terrible and will affect our global competitiveness. Of course, if you want to be creating a school system for people who believe in the End of Days, as Trump seems to target his future administration, then the quality of the education won't matter. See Andra Watkins comparison between End of Days for Christian Nationalists vs. The New Apostolic Reformation here.
In the meantime, homeschooling families with lots of children can make bank. No one oversees whether they are actually teaching their children. If their instruction is solely focused on their religious instruction and nothing like reading or math, as we read about in the Shivas, or people who belonged to the church the Duggars of Shiny, Happy People infamy attended, then we have people who are not going to be useful in the "temporal world" or independent or free. It is quite frightening and seems very third world cultish to me.
I follow and love Andra Watkins ! In FL, the homeschoolers rebelled this year and that’s why the legislature did nothing about 2023 legislation that allowed them to purchase large screen tv’s,stand-up paddle boards and theme park tickets with voucher 💲.
When I asked my Fl Rep what they would do to prevent homeschoolers from teaching a neo-Nazi curriculum with my tax dollar, he replied they would be meeting with a “choice navigator”. I believe it was once or twice a year.🤔 I have no idea if that is actually happening.
It starts with defunding Head Start and nutrition programs and goes through higher ed--I haven't read if Pell grants would disappear, but I'm guessing they would. We love our uneducated citizens, and who cares, since they won't need to vote ever again...
She should do another week on the guys that funded it -- the Koch foundation. I think they put up $20 million?? I don't recall the actual number but it was a drop in the bucket for the billionaire Kochs.
I am not surprised to learn today that black is the color. I have literally complained for the 20 years that women's fashion designers have flooded black dresses on the market. I have found it hard to find so pastels which look good on older women. A woman only needs one black dress.
Another group to look into to gain more information is RedWine.Blue. Heather presented on Project 2025 two weeks ago and Sen Elizabeth Warren spoke this week. You can listen to their piece and sign up for future talks. https://redwine.blue/project2025/
HCR also spoke to Democrats Abroad. It was a wonderful talk. Yesterday we also heard from Prof. Timothy Snyder talking about autocracy in the US. That was also interesting.
Betsy, I just received my STOP Project 2025 t-shirt and will be wearing it today on my grocery run.I’ve been wearing messaging t’s (including Biden/Harris) since Feb with NO negative comments/conversations….and I live in MAGA-vile, FL.
I’ve been sharing this letter widely.It was also published as a Letter To Ed and I use as a guide when I talk with people.Others can use as a template If you live in a “test case” state, customize and fill in how P2025 is happening NOW !!! I could have gone on and on about Florida….sigh, but people have short attention spans.
A recent article spoke of our state as being a test case for Project 2025.
Florida has a draconian six-week abortion ban and a governor fighting the citizen-led ballot initiative ,Amendment 4 ,for reproductive rights.
Florida has school vouchers, with the majority (81%) used for those attending private, religious schools that have no requirements for teacher certification and school accreditation.
Florida has legislation that deletes most reference to climate change from state law.
Florida has “anti-woke” legislation championed by those such as the Spring Hill Florida Representative who declared on the House floor ,“Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do.”
Project 2025 is not an “idea”. It is 920-page blueprint for a radical reshaping of our country.
Your vote is your voice. It’s Democracy versus Autocracy and White “Christian” Nationalism on the ballot.
It's so ironic that the FL legislature doesn't "believe" in climate change. Their "policies" will increase the loss of land mass when the oceans rise. The FL capitol building is is only 25 miles form the ocean! (I looked it up-LOL!)
Matt, excellent points. I think it best not to provoke the crazies. And, your Prius, I had a 2010 Prius and decided to give it to my daughter and her husband last year. I searched online to get an idea of what it was worth. Guess what? None are for sale. I wouldn't have sold mine either. I loved that car. People buy them and keep them.
Love the T-shirt. I would love to order them for my bookclub, but it would be too expensive to ship them to Europe. Do you know of any place to get them abroad?
"The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because frankly we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK.”
King DonOld I
CFDT actually said "love". This has to be fake news. He must be getting desperate to use the "L" word.
Are you all in one place, or are you spread out all over the map? If you're all in Paris, there's undoubtedly a place that prints t-shirts. You could go to Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris, France (https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/), or wherever expats hang out to see if anyone there has suggestions.. Good luck.
Thank you Betsy. I put it out to my local Democrats Abroad in Northern Germany and have gotten several suggestions. My daughter loves that bookstore in Paris by the way. Not only does she carry the very trendy bag from the store, but considers the upstairs a magical place. She lives in Berlin which also has a few English bookstores. All book stores are havens for her. Enjoy your visit together.
Agreed on havens in book places and banning is a no no. I have several friends who are children's book writers and I used to select diverse books (which would be banned by Moms for Liberty) for my grade together with a book author colleague and our librarian. Coincidentally, my daughter rents her place from a family that lives in the front apartment and the mom is from NZ. The dad is from Poland. The mom is an English Lit major, so there are lots of books and there is lots of reading in that home. It is a good fit for her. If your daughter is not a member, I hope she joins Democrats Abroad NZ. They help get her to vote from abroad. https://www.democratsabroad.org/nz
Please check out also the most effective voter registration and turnout organization run by brilliant Harvard students which is in the process of registering hundreds of thousands of Community College students and HS seniors 18 to 29 yrs of age...www.TurnUp.US. It most efficiently concentrates its nonpartisan efforts only in the most "competitive" congressional districts and senate elections based on protecting reproductive rights, controlling assault weapons, and fighting climate change! They are very experiienced and efficiently use social media to run registration drives in those schools and it is a 501c3 so you get a tax deduction as well...please contribute generously...they are the real deal!
I have donated to TurnUp and had a chat with Zev. I asked about postcard writing to help out. He said they don't do post card writing because youth don't read mail. I got a kick out of that and I agree. They are amazing in getting out the 18-29 year olds to register to vote. They focus on swing states. We need this young generation desperately.
We really appreciate your good judgment in supporting this brilliant group of Harvard students who have figured out efficient ways to use soc med to reach hundreds of thousands of 18 to 29s to register and vote in critically “competitive” congressional districts to protect abortion rights!
I agree Ann -- a rose by any other name is still a thorn in our democracy. His views align with ProjeQt 2025, or Agenda 47 and you know he will implement these plans if given the chance. He must not be.
I am writing postcards and my wife and I have donated three times so far to the Harris campaign, with more to come.
Project 2025 is exactly the opposite of what the founders wanted for the country they were creating. They fought so hard to get rid of a king. Project 2025 is dangerous bullshit.
As for cryptocurrency, that would be a criminal disaster, enabling all kinds of criminal activity.
I don’t understand why bitcoin and its ilk haven’t been made illegal. It’s the major source of funding for all manner of illegal activities. If you loose a fortune because it’s shut down I guess you should have invested in a legitimate business not a ponzi scam. It’s not in the interest of any government or society outside of maybe Russia, North Korea, and Iran and who among us want’s to support them?
I am reading Project 2025 with my Democrats Abroad book club. I am finding that Andra Watkins discussion of the religious beliefs of the groups Trump is catering to politically, and that Project 2025 is targeted to helps me to understand some of the subtext in P2025. For one, she talks about the belief systems of Christian Nationalists and The New Apostolic Reformation, which is what Alito and Mike Johnson seem to belong to. One of the things she discusses is their differing views of the end of days.
So, since the CNs believe that the end of days is near they have no reason to worry about the environment even though we are living in a climate change nightmare already. Secondly, she talks about how the NAR believes that they have to make the earth ready for God first as a difference, so that they have to impose their beliefs on everyone. We are hoping to put together one pagers targeted to different audiences. I like this cool TikTok that Robert Reich made. Well, I know my 19-year old daughter would call it "cringy" but I assume it might get views because it is funny, and he is putting himself out there. https://youtu.be/J4m1YAcQNXc?si=fJ4vNL7YeiAaPkNS
Linda- their actions show that they believe in a very weak God. A TV series named Stargate that dealt with aliens that used humans as slaves and built the pyramids had a great episode where it was asked "If you God is so powerful, why is he asking you to do his fighting and die for him? Can't he just use his power?" This is the statement that would cause their heads to explode.
Yes! There is a job for everyone and everyone needs to find it, even if it’s catsitting for poll workers or babysitting for their children. At 90 I’m part of the postcard posse, using printing skills left over from WWII when I was in second grade and part of the “War Effort” learning to knit squares for afghans for soldiers. (I’m faster with postcards. Still world’s slowest knitter.)
Well, let me clear that up for you. They did not mean to expose themselves but some handy tech people did some rabbit hole dives and found the information! These journalists and researchers wanted to know who paid off Kavanaugh’s debts and how did Mitch McConnell get three illegitimate justices on SCOTUS. Who recommended these particular three? Everything pointed at Leonard Leo. He’s a religious fanatic who has serious ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian oligarchs, Ginni and Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow, Charles Koch, The Mercer family, Barry Seid, etc.. He has been challenged by Sen. Whitehouse to testify and he has, thus far, refused to do so. He is Catholic but not a fan of Pope Francis. He has established 40+ companies, all under the guise of being charitable organizations which he has filed 501 3c’s on all. Surprisingly, (not) is that Ginni Thomas is the owner of one of those companies. Each company launders money to each other. Leo is behind the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. Remember his name.
In addition to agreeing that is necessary to prevent authoritarian autocracy by voting overwhelmingly for egalitarian democracy, I feel compelled to say that although winning in November is necessary, it is not sufficient. The following is not a criticism of anyone. Instead, it is just my personal opinion as to what must happen in addition to winning in November.
We live in a social system. If you change a system, any system, and you don't know what you're doing, you're not making it better. Instead, you're tampering, and by tampering, you're making it worse. So, you need to understand the system. The good news is that the basic principle is simple enough for every elementary school graduate to understand.
Civilization exists because of our genetically inherited social instinct. As Charles Darwin put it, "The very essence of instinct is that it is followed independently of reason." To anyone who is reading this, I can tell you that any appearance that you are not following our species' social instinct is an illusion. Our instinct is why our Paleolithic ancestors lived in hunter-gatherer bands, and our instinct is why, when our more recent ancestors discovered they had too many people and not enough territory to live as hunter-gatherers, they adapted by creating civilization.
It comes down to a choice between two simple ideas. On their side, there's Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Kevin Roberts, Vladimir Putin, Peter Theil, Adolf Hitler, and Elon Musk who are among the people who believe that the "system" works when it is CONTROLLED by the chosen ones, and to their surprise, they've "discovered" that they are the chosen ones. On our side, there are the Hebrew prophets, Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jesus of Nazareth, the Prophet Muhammed, Adam Smith (the founding father of capitalism), Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, JFK, MLK, RFK Sr, John Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris who are among those who know that the "system" works when it is CONSTRAINED by the "treat others the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot" principle.
In conclusion, we don't choose to follow our instinct. We just follow our instinct like an actor following a script. But we do get to choose what to include and what to exclude. My personal choice is to include the following idea:
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." —Martin Luther King Jr.
Make no mistake, P25 is for ANY REPUBLICAN. Just look at GOP controlled states for examples. Hang this around every republican candidate or office holder, every one of them. Until they come out against it publicly, it is THEIR policy.
Exactly, Ann! What are the Trumpites “disavowing” actually? Did the “disavowel” show SUPPORT for the Department of Education? What did the “disavowel” say about Climate Change or Equal Rights? Did the “disavowel” say “We ain’t gonna do that Sh*t”? Nope.
I have no problem believing that the convicted felon trump doesn't know what's in the project 2025 document. I have seen no sign that the convicted felon trump is capable of reading or understanding the document.
When the convicted felon trump got involved with "reality tv" after failing at every business he ever got involved in, I remember reading somewhere that the only thing of value he had was the name trump. He sold the rights to putting the trump name on buildings, but he did not own them or have any part in deciding where or how to build them.
I believe that is exactly how his political career has operated; he sells his name but has no actual part in developing policy. That explains his blathering on in public appearances, and his number of golf games while supposedly President.
So, yes, if he is elected, he will not implement 2025, but he will appear to, and it will be implemented.
Absolutely correct, the Heritage Foundation isn't a flash in the pan & it isn't going away- it has to be kept from scurrying back into the woodwork where it can continue devouring the real foundation of our country - thinking, working, caring people. It is time for action.
Like Tim Walz said, "These people are Weird." And the term has caught on - VP Harris used it today in her speech in Atlanta and got a huge response to the question, "Aren't these people weird?"
And the more the escapees from Flyover Loserville claim they're not weird, the more weird they show themselves to be.
The weird label concerns as me as well because weird and innocuous can go together. Weird can imply harmless. Trump, Steven Miller, Kevin Roberts, JD Vance etc. are dangerous and we can’t afford to forget it. Power grabs aren’t weird, they’re pretty common and can be, as they are here, very dangerous. We’ve got to take these people seriously because if we don’t, they could succeed and we can’t afford that.
This is not the use of the word "weird" as "innocuous." It'sthe use of"Weird" as in "creepy," "someone you cross the street to avoid," etc. Go look up how Walz used it and I think you'll get the idea.
Thanks, TCinLA, for pointing out the importance of the context in which Gov. Walz used "weird." Being a Minnesotan, I recognize "weird" as what you say about anything that doesn't fit anywhere in your logic system. It could be about a thing or a person or an intractable problem. It could be negative, neutral, or positive. What those uses have in common is that you see something is "weird" when you can't reckon with it. I think Walz naming Trump's people as "weird" stretches how we see them. They're not just wrong about what matters for a nation; their ideas don't fit anywhere that makes sense.
My wisest friend says, "We're all anomalies". I find this current example of "weird" to be a catch-all that invites people to project their own meanings. It seems unhelpful in this critical leadership context.
I think there's "good weird" (me) and "creepy weird" (Trump & Co.) Maybe "creepy weird" is what to call them -- it's funny and knocks them off their high faux-Christian horse. I'm all for that!
I like the term weird because it is dismissive in a way that mocks DJT....gets people laughing at the bully, which can be very effective...and DJT hates being laughed at...likely causing him to lose power and deteriorate even further and faster.
I agree. He doesn’t think he’s weird at all, or at least he’s worried some e will think he is. That ilk think they are the normal ones, and must foist that “ normality” on the rest of us. That’s weird.
Hillary s "despicable" was a very good word that she used for Trump. She never called his supporters "despicable" but these project 2025 people are in my book. Weird is not the best word but I'm concern that the words I'd like to use would make people ignore me and I would lose my in my conversation. I'll stay with "weird"
A certain levity can bolster morale. as in Franklin's comment about all hanging separately. There is also the power of the political humorist, such as Thomas Nast cartoons.
Exactly. It's like calling someone a nerd. I am one and have been called one many times, but I don't perceive it negatively.
But call CFDT a nerd and he steam would come out of his ears. Manly men aren't nerds and they aren't weird. Other possible pejoratives are "old" and "dotard".
I’m not concerned. The “weird” label will stick, I think, and carry its bad connotations. I like “creepy” better, but Walz did well sticking them with a negative moniker.
Pretty far over the borderline. They are explicitly menacing. It’s part of their schtick, and upwards 74 million Americans like it, which 74 million the world would be a better place without.
31July2024: Just for the record, there are now three colorful billboards in the Phoenix area with the following message: “Welcome to Arizona, JD Vance. Abortion access is not up for grabs here, weirdo.” So “weird” (or “weirdo” in this case, which pretty much eliminates any positive connotations) seems to be going viral. Hooray! May it persist through November 5.
TC - there are plenty of good people in Flyover Ville and plenty of weirdos on the coasts, as I’m sure you know. JD Vance’s backers are in California and New York. I live in Silicon Valley and we’re dealing with our share of weirdos in local governments here too. Wherever you find concentrations of wealth, you find these libertarian and crypto and fascist weirdos.
As someone who left Flyover Loserville 3 days after I graduated from High School and went back as seldom as possible until there weren't any more funerals to worry about, I have plenty of reason to continue to dislike the place.
I grew up in Michigan and am so proud that Whitmer is now leading that state. There is Mid-Western warmth and earnestness as well as some stuck in the mud conservative notions.
Countries where the great mass of people live in poverty while most of the nation's wealth is held by a few families are objectively creepy, so it seems at some point too much concentration of wealth is too much. Yet it's never enough for some, and some cannot bear to see anyone outside of the aristocracy catch an even break.
Many good people, yes, but a significant majority of the white people in the flyover (a 20- to 40-point, or worse depending on the area) are despicable people. TC is, I fhink, talking about that cohort, not the 30% or so who are good people. The “msny good people” line is the line Trump uses all the time to make excuses for the despicable ideas he promotes.
We have all drank the cool-aid if we believe in Cryto and AI as anything ‘real.’ But that’s the drugification of much of the reality of this marketing…Fuax is a motor drug dealers, legal, perhaps, but the same actions on your brain. HCR is the antidote!
You mean the rural people who took the hit when Ronnie Raygun broke up the Unions that provided living wages to the working class? They have a legitimate beef with the monopolies that moved in and bought out the family farms and littered their towns with big box stores that Mom & Pop stores couldn't compete with and who paid the federal minimum wage which hasn't moved off of $7.50 / hour for decades. The same goes for the government that ignored them.
Poverty is built into the Flyover space. So their towns public schools can't hire the best teachers and administrators and when their kids graduate they are not ready for the information economy and head to urban environments or the military where there are jobs and training in useful skills.
Yes, they have been down so long that Trump looks like up to them. And he doesn't care about them he's just using their anger to get them to rally around his messiah complex. My father had a saying which applies here: "An argument wouldn't last long if that right / truth was only one side."
What's weird is how lacking in sympathy we are for each other.
The MAGAts I know are not poverty-stricken or ignorant. Just seem to have a taste for bullschittery. Tis true that small towns and rural areas have some jewels mixed with the turds, but the ratios have reversed in a couple of decades. I am as empathetic as most, maybe too much so. But I have no sympathy/empathy/tolerance for deliberate ignorance when the truth is available but ignored.
They are adicted on purpose. They like it and want to stay that way. If the Fox propaganda lightened up, they’d find another enabler. No excuses! They simply are not decent human beings.
Montana $10.30 / hour Montana Department of Labor and Industry ✓
Nebraska $12.00 / hour Nebraska Department of Labor
Nevada $12.00 / hour Nevada Department of Business and Industry ✓
New Hampshire $7.25 / hour New Hampshire Department of Labor
New Jersey $15.13 / hour New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development ✓
New Mexico $12.00 / hour New Mexico Department of Work Force Solutions
New York $15.00 / hour New York Department of Labor
North Carolina $7.25 / hour North Carolina Department of Labor
North Dakota $7.25 / hour North Dakota Department of Labor
Ohio $10.45 / hour Ohio Department of Commerce ✓
Oklahoma $7.25 / hour Oklahoma Department of Labor
Oregon $14.20 / hour Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ✓
Pennsylvania $7.25 / hour Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
Puerto Rico $9.50 / hour Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources
Rhode Island $14.00 / hour Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
South Carolina $7.25 / hour South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulations
South Dakota $11.20 / hour South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation ✓
Tennessee $7.25 / hour Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development
Texas $7.25 / hour Texas Workforce Commission
Utah $7.25 / hour Utah Labor Commission
Vermont $13.67 / hour Vermont Department of Labor
Virginia $12.00 / hour Virginia Department of Labor and Industry
Washington $16.28 / hour Washington Department of Labor and Industries ✓
West Virginia $8.75 / hour West Virginia Division of Labor
Wisconsin $7.25 / hour Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development
Wyoming $7.25 / hour Wyoming Department of Workforce Service
Most of the Confederate states are stuck at $7.25 except VA,FL and AR. And what's with AZ at $14.35 an hour. Don't they realize they are a swing state?
The check mark means their rate is indexed so the rate changes each year.
Rural people and the white working clsss took the hit and asked for more because Reagan guaranteed to continue the economic, legal, and social oppression of black people. Rural people and the white working class caused their own demise and did it for despicable reasons. They deserve no sympathy whatever.
And they still are doing it. The tax cut bill of 2017 was another failed example of trickle down economics. Economists estimate the loss of revenue from the uber rich and corporations at $2.5 trillion. But who ended up with the other $5.4 trillion that was added to the national debt?
Every time I hear Trump trumpeting about "fixing" our country, I can't help thinking that we use the word when we "fix" our pets so that they will be impotent and unable to reproduce. We need to make sure that Trump and his followers do not get a chance to make to make our democracy impotent.
Yes, we do fix our pets for their safety & health & also to protect against unplanned babies that won't be adequately cared for! To let things be twisted so that everything supports white men thinking & acting with their dicks is unthinkable. Men are the only animals that will destroy everything around them by saying an urge is the meaning of life. In nature, this is held in check by the female mating cycle, other species aren't running around raping everything in sight, that's insane & sick. Healthy white males know this, too. Glamorizing dangerous behavior has to be stopped, we can't indulge the dark, sick fantasies of this dying breed & we can't afford to wait until they kill each other off. Didn't mean to go off on your comment, lol, but yeah, these a-holes need to be fixed, for their own good & everything around them. It's the compassionate & smart thing to do.
Look at Russia - the GOP sent Friedman over there to fix it and what happened? All public infrastructure sold off at pennies on the dollars to the former power brokers and to those from the West willing to come in and exploit the new system. Putin is a very well funded soviet communist who used government power to bring the wealthy under his control rather successfully. This is the republican party of today, P25 is their road map and will not just go away. All the republicans are in line with the plan as who have you heard come out and condemn it? tRump's denial is not a denial.
Yes, Project 2025 aims to destroy the good governance Heather cites Tim Walz leading in Minnesota.
This is good governance most Americans want -- whose basics Heather also lists here. But something else: as Rolling Stone has recently written -- and Rachel Maddow yesterday reported on: how MAGA as of now has at least 70 2020 election deniers in office across swing state America set to certify 2024 results only for the orange felon.
As David Cay Johnston has said to this, it will take many lawyers, court cases, and dollars to litigate the new MAGA corruption.
But recall, we’re deep in it already, from the head rotting down, as in all those perjured, bribed, fully corrupt Republicans of the Clarence court ruling first American women into MAGA medievaldom, then the rest of us into the further lawlessness of Clarence court also having ruled their orange felon above the law, and ditto the billionaire predators now with impunity violating federal agency health, safety, finance, and environmental protections.
Evil: entrenched. In the long run it’s going to take schools to put humanities back, and return teachers (not testing) to the center.
The short run (90-some days now): an avalanche of decent souls voting out MAGA.
I saw Rachel Maddow yesterday, too, and I worry about those election deniers…a nightmare I envision is that Harris wins by a huge landslide in the popular vote but, between election denying officials and assistance from foreign governments, the orange criminal “wins” and takes office and we lose our democracy. I hope this nightmare doesn’t turn into reality.
The even bigger nightmare is when States with R administrations refuse to validate the chosen electors and send their own personally chosen “alternative” slate to the EC.
We can't even go back to medieval society if we wanted to. Too many things have changed. I think the real aim is refeudalization, for those for whom billions is never enough is the real engine under the hood of MAGA, as it was in the fight to retain slavery and currently to replace democracy with autocracy.
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." - Lincoln
The Supreme Court delivered the presidential election in 2000 to the Republican Party in Bush v. Gore. The MAGA majority opinion in Trump v. United States benefited Trump by eviscerating the separation of powers doctrine upon which the Constitution is founded. As such, it is not a stretch to believe that at least some members of the majority (Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas) would not balk at putting their thumb on the scales to get the Trump/Vance ticket across the line.
The Powell memo back in 1971 set in motion all that became today's corruption.
Louis Powell and his chambers of commerce and corporate allies then just wanted primacy for commercial interests in the U.S. It meant, then, marginalizing or totally ridding humanities from school curricula -- allowing the presence of and priorities for the personal interfered with the business of turning all life to numbers, units, moneyed issues only.
Easy enough by the end of the 1970s to have rid schools of humanities. Next, financializing all higher ed as well as turning all K-12 over to the profiteers of standardized testing. (See Wendell Berry, "The Unsettling of America," 1977; and Diane Ravitch, "The Language Police," 2003, plus several other key works on how the corporate vulgarized, made totally impotent all American education.)
The coast was then clear beginning in the 1980s to offshore the millions of working-class jobs so the rich got richer and government got suborned to dark money.
Correct you are, Mark -- 2000 was the turning point, at which early version of the Clarence court was drawing its artillery in its war against democracy, America.
Yes Phil, the Powell memo has had a very damaging impact on the United States. I have just scanned the memo again. Powell attacks the left:
"the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic. These extremists of the left are far more numerous, better financed, and increasingly are more welcomed and encouraged
by other elements of society, than ever before in our history. But they remain a small minority and are not yet the principal cause for concern. |The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism, come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians."
In fact, Powell is attacking pluralism. How dare "perfectly respectable elements of society" criticize the system.
Powell highlights the opportunity to use the courts as instruments of change:
"American business and the enterprise system have been affected as much by the courts as by the executive and legislative branches of government. Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary
may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change."
So few have seen that Powell memo as the juggernaut it has been. And yet, in plain language then, and in the obvious actions of the far-right foundations to implement what Sheldon Whitehouse has called their schemes ("The Scheme"), they indeed waylaid, marginalized, killed off the humanities that buoyed our pluralism, then used the courts to open the floodgates of vulgarity, pro-criminality.
But she now faces Reuben Gallego in the general election for the U.S. Senate seat from Arizona. If Dems can stay united nationally, and Kamala can provide good cohesion, many orange felon sycophants can be crushed fairly convincingly in November.
I’m so glad that you are writing about 45’s telling people that they just have to elect him in 2024 and then they won’t have to vote again.
We need to keep sharing what’s in Project 2025. Buried on page 489 is the statement “Medicare Advantage will be the default.” This is a big gift to the insurance companies. Back in 1965, to get Medicare passed, the bill was changed so that enrollees could only get the best rates on their Medicare supplement (Medigap) policies) if they enrolled in a Medigap policy when they first signed up for Medicare and never dropped Medigap coverage—otherwise, insurers could charge whatever the market could bear or refuse coverage for preexisting conditions. Today, that means if you choose Medicare Advantage first or change to Medicare Advantage for more than 3 months, then you can be charged much more. Friends and relatives who switched to Medicare Advantage and then got Medigap quotes the next year found that their premiums had tripled or quadrupled.
She knows. And I’ll add that if you chose Medicare Advantage and decide later to switch to a supplement you must medically qualify. You can be turned down completely. This means you’re stuck in an Advantage plan. That “free” gym membership can cost you much more.
These are not the kind of Christians I grew up with--people who believed in Jesus as the Prince of Peace, and the moral requirement to help not only your neighbors, but also the strangers whose life paths cross our own. I didn't go to any of the churches they went to, but they learned good values, not a tribalistic exceptionalism.
I think that there has long been a strain of narcissistic,predatory "religion" that practices the opposite of what Jesus taught. Somehow it is often more salient than churches based on kindness. Jesus was indifferent and/or critical of material wealth and political power. It does seem that anti-Christian "Christians", and anti republic "Republicans" have been on a roll since my childhood. Those who condemn the most deprived, worship wealth, and yearn to machine-gun their enemies seem the antithesis of Jesus' values.
I'm going to agree that it's the way that has all turned out, there is no 'seem' to it. It's real. Just look at the actions not the words. People who aren't encouraged to think will swallow the words as if they meant something terribly high minded all by themselves. In fact churches have discouraged thinking. And as a Jew I have to say one reason we are reviled is that the work we do is reviled; why is another question altogether. And we do it every single week, even in the camps. And that is questioning the mysterious words given, however they were given. They are still guides but we have to figure it out constantly because things keep changing in that very human way that humans have of exploring and figuring stuff out. Meaning is derived from how things affect people and to what degree of actual good will.
The fake Christians you refer to are using the supposed voice of God somehow implanted in their sick brains as a tool for control of everyone else and this has been going on for about 1,700 years. I think of it as brain and heart poverty
That translates beautifully as "We won't need YOU anymore," not just your vote. People are expendable and replaceable. And if they resist, shoot them. I know that sounds grim, but I've done a fair amount of reading about the gulags and the concentration camps. Such authoritarianism is cruel beyond belief. These people are dangerous and we must not let them cheat or interfere with the election process. It is truly sobering how open the Orange Menace is. I have two grandsons, two granddaughters, and two great-granddaughters by blood and more by marriage. I shudder against going back. As VP Kamala Harris says, "We WON'T go back."
Trump is such a moron, he doesn't even know what fascism is. At one point he called all of us (liberal progressives) Antifa - a title I was happy to retain. Of course, he thought it was an insult. but I' am an anti-fascist and have been for almost 85 years since my father explained it to me in October 1939 when I was 6 years old. Since then I've learned not only to hate fascism but to fear it as well. But Trump in his stupidity has made a 180 degree turn and now is calling us fascists (I think he is confusing it with socialists but who knows what goes on in that scrambled brain, if anything)
But it's not just voting for the Harris/? ticket . We, the voters of the United States, MUST give Kamala both Houses of Congress, preferably for the first four years. There are too many things that have to be enacted.
I agree with everything President Biden said regarding the Supreme Court. BUT, I'd like to add another need: We need a list of basic requirements for all appointed and elected positions in at least the Federal Government. As of now, only two of the Branches have ANY requirements - the Executive and Legislative branches, have AGE and Citizenship requirements. Yahoo! They don't need to be able to read and write, or do simple arithmetic. They don't need to have read the Constitution of the United States, with comprehension. And for the Federal Courts, including the Supreme, they don't even need to have a law degree OR to have passed the bar.
That's right. I don't give a damn what party you belong to, do you really want a driveling moron representing you in Government? I don't. I happen to have a physician who in his former life was the County's Chief Medical Officer - he's obviously very intelligent, but more than that, he is very civic minded.
There are many respectable attorneys as well as some astute business men. But on the other hand we have Matt Gaetz - who's only claim to fame is having carnal relations with under age girls, or Marjorie Taylor Green - her only claim to fame is bleached blond hair and a loud mouth.
Any candidate for any office should be able to read and write at the 12th grade level. The very least education should be a high school diploma, college degree preferable, their understanding of the Constitution should be at least equivalent to that of a naturalized citizen.
And for the Supreme Court, not just a law degree, but prior experience and references as a judge at a lower level PLUS a knowledge of and acceptance of the Constitution AS IT IS WRITTEN, not as they fantasize they would have written it. These are the requirements on which ANY President should choose a Supreme Court Justice - not on their political party affiliation - but on their ability to read the Rule of Law with understanding and EQUAL fairness for all.
It would help if teacher were paid a living wage. My father was a teacher and was respected and well paid in that capacity. Back then curriculums required students take a course in Civics which made students aware of the structure and purpose of the various branches of the Federal government at a minimum. Unfortunately, most school systems have dropped the mandatory Civics course in favor of STEM courses and sports. And regrettably the quality of public education depends on where you fall in the income brackets and how much your house cost.
Thank you, Larry. I retired from teaching in 1988. And yes, compared to other government jobs I was well paid. I retired because my husband was retiring that year and we were building a house in an adjoining County about 65 miles away (and I was 55, retirement age) I went to work in social Services in that County at a third less money, retired from the County and went to work in the same field (social services) but private computer consulting for more than I made as a teacher. I taught science (chemistry, physics and astronomy) so was not involved but unhappily aware of the cuts to education including civics and vocational education. Education went downhill from there. Being a Naturalized Citizen - I did read my Constitution, still have the same worn copy, and learned to love it. It is a real pity most citizens have never read it. I've won many arguments with my American gun loving relatives who thought the second amendment was just the 2nd phrase "........the right to bear arms shall not be infringed."
A country is a potentially dangerous vehicle for choices, and poor decisions can be deadly, both at home and abroad. If it is really to be DIY governance, we surely need some basic, empowering training to operate it wisely, justly, and safely.
When my daughter began college, an official who later served a spell as college president, gave a speech to parents, spoke of Socrates, and asked us to think about teachers who had changed our lives for the better. I could think of several. I've been something of a computer nerd since the mid 1970s and helped create some interactive applications, but while I am convinced machine-aided learning has a place, it is not an equivalent to flesh and blood. The maps are not the territories. My wife and several friends are or were public school, teachers, and while as in any profession, I've encountered some duds, I think that dedicated and highly skilled teaching is one of the most essential professions on the planet. Also, frankly, I think the younger children are, the more learned and skilled the teacher should be. And yeah, some kind of standards, but outcome based, and objective oriented, recognizing that teaching is an individual art as well as a science.
And also, I think that successful and admirable living is an art as well as a science, as s wise statecraft. I'm not sure what to make of STEM. I was an avid science major (but a generalist overall) and I think that our system does a good job of preparing science professionals, but (seemingly, and there is research that shows this) a fairly sorry job of of training those with no professional scientific ambitions to think scientifically, or even adequately appreciate the hows and whys of scientific thinking in increasingly technologically enabled society without much appreciation of extended consequences. You don't have to understand the technical aspects of the "field" of science to use, even if only casually, the scientific method, To apply beneficial disciplines to thought. MAGA is the utter abandonment of that.
Requirement for qualification for office is a very tricky area, and one that could be easily abused, but as you point out, we have a presidential requirement for minimum age. In some respects it's arbitrary, but it assures some exposure to experience; sans any guarantee that the person in question was paying attention. Should a person with access to top secret documents, never mind nuclear codes, be required to pass existing standards for security clearance? So it would seem to me. Should a person whose duty is to uphold the law be permitted to casually break the law? Even foundational law? Perhaps there is room for, in retrospect one-of-a kind exceptions. Even "laws" of mathematics contain some inherent, Godelian inconsistencies. But in the main, how in the hell to we expect those who struggle to respect the law when those most privileged are given a pass? And how do you check and balance?
We as a society need a far more articulate understanding of our own, and our social, psychology, We have an experiential, individual nature as well as social dependencies and a social nature. We of necessity follow self-interest, but letting ego run the whole show produces sociopathic evils; and makes our species it's own worst enemy. Particularly in this "as seen on TV", and now the Internet age, we seem to conflate leadership and virtue with celebrity, and yet, it government of, by and for the people is for real, we are constantly making decisions that impact the future of our whole society, so while part of the joy of life (I think) is the child in us that never dies, at least until we do, there are definitely times to put away childish things. At a certain point, it's not a game, it's real; and the real world is full of perils as well as nurture and wonders. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
I absolutely detest the Trump ads about Harris’ failures at the border. They are so far removed from truth and reality! I heard VP Harris speak yesterday and she called the GOP out on the facts of the issue. It is important that she reminds people who killed that bipartisan bill. It wasn’t her!!!
Ahhhh… the belief in a “leadership class”. I think people like Vance (or whatever his name really is) dream of being Kings not politicians (as defined by the Founding Fathers).
I suggest people who think it’s a good thing that America won World War II learn the role management pioneer Dr W Edwards Deming played in that victory.
At a time when America needed to build a lot of tanks, planes and other weapons quickly and at high quality, Deming’s pioneering methods created factory cultures in which everyone learned from each other and top down management was minimized. Bosses were no longer kings. In order to improve the quality of what was produced, mistakes were openly discussed … because they were opportunities to learn and improve the manufacturing process.
We literally won the war by doing away with the notion of a “leadership class“ and instituting the concept of “community of equals dedicated to quality“.
Sadly, this cultural breakthrough was forgotten during the rah rah years of the 1950s … when America manufacturers could sell whatever they made. But that loss was not permanent. In 1980, the Deming management method was rediscovered because it was discovered (by NBC News) as being used by Japan, where what was being made was now the best in the world. (Deming had been sent to Japan in 1950 by General McArthur.)
For a while, top down management went away in America again. Companies like Ford hired Deming to teach them how to put quality first and minimize the power of the boss. In the 1980s, the marketing slogan of the Ford Motor Company was “at Ford quality is job one“.
People like Vance probably don’t care that we won the World War II through a cooperative effort because he dreams of being a king. I don’t know where he got that dream, but people like him want to take us back to the time when a real king ruled the 13 colonies.
Here’s a clip from one of the final presentations Deming gave … in the early 1990s … in which he advocated an approach to using his methods that could ultimately heal the world… taking it from a culture of cut throat competition to one of global cooperation and continuous learning and improvement. This breakthrough is still possible today!
Speaking of cooperation, the Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of Spain deserves greater recognition. Started in 1956, it includes 95 autonomous cooperatives in finance, industry, retail, technology and R&D. One worker, one vote. Top executive salary only 6 times that of the lowest paid employee.
Thank you for highlighting this. I wish America was better at learning from how things are done in other countries. In the quality based management world, that’s called "benchmarking”.
Sadly, many of those same innovations came from here. The social democracies of northern Europe use many of the plans of our social security and welfare. They just fund them properly.
Vance's view on the voting power of people with children is right out of the american corporate book where ownership in shares carries the most value. He who has the most has the most say.
I know many single and dinks who vote down schools and improvements because it does not affect them. They know it increases their overall property value, they don’t care, they want more money in their pocket now. Families tend to vote for schools, libraries, parks, etc.
I tend to think that they are not well informed. They benefited from others paying it forward so they could be where they are today. People without kids voted for those things as well because they understood it was a good investment. Perhaps we have not be doing a good job of informing them that shared costs is less costs which mean we all pay in for things that some of us will never use for the betterment of society.
Thanks for that reminder of Dr. Deming. His ideas were counter to Friedman. I read a couple of his books and we were actually looking to use many of those in education with great success, but ah those at the top found themselves with what they thought was less power. Deming believed that shared power was more power, not less. He was brought in to help rebuild Japan following WWII by MacArthur and it was very successful. Thanks for the reminder of how Deming was able to get America to victory and rebuild Japan. Sadly, Jack Welch was one of the leaders in bringing back the top down with his Sigma management in GE. Every time they laid off workers or moved jobs to another country (losing more jobs) he got a raise. Deming's teachings also provide a contrast between America advances and the autocratic communists where failure resulted in demotion or death. American science and technology moved forward while in the USSR it stagnated and the stealing of technology became the only way for them to advance. One of the reasons why the USSR was not the threat Reagan built it up to be.
I’m happy you know so much about Deming’s contributions to America and the world. While he passed away in 1993, videos of his work (and of his good friend and my mentor Dr Russell L. Ackoff) are on YouTube. And perhaps more importantly, the government initiative to teach this management philosophy (started by Republican POTUS Reagan) is still available … never in the news, but in operation for more than 40 years) is available today… the Baldridge performance excellence program…
Cooperation is the key that makes the universe interesting, for example: superconductivity, human organizations, flocks of birds, herds of animals, schools of fish, dolphin social interactions. Pretty much everything that is interesting doesn't arise from just a bunch of individuals. Except in the case of artists, musicians, writers, physicists, mathematicians with their unique contributions. But notably not libertarians.
Yes, cooperation (AKA interdependence) is literally what makes the world work. “No man is an island” is a truism. I believe even artist get inspired by things outside of themselves even if sometimes those things are not human beings. And Arnold Schwarzenegger likes to point out that he is not a self made. Man is the beneficiary of what many others contributed to him. I doubt that JD Vance has thought about this. He probably thinks the only people who matter are those who are just like him.
Porsche hired Deming to help them improve their parts delivery and it rescued them, the quality of their cars today is testimony to Deming’s work with them.
While Deming has been gone for 30 years, he and his good friend Russell Ackoff of the Wharton School are on YouTube… brilliant lectures. And the government program to teach this management philosophy (started by Reagan in 1980!) still exists!
Thanks for pointing this out. In any company or organization, cooperation is the key! In my own very recent experience, I've been trying to communicate math and programming to colleagues. But now I have to switch gears and pitch to higher ups who can't be bothered by such details!
You’re welcome, Matt. And I’m sorry you’re having so much trouble getting those above you to be interested in math and programming. Assuming these are key to the organization’s success, they certainly should be!
The rationalization of predatory bullies for eons, be they slaveholder in the Roman Empire or American South, be they pharaohs, emperors, kings, warlords or feudal estate holders. Strange so many serfs are OK with it. As long as there is an underclass that they can spit on.
As I recall. Japan confers a "Deming Award" upon model companies. Corporate America and certainly Republicans (but not just Republicans) since Reagan have embraced the "Chicago School" doctrine of "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits" , which is self-evidently antithetical to good citizenship to put it mildly. It was crap from the outset, but those who stood to benefit have promoted it as Gospel. As intended, the formula has enabled profound shift of economic and political power toward an antidemocratic, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” 1%. Even corrupt Nixon was pro environmental protections and said some things such as:
'These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans."
Imagine almost ANY Republican saying such a thing today. Big money has bought off large swaths of empowering and protective governance, and largely bought the national narratives as well (though that might be changing). They certainly bought the major media companies.
Government, per se, is not "the problem". Government for sale IS the PROBLEM, and a great array of other problems won't be solved until that one is; or at least, if we don't, we will be spending our time putting out fires while the arsonists run free setting them.
I don't grasp how cyptocurrency is legal or not heavily regulated. The usual context in which I encounter the word "cyptocurrency" is for payment of ransoms. Whatever may be it's commendable virtues, it seem offer abundant aid and comfort to crooks, quite apart from it's negative environmental impact.
Not just "abundant aid and comfort to crooks," J L.
Also to major drug runners, cartels, oligarchs, money launderers, illicit arms dealers, and then all our garden variety friends and associates of the orange felon, Peter Thiel, the Hillbilly Elegy poseur, and our various Clarence court corrupt in need of more greasing.
Trump was against cyptocurrency. Then a billionaire from Silicon Valley agreed to give him money and boy, did Trump suddenly support it. He has changed his tune multiple times, depending on the billionaire.
Agreed. Cryptocurrency is for criminals and at best speculators. However, maybe it could serve a purpose in Russia, hiding your financial dealings so as not to get killed?!? I don't see a good purpose in any democracy.
The Felon also has no idea how cryptocurrency works or why it is so volatile, unreliable and popular in the criminal world. He just sees the $$$ Peter Thiel and his acolytes can bring into the “Felon Attorney Fees” coffer (aka “campaign contributions”). He has zero interest in any economic policy other than how it can help him solidify absolute power.
While I suspect that one of the main themes of tomorrow's essay will be Kamala Harris' electrifying speech in Atlanta in which she repeatedly mocked Trump-mostly about pulling out of the next scheduled presidential debate-it is so reassuring that the Democratic Party now seems to be ahead of the nation's political narrative and generating a vibe of confidence about victory at the ballot box in November.
Comments like he made should call for suspension of his campaign while a full scale, colonoscopy style investigation is facilitated on trump, heritage foundation and turning point, and in addition to that, to investigate every member of the election certification in every state to root out those who would refuse to certify states' votes.
Let's not mess around here. THIS is trump being honest!
The MAGGOTS have finally found a way to rule this country with an Iron Fist and it is Project 2025. Lead the sheep to the slaughter and they won't have to vote EVER AGAIN... I'm still having trouble aligning Rational Thought with Trump, Republicans, Project 2025 or ANY of the dirvel coming from the "Right" anymore. My classes in, and use of. Rational Thought have absolutely RUINED me for this Dark and Thoroughly Disgusting mental, ethical, and rational abomination. I was raised as a Christian but recognize NOTHING from the right as even Slightly familiar. My Christian friends and family would call this Blasphemy.
I have engaged some of my Christian friends (when they’re not to busy being persecuted by the Olympics opening ceremony) on this topic. To a person they say that it was only part of a longer speech where “even Jews and Catholics were present” and that it simply means they won’t have to vote for him because he cannot run for election again. That is some pretzel contortion of bending that obscenity into something palatable.
Kamala calls Trump & company out so clearly and effectively. She is the right leader for this pivotal moment in our country. Thank you, Joe Biden, for passing the torch to Kamala , and to we, the people. Let’s go!
'Daily Kos' disseminated this fitting advert. https://youtu.be/hamD7RueuvA
Super good, super clear, Ned.
Thank you for posting.
Thank you for taking the time to respond, Phil. Keep the faith.
For those who might miss it otherwise:
Ned's link above goes to perfect contrast between the prosecutor and the felon.
I just couldn’t read through all this mumbo jumbo about Trumpism. Some of us are getting Trumped-out. What we all need to do:
1. Find one friend or family member that is not very political but would likely vote blue and chat with them of the next few months and convince them of the importance of voting. At least one person this is not naturally interested voting.
2. Pa-lease my fellow Democrats, leave the “woke” issues (I know using this term is an insult just bear with me) alone and concentrate on the most popular issues.
3. Those of you interested in local leadership either run for school boards or support liberal-minded candidates. Be active up and down the ballot. No matter how insignificant.
Every time I mention “woke” issues, someone deletes from my blog. I guess since we are all full of opinions here, one expressed divergent opinion and you get a lashing. It goes with the territory.
And make sure your states officials who certify your elections are not 'election deniers'
I do believe in Indiana our elections our safe...but we have a bunch or radical racists and far "right" please in this state. It is very difficult to convince the uneducated and many educated middle and below class in our state that the Republicans are not our friends. The county I live in is rated as one of the poorest in Indiana. I have seen the decline of our area since the Republicans have taken over the statehouse. It is nearly impossible to be a Democrat and win an election in the state of Indiana. So very sad! The decline began with Mitch Daniels. Indiana State University has eliminated many studies recently. I learned this morning that our high school seniors are not qualified to enter Purdue University upon graduation. Sure sounds like a Republican plan for our public schools has been put in place! I hope this information I received today is wrong.
You can still ask the question to your local officials? "Joe Doe is a known election denier....should he be in charge of verifying our elections." Ask the question in a public forum...to a sympathetic reporter...write an ope-d in your local newspaper. Recruit people to email your S.O.S. asking that question. Propose it to a sympathetic legislator. You don't even have to worry about the answer....just keep asking.
Sharon, as you know, I am Hoosier born and I am glad that I no longer live there. I do know some Ds there. One of them jokes about being the only D in her family....lives south of Indy in Greenwood. I find your latter bit of info interesting. When I graduated in 1961, public universities had to accept anyone who had graduated. They didn't have to keep you and at IU, the flunk out course was frosh English. What is the reasoning for not allowing kids to enter Purdue.
Susan, we are fortunate here in Oregon as the sec of state is a D. Our county clerk is a D who has done a great job for years. Clackastan (Clackamus County near Portland) has finally gotten rid of the R biddy who was there clerk and regularly made a mess of things.
I am worried here in red Ohio. We have a lot of fraudster Rs in our local and state governments. We after all have Gym Jordan and J D Vance. Ugh! How can I find out if these election officials are deniers?
How are we to do that? What are the consequences to an election denier local official if he/she refused to certify a county vote?
Ask the question to your local officials? "Joe Doe is a known election denier....should he be in charge of verifying our elections." Ask the question in a public forum...to a sympathetic reporter...write an op-ed in your local newspaper. Recruit people to email your S.O.S. asking that question. Propose it to a sympathetic legislator. You don't even have to worry about the
answer....just keep asking.
Start by contacting your election officials, however you can do that, and ask them if the 2020 election was stolen, or if it was illegitimate due to widespread voter fraud.
Following up, there's a good video on youtube from late last night on PoliticsGirl/Meidas Touch featuring Joanna Lydgate of States United Democracy Center, https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/, concerning who has what role in elections and protecting elections from the kind of insanity we saw far too much of around (before and after) the last presidential election (and Arizona is STILL seeing, courtesy of Kari Lake, who has won the republican primary for Senate, godhelpus).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9MbLmwou78&list=TLPQMzEwNzIwMjQjoUmB1r1lNQ&index=8.
And directly to your question, the organization ElectionDeniers.org was mentioned as an informational resource. https://electiondeniers.org/
And....what if they ARE??? Is there recourse??? For instance.....is there a way to tamp down the impact of the 70 officials, (so far?) across the 6 swing states of AZ GA MI NC PS NV who are election denialists? Per Rachel Maddow, 22 of these people have already refused certification results of previous elections. Most of us by now have heard tfg claiming that he does not NEED the votes in the upcoming election, that they "already have it figured out". Once again, just like last time, he is telegraphing the plan and coupled with the recent SCOTUS decision about a President being free from prosecution for his actions, I am left wondering if the orangetan is right??? What defenses are there in this election plan that can guard against current or potential plans to overtake the free and fair electoral process, yet again, but this time, with the kinks worked out?
Too late for that in Georgia unfortunately.
You can still ask the question to your local officials? "John Doe is a known election denier....should he be in charge of verifying our elections." Ask the question in a public forum...to a sympathetic reporter...write an op-ed in your local newspaper. Recruit people to email your S.O.S. asking that question. Propose it to a sympathetic legislator. You don't even have to worry about the answer....just keep asking.
Thanks for the grounded reminder.
Dear Bill
RE:
Your #1. I am not related to anyone who plans to vote for tRump (aka Fart in the UK, if you tRumping you are farting). Most of my friends and family were raised as Dems. Maybe that could be yout number 3 or 4? I have neighbors who are them - but I am very careful of our friendly neighborlyness and try to show by example rather than talk.
#2. I have never referred to 'WOKE" - i honestly don't really know what it means, nor care.
#3. Great suggestion! I also have been trained to work in a voting station - anyone can do this and volunteers are needed.
Just FYI from a fellow Dem trooper.
Have a great day-
My wife's side of the family are all Texas Maga - for Trump and Abbott etc. They only look for confirmation of their beliefs, not facts. I am pleased with Kamala, like me, she goes after them bluntly, politely and with conviction.
And with clarity and a beautiful smile!
Thank heavens for your wife and you.
Rachel, check out Red Wine & Blue: https://redwine.blue/ for opportunities to act.
I am acting.
600 postcards
Volunteering at local polling station
Donating.
I may be deaf and older but I am not a slouch
Thank you very much
Have a great day
Good for you (from a 73-yr-old)!
I don't know what WOKE means either, Rachel. I would like it explained. It seems the Republicans use this word frequently....
Woke is slang for 'awake to injustice, and Aware of inequality'. Something that offends republicans! They exist to create injustice, it appears.
I believe it’s a repugnant put down and an excuse to remove literature from public libraries
Etc etc etc
The term "woke" was originally coined by progressive Black Americans and used in racial justice movements in the early to mid-1900s. To be "woke" politically in the Black community means that someone is informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality.
The use of the term in its pejorative sense (as a slur towards people who are "woke") came about recently by right wing Republicans, in particular Maga-type GOPer who support Trump.
Can we here, who are probably all Democrats, and almost certainly identify as progressive, not buy in to the Right’s framing of our priorities by denigrating the word “woke?” Democrats prioritize issues and policies that seek to benefit everyone, especially those populations whose rights have historically been oppressed. Personally, I’m proud of that. If that makes me “woke,” so be it.
To me it means we are awake and present … we are active in making our aspirational founding documents reality. The opposite of woke is asleep or nightmares - aka Maga - now that is bad karma!
I agree with everything you said, but I am not a "progressive". That assumption you're making is reasonable, but might alienate "centrists" like me after we win in November. To solidify our progress and protect individual rights, economic sanity, and environmental safety, the Democratic tent has to stay big.
I am a conservative by nature and an erstwhile Republican, Jerry, so I am sympathetic. Wendy makes a point that the Democratic candidates really should take a more active rather than reactive stance. On the tent staying big, Jerry, you hit on a key point. Only a coalition of people opposed to the M.A.G.A. movement -- and opposed for different reasons -- can prevail.
Look what they did in France. The far right was going to win the election. I'm sure the champagne was on ice BUT the two other parties (one of which Macron was heading) joined forces and beat the far right party. This is what we need to do.
We could just respond to anyone who thinks accusing us of being woke is an insult, by saying, yes I am aware and educated about social issues. Are you?
Bill, my garden helper is now going to vote for Harris. She would not vote if it were Biden because she doesn't understand the good things he has done. The awful Joe Kent running against Perez in Washington's third district, is using a woke issue against her. It has to do with trans athletes and I don't know what her position is. She is popular with the police and fire people and she is an auto mechanic, so she can relate to working class people. Also letting people know that I am one of those psychotic and deranged women.
I don’t have all issues resolved and frankly some perplex me. The trans issues is one. It’s terribly divisive. Often it can lose an election. I don’t want to lose elections over one or two issues. I have an answer to trans sports. Trans might have their own sports. In my opinion, they just don’t fit otherwise. Putting trans girls in biological female sports is a deal breaker for most. Like it or not. To wit: Trans men are rarely if ever, found on men’s teams for a good reason. They are not strong enough. Conversely, trans women will easily overpower females in sport events. But the bigger issue is that it’s a deal breaker more often than not. And that’s just the easy it it’s.
It's a shame that it's getting so much media attention, that it takes all the oxygen away from basic issues that concern everyone. Of course everyone is equal and should be treated fairly. But this 'cultural wedge issue' is not helpful
This is a tricky one.
EDIT / B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front). Why in hades-hell would Vice President Harris NOT call President Trump to account for lying about a border crisis or for placing his interests ahead of those of the country? 🤔
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHwAoL00SgQ (an anti-Trump conservative)
I absolutely disagree, Bill. If there really is the crisis at the border, why would President Trump seek to scuttle the bi-partisan bill? Was it perfect? Compromises always fall short for anyone. Just pass the thing and work to improve it over time. 🤞
Senator Vance blamed Vice President Harris for many thousands of fentanyl over-doses; a crime wave by illegal immigrants; workers' salaries being depressed by the influx of immigrants. Trump calls this crisis an invasion. 🤢
If these assertions be true, is President Trump's request and the Republicans scuttling of the bill to use the 'crisis' as a political issue six or eight months down the road NOT traitorous? I certainly think it is. 😰
Yes, I am Trumped out, too. Yet President Trump is walking click-bait, always seeking attention. Yes, some of the woke stuff is tiresome. Yet, as a conservative by nature, even I understand that it seeks to improve our society. So, just disagree. 🤝
Your not alone. We're all Trump out but knowledge is power and its critical and important especially now that the American people are made aware of project 25 and Trumps agenda for this country. I have many friends who were undecided voters and were not well informed. Reading Heather's newsletters and doing my own research has been a great asset for me to help my friends understand and to have a better perspective about Trumps agenda. I am happy to say that they will be voting for Harris. The more people we reach out to the better off we will be for the salvation of our freedom and our Democracy.
I cannot agree more!!! The “woke” issues are exactly what the fence sitters and middle of the road people find offensive about democrats.)
Those "woke issues" are Republican talking(yelling) points. Its a word they USE to put down anyone who is different! Offensive? maybe to Repubs. Frankly, I'm sick and tired and fed up with their(Rs) "version" of Others - you know, anyone who has a different color skin, different lifestyle - different THOUGHTS at this point.
Now I'm 86 years old - I've been around for some time - and honestly? I've had enough of this routine that is only meant to divide us - ALL of us.\
Enough already!
I am not even sure what "woke" is except it seems to be an insult. Personally, I would like to chat with someone who is a republican and see what their views are on some topics. I live in a very blue town and my friends are trump haters, so talking with them is like preaching to the choir. I know it is probably a bad idea, but I often thought of leaving a note on the mail box stating a fact that trumpers don't know. One idea would be that a lot of undocumented workers pay federal taxes (social security) and get no benefit from it. All I hear is that undocumented workers are using up our social security. Not true.
And this is from David Packman -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGmxKum52qc
Great vid., Gary. May thanks!
Thanks for posting. Simple and direct.
The choice couldn’t be more clear: Don’t vote for the blockhead.
Glad to see a fellow conservative -- I am referring to me, here -- dislikes President Trump as much as I do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHwAoL00SgQ
Excellent! Right on point!
Thank you, Sharon.
Excellent!! Simply Truthful and to the point!
Thanks you, Rex.
Good one. Lincoln Project had a good one yesterday too. Simple statements, clear contrasts, a touch of snark but not too much. To my eyes Midas Touch's ads often don't have enough content and the images are off by a split second, but there needs to be a range of appeal so they're probably all good.
Thanks, Yehawes. Here is that vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4AYVQxLQ7s
Great!
Thank you, Rachel!
I agree.I like that she calls him out immediately not letting time or journalism fester the words from his mouth.She is exactly what we need now at this time in our history.
Harris knows “the felon” she’s talking about. She knows how and what to say and how much to say about the “felon” besides being downright evil!
I love it!
Yes ...as a democrat I am deeply appreciative of her willingness to call him out. No more pussyfooting around. I love she is calling a spade a spade...without hesitation. She is emboldening the party. Thank God
And I think it is changing the tone of the media. So perhaps our ignoring his behavior and minimizing it was a media enabler.
I love that Biden seems unleashed....finally attacking issues I felt should have been attacked before. Better late than never.
Avery McGinn,
Kamila speaks with truth. She speaks from experience and she speaks with a vision of America ...one in which the wealthy pay their FAIR SHARE of taxes as well as the middle class.
She is encouraging us regarding the nurture and care and respect we can avail to one another.
Our teachers should have education opportunities to help them "keep up" with technology or classes needed to expand the teaching of science or to understand more fully bills being "up for vote" that will affect their ability to teach TRUTH and FACTS in the classroom....etc.
An excellent education is necessary for the hope that our children will be ready to engage in working in the jobs of the future. Two years of study, following High School can be an excellent beginning and foundation for a well paying job for our young adults. President Joe Biden has encouraged this path. Joe Biden walked the picket line with the UAW. He loves this country. He and Kamila have been about the business of helping the average family. HOPE and SUCCESS and WORKING TOGETHER and JOBS have been on his agenda.
President Biden and Vice President Harris and their great team continue to work on cost of living issues that affect each of us. He has not stopped serving and giving. He is running the race. He will finish this Presidency having accomplished so much for America and for our relationships throughout the world.
MAY KAMALA CONTINUE!!!!
Amen sister👏👏🌹
Hear, here!
"Our legal system is a creature of the 19th Century and was never meant to deal with a malefactor like Trump -- but there's still a way to win. Donald Trump cannot win his cases fair and square, because he doesn’t have the facts behind him and he doesn’t have the law behind him either. He can’t win clean, so he has to win dirty. That’s generally been his M.O. for 50 years of evading justice: delay, distract, destroy." TRISTANT SNELL Substack & Podcast
Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/taking-down-trump/id1748047377?i=1000656595859
Spot on!
Passing the torch? You mean where the voters get the middle finger and the party elites pick the candidate? Kamala didn't get a single vote from anyone and yet she is the party nominee?
How dare Heather lecture anyone on democracy when the Democrats continually thwart democracy. The used super delegates to prevent a Bernie victory in 2016, and the party threw up a firewall to beat Bernie in 2020. Now they let Joe run unopposed and when they didn't like his polling, Pelosi, Obama, and Schumer pulled the plug.
BS. We voted for a ticket that includes her. With an 81 yo candidate we all new the chances of her taking the reins was significant. Here we are and we're happy with it.
Yes.I agree.As I remember it,I voted for the Biden-Harris ticket when I cast my ballot in the primary.
Exactly. I don't recall what it said on the primary ballot, but I was most assuredly voting for Biden/Harris.
Stupid logic. You don't get to be the de facto nominee because you are an incumbent. That is the logic of dictatorships. This is a republic. You are required to win by the will of the voters, not the party elites.
That the sitting president gets to run for s second term is the norm followed in this country for over two hundred years.
You seem to think you are making your arguments in front of ignorant idiots. Please, go read a history or Civics book. Your second sentence flies in the face of history.
Are you a moron?. The incumbent President doesn't get to run unopposed.
Where has that every happened? RFK tried to run against Biden, but the party stop him. The sued to keep him off the ballot and refused any debates.
It was travesty.
Yes you are an idiot.
RFK wasn't stopped by "The Party" He was stopped by his policies and the intelligence of the rank and file of the Democratic party.
Your rudeness and insults won’t win you any converts here. In fact, you’re just exemplifying the worst qualities of MAGA folks and driving. Speaking as a retired psychologist, I can say with confidence that you appear to know nothing about how to get people to take you say seriously. Please change your approach or stop wasting your time.
Do you think you're winning an argument when you call people stupid, moronic, idiotic, delusional, lazy & "uniformed"!?
Isn't there a way to get hateful commenters off this site? How do we report him?
James, it sounds like you’re saying you feel frustrated that other people have points of view different from your own. Is that what you’re saying? If so, my response to you is that people will disagree with you on a regular basis. I try to remember that other people are just that—other people—and they have their own perspectives. I’m entitled to mine and they theirs.
Where has that ever happened? Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Eisenhower... etc.
Should I bother?? Oh, well:
Joe Biden stepped aside in the face of consistent year-long polling that said he was too old to run. By the time he stepped aside, nearly 75% of Dem voters held that opinion. While it was polling and not a vote, listening to voters is democratic.
Biden stepped down 15 weeks before the election. No time (or money) to re-run primaries. No one challenged Kamala for the nomination, believing that there was no time, no established process, and no chance to win.
I understand you’re saying that party elites picked the candidate. I know a few delegates. One is my dentist, for heaven’s sake. Believe me, this guy is no elite. He did get a call from Kamala, a fact that has made him extremely proud.
And of course the 14 million votes were—in the minds of voters—for Biden, or for Biden-Harris, or for the Dem ticket. In my case, even though I have been a 35-year admirer of his, my vote was for the Dem ticket, hoping Biden would stand down.
Finally, in May of 2016, CNN had reporting that said, with Bernie 500 delegates behind in the primaries, Bernie would have to win 110% of the remaining delegates to win the nomination. Bernie then loudly proposed a change to the voting process within the convention. So, how democratic is that, trying to change the rules in your favor as the clock runs out? At least Kamala followed today’s rules.
“Let Joe run unopposed”? It’s very rare for a sitting president to have an opponent in his/her same party. Three times in the 20th century? You seem to think parties exist in the same form they did in the 1960s. They don’t. They are money-raising, message-developing campaign-coordinating bureaucrats.
There have been 2 major reforms in the last 40 years, and a few minor ones in the Dem party. The primary process is more democratic. But even those reforms didn’t fully anticipate an 81 year-old, running in the face of significant voter opposition, finally realize—at the eleventh hour—that he doesn’t have the energy or stamina for a modern-day campaign.
And subbing out an 81 year-old Biden gor an older Bernie?
Nah, shouldn't have bothered. James A, the self-declared intellectual, is a certified troll on this page.
This is spin. Joe was forced out by Obama/Pelosi/Schumer under the threat of the 25th amendment.
Incumbents don't get an automatic path to victory, they have to be voted in.
Harris doesn't get to be the nominee because she is incumbent and Joe doesn't get to appoint her - this isn't the crown where the queen chooses her heir.
This was stolen from the American voters plain and simple.
This is a conspiracy theory. Biden was/is president. No one had the power to force him out. That's naive and silly thinking.
Biden was forced out by voter polls, with this sentiment forcing up through donors and elected officials and finally to Biden.
To “know” otherwise is to reject the obvious for the conspiratorial.
Veteran reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner (NY TImes/AP) wrote on Monday
"Obama called Biden after breakfast [on July 21] and said, ‘Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.’”
He was forced out with the threat of the 25th amendment. He wasn't leaving on his own. Then Obama/Pelosi/Schumer appointed Harris.
No one has denied it. Its not a conspiracy theory.
Please provide a link to this claim. Personally, the approval ratings we are seeing now for her candidacy suggest she would have become the candidate and all the delegates I've heard from said yes to her candidacy and all the potential (i.e., likely chosen, could run, might win) alternative candidates,said, Yeh, she is our choice. Your logic seems to be one searching for the perfect system and candidate (not Harris) and, IMIO, would only be completed after election date. The encumbant passed the torch. The consensus comes about as our always is a representative democracy or republic. Our (my) delegates acted on my (our) behalf in the necessity of time ... and to be able to win.
James A , what is the name of the NYTimes reporter and Pulitzer prize winner?
I not sure you understand how the US votes for its president but the final pick is not done by the voter but by the electoral college. I’m glad you have made sport of constant comments here as it’s a cheaper form of therapy than seeing a psychiatrist.
What an idiotic comment. The nominee isn't chosen by the electoral college.
They are chosen by the voters, not appointed by party elites.
I'm here because I hate lying. What you wrote is so ridiculous its unfathomable.
He didn't say nominee James. He said the "final pick."
The entire process is arcane to say the least. Whatever, that BS is that happened on January 6th with Congress pretending like they can change the will of the people, is totally unnecessary. When the electoral college votes, that should be the end of it.
Thank you, Bill. Very well stated. Love your humor, as always. Yes, I think we are watching primal scream therapy in action.
‘Under threat of 25th amendment’. You know this HOW?
Pultizer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh (NY TImes/AP) reported on Monday:
"Obama called Biden after breakfast [on July 21] and said, ‘Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.’”
No one has denied the story.
Ask Heather to deny it? She won't.
So what? They came close to invoking the 25th after January 6th but several cabinet members chose to resign instead.
As I'm sure you are aware, 40 out of 44 Trump cabinet members said publicly they would not endorse Trump.
They understand that he did nothing to make America great.
Apparently, that's not important to MAGAs and Christian Nationalists.
Bernie lost, I am so sorry to inform you. He lost several times, including to Ms Clinton. Bernie is a wonderful human but he is not a majority pick. He is smart, he is truly liberal but he has never won a majority vote for President in a race.
Nor is JFK Jr whom I personally disagree with on many points. His published platform was anti-abortion- they have since removed that section but he is anti-womens rights.
👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹🖕🏼👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹
😅😅😅😅😅😅🥸😅😅😅😅😅
Thank you for agreeing. Its all factual true.
Brilliant, Bill. I guess the can be re-stated: a picture is worth a thousand words and at least fifty-sic emoji.
please paint a picture of how you think it should go. Maybe hash it out and decide sometime around December who is the best candidate? Just put Bernie in and hope Republicans don't notice his age? What is your preferred alternate approach?
I, can’t, follow yourthinking.
Who let this guy in here?
"the Democrats continually thwart democracy."
Did they try to stage a coup to prevent American's votes from being counted? Have they gerrymandered every black community so their votes don't matter? Have they purged certain voters just because? Have they outlawed giving water to people standing in line to vote? Have they blocked appointments to the SCOTUS, then giving their guy 3 justices to sweep in, and take away as many rights as they can? Do they justify using violence to get their aims? Are they the ones opposing widely popular issues like gun control, a woman's right to choose, childhood education, criminal reform, maintaining Social Security and Medicare, controlling drug prices. The list is endless. James you aren't reading the room here. We are for democracy. republicans are NOT.
No point in responding. Giving this guy rent-free space in your head merely feeds the beast . . . with yeast . . . so he can puff himself up. How come I never see a woman acting out like this?
Troll alert! Speaking of giving the finger, you are giving it to Truth, Justice and the American Way…she in on the ballot, we voted for her/them…get over it!
As many a coach have counselled me in the (now distant) past: take a lap, son, and go out for junior varsity.
Joe is My HERO!
Make no mistake - if Trump wins they will implement every single detail of Project 2025. They can fire all the directors they want, hide the thing in a drawer, take down the website and deny all they want. It is their game plan and the only way to prevent it from becoming a reality is to work every single day between now and Nov 5th to get out the vote and overwhelming defeat this agenda.
I challenge everyone reading this to go to the various websites for Harris and volunteer to do something. Donate, Write postcards, phone bank, text bank or go to a battleground state and knock on doors. Everyone here will vote but we also need everyone to do everything in their power to win.
My ASK ME ABOUT PROJECT 2025 t-shirt arrived today. They're available at: https://store.indivisible.org/ask-me-about-project-2025-unisex-black-tee/. I'm going to wear it tomorrow when I go out to brunch with a friend. Will anyone ask me about Project 2025, and if they do, will they be friendly or hostile? Wish me luck...
I would not be wearing a Project 2025 tee shirt in public if you can”t give an explanation of it”s racist propaganda wrapped behind the extremist superiority of intolerance. There is a podcast that explains PROJECT 2025 in digestible chunks called:
MAGA's Master Plan: Decoding the Dangers of Project 2025
Taking Down Trump - TRISTEN SNELL. PODCAST check my spelling)
…In this bonus episode, we begin a deep dive into Project 2025, the controversial blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. We’ll expose alarming plans to dismantle the civil service system, politicize government agencies, and reshape the military. From gutting worker protections to imposing extreme ideological tests, we analyze the far-reaching implications of Project 2025 for American democracy and institutions. Join us for the first installment of this critical examination of Trump's vision for reshaping the federal government.
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/taking-down-trump/id1748047377?i=1000663294928
I would like to write some stories about the effects. Let us look into Education for example. What is the effect of taking the funding from that department and giving it directly to parents? How will it effect parents who want to send their children to public schools? Still, I would want to wear this, because my Democrats Abroad Project 2025 Book Club group is reading and discussing it so we can go out and tell people about it. So, that would be the perfect shirt to wear!
Let's see - giving the ed money to parents to educate their kids as they want? Is that what is done in Sunday School? Pretty obvious that the religious right are pissed that their faith cannot withstand the scrutiny of education.
Project 2025 s goal is elimination of public schools unless they teach magic sky daddy 13th century nonsense.
Linda, I have previously shared this with you ? Good article on effect of giving $$ directly to parents.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/04/24/florida-private-school-voucher-expansion/11688114002/
Kathy, thank you for this article. I retained some ideas, but not the details. In Project 2025 it claims that the DOE is spending around $22,000 a pupil, and that is what they propose to give. But, this not only will effect charter and home schoolers (which is the target population for this legislation, as well as religious schools), but elite private schools as well. The pool of teachers to hire from will be people who have no experience in a public school classroom, one that is regulated and gives a good opportunity for student teaching as well. I am wondering where all of these great teachers will come from who have useful experiences creating curriculum etc... I just cannot believe that the US is allowing its schools to be so loosey goosey. It is terrible and will affect our global competitiveness. Of course, if you want to be creating a school system for people who believe in the End of Days, as Trump seems to target his future administration, then the quality of the education won't matter. See Andra Watkins comparison between End of Days for Christian Nationalists vs. The New Apostolic Reformation here.
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/what-is-the-new-apostolic-reformation
In the meantime, homeschooling families with lots of children can make bank. No one oversees whether they are actually teaching their children. If their instruction is solely focused on their religious instruction and nothing like reading or math, as we read about in the Shivas, or people who belonged to the church the Duggars of Shiny, Happy People infamy attended, then we have people who are not going to be useful in the "temporal world" or independent or free. It is quite frightening and seems very third world cultish to me.
I follow and love Andra Watkins ! In FL, the homeschoolers rebelled this year and that’s why the legislature did nothing about 2023 legislation that allowed them to purchase large screen tv’s,stand-up paddle boards and theme park tickets with voucher 💲.
When I asked my Fl Rep what they would do to prevent homeschoolers from teaching a neo-Nazi curriculum with my tax dollar, he replied they would be meeting with a “choice navigator”. I believe it was once or twice a year.🤔 I have no idea if that is actually happening.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/01/nazi-homeschooling-group-ohio-condemned
Great idea for ur book club to be reading it.
It is a book club just for this book. I got the idea from Prof. Joyce Vance.
It starts with defunding Head Start and nutrition programs and goes through higher ed--I haven't read if Pell grants would disappear, but I'm guessing they would. We love our uneducated citizens, and who cares, since they won't need to vote ever again...
MSNBC Joy Reed is doing a week of work with Project 2925.
I think it’s Reid…
She should do another week on the guys that funded it -- the Koch foundation. I think they put up $20 million?? I don't recall the actual number but it was a drop in the bucket for the billionaire Kochs.
If Project 2025 is fully implemented, black will indeed be the appropriate color to wear.
I am not surprised to learn today that black is the color. I have literally complained for the 20 years that women's fashion designers have flooded black dresses on the market. I have found it hard to find so pastels which look good on older women. A woman only needs one black dress.
But black is SO HOT in the summer!!
Let us know how it goes, Betsy. Truly interested to learn.
The only person who asked me about it was the friend I was having brunch with.
Interesting, indeed!!
Thanks for following up.
Another group to look into to gain more information is RedWine.Blue. Heather presented on Project 2025 two weeks ago and Sen Elizabeth Warren spoke this week. You can listen to their piece and sign up for future talks. https://redwine.blue/project2025/
HCR also spoke to Democrats Abroad. It was a wonderful talk. Yesterday we also heard from Prof. Timothy Snyder talking about autocracy in the US. That was also interesting.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?emci=319fb090-9143-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&emdi=5402e745-9b43-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&ceid=310891&v=ZSM7LJgKXAo&feature=youtu.be
The above is Heather’s talk and this is with Sen Elizabeth Warren.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?emci=240c8372-734e-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&emdi=82e37310-894e-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&ceid=310891&v=R23QrkB7Wck&feature=youtu.be
Betsy, I just received my STOP Project 2025 t-shirt and will be wearing it today on my grocery run.I’ve been wearing messaging t’s (including Biden/Harris) since Feb with NO negative comments/conversations….and I live in MAGA-vile, FL.
I’ve been sharing this letter widely.It was also published as a Letter To Ed and I use as a guide when I talk with people.Others can use as a template If you live in a “test case” state, customize and fill in how P2025 is happening NOW !!! I could have gone on and on about Florida….sigh, but people have short attention spans.
A recent article spoke of our state as being a test case for Project 2025.
Florida has a draconian six-week abortion ban and a governor fighting the citizen-led ballot initiative ,Amendment 4 ,for reproductive rights.
Florida has school vouchers, with the majority (81%) used for those attending private, religious schools that have no requirements for teacher certification and school accreditation.
Florida has legislation that deletes most reference to climate change from state law.
Florida has “anti-woke” legislation championed by those such as the Spring Hill Florida Representative who declared on the House floor ,“Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do.”
Project 2025 is not an “idea”. It is 920-page blueprint for a radical reshaping of our country.
Your vote is your voice. It’s Democracy versus Autocracy and White “Christian” Nationalism on the ballot.
👕🛒
It's so ironic that the FL legislature doesn't "believe" in climate change. Their "policies" will increase the loss of land mass when the oceans rise. The FL capitol building is is only 25 miles form the ocean! (I looked it up-LOL!)
I'd be worried in your shoes! Will people think you are for or against? But most likely they won't have a clue and will let you explain things!
Similarly, I have bumper stickers on my 200,000 mile Prius: "Tuba Mover" and "EV Wannabee". If I drive too slow, I'm worried about road rage.
Matt, excellent points. I think it best not to provoke the crazies. And, your Prius, I had a 2010 Prius and decided to give it to my daughter and her husband last year. I searched online to get an idea of what it was worth. Guess what? None are for sale. I wouldn't have sold mine either. I loved that car. People buy them and keep them.
The only person who asked me about it was the friend I was having brunch with.
Please let us know!
The only person who asked me about it was the friend I was having brunch with.
Le t us know how u do!
The only person who asked me about it was the friend I was having brunch with.
Love the T-shirt. I would love to order them for my bookclub, but it would be too expensive to ship them to Europe. Do you know of any place to get them abroad?
"The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because frankly we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK.”
King DonOld I
CFDT actually said "love". This has to be fake news. He must be getting desperate to use the "L" word.
You might check Etsy - they have vendors from all over the world. Just yesterday I ordered some dress fabric from Latvia!
Are you all in one place, or are you spread out all over the map? If you're all in Paris, there's undoubtedly a place that prints t-shirts. You could go to Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris, France (https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/), or wherever expats hang out to see if anyone there has suggestions.. Good luck.
Thank you Betsy. I put it out to my local Democrats Abroad in Northern Germany and have gotten several suggestions. My daughter loves that bookstore in Paris by the way. Not only does she carry the very trendy bag from the store, but considers the upstairs a magical place. She lives in Berlin which also has a few English bookstores. All book stores are havens for her. Enjoy your visit together.
All bookstores are havens. All libraries are havens. Book banning is the hallmark of fascists.
How lucky you are to live reasonably near your daughter. Mine lives in NZ, but will be visiting for almost a week at the end of August. Can't wait!
Agreed on havens in book places and banning is a no no. I have several friends who are children's book writers and I used to select diverse books (which would be banned by Moms for Liberty) for my grade together with a book author colleague and our librarian. Coincidentally, my daughter rents her place from a family that lives in the front apartment and the mom is from NZ. The dad is from Poland. The mom is an English Lit major, so there are lots of books and there is lots of reading in that home. It is a good fit for her. If your daughter is not a member, I hope she joins Democrats Abroad NZ. They help get her to vote from abroad. https://www.democratsabroad.org/nz
Please check out also the most effective voter registration and turnout organization run by brilliant Harvard students which is in the process of registering hundreds of thousands of Community College students and HS seniors 18 to 29 yrs of age...www.TurnUp.US. It most efficiently concentrates its nonpartisan efforts only in the most "competitive" congressional districts and senate elections based on protecting reproductive rights, controlling assault weapons, and fighting climate change! They are very experiienced and efficiently use social media to run registration drives in those schools and it is a 501c3 so you get a tax deduction as well...please contribute generously...they are the real deal!
I have donated to TurnUp and had a chat with Zev. I asked about postcard writing to help out. He said they don't do post card writing because youth don't read mail. I got a kick out of that and I agree. They are amazing in getting out the 18-29 year olds to register to vote. They focus on swing states. We need this young generation desperately.
Fabulous report Betsey many thanks; TurnUp is very experienced and very efficient! Please folks give them a helping hand?
done, doing.
Terrific!
We really appreciate your good judgment in supporting this brilliant group of Harvard students who have figured out efficient ways to use soc med to reach hundreds of thousands of 18 to 29s to register and vote in critically “competitive” congressional districts to protect abortion rights!
you put me onto them months ago, thank you!
Many thanks
For the younger generation, Rock The VOTE has quick video tutorials on TikTok — the promo’s call ‘ABSENTEE VOTING’ > ‘FLEXIBLE VOTING
https://www.tiktok.com/@rockthevoteofficial/video/7292824359096438059
Maybe some of the top games can insert subliminal messages to vote for Harris.
In FL Fladems is texting/calling all recent graduates.
FT 6 is contacting nonregistered folk who trend Democratic in swing states.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Thank you for continuing to inform about TurnUp. We learned about it here from you a while back and now are monthly donors.
Spectacular! Thank you and please spread the word as hundreds of millions of political dollars are wasted on tv ads!
Yup. I am not a Gen Zer or a millennial and I never watch tv.
I downloaded their ap too.
I agree Ann -- a rose by any other name is still a thorn in our democracy. His views align with ProjeQt 2025, or Agenda 47 and you know he will implement these plans if given the chance. He must not be.
I am writing postcards and my wife and I have donated three times so far to the Harris campaign, with more to come.
I only hope that she will be kept safe.
Project 2025 is exactly the opposite of what the founders wanted for the country they were creating. They fought so hard to get rid of a king. Project 2025 is dangerous bullshit.
As for cryptocurrency, that would be a criminal disaster, enabling all kinds of criminal activity.
I don’t understand why bitcoin and its ilk haven’t been made illegal. It’s the major source of funding for all manner of illegal activities. If you loose a fortune because it’s shut down I guess you should have invested in a legitimate business not a ponzi scam. It’s not in the interest of any government or society outside of maybe Russia, North Korea, and Iran and who among us want’s to support them?
I don’t understand that either, Dick!
Thanks, Doug. I am writing postcards, too. I think it's still a viable way to reach would-be voters.
I'm writing postcards to GA voters -- they are just 'get out the vote' cards - but I sure am tempted to add And Vote Blue!
Might as well Laurie.
I'm thinking that too -- I bought the 400 stamps so I think I could put my own 'stamp' on it!
For my Vote Forward letter writing project, I bought 400 "Thank You" USPS stamps specifically as a subliminal message.
Morning Lynell!!
So late seeing this. Time to say Afternoon, Ally! (Doesn't quite have the same ring, though!)
Ha! I may wait and say “Evening Lynell” some night!!!
I am reading Project 2025 with my Democrats Abroad book club. I am finding that Andra Watkins discussion of the religious beliefs of the groups Trump is catering to politically, and that Project 2025 is targeted to helps me to understand some of the subtext in P2025. For one, she talks about the belief systems of Christian Nationalists and The New Apostolic Reformation, which is what Alito and Mike Johnson seem to belong to. One of the things she discusses is their differing views of the end of days.
https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/what-is-the-new-apostolic-reformation
So, since the CNs believe that the end of days is near they have no reason to worry about the environment even though we are living in a climate change nightmare already. Secondly, she talks about how the NAR believes that they have to make the earth ready for God first as a difference, so that they have to impose their beliefs on everyone. We are hoping to put together one pagers targeted to different audiences. I like this cool TikTok that Robert Reich made. Well, I know my 19-year old daughter would call it "cringy" but I assume it might get views because it is funny, and he is putting himself out there. https://youtu.be/J4m1YAcQNXc?si=fJ4vNL7YeiAaPkNS
Linda- their actions show that they believe in a very weak God. A TV series named Stargate that dealt with aliens that used humans as slaves and built the pyramids had a great episode where it was asked "If you God is so powerful, why is he asking you to do his fighting and die for him? Can't he just use his power?" This is the statement that would cause their heads to explode.
It is a little cringey, LInda, so I have to agree with your daughter. :)
Yes! There is a job for everyone and everyone needs to find it, even if it’s catsitting for poll workers or babysitting for their children. At 90 I’m part of the postcard posse, using printing skills left over from WWII when I was in second grade and part of the “War Effort” learning to knit squares for afghans for soldiers. (I’m faster with postcards. Still world’s slowest knitter.)
When you think about it, it's stunning they exposed themselves by publishing it at all.
Koch et al, Peter Thiel must be so arrogant they are proud of this disgraceful crap.
Well, let me clear that up for you. They did not mean to expose themselves but some handy tech people did some rabbit hole dives and found the information! These journalists and researchers wanted to know who paid off Kavanaugh’s debts and how did Mitch McConnell get three illegitimate justices on SCOTUS. Who recommended these particular three? Everything pointed at Leonard Leo. He’s a religious fanatic who has serious ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian oligarchs, Ginni and Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow, Charles Koch, The Mercer family, Barry Seid, etc.. He has been challenged by Sen. Whitehouse to testify and he has, thus far, refused to do so. He is Catholic but not a fan of Pope Francis. He has established 40+ companies, all under the guise of being charitable organizations which he has filed 501 3c’s on all. Surprisingly, (not) is that Ginni Thomas is the owner of one of those companies. Each company launders money to each other. Leo is behind the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. Remember his name.
In addition to agreeing that is necessary to prevent authoritarian autocracy by voting overwhelmingly for egalitarian democracy, I feel compelled to say that although winning in November is necessary, it is not sufficient. The following is not a criticism of anyone. Instead, it is just my personal opinion as to what must happen in addition to winning in November.
We live in a social system. If you change a system, any system, and you don't know what you're doing, you're not making it better. Instead, you're tampering, and by tampering, you're making it worse. So, you need to understand the system. The good news is that the basic principle is simple enough for every elementary school graduate to understand.
Civilization exists because of our genetically inherited social instinct. As Charles Darwin put it, "The very essence of instinct is that it is followed independently of reason." To anyone who is reading this, I can tell you that any appearance that you are not following our species' social instinct is an illusion. Our instinct is why our Paleolithic ancestors lived in hunter-gatherer bands, and our instinct is why, when our more recent ancestors discovered they had too many people and not enough territory to live as hunter-gatherers, they adapted by creating civilization.
It comes down to a choice between two simple ideas. On their side, there's Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Kevin Roberts, Vladimir Putin, Peter Theil, Adolf Hitler, and Elon Musk who are among the people who believe that the "system" works when it is CONTROLLED by the chosen ones, and to their surprise, they've "discovered" that they are the chosen ones. On our side, there are the Hebrew prophets, Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jesus of Nazareth, the Prophet Muhammed, Adam Smith (the founding father of capitalism), Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, JFK, MLK, RFK Sr, John Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris who are among those who know that the "system" works when it is CONSTRAINED by the "treat others the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot" principle.
In conclusion, we don't choose to follow our instinct. We just follow our instinct like an actor following a script. But we do get to choose what to include and what to exclude. My personal choice is to include the following idea:
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." —Martin Luther King Jr.
Make no mistake, P25 is for ANY REPUBLICAN. Just look at GOP controlled states for examples. Hang this around every republican candidate or office holder, every one of them. Until they come out against it publicly, it is THEIR policy.
Exactly, Ann! What are the Trumpites “disavowing” actually? Did the “disavowel” show SUPPORT for the Department of Education? What did the “disavowel” say about Climate Change or Equal Rights? Did the “disavowel” say “We ain’t gonna do that Sh*t”? Nope.
I did already🤓
I have no problem believing that the convicted felon trump doesn't know what's in the project 2025 document. I have seen no sign that the convicted felon trump is capable of reading or understanding the document.
When the convicted felon trump got involved with "reality tv" after failing at every business he ever got involved in, I remember reading somewhere that the only thing of value he had was the name trump. He sold the rights to putting the trump name on buildings, but he did not own them or have any part in deciding where or how to build them.
I believe that is exactly how his political career has operated; he sells his name but has no actual part in developing policy. That explains his blathering on in public appearances, and his number of golf games while supposedly President.
So, yes, if he is elected, he will not implement 2025, but he will appear to, and it will be implemented.
Absolutely correct, the Heritage Foundation isn't a flash in the pan & it isn't going away- it has to be kept from scurrying back into the woodwork where it can continue devouring the real foundation of our country - thinking, working, caring people. It is time for action.
TRAIN TO WORK AT YOUR LOCAL POLLING PLACE.
They ALL need volunteers.
Like Tim Walz said, "These people are Weird." And the term has caught on - VP Harris used it today in her speech in Atlanta and got a huge response to the question, "Aren't these people weird?"
And the more the escapees from Flyover Loserville claim they're not weird, the more weird they show themselves to be.
They’re a lot worse than weird. They’re creeps. They make any decent hiuman being’s skin crawl.
They are Nazis.
Well… yes. That, too.
The past Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed to agree.
But the word now is "MAGA", not Nazi.
All the same. Putin paints a "Z" on his tanks but it might as well be a swastika.
Hm. Maybe a cyrillic Z is a swastika. I have a sudden picture of little Putin in a pair of clean overalls, painting Zs on tanks.
I like Little Putin.
He does have small man syndrome.
The weird label concerns as me as well because weird and innocuous can go together. Weird can imply harmless. Trump, Steven Miller, Kevin Roberts, JD Vance etc. are dangerous and we can’t afford to forget it. Power grabs aren’t weird, they’re pretty common and can be, as they are here, very dangerous. We’ve got to take these people seriously because if we don’t, they could succeed and we can’t afford that.
This is not the use of the word "weird" as "innocuous." It'sthe use of"Weird" as in "creepy," "someone you cross the street to avoid," etc. Go look up how Walz used it and I think you'll get the idea.
Thanks, TCinLA, for pointing out the importance of the context in which Gov. Walz used "weird." Being a Minnesotan, I recognize "weird" as what you say about anything that doesn't fit anywhere in your logic system. It could be about a thing or a person or an intractable problem. It could be negative, neutral, or positive. What those uses have in common is that you see something is "weird" when you can't reckon with it. I think Walz naming Trump's people as "weird" stretches how we see them. They're not just wrong about what matters for a nation; their ideas don't fit anywhere that makes sense.
Exactly!
Ok, as creepy I understand it. Maybe I misunderstood because I’m old.
I'm against calling people "weird" also in a derogatory fashion. Weird is simply abnormal, of which at least 2 out of 3 in my immediate family are!
There's abnormal, and then there's creepy abnormal.
Like those sisters at beginning of Macbeth - they were described as weird, too.
My wisest friend says, "We're all anomalies". I find this current example of "weird" to be a catch-all that invites people to project their own meanings. It seems unhelpful in this critical leadership context.
I think there's "good weird" (me) and "creepy weird" (Trump & Co.) Maybe "creepy weird" is what to call them -- it's funny and knocks them off their high faux-Christian horse. I'm all for that!
I like the term weird because it is dismissive in a way that mocks DJT....gets people laughing at the bully, which can be very effective...and DJT hates being laughed at...likely causing him to lose power and deteriorate even further and faster.
I agree. He doesn’t think he’s weird at all, or at least he’s worried some e will think he is. That ilk think they are the normal ones, and must foist that “ normality” on the rest of us. That’s weird.
Hillary s "despicable" was a very good word that she used for Trump. She never called his supporters "despicable" but these project 2025 people are in my book. Weird is not the best word but I'm concern that the words I'd like to use would make people ignore me and I would lose my in my conversation. I'll stay with "weird"
Deplorable. Hillary referred to them as deplorable, not despicable.
There’s an ocean of difference between the two words.
Didn’t she say half his supporters fit into a basket of deplorables? It was a huge mistake, even if not untrue.
After Trump’s first state of the Union address, we need all the laughs we can get until he’s “disappeared” into Mal-a-Lago or Siberia.
I agree with you. I don't see the humor or purpose in all this joking around.
It makes them objects of ridicule. Being ridiculed and laughed at is what Donnie can't stand.
A certain levity can bolster morale. as in Franklin's comment about all hanging separately. There is also the power of the political humorist, such as Thomas Nast cartoons.
Exactly. It's like calling someone a nerd. I am one and have been called one many times, but I don't perceive it negatively.
But call CFDT a nerd and he steam would come out of his ears. Manly men aren't nerds and they aren't weird. Other possible pejoratives are "old" and "dotard".
Objects of ridicule, have thought that since “Obama from Kenya” nonsense
In Heather's FB chat yesterday, she intimated that laughter and humor is something authoritarian wannabes cannot stand.
I’m not concerned. The “weird” label will stick, I think, and carry its bad connotations. I like “creepy” better, but Walz did well sticking them with a negative moniker.
Both Vance and tfg are borderline menacing. I’ll never forget the image of tfg looming over Hilary, like a stalker, in their 2016 debate.
Pretty far over the borderline. They are explicitly menacing. It’s part of their schtick, and upwards 74 million Americans like it, which 74 million the world would be a better place without.
they are nazis
31July2024: Just for the record, there are now three colorful billboards in the Phoenix area with the following message: “Welcome to Arizona, JD Vance. Abortion access is not up for grabs here, weirdo.” So “weird” (or “weirdo” in this case, which pretty much eliminates any positive connotations) seems to be going viral. Hooray! May it persist through November 5.
TC - there are plenty of good people in Flyover Ville and plenty of weirdos on the coasts, as I’m sure you know. JD Vance’s backers are in California and New York. I live in Silicon Valley and we’re dealing with our share of weirdos in local governments here too. Wherever you find concentrations of wealth, you find these libertarian and crypto and fascist weirdos.
As someone who left Flyover Loserville 3 days after I graduated from High School and went back as seldom as possible until there weren't any more funerals to worry about, I have plenty of reason to continue to dislike the place.
I grew up in Michigan and am so proud that Whitmer is now leading that state. There is Mid-Western warmth and earnestness as well as some stuck in the mud conservative notions.
Proud for you, wish I could. A trip to Seattle several years ago seemed like heaven. And that was before chump, but not the tea party.
Countries where the great mass of people live in poverty while most of the nation's wealth is held by a few families are objectively creepy, so it seems at some point too much concentration of wealth is too much. Yet it's never enough for some, and some cannot bear to see anyone outside of the aristocracy catch an even break.
Many good people, yes, but a significant majority of the white people in the flyover (a 20- to 40-point, or worse depending on the area) are despicable people. TC is, I fhink, talking about that cohort, not the 30% or so who are good people. The “msny good people” line is the line Trump uses all the time to make excuses for the despicable ideas he promotes.
We have all drank the cool-aid if we believe in Cryto and AI as anything ‘real.’ But that’s the drugification of much of the reality of this marketing…Fuax is a motor drug dealers, legal, perhaps, but the same actions on your brain. HCR is the antidote!
@TCinLA: ...Flyover Loserville?
You mean the rural people who took the hit when Ronnie Raygun broke up the Unions that provided living wages to the working class? They have a legitimate beef with the monopolies that moved in and bought out the family farms and littered their towns with big box stores that Mom & Pop stores couldn't compete with and who paid the federal minimum wage which hasn't moved off of $7.50 / hour for decades. The same goes for the government that ignored them.
Poverty is built into the Flyover space. So their towns public schools can't hire the best teachers and administrators and when their kids graduate they are not ready for the information economy and head to urban environments or the military where there are jobs and training in useful skills.
Yes, they have been down so long that Trump looks like up to them. And he doesn't care about them he's just using their anger to get them to rally around his messiah complex. My father had a saying which applies here: "An argument wouldn't last long if that right / truth was only one side."
What's weird is how lacking in sympathy we are for each other.
The MAGAts I know are not poverty-stricken or ignorant. Just seem to have a taste for bullschittery. Tis true that small towns and rural areas have some jewels mixed with the turds, but the ratios have reversed in a couple of decades. I am as empathetic as most, maybe too much so. But I have no sympathy/empathy/tolerance for deliberate ignorance when the truth is available but ignored.
The technical term may be Assholes, just saying. And many are addicted to Faux and other sources…more cult than politics, just like Orban.
That descriptor fits.
They are adicted on purpose. They like it and want to stay that way. If the Fox propaganda lightened up, they’d find another enabler. No excuses! They simply are not decent human beings.
Fox “entertained” us into stupidity
Here are the 2024 minimum wage rates by state -
State Name Minimum Wage Rate Department Name Rate Adjusted Yearly
Alabama $7.25 / hour Alabama Department of Labor
Alaska $11.73 / hour Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development
Arizona $14.35 / hour Industrial Commission of Arizona ✓
Arkansas $11.00 / hour Arkansas Department of Labor
California $16.00 / hour California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and the Office of the Labor Commissioner
Colorado $14.42 / hour Colorado Department of Labor and Employment ✓
Connecticut $15.69 / hour Connecticut Department of Labor
Delaware $13.25 / hour Delaware Department of Labor ✓
District of Columbia $17.00 / hour District of Columbia Department of Employment Services
Federal $7.25 / hour Federal Department of Labor
Florida $13.00 / hour Florida Division of Workforce Services ✓
Georgia $7.25 / hour Georgia Department of Labor
Hawaii $14.00 / hour Hawaii Department of Labor & Industrial Relations
Idaho $7.25 / hour Idaho Department of Labor
Illinois $14.00 / hour Illinois Department of Labor
Indiana $7.25 / hour Indiana Department of Labor
Iowa $7.25 / hour Iowa Labor Services Division
Kansas $7.25 / hour Kansas Department of Labor
Kentucky $7.25 / hour Kentucky Labor Cabinet
Louisiana $7.25 / hour Louisiana Workforce Commission
Maine $14.15 / hour Maine Department of Labor
Maryland $15.00 / hour Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation
Massachusetts $15.00 / hour Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor & Workforce Development
Michigan $10.33 / hour Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA)
Minnesota $10.85 / hour Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry
Mississippi $7.25 / hour Mississippi Department of Employment Security
Missouri $12.30 / hour Missouri Labor and Industrial Relations Commission ✓
Montana $10.30 / hour Montana Department of Labor and Industry ✓
Nebraska $12.00 / hour Nebraska Department of Labor
Nevada $12.00 / hour Nevada Department of Business and Industry ✓
New Hampshire $7.25 / hour New Hampshire Department of Labor
New Jersey $15.13 / hour New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development ✓
New Mexico $12.00 / hour New Mexico Department of Work Force Solutions
New York $15.00 / hour New York Department of Labor
North Carolina $7.25 / hour North Carolina Department of Labor
North Dakota $7.25 / hour North Dakota Department of Labor
Ohio $10.45 / hour Ohio Department of Commerce ✓
Oklahoma $7.25 / hour Oklahoma Department of Labor
Oregon $14.20 / hour Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ✓
Pennsylvania $7.25 / hour Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
Puerto Rico $9.50 / hour Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources
Rhode Island $14.00 / hour Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training
South Carolina $7.25 / hour South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulations
South Dakota $11.20 / hour South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation ✓
Tennessee $7.25 / hour Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development
Texas $7.25 / hour Texas Workforce Commission
Utah $7.25 / hour Utah Labor Commission
Vermont $13.67 / hour Vermont Department of Labor
Virginia $12.00 / hour Virginia Department of Labor and Industry
Washington $16.28 / hour Washington Department of Labor and Industries ✓
West Virginia $8.75 / hour West Virginia Division of Labor
Wisconsin $7.25 / hour Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development
Wyoming $7.25 / hour Wyoming Department of Workforce Service
Most of the Confederate states are stuck at $7.25 except VA,FL and AR. And what's with AZ at $14.35 an hour. Don't they realize they are a swing state?
The check mark means their rate is indexed so the rate changes each year.
Very interesting correlation! Thank you. I shall write to my PA Senators regarding our minimum wage rate.
Thanks for this data, Gary. I’ve copied it to my notes to make it handy when I need it.
👍
Rural people and the white working clsss took the hit and asked for more because Reagan guaranteed to continue the economic, legal, and social oppression of black people. Rural people and the white working class caused their own demise and did it for despicable reasons. They deserve no sympathy whatever.
And they still are doing it. The tax cut bill of 2017 was another failed example of trickle down economics. Economists estimate the loss of revenue from the uber rich and corporations at $2.5 trillion. But who ended up with the other $5.4 trillion that was added to the national debt?
They are strange weird creatures with no integrity
To quote Star Trek, "Life, but not as we know it."
Here’s a great Substack post which talks about the Weird counter movement
https://www.readtpa.com/p/weird-times-in-american-politics
Every time I hear Trump trumpeting about "fixing" our country, I can't help thinking that we use the word when we "fix" our pets so that they will be impotent and unable to reproduce. We need to make sure that Trump and his followers do not get a chance to make to make our democracy impotent.
Yeah, Betsy, he wants to “neuter” the voting population…who needs voting when we have “him”? 🤮
We fix our pets so that they aren't driven to distraction by urges to f each other.
Drumpf intends to enable just the opposite....for white men.
Yes, we do fix our pets for their safety & health & also to protect against unplanned babies that won't be adequately cared for! To let things be twisted so that everything supports white men thinking & acting with their dicks is unthinkable. Men are the only animals that will destroy everything around them by saying an urge is the meaning of life. In nature, this is held in check by the female mating cycle, other species aren't running around raping everything in sight, that's insane & sick. Healthy white males know this, too. Glamorizing dangerous behavior has to be stopped, we can't indulge the dark, sick fantasies of this dying breed & we can't afford to wait until they kill each other off. Didn't mean to go off on your comment, lol, but yeah, these a-holes need to be fixed, for their own good & everything around them. It's the compassionate & smart thing to do.
I've quietly advocated for male castration for a long long time.
I think some men would agree, since they can't see their misogynistic behavior is the same as the ones we would like to fix.
Testosterone really is the most dangerously drug on the planet.
Well said.
I'd like to see the convicted felon, adjudicated rapist neutered
Preach that line
Look at Russia - the GOP sent Friedman over there to fix it and what happened? All public infrastructure sold off at pennies on the dollars to the former power brokers and to those from the West willing to come in and exploit the new system. Putin is a very well funded soviet communist who used government power to bring the wealthy under his control rather successfully. This is the republican party of today, P25 is their road map and will not just go away. All the republicans are in line with the plan as who have you heard come out and condemn it? tRump's denial is not a denial.
Yes, Project 2025 aims to destroy the good governance Heather cites Tim Walz leading in Minnesota.
This is good governance most Americans want -- whose basics Heather also lists here. But something else: as Rolling Stone has recently written -- and Rachel Maddow yesterday reported on: how MAGA as of now has at least 70 2020 election deniers in office across swing state America set to certify 2024 results only for the orange felon.
As David Cay Johnston has said to this, it will take many lawyers, court cases, and dollars to litigate the new MAGA corruption.
But recall, we’re deep in it already, from the head rotting down, as in all those perjured, bribed, fully corrupt Republicans of the Clarence court ruling first American women into MAGA medievaldom, then the rest of us into the further lawlessness of Clarence court also having ruled their orange felon above the law, and ditto the billionaire predators now with impunity violating federal agency health, safety, finance, and environmental protections.
Evil: entrenched. In the long run it’s going to take schools to put humanities back, and return teachers (not testing) to the center.
The short run (90-some days now): an avalanche of decent souls voting out MAGA.
I saw Rachel Maddow yesterday, too, and I worry about those election deniers…a nightmare I envision is that Harris wins by a huge landslide in the popular vote but, between election denying officials and assistance from foreign governments, the orange criminal “wins” and takes office and we lose our democracy. I hope this nightmare doesn’t turn into reality.
Don't give that scenario energy, just visualize a landslide for VP Harris!
True. My new mantra will be: Harris landslide, Harris landslide, Harris landslide…
Love this!
It’s their plan, man
Volunteer at your local Polling Station - every one needs 1 Dem volunteer.
I can do that
Exactly 👎🏻
I trust VP Harris knows and is making a plan 😉
The biggest nightmare would be if the election is so close no one gets 270 EC votes and it goes to the House to determine the President.
No matter who prevails there will be some serious hard feelings and I fear riots will ensue.
The even bigger nightmare is when States with R administrations refuse to validate the chosen electors and send their own personally chosen “alternative” slate to the EC.
I don't think they can do that with the recent Electoral Count Act that was passed in 2022:
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/electoral-count-act/
you are assuming the Felon and his ilk have any intention of respecting the Rule of L:aw.
I saw Rachel too and couldn't sleep that night as a result.
It gives me nightmares!
Super majority…
We can't even go back to medieval society if we wanted to. Too many things have changed. I think the real aim is refeudalization, for those for whom billions is never enough is the real engine under the hood of MAGA, as it was in the fight to retain slavery and currently to replace democracy with autocracy.
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." - Lincoln
So true, both then and now!
The Supreme Court delivered the presidential election in 2000 to the Republican Party in Bush v. Gore. The MAGA majority opinion in Trump v. United States benefited Trump by eviscerating the separation of powers doctrine upon which the Constitution is founded. As such, it is not a stretch to believe that at least some members of the majority (Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas) would not balk at putting their thumb on the scales to get the Trump/Vance ticket across the line.
The Powell memo back in 1971 set in motion all that became today's corruption.
Louis Powell and his chambers of commerce and corporate allies then just wanted primacy for commercial interests in the U.S. It meant, then, marginalizing or totally ridding humanities from school curricula -- allowing the presence of and priorities for the personal interfered with the business of turning all life to numbers, units, moneyed issues only.
Easy enough by the end of the 1970s to have rid schools of humanities. Next, financializing all higher ed as well as turning all K-12 over to the profiteers of standardized testing. (See Wendell Berry, "The Unsettling of America," 1977; and Diane Ravitch, "The Language Police," 2003, plus several other key works on how the corporate vulgarized, made totally impotent all American education.)
The coast was then clear beginning in the 1980s to offshore the millions of working-class jobs so the rich got richer and government got suborned to dark money.
Correct you are, Mark -- 2000 was the turning point, at which early version of the Clarence court was drawing its artillery in its war against democracy, America.
Yes Phil, the Powell memo has had a very damaging impact on the United States. I have just scanned the memo again. Powell attacks the left:
"the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic. These extremists of the left are far more numerous, better financed, and increasingly are more welcomed and encouraged
by other elements of society, than ever before in our history. But they remain a small minority and are not yet the principal cause for concern. |The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism, come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians."
In fact, Powell is attacking pluralism. How dare "perfectly respectable elements of society" criticize the system.
Powell highlights the opportunity to use the courts as instruments of change:
"American business and the enterprise system have been affected as much by the courts as by the executive and legislative branches of government. Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary
may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change."
Thank you, Mark, for your most apt quotes.
So few have seen that Powell memo as the juggernaut it has been. And yet, in plain language then, and in the obvious actions of the far-right foundations to implement what Sheldon Whitehouse has called their schemes ("The Scheme"), they indeed waylaid, marginalized, killed off the humanities that buoyed our pluralism, then used the courts to open the floodgates of vulgarity, pro-criminality.
One could argue that Richard Daley delivered the 1960 election to JFK.
Yeah - republicans lover to argue that, but never proved it.
Guaranteed
That thought keeps me up at night
I saw a news report that said Kari Lake (Arizona) won her primary.
Sad info, Lynell.
But she now faces Reuben Gallego in the general election for the U.S. Senate seat from Arizona. If Dems can stay united nationally, and Kamala can provide good cohesion, many orange felon sycophants can be crushed fairly convincingly in November.
From your mouth to God's ears
I’m so glad that you are writing about 45’s telling people that they just have to elect him in 2024 and then they won’t have to vote again.
We need to keep sharing what’s in Project 2025. Buried on page 489 is the statement “Medicare Advantage will be the default.” This is a big gift to the insurance companies. Back in 1965, to get Medicare passed, the bill was changed so that enrollees could only get the best rates on their Medicare supplement (Medigap) policies) if they enrolled in a Medigap policy when they first signed up for Medicare and never dropped Medigap coverage—otherwise, insurers could charge whatever the market could bear or refuse coverage for preexisting conditions. Today, that means if you choose Medicare Advantage first or change to Medicare Advantage for more than 3 months, then you can be charged much more. Friends and relatives who switched to Medicare Advantage and then got Medigap quotes the next year found that their premiums had tripled or quadrupled.
Wow, I think Kamala will be on this problem if she is made aware.
She knows. And I’ll add that if you chose Medicare Advantage and decide later to switch to a supplement you must medically qualify. You can be turned down completely. This means you’re stuck in an Advantage plan. That “free” gym membership can cost you much more.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanbrownson/p/running?r=gdp9j&selection=84a6e0a2-7d79-4583-b03d-6b9b337a2b56&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web
These are not the kind of Christians I grew up with--people who believed in Jesus as the Prince of Peace, and the moral requirement to help not only your neighbors, but also the strangers whose life paths cross our own. I didn't go to any of the churches they went to, but they learned good values, not a tribalistic exceptionalism.
I think that there has long been a strain of narcissistic,predatory "religion" that practices the opposite of what Jesus taught. Somehow it is often more salient than churches based on kindness. Jesus was indifferent and/or critical of material wealth and political power. It does seem that anti-Christian "Christians", and anti republic "Republicans" have been on a roll since my childhood. Those who condemn the most deprived, worship wealth, and yearn to machine-gun their enemies seem the antithesis of Jesus' values.
I'm going to agree that it's the way that has all turned out, there is no 'seem' to it. It's real. Just look at the actions not the words. People who aren't encouraged to think will swallow the words as if they meant something terribly high minded all by themselves. In fact churches have discouraged thinking. And as a Jew I have to say one reason we are reviled is that the work we do is reviled; why is another question altogether. And we do it every single week, even in the camps. And that is questioning the mysterious words given, however they were given. They are still guides but we have to figure it out constantly because things keep changing in that very human way that humans have of exploring and figuring stuff out. Meaning is derived from how things affect people and to what degree of actual good will.
The fake Christians you refer to are using the supposed voice of God somehow implanted in their sick brains as a tool for control of everyone else and this has been going on for about 1,700 years. I think of it as brain and heart poverty
All about power. I think they feel they are tired of their kids coming home from school questioning the teachings of their sunday schools.
That translates beautifully as "We won't need YOU anymore," not just your vote. People are expendable and replaceable. And if they resist, shoot them. I know that sounds grim, but I've done a fair amount of reading about the gulags and the concentration camps. Such authoritarianism is cruel beyond belief. These people are dangerous and we must not let them cheat or interfere with the election process. It is truly sobering how open the Orange Menace is. I have two grandsons, two granddaughters, and two great-granddaughters by blood and more by marriage. I shudder against going back. As VP Kamala Harris says, "We WON'T go back."
Years ago, when the personnel departments changed name to "human resources", I said this was not a good move. People became a "resource" not people.
Trump is such a moron, he doesn't even know what fascism is. At one point he called all of us (liberal progressives) Antifa - a title I was happy to retain. Of course, he thought it was an insult. but I' am an anti-fascist and have been for almost 85 years since my father explained it to me in October 1939 when I was 6 years old. Since then I've learned not only to hate fascism but to fear it as well. But Trump in his stupidity has made a 180 degree turn and now is calling us fascists (I think he is confusing it with socialists but who knows what goes on in that scrambled brain, if anything)
But it's not just voting for the Harris/? ticket . We, the voters of the United States, MUST give Kamala both Houses of Congress, preferably for the first four years. There are too many things that have to be enacted.
I agree with everything President Biden said regarding the Supreme Court. BUT, I'd like to add another need: We need a list of basic requirements for all appointed and elected positions in at least the Federal Government. As of now, only two of the Branches have ANY requirements - the Executive and Legislative branches, have AGE and Citizenship requirements. Yahoo! They don't need to be able to read and write, or do simple arithmetic. They don't need to have read the Constitution of the United States, with comprehension. And for the Federal Courts, including the Supreme, they don't even need to have a law degree OR to have passed the bar.
That's right. I don't give a damn what party you belong to, do you really want a driveling moron representing you in Government? I don't. I happen to have a physician who in his former life was the County's Chief Medical Officer - he's obviously very intelligent, but more than that, he is very civic minded.
There are many respectable attorneys as well as some astute business men. But on the other hand we have Matt Gaetz - who's only claim to fame is having carnal relations with under age girls, or Marjorie Taylor Green - her only claim to fame is bleached blond hair and a loud mouth.
Any candidate for any office should be able to read and write at the 12th grade level. The very least education should be a high school diploma, college degree preferable, their understanding of the Constitution should be at least equivalent to that of a naturalized citizen.
And for the Supreme Court, not just a law degree, but prior experience and references as a judge at a lower level PLUS a knowledge of and acceptance of the Constitution AS IT IS WRITTEN, not as they fantasize they would have written it. These are the requirements on which ANY President should choose a Supreme Court Justice - not on their political party affiliation - but on their ability to read the Rule of Law with understanding and EQUAL fairness for all.
It would help if teacher were paid a living wage. My father was a teacher and was respected and well paid in that capacity. Back then curriculums required students take a course in Civics which made students aware of the structure and purpose of the various branches of the Federal government at a minimum. Unfortunately, most school systems have dropped the mandatory Civics course in favor of STEM courses and sports. And regrettably the quality of public education depends on where you fall in the income brackets and how much your house cost.
Thank you, Larry. I retired from teaching in 1988. And yes, compared to other government jobs I was well paid. I retired because my husband was retiring that year and we were building a house in an adjoining County about 65 miles away (and I was 55, retirement age) I went to work in social Services in that County at a third less money, retired from the County and went to work in the same field (social services) but private computer consulting for more than I made as a teacher. I taught science (chemistry, physics and astronomy) so was not involved but unhappily aware of the cuts to education including civics and vocational education. Education went downhill from there. Being a Naturalized Citizen - I did read my Constitution, still have the same worn copy, and learned to love it. It is a real pity most citizens have never read it. I've won many arguments with my American gun loving relatives who thought the second amendment was just the 2nd phrase "........the right to bear arms shall not be infringed."
Wow Fay, I did the math regarding you being 55 in 1988. Thanks for still teaching us!
I hope I am learning until my last breath.
Thank you
A country is a potentially dangerous vehicle for choices, and poor decisions can be deadly, both at home and abroad. If it is really to be DIY governance, we surely need some basic, empowering training to operate it wisely, justly, and safely.
When my daughter began college, an official who later served a spell as college president, gave a speech to parents, spoke of Socrates, and asked us to think about teachers who had changed our lives for the better. I could think of several. I've been something of a computer nerd since the mid 1970s and helped create some interactive applications, but while I am convinced machine-aided learning has a place, it is not an equivalent to flesh and blood. The maps are not the territories. My wife and several friends are or were public school, teachers, and while as in any profession, I've encountered some duds, I think that dedicated and highly skilled teaching is one of the most essential professions on the planet. Also, frankly, I think the younger children are, the more learned and skilled the teacher should be. And yeah, some kind of standards, but outcome based, and objective oriented, recognizing that teaching is an individual art as well as a science.
And also, I think that successful and admirable living is an art as well as a science, as s wise statecraft. I'm not sure what to make of STEM. I was an avid science major (but a generalist overall) and I think that our system does a good job of preparing science professionals, but (seemingly, and there is research that shows this) a fairly sorry job of of training those with no professional scientific ambitions to think scientifically, or even adequately appreciate the hows and whys of scientific thinking in increasingly technologically enabled society without much appreciation of extended consequences. You don't have to understand the technical aspects of the "field" of science to use, even if only casually, the scientific method, To apply beneficial disciplines to thought. MAGA is the utter abandonment of that.
Requirement for qualification for office is a very tricky area, and one that could be easily abused, but as you point out, we have a presidential requirement for minimum age. In some respects it's arbitrary, but it assures some exposure to experience; sans any guarantee that the person in question was paying attention. Should a person with access to top secret documents, never mind nuclear codes, be required to pass existing standards for security clearance? So it would seem to me. Should a person whose duty is to uphold the law be permitted to casually break the law? Even foundational law? Perhaps there is room for, in retrospect one-of-a kind exceptions. Even "laws" of mathematics contain some inherent, Godelian inconsistencies. But in the main, how in the hell to we expect those who struggle to respect the law when those most privileged are given a pass? And how do you check and balance?
We as a society need a far more articulate understanding of our own, and our social, psychology, We have an experiential, individual nature as well as social dependencies and a social nature. We of necessity follow self-interest, but letting ego run the whole show produces sociopathic evils; and makes our species it's own worst enemy. Particularly in this "as seen on TV", and now the Internet age, we seem to conflate leadership and virtue with celebrity, and yet, it government of, by and for the people is for real, we are constantly making decisions that impact the future of our whole society, so while part of the joy of life (I think) is the child in us that never dies, at least until we do, there are definitely times to put away childish things. At a certain point, it's not a game, it's real; and the real world is full of perils as well as nurture and wonders. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
I like that Kamala Harris is taking Trump on in such a direct manner. That’s what will win, in my opinion.
I absolutely detest the Trump ads about Harris’ failures at the border. They are so far removed from truth and reality! I heard VP Harris speak yesterday and she called the GOP out on the facts of the issue. It is important that she reminds people who killed that bipartisan bill. It wasn’t her!!!
Republican leaders are muggers who accuse their victims of theft.
Ahhhh… the belief in a “leadership class”. I think people like Vance (or whatever his name really is) dream of being Kings not politicians (as defined by the Founding Fathers).
I suggest people who think it’s a good thing that America won World War II learn the role management pioneer Dr W Edwards Deming played in that victory.
At a time when America needed to build a lot of tanks, planes and other weapons quickly and at high quality, Deming’s pioneering methods created factory cultures in which everyone learned from each other and top down management was minimized. Bosses were no longer kings. In order to improve the quality of what was produced, mistakes were openly discussed … because they were opportunities to learn and improve the manufacturing process.
We literally won the war by doing away with the notion of a “leadership class“ and instituting the concept of “community of equals dedicated to quality“.
Sadly, this cultural breakthrough was forgotten during the rah rah years of the 1950s … when America manufacturers could sell whatever they made. But that loss was not permanent. In 1980, the Deming management method was rediscovered because it was discovered (by NBC News) as being used by Japan, where what was being made was now the best in the world. (Deming had been sent to Japan in 1950 by General McArthur.)
For a while, top down management went away in America again. Companies like Ford hired Deming to teach them how to put quality first and minimize the power of the boss. In the 1980s, the marketing slogan of the Ford Motor Company was “at Ford quality is job one“.
People like Vance probably don’t care that we won the World War II through a cooperative effort because he dreams of being a king. I don’t know where he got that dream, but people like him want to take us back to the time when a real king ruled the 13 colonies.
Here’s a clip from one of the final presentations Deming gave … in the early 1990s … in which he advocated an approach to using his methods that could ultimately heal the world… taking it from a culture of cut throat competition to one of global cooperation and continuous learning and improvement. This breakthrough is still possible today!
https://youtu.be/lfkQHEBYJjk
Speaking of cooperation, the Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of Spain deserves greater recognition. Started in 1956, it includes 95 autonomous cooperatives in finance, industry, retail, technology and R&D. One worker, one vote. Top executive salary only 6 times that of the lowest paid employee.
Thank you for highlighting this. I wish America was better at learning from how things are done in other countries. In the quality based management world, that’s called "benchmarking”.
Sadly, many of those same innovations came from here. The social democracies of northern Europe use many of the plans of our social security and welfare. They just fund them properly.
Vance's view on the voting power of people with children is right out of the american corporate book where ownership in shares carries the most value. He who has the most has the most say.
I know many single and dinks who vote down schools and improvements because it does not affect them. They know it increases their overall property value, they don’t care, they want more money in their pocket now. Families tend to vote for schools, libraries, parks, etc.
I tend to think that they are not well informed. They benefited from others paying it forward so they could be where they are today. People without kids voted for those things as well because they understood it was a good investment. Perhaps we have not be doing a good job of informing them that shared costs is less costs which mean we all pay in for things that some of us will never use for the betterment of society.
Thanks for that reminder of Dr. Deming. His ideas were counter to Friedman. I read a couple of his books and we were actually looking to use many of those in education with great success, but ah those at the top found themselves with what they thought was less power. Deming believed that shared power was more power, not less. He was brought in to help rebuild Japan following WWII by MacArthur and it was very successful. Thanks for the reminder of how Deming was able to get America to victory and rebuild Japan. Sadly, Jack Welch was one of the leaders in bringing back the top down with his Sigma management in GE. Every time they laid off workers or moved jobs to another country (losing more jobs) he got a raise. Deming's teachings also provide a contrast between America advances and the autocratic communists where failure resulted in demotion or death. American science and technology moved forward while in the USSR it stagnated and the stealing of technology became the only way for them to advance. One of the reasons why the USSR was not the threat Reagan built it up to be.
I’m happy you know so much about Deming’s contributions to America and the world. While he passed away in 1993, videos of his work (and of his good friend and my mentor Dr Russell L. Ackoff) are on YouTube. And perhaps more importantly, the government initiative to teach this management philosophy (started by Republican POTUS Reagan) is still available … never in the news, but in operation for more than 40 years) is available today… the Baldridge performance excellence program…
https://www.nist.gov/baldrige
thanks for the link. The GOP as started the EPA. Funny how they tend to turn away from good things.
Cooperation is the key that makes the universe interesting, for example: superconductivity, human organizations, flocks of birds, herds of animals, schools of fish, dolphin social interactions. Pretty much everything that is interesting doesn't arise from just a bunch of individuals. Except in the case of artists, musicians, writers, physicists, mathematicians with their unique contributions. But notably not libertarians.
Yes, cooperation (AKA interdependence) is literally what makes the world work. “No man is an island” is a truism. I believe even artist get inspired by things outside of themselves even if sometimes those things are not human beings. And Arnold Schwarzenegger likes to point out that he is not a self made. Man is the beneficiary of what many others contributed to him. I doubt that JD Vance has thought about this. He probably thinks the only people who matter are those who are just like him.
Porsche hired Deming to help them improve their parts delivery and it rescued them, the quality of their cars today is testimony to Deming’s work with them.
Thanks for mentioning how Deming helped Porsche.
While Deming has been gone for 30 years, he and his good friend Russell Ackoff of the Wharton School are on YouTube… brilliant lectures. And the government program to teach this management philosophy (started by Reagan in 1980!) still exists!
https://www.nist.gov/baldrige
Thanks for pointing this out. In any company or organization, cooperation is the key! In my own very recent experience, I've been trying to communicate math and programming to colleagues. But now I have to switch gears and pitch to higher ups who can't be bothered by such details!
You’re welcome, Matt. And I’m sorry you’re having so much trouble getting those above you to be interested in math and programming. Assuming these are key to the organization’s success, they certainly should be!
Ahhhh… the belief in a “leadership class”.
The rationalization of predatory bullies for eons, be they slaveholder in the Roman Empire or American South, be they pharaohs, emperors, kings, warlords or feudal estate holders. Strange so many serfs are OK with it. As long as there is an underclass that they can spit on.
As I recall. Japan confers a "Deming Award" upon model companies. Corporate America and certainly Republicans (but not just Republicans) since Reagan have embraced the "Chicago School" doctrine of "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits" , which is self-evidently antithetical to good citizenship to put it mildly. It was crap from the outset, but those who stood to benefit have promoted it as Gospel. As intended, the formula has enabled profound shift of economic and political power toward an antidemocratic, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” 1%. Even corrupt Nixon was pro environmental protections and said some things such as:
'These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans."
Imagine almost ANY Republican saying such a thing today. Big money has bought off large swaths of empowering and protective governance, and largely bought the national narratives as well (though that might be changing). They certainly bought the major media companies.
Government, per se, is not "the problem". Government for sale IS the PROBLEM, and a great array of other problems won't be solved until that one is; or at least, if we don't, we will be spending our time putting out fires while the arsonists run free setting them.
I don't grasp how cyptocurrency is legal or not heavily regulated. The usual context in which I encounter the word "cyptocurrency" is for payment of ransoms. Whatever may be it's commendable virtues, it seem offer abundant aid and comfort to crooks, quite apart from it's negative environmental impact.
The environmental impact is reason enough to ban it. Mind boggling use of electricity and water for cooling.
I was just going to say this...look under the hood and check the engine. The environmental cost needs to get out front and center.
Not just "abundant aid and comfort to crooks," J L.
Also to major drug runners, cartels, oligarchs, money launderers, illicit arms dealers, and then all our garden variety friends and associates of the orange felon, Peter Thiel, the Hillbilly Elegy poseur, and our various Clarence court corrupt in need of more greasing.
In other words, Phil, right up TFFFG’s alley!!! Never saw a con he didn’t like!
Trump was against cyptocurrency. Then a billionaire from Silicon Valley agreed to give him money and boy, did Trump suddenly support it. He has changed his tune multiple times, depending on the billionaire.
Trump’s communication of ideas and active support of policies are available to the highest bidder.
Whatever, at a given moment, he imagines will serve his self-centered agenda.
Sometime Trump is for and against a thing at the same time, depending on who he is talking to. Project 2025 for example.
Doublethink, even a dolt like Donnie can do it.
DJT, as well as Ivanka, and Jared are for Sale....
Agreed. Cryptocurrency is for criminals and at best speculators. However, maybe it could serve a purpose in Russia, hiding your financial dealings so as not to get killed?!? I don't see a good purpose in any democracy.
The Felon also has no idea how cryptocurrency works or why it is so volatile, unreliable and popular in the criminal world. He just sees the $$$ Peter Thiel and his acolytes can bring into the “Felon Attorney Fees” coffer (aka “campaign contributions”). He has zero interest in any economic policy other than how it can help him solidify absolute power.
Cryptocurrency is just another way for a fool and his money to soon be parted.
Spot on 💥
yeah and its "value" is measured in $$$$
While I suspect that one of the main themes of tomorrow's essay will be Kamala Harris' electrifying speech in Atlanta in which she repeatedly mocked Trump-mostly about pulling out of the next scheduled presidential debate-it is so reassuring that the Democratic Party now seems to be ahead of the nation's political narrative and generating a vibe of confidence about victory at the ballot box in November.
yes, we need to keep our feet on the gas pedal and go full throttle to Nov 5th
I agree. I'll even do it before election day by voting by mail from Japan!
Vance and MAGA bros fear empowered women. Same vibe a hundred years ago in these anti-suffragette cartoons. https://forgottenfiles.substack.com/p/gaslighting-the-suffragettes
Comments like he made should call for suspension of his campaign while a full scale, colonoscopy style investigation is facilitated on trump, heritage foundation and turning point, and in addition to that, to investigate every member of the election certification in every state to root out those who would refuse to certify states' votes.
Let's not mess around here. THIS is trump being honest!
Big Gretch said Michigan was ready.
The MAGGOTS have finally found a way to rule this country with an Iron Fist and it is Project 2025. Lead the sheep to the slaughter and they won't have to vote EVER AGAIN... I'm still having trouble aligning Rational Thought with Trump, Republicans, Project 2025 or ANY of the dirvel coming from the "Right" anymore. My classes in, and use of. Rational Thought have absolutely RUINED me for this Dark and Thoroughly Disgusting mental, ethical, and rational abomination. I was raised as a Christian but recognize NOTHING from the right as even Slightly familiar. My Christian friends and family would call this Blasphemy.
I have engaged some of my Christian friends (when they’re not to busy being persecuted by the Olympics opening ceremony) on this topic. To a person they say that it was only part of a longer speech where “even Jews and Catholics were present” and that it simply means they won’t have to vote for him because he cannot run for election again. That is some pretzel contortion of bending that obscenity into something palatable.
Blasphemy is the word
JD, I had an interesting chat with someone who used obscenity over blasphemy. I think it is both obscene and blasphemous.