Courtney Kube, Monica Alba, Peter Nicholas, Gordon Lubold, Katherine Doyle, and Andrea Mitchell of NBC News reported Wednesday that President Donald J.
The paradox of expertise is that when it works well, people stop noticing it. Its success begins to look unnecessary.
Institutions, international agreements, and professional judgment weren’t built by accident. They were built because earlier generations had already learned the cost of doing without them.
Dismantling them is easy. Rebuilding the trust, stability, and legitimacy they provided is much harder.
Anti-intellectualism has surged in the United States and it has infected your government. A recent study in Science found that 10,000 STEM Ph.Ds had left the government since Trump returned to office. Your health secretary is an anti-vaxxer and all-round nincompoop. Trump has never found any use for people who are people who are smarter than he is and that's why he's surrounded himself with idiots.
To repeat a line I came across the other day by a Canadian writer (I think his name is David Cochrane), America is not this way because Trump is president. Trump is president because America is this way.
Well, JL, except that if you dig deep enough, you come to realize that those laws and policies really WEREN'T intended or designed to "curb monopolies" but rather to provide the APPEARANCE of curbing monopolies. It was important to provide the American people with a reason to believe that the government was doing the right thing, but at the same time, to protect the value of contracts and commitments given by the federal government to a whole host of private corporations, particularly BIG ones capable of making BIG political contributions.
Actually, the specious assertion that government regulations have only given the appearance of curbing monopolies, while protecting private and political interests, is debunked by the history of - and monopolist opposition to - such regulation. From Teddy Roosevelt, Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson and the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission to Joe Biden who focused the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice on strengthening and enforcing anti-trust law.
Your rhetoric feeds into the lie of 'the duopoly' which sells the voter suppression-vote splitting snake oil of false equivalency between today's Democratic and Republican parties. And helps elect Republicans such as Donald Trump and JD Vance, who indeed speak with split tongues on the issue. Mouthing populist anti-monopoly sentiments while gutting antimonopoly law and institutions.
"Biden committed to the cause like no other president had in modern times. He appointed one of the movement’s brightest and most aggressive reformers, Lina Khan, to run the FTC, as well as other fierce critics of corporate concentration in key posts, including Jonathan Kanter, who took over the antitrust division of the DOJ, and Tim Wu, who became a key economic adviser inside the White House. Six months after taking office, Biden issued a whole-of-government executive orderthat called on 17 different government agencies to take 72 actions to foster competition and protect consumers against monopolies. As a result, agencies like the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Food and Drug Administration have cracked down on public scourges like price gouging, noncompete contracts, and banking-related junk fees, and created new rules to make consolidated industries like the hearing aid market more competitive."
Trump vs. Biden: Who Got More Done on Antitrust? | Washington Monthly
AT&T was broken up into the Baby Bells. Monopolies were blocked in former administrations. (The proposed merger of two massive grocery corporations that together totaled 11 companies was blocked. By the FTC under the Biden administration.)
J L Graham makes a straightforward historical claim: there were stronger antitrust laws and enforcement, and that had value. Whether one agrees or not, it’s a proposition that can be examined against history.
The reply, though, is much broader. It asserts that the laws were never really intended to curb monopolies, only to create the appearance of doing so, while protecting large corporations. That’s an extraordinary claim, because it requires believing that Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive movement, the New Deal antitrust efforts, postwar enforcement, the breakup of AT&T, and countless judges, regulators, and legislators over more than a century were all participating in essentially the same sham.
History doesn’t support that. Antitrust enforcement has waxed and waned depending on the era and the prevailing legal philosophy. There have certainly been periods of regulatory capture and weak enforcement. But there have also been periods when governments genuinely dismantled monopolies or prevented mergers. The historical record is mixed, not monolithic.
The rhetorical trick is subtle. Instead of saying, “The laws often failed because corporations had too much influence,” the commenter says, in effect, “The laws were never intended to work.” Once you make that move, every piece of contrary evidence becomes part of the conspiracy.
I also notice another habit that’s common in political discussions: confidence untethered from evidence. The commenter doesn’t say, “I suspect…” or “One could argue…” He says, “if you dig deep enough, you come to realize…” That phrasing implies he has uncovered a hidden truth rather than presenting a debatable interpretation. It’s persuasive rhetoric to some other conspiracy-minded folk, but not honest or sound reasoning.
Georgia - And the idea that the site is called "Truth Social" galls me...However the more he lies, the more people are onto him... It's exhausting, but we must breathe deep and live to fight another day...
Lies occur in a context and I think some are pretty benign, though. I think. often more pernicious than they seem. I think there are some circumstances in which it is wise to withhold one's knowledge, even virtuous, such as lying to Nazi's about the presence of potential victims. That said, many a relationship is damaged by lies, and many a time that justice is thwarted. And lies can kill' racism, sexism, homophobia, pretexts for wars, lies about vaccines and COVID just a few examples. Certainly for the most part lies and liars where truth is crucial are wisely rejected, including and likely especially, provable lies from politicians.
If you came of political age reading George Orwell, with a side of Aldous Huxley and Kafka, "Truth Social" is exactly right. Remember “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”?
Georgia, it's not just those in power, and it sure didn't start with Trump. "America is this way" doesn't specify what "this way" is, but having come of political age in the late 1960s, I'll hazard a guess that it has a lot to do with racism and sexism. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" turned most of the white Southern Democrats into Republicans (while newly enfranchised Black people in the South understandably gravitated to the Democrats), and gave Reagan the white working- and middle-class votes he needed to become president twice.
Reagan gave a 1980s campaign speech on states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi. That sure wasn't lost on me, or on anyone who was paying attention, especially Black people. The Reagan administration made a big show of gutting civil rights initiatives to make "the base" happy while giving all sorts of tax and other breaks to the wealthy. We're still dealing with the repercussions, which Clinton and, especially, Bush II made worse.
I am always surprised to see President Clinton lumped in with Reagan and Bush II. Unfairly, I believe.
* If you refer to NAFTA, NAFTA predated Clinton. It was negotiated largely under George H. W. Bush. Clinton inherited it, renegotiated some side agreements on labor and the environment, and then signed it.
It had bipartisan support. Although Republicans supplied most of the votes, many Democrats voted for it, including influential Democrats who believed freer trade would benefit American consumers and exporters. Organized labor and many other Democrats opposed it, but it was hardly a fringe proposal.
The intended rationale was economic efficiency, not racial policy. The argument was that each country would specialize in what it produced most efficiently, lowering prices, expanding markets, and ultimately creating wealth. Critics warned that manufacturing jobs would migrate to Mexico. Both sides were arguing economics, not race.
• If you mean mass incarceration, Clinton deserves a share of the responsibility for that because of the 1994 crime bill. Just remember that The Congressional Black Caucus not only supported the bill, but led on it because Black neighborhoods were distinct victims of the gang violence surrounding the street drug business.
• Kweisi Mfume and Charles Rangel supported the crime bill. Today, many progressives forget the extreme violence of the era and mistakenly single out Clinton as some sort of racially biased figure.
* If you mean racial fairness or civil-rights protections, the comparison to Reagan is ridiculously unfair. Clinton’s administration generally expanded federal civil-rights enforcement, appointed over 500 liberal federal judges, and put Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.
I think that there are varying human nature proclivities for fearing and/or dominating others, especially when socially reinforced. I read a book by a black historian who argued that racism was actively reinforced by wealthy slaveowners who benefited economically by divide and conquer. It fit's my picture. It still does.
Who was the historian? That doesn’t strike me as controversial at all. Consider how in the 19th and 20th centuries white people used racism to justify first slavery, then Jim Crow, then keeping Black people out of subdivisions, jobs, etc. Now let’s go back a century or two or three: What was it that persuaded white Christian ship captains that it was OK to capture Black Africans with the intention of selling them into slavery across the ocean?
“ not all of us”? I often wonder how our “ liberal “ attitudes and insistence on purity have triggered some of the resentment that have paved the way for Trump and his band of thugs.How many of our own liberal voices have been intimidated into shushing themselves or accused of not being liberal for simply demonstrating skepticism or criticism? I am giving this reply as someone who admires and values your recent comments including this one.
Having spent 30+ years as a prof at several universities in the US, Canada, and the UK, I don’t and didn’t see anti-intellectualism as rampant in academia. Sure, there were a few religious nuts who tried to build a wall between their beliefs and the products of science, but scientific debate was alive and well in all the universities where I was employed, and where I visited.
I loosely define anti-intellectualism as dismissing evidence, expertise, or historical nuance because it complicates a preferred narrative.
What is your definition? And can you specify some concrete examples of anti-intellectualism on the left, that you say is so rampant? I have two siblings who have been in academia for decades. I have heard their occasional complaints about their profession, but never heard them say anti intellectualism exists, much less is “rampant”.
Well, he doesn’t know how to think! Bluster is his method. I don’t like being ‘mean’ but I remember knowing that people voted for trump for ‘a change’…I wonder what they think now…
The internet allows those who speak the loudest or the longest, using sinister speech, or use catch phrases like "as you know" to look like they are the majority of the population. The majority to whom we must all agree and aquese.
Kruschev banging his shoe on the table at the UN.
Trump used the unvetted internet as his "magaphone" to call to worship all those who hate into action.
The truth is that everybody hates something, so trump just took the most popular voter friendly "hates" and personified them his "hates" as well.
He took the easy ones first, Presidents like Obama, scientists like Fauci, immigrants ( which we ALL are) into 2 categories...recent or legacy (AKA white) and blamed them for all of America's woes. Trump is a bigot, unread, and hates to work for a living. Three positions that are easy to team build around...intimidators.
It's the old we were here first, we are the loudest, there are more of us than you. as you know.
Have you ever met someone who is always right besides Trump or my mother in law?? Never admits they were wrong or apologizes or has actual remorse or empathy that wasn't self serving?
I'm not saying its the internet's fault that it is unvetted, its simply a new tool that is used quickly and cheaply to convert lies into truths.
I call those lies "Trumps" ...lies spoken to manipulate, in machine gun vollies so trumps all you hear, and can't be fact checked in real time.
"Trumps" have become normal because they are so ubiquitous, and like the weather, something you simply storms live thru, hoping for better weather tomorrow.
Can i wind up my thoughts with uplifting advice or a plan...not really, except "this too shall pass" and thankfully so will he. We who survive get to write his obit and demortilze him.
and we do have one method to stop the noise GET OUT AND VOTE. That is how you save America.
I hope when this horrible, chaotic time passes, that Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Aileen Cannon, and the Sleazy Six on the SCOTUS are prosecuted. We need the American version of the Nuremberg trials. I do not want to move on or just get past this time. The country will not be able to heal until the traitors of the malignant Trump era are punished and excised. Decades were spent hunting down Nazis, who studied the US as a model for their atrocities. That includes Republican politicians who could have stopped the orange felon, but chose not to.
As HCR says all the time, she cannot fathom why Congress just does nothing. As for me, I am astounded by the hypocrisy I see regarding everything this administration does. I think of the debate and how Biden was badgered out of running. I don't want to get into the argument here regarding should he/should he not have run for a second term, simply stating that the constant crap Trump does gets overlooked.
I think of the old "fiddling while Rome burns"--our country LITERALLY is burning with wildfires. Trump is painting everything gold, spending OUR money on tributes to himself, etc, etc.
We simply cannot just let bygones be begones this time. You are absolutely correct. Justice must be served.
Congress isn't defying trump because the GOP office holders obviously approve and agree with everything trump has done and they are equally responsible.
I don't understand why everybody doesn't hold them all responsible.
JennSH I have to agree with you. It seems to me that mike johnson and john thune are as guilty as anyone just by their blatant complicity to these criminals surrounding the orange face in the oval office. Like mcconnel, were they just political actions or are they criminal actions? It "feels" to me like they are criminal actions, but I am no lawyer. I need to remember that I am very angry at this whole corrupt republican push for autonomy. Should I let that turn to hate or turn to action? At this point I am not sure if I can discern between hate and anger. It all started with mitch mcconnell.
Mark, I read your little bio and your few words summed up my feelings. I know that many good people here are of other faiths--or none at all--but I try hard to be a Jesus Christian. By that, I mean, I try to live by the example of the life of Jesus, not simply by MY interpretation of the words of the Bible.
I have stated this on here and elsewhere, so pardon repetition for those who've already read it: of all the things I hate about this administration, what I hate the most is the attempt to strip people of their humanity, mine included. I get so upset with MAGA that part of me really wants to hate them, and I have to wrestle with my consciousness. Fighting hate with hate just leads to war, and yet, justice must be served. This is a real struggle for me, and as this summer of discontent goes on, it has been wearing on me in a way I find hard to explain. I saw the term "moral fatigue" and I think that fits it.
I am grateful for this community so I know that as (TcinLA frequent commentor here and writer of his own fine Substack "That's Another Fine Mess") says on every one of his posts "we are not the crazy ones."
I wish that could happen, JenSH, with immunity for trump from SCOTUS and virtual immunity given to everyone else by trump preemptive pardons, the only real hope to bring justice is the International Criminal Court.
"I hope when this horrible, chaotic time passes ..."
We need to work together to put an end to this horrible, chaotic time.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
Yes even the odious Fetterman counts towards a Democratic majority. Which would control the committee chairs and numbers, determines the rules, decides which legislation is brought to a vote and when, and if large enough can override a presidential veto.
Amen, Paul. As a writer of GOTV postcards (at 92, no more marches until pushed in wheel chair —will I be able to afford one when I can no longer walk?—Medicare was not meant for “ancients”) my hope is that there is still enough “Independence Spirit” to vote the bums out no matter what it takes.
I write and mail at leaat 10 cards per day and manage with the help of friends the $.65 stamps. That’s DeJoy in case anyone here didn’t know.
Thank you again Virginia for writing and spending 56 cents to mail a postcard.
My town has an establishment where we donate all our no longer needed equipment handicapped people need and then donate these things to people in need. It is run completely with volunteers and donors. From crutches to wheelchairs. Maybe your area has something like this?
The ending of the "Western" movie SHANE is available on YouTube & other cinema Platforms.
Many conclude that he much discussed ending of Shane means "... that a man of violence cannot live in a peaceful family world. Shane rides away because killing leaves a permanent mark, and the young boy Joey cries out "COME BACK SHANE!". The character, young "Joey desperately wants his hero and the safety he brought to stay."
Statements from the movie's script:
Shane tells Joey that "there's no living with a killing" and that "right or wrong, it's a brand that sticks".
Show not Tell:
Interpreted by many that "Shane cannot wash the blood off his hands to live as a quiet farmer."
Protecting the Family:
Clearly, "Shane loves Joey and his mother, Marian, but he knows his presence threatens their safe, honest home". With a glance toward a distant mountain ridge Shane rides off on his horse steadily through the heavy brush to preserve mother and son's peace.
One conclusion:
Shane represents the old gunfighting West. "Shane clears the valley of bad men so that families and law can take root, but once the job is done, a gunman has no place in that new society".
My conclusion:
Shane is a fantasy Shane does not belong & Shane is not coming back never
The whole gunslinger myth was created at least in part by a bunch of armed veterans with PTSD who had no where to go so they went west after the Civil War. Not so romantic when you realize the hyperviolence of the 'wild west' was created by traumatized mentally ill veterans.
Is this correct? I have a different memory, but it has been a long time.I thought Shane was wounded in the gunfight and did not expect to survive and left to spare the boy his death.
America is this way today because the wealthy power-brokers are using their heft to allow them to run roughshod over every law that they don't like. Start with the Koch brothers and Ronald Reagan who slashed the tax code. And don't forget "Citizens United" and the SCOTUS. Money is their god, and it has no moral code whatsoever.
So sad but, I'm afraid, true! There have always been crooks, bigots, and misogynists. They exist all over the world. They just haven't been charge of our government until now; so we've joined the group of countries "ruled" by this ilk. I don't think we like it. We'll see how much we don't like it in November.
pts, I repeat what I've been posting long ago :much of the American voters are deeply stupid and that's why we have trump, for a second time. Definitely the Canadian writer you cited pts, is much nicer than i am but the idea it's the same.
I think it’s a bit of both & it rests squarely upon the shoulders of the politicians in our Red/GOP run states. They, like 47 prefer un & under-educated voters, so repeatedly underfund public education. Educated people tend to think critically, ask questions & demand accountability.
Educated voters even know propaganda when they hear and see it. In another life, I taught about propaganda to high school students. They understood it, that it can be both good and for ill and that critical thinking is what stands in the way of believing everything we see and hear. Without education, every lie sounds like truth. Propaganda is powerful!
Apparently nothing is more important to MAGA than hierarchy and white suprematism. The GOP knows and exploits this ideology while dismantling our social system for the benefit of billionaires and oligarchs. Trump mocks “affordability” as a voting agenda for hard working people, and his cult laughs as they blindly spend increasing amounts for food, gas, supplies, and healthcare. The old adage that unscrupulous politicians can pick their pockets while telling them they are superior has never been more true.
pts,sorry to disagree, but Most of America is NOT this way! I will agree that a large number is and while some believed it couldn't happen here and didn't bother to take Project 2025 and it's backers seriously, the whole world is drawn into this quagmire. I do believe America will return stronger, and much closer to the" shining beacon on the hill" it never quit achieved before.
I agree. We often mistake volume for consensus. History reminds us that the loudest voices aren’t always the majority—but they can still reshape a society if enough people stop paying attention.
That’s a sad and disturbing reality. It makes me feel even hopeless for this country…. Trump leaving office will not get rid of the problem. America is doomed
I’m not exactly sure when education stopped being important. I still think that the invention of the cellphone and development of the internet has contributed to this decay.
It is a minority in power. Yes the ‘exceptionalism’ and ‘anti-intellectualism’ have always been a factor, but the exploitation of ubiquitous big $$$ Corporate media masquerading as ‘news’ has certainly and the Ellison/EMusk/Murdoch trifecta along with Zuck and his slippery ilk have created an overworked, underfed, undereducated populace and cultivated a culture of grievance. Intentionally, to mask the current power grab that is beyond belief for most Americans. The robust evidence of remote manipulation in ‘24 has been ignored by both parties shamefully. Trump in his usual manner accused the wrong intervening nations and candidates in his ‘fraud’ election speech—accusations being confessions—and even FOX deemed it too close to the real theft to air on TV.
If the 2026 midterms cannot be salvaged from the sabotage of this regime (it can only be done so through local veracity, if at all, at this point) it is not likely there will be a rebound for a very long time—if at all.
Until he starts making THEM feel like idiots for having selected him...We may be in the midst of this already. From many different angles and perspectives, the idiots seem to be having second thoughts right now.
Um...do you really think you're telling us something we ourselves don't already know?
As a foreigner, you'd be more effective with a less condescending tone. Finding common ground through shared ideas is generally more effective than finger-wagging from an imaginary high ground in the distance.
The economy of our state and many others have been hit hard because Trump and many of his moronic sycophants want the US to be isolated from the rest of the world in every way possible.
BT (before Trump), I would see several cars with Canadian plates everyday and in the summer, at least a dozen. Yesterday, I saw the first 4 Canadian plates of the year and I live close to Acadia National Park.
My wife's response to our neighbor's to the North, East and West was, "The Canadians are really good at boycotting."
In early 2026, two Native Americans were arrested by CBP when returning from Canada to the US. One of them had a ceremonial drum with him that CBP confiscated and then arrested him. His partner was later arrested when she crossed the border to the US because "she had too many clothes with her for a 10 day visit."
Susan Collins to the rescue and we haven't heard another fucking word about the incident.
"You can't cure stupid." A phrase oft repeated and true as it ever was.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, we have entire neighborhoods filled with folks of Canadian origin. In many cases, they hold dual citizenships, own/and or work for businesses in both the US and Canada, and are mostly registered Republicans.
Now, trade has diminished; we've lost billions in tourism.
Hopefully, they'll oppose all MAGA candidates in the mid terms.
There was a reason people once sat round a fire and told stories. Sometimes the stories were just stories - and sometimes the stories told a lesson that could bear repeating. And the kids would say "Which of the wolves grew bigger, Grandfather?"
was the reason because there was no tv? (not making fun of what you're saying. i like what you're saying AND that Martha introduced the punch line for those that might not know it. just trying to insert some humor in the midst of all the grim).
Breaks my heart that you should come back with a perfectly gentle reply - then feel you have to apologise for it as people are so sensitive these days - in fact a lot of the time it seems a certain proportion of the population (and NOT just "MAGA") are out LOOKING for tid-bits for the "black wolf."
There was an article in the WaPo today saying Americans are getting MORE religious. Christ was a good story teller - I wish he'd had the wolf one in his book. I wonder if any one ever composed a book called "All the wise things people of every religion have said including atheists and agnostics" That would make a nice change from just reading the Bible, or the Koran etc.
i've been misunderstood WAY too many times in my life to not, sometimes, go out of my way to explain something to prevent a misunderstanding. i feel this community deSERVES that...has earned the bit of extra effort.
what EYE like, Lady, is that life, for those of us with the luxury of experiencing it so, is a smorgasbord. after being raised learning the Jewish stories i was curious to see what others' beliefs were based on, beginning with the New Testament...and i really loved a lot of what was attributed to Jesus...kindness...forgiveness...instead of 'i am a jealous and vengeful God'???? hahaha...not MINE you ain't...and then there's the patriARchal slant. imo, a LARGE part of what has held back humanity. male dominance.
and then it was buddhism...didn't understand much of Watts', 'the Way of Zen'...but i hoped that it might make sense to me at some later date...b/c i believe that some portion of us(not necessarily the brain...i believe in cellular memory...maybe even genetic memory beyond the physical) retains all that we experience.
to everything a yin and yang, viewed through our dualistic lenses...but then it's where i focus that will dictate much of how i react. am i looking at the dog shit on the sidewalk or the rest of the beautiful scenery? not a very poetic illustration...but it DOES engage the senses...
but this is not to say that i should igNORE what is dangerous. as Loren would put it, 'ecogenocidal'. amazing how much nonsense we have to slog through to get to the basics...a planet that can still support life.
Oh, I don't know the US has strutted its stuff for decades looking down our collective noses at other countries so some finger wagging at the US seems to be "just desserts".
But, behind the scenes Americans traveled the world assisting others in need and being the beautiful Americans. Of course, because of Trump and his cruel and hateful ilk we're being judged as Ugly Americans.
Feel free to dislike whatever it is you dislike....
If I went to Britain, and somebody asked me what do I think of Starmer's recent resignation, I might preface my comments by saying 'as an outsider, as an American' to indicate that I might not be in the best position to judge, whatever my opinions might be.
You have a valid point. But don't forget the role BIG money and foreign influences on social media played in getting the Orange Blight elected. Beware!, if the morbidly rich and morally bankrupt succeed in bring the United States down, your country could be next.
It may be funny to you or it may be that you're enjoying our current state of shame and disorder. But remember this, inspite of the endless pursuit of Hillary Clinton's "illegal" emails. The investigation proved there was nothing to the accusations. And she WON the popular vote by almost three million votes. The Electoral College defeated her.
after 9/11, didn't bush jr sign something saying that if the World Court came for an American(undoubtedly, though not specified, meaning a politician) it would be considered an act of war?
Well stated and all true. Americans are more religious than in other wealthy supposedly educated countries. My theory is they have been robbed and lied to for decades by their churches so are primed to accept lies (with no evidence!) from politicians, especially if they pretend to be "Christian". We are in big trouble because those religious people are not going anywhere, education has gotten much worse, media is misleading us every day because there are three huge corps who own most of it AND the richest people IN THE WORLD are against us.
The religious white Evangelicals have been reaping what the have sown with Focus on the Family Fox News folks
We are all paying the price for their home schooling and Christian school movements
Their purity culture
They want a leader like Trump who will “fight” for their vision of this country where the women are barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and gay folks are in the closet and the others stay in their lanes
This is a long laid plan—the dismantling of the fairness doctrine, the rise of cable 24 news and punditry, and the Limbaugh-type Nixonian investment in culture warfare (anti-abortion, gender and ‘DEI’ villainization, anti-immigrant sentiment) have been propagated through right wing Evangelical pulpits—and lucratively for a few peddlers. .
Just so I have this right, he thought by changing the name from Department of Defense to the Department of War would what? terrify other countries and they would then automatically comply with whatever demands trump set down? Seriously? trump went into this Iran War believing they would do whatever he said because in his mind he is tough and strong. I don't believe any country in the world sees trump that way. What a mess.
Has anti-intellectualism really *surged*? It's been a powerful current in U.S. life for a very long time -- Richard Hofstadter's ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE was published in 1963; I read it in college a few years later, and saw it in action on a regular basis, having come of political age listening to George Wallace railing against "pointy heads" and Spiro Agnew going on about "nattering nabobs of negativism." Once I got down to seriously studying U.S. history, I learned that it went back much further than that, and that very wealthy and corporate interests liked to mobilize their version of the masses using anti-intellectual slogans (and conveniently ignoring the fact that they themselves were generally very well educated and that many had lifted themselves up not by their bootstraps but by their "old school ties").
Since the civil rights and women's rights advances of the mid-1960s and the 1970s, anti-intellectualism has teamed up with its close allies racism and sexism to give us Reagan and, eventually, Trump. The puppeteers, those very wealthy and corporate interests, have been around all along pulling the strings, bankrolling Republican candidates and signing up to fund Trump's ridiculous ballroom -- they were particularly freaked out by the election of Barack Obama: Jane Mayer's DARK MONEY is essential reading on this.
Russell, every day, some breaking news story about our government reminds me of those TV ads featuring dogs driving a car. Except dogs would be more competent than the (alleged) humans currently driving our government.
Anti-intellectualism has been with us ever since the U.S. was founded. Even though several of the "Founding Fathers" were non-deists, they found it expedient to accommodate the numerous Christians who had come to North America because they couldn't get along with their neighbors where they came from across the sea.
Until the mid-Twentieth Century when so-called "Mainline" denominations drifted toward a more intellectual approach to religion, the Christian position was that "God is in charge." In that world-view, everything, including education, science, the arts, social culture and politics are subservient to "God's will." Though not always blatant, this is reflected in our governing documents and policies.
A prime example is U.S. policy toward Israel, which is based on the declaration in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) that "nations who bless Israel will be blessed by God." In the same manner that white Europeans took land from the Indigenous peoples of North America, the U.S. participated in the taking of land to create the nation of Israel. Since then, the U.S. government has turned a blind eye to the Israelis' abuses of Palestinians, then pretends to be surprised that Hamas formed.
The U.S. has been home to many of the world's breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but always in spite of – not because of – the outsized influence of Christianity. Ironically, U.S. Christians, especially evangelicals, claim to be a persecuted minority, when in fact, they've always had the upper hand. If anyone doubts this, consider our "Blue Laws," which still exist in some form to this day.
That is a somewhat inaccurate reading. The biblical reference probably only applies to the view of the actually antisemitic evangelicals of CUFI (Christians United For Israel, the largest Netanyahu regime lobbying group.)
Also, you gloss over the well documented and much contested history of the region. And of Zionism itself. And sincere efforts at justice and a fair two state solution by American politicians, most notably Democrat Jimmy Carter in and out of office, and most recently Democratic Maryland senator Chris VanHollen who helped expand our Leahy laws to stop delivery of offensive military aid to nations in violation of humanitarian law. Biden and Blinken did not listen.
The Trump unilateral move of the US embassy to Jerusalem and Abraham Accords - a solution to the "Palestinian problem" without Palestinians at the table led directly to the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7. By effectively taking a two state solution off the table, Which are being followed by Trump regime supported ethnic cleansing to create a Gazan seaside luxury resort without Palestinians. And now, Republicans want to directly tie Pentagon procedures to Israeli priorities.
"Among Evangelical groups in the USA, Christian Zionists have a special relation to the state of Israel. As important Trump constituents, they have a huge influence on his foreign policy and are increasingly crowding out Jewish interest groups. Their ideology is inherently anti-Semitic, but they tend to hide this fact.
Among Trump supporters, Christian Zionists are especially strong, whereas Jewish voters tend to oppose him.
Christian Zionism is a belief held by many Evangelicals, who number one quarter of the US Christian population, but adhere to a fundamentalist interpretation of the bible. Christian Zionists believe that Israel must gather all the Jews of the world, enlarge its territory, destroy Muslim holy places, and ethnically cleanse “the holy land” of all non-Jews. Many assume that this must be done to facilitate the return of Christ. Evangelicals of this kind support Israel, but not Judaism. In their worldview, Jews play a merely instrumental role. The implicit subtext is that Jews do not belong in American communities, because good Jews move to Israel. Their ideology is tinged with anti-Semitism, and it fits the picture that Trump himself has a pattern of using anti-Semitic memes (see essay by Benjamin Baltheser in D+C/E+Z e-Paper 2019/10, Focus section).
These things, however, are only rarely expressed explicitly. "
Lin•, your reply is well-cited, but you kind of missed my point.
I do take exception to two of your points.
The use of "antisemitism" in any discussion of Middle East problems invalidates the argument. Semite (thus antisemite) is an obsolete term that refers to people who speak Semitic languages, INCLUDING JEWS AND ARABS.
Secondly, your characterization and narrowing of the biblical reference to only CUFI is just plain mistaken. I covered the history of this sentiment in my comment. Rephrasing: Western Protestant theology and doctrine was largely the same among the denominations until the mid-Twentieth Century. The fathers of Protestantism, Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley differed in their views of the sacraments and the role of the Bible in Christian discipleship, but they all agreed that Israelis were "God's chosen people." Their followers who became the denominations represented in the American colonies strongly influenced the "Founding Fathers."
It wasn't until the mid-Twentieth Century that the denominations diverged. Calvin's Baptists stuck with anti-intellectualism, while his Presbyterians, Luther's Lutherans and Wesley's Methodists drifted to more liberal positions. However, their reverence for Israel remained largely unchanged.
But isn't it the case that despite the points you've made the majority of Israelis still support the wars in Gaza and Lebanon? Even were Netanyahu to be deposed in October, I'm not sure that this would necessarily mean the end of these conflicts, despite the waning international support adn sympathy for Israel, even in America.
I am not sure that the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis was ever meant to apply to the current state of Israel, even though some of its behaviour is very Old Testament.
You're right that there's no escaping our shared Christian heritage in the US and the UK as it is reflected in our language, literature, laws and customs. There's also no denying the uneasy relationship between science and religion. My favourite author, Stephen J. Gould, famously described them as "non-overlapping magisteria". I wish that were true but it seems to me that it has never been the case.
Perhaps the real enemy of religion and science is irrationalism, in the sense of unreasonableness verging on fanaticism. Science at least has a methodology that guarantees a certain amount of self-correction. For every Einstein there are a hundred Velikovsky's. Much of the evangelical support for Trump seems to me to be of the irrational camp, distrusted even by the majority churches.
Russell, I love your comment. Regarding your first sentence, it's hard to say what the intent was, mainly because the text now known as the Hebrew Scriptures was the commitment to writing of oral traditions that had been handed down through generations. Not to mention that those texts were lost, found, translated, edited, abridged and appended numerous times. And from a rationalist's point of view, the whole Judeo-Christian system was/is based on a deity fabricated by ancient men sitting around their fires. I do find it suspicious that the Covenant that protects a group was "recorded" by a member of the protected group. Nevertheless, as you suggested, it's very unlikely that such a covenant, if real, was meant to apply to the current nation.
"Perhaps the real enemy of religion and science is irrationalism, in the sense of unreasonableness verging on fanaticism."
The leap of faith is by definition unmoored from reason and empirical evidence. Belief - an irrational habit of mind - is the essence of religion. The leap of faith is entirely appropriate to the pew and prayer rug, but, as the Founders knew, toxic to the procedures of government. Which is why they strictly walled of religion from government - which they based on coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence. The Constitution in effect translates the Scientific Method into good government.
Well you will be unsurprised that the Felon and his merry band of moronic minions are about to gut Head Start (they tried to get rid of it entirely but were blocked so they're making it untenable as a program instead), Medicare (including the Rx spend limit that Biden's administration introduced), Medicaid, special education, student loans, and anything else that could lead to a healthy, educated, informed populace.
Your analysis makes me laugh Russell! Why is a conundrum ..sadly accurate is funny? That has me wondering I should perhaps go to a therapist? A comedian’s rich source for choice jokes is truth.. funny how that works, huh? While experts or the eloquent dole out best sellers telling truth more than half the world shook their heads as progress was set back minimally 300 years by a bully.
The irony was an early Emperor with no clothes caricature whose only real affidavit was screaming lies the loudest , deviant habits, and narcisstic selfish pleasures. That nearly half of America clung to this conman still boggles me.
Perfect is the myth created only in one’s mind ..telltale for it amuses far too many. And is used by people who want to rewrite history so we won’t feel guilty?…they never could admit mistakes are lessons…could we please understand the difference? This is the key to species disappearing perhaps?
Thank you Russell …and Heather ..another fine letter enjoyed.🫶
Russell, you are soooo right! I do blame Trump for his utter stupidity (stupidity is a choice, and Trump chooses it all the time).
I do hold the Project 2025ers who pumped out a "document" designed to trick, abuse, confuse, disenfranchise, ignore, and disinform the American people for the purposes of making this a white nation run by white men who should be the only people able to vote or work outside the home (utter stupidity). That should be just another BS writing from a fringe group. However, it has a whole lot of money behind it, probably foreign influences too. This should not be legal, but it has penetrated so much of our government and has resonance with young white men who somehow got the idea that if they don't have everything they want, someone is keeping it from them. That is toddler thinking held by children who are badly-parented and permitted to rule their house. They are currently ruling our house with their whining, tantruming, and violence against people they don't understand or care about, just as one would expect of such toddler-adults.
The current targets of this white house, Supreme Court, and congressional Republican toddler pool attacks are immigrants of color, trans women, and women in general. We need to stand against all of this cruelty, hate, and let's call it, insanity!
That vile man has endangered the lives of more than a handful of people with his incompetence. Seriously, nincompoop is not a strong enough word to characterize him.
Now that Trump has been lured into a forever war with Iran, Putin is using it to put pressure on NATO. Trump and Hegseth are withdrawing forces in Europe to focus on Iran while they decimate the US command ranks. Trump's flip-flop on licensing Patriot manufacturing to Ukraine is a sign that Putin's vicious attacks on Ukrainian civilians and missile incursion into Poland have convinced him that Zelenskyy and NATO are again no longer "winning," so it is time to switch sides again and align with the interests of his strong-men buddies, Putin and Xi. The frequency of the oscillation is increasing, which is a sign of increasing instability. Yesterday the NY Times described Trump's behavior as "mercurial."
Trump first announced the Patriot licensing deal on July 8-9, 2026, at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, where he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alongside him that the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air-defense interceptor missiles domestically — saying "We're going to give a license to you to make Patriots... That's pretty cool, right? This way, he can't complain that we're not giving them enough" . Zelenskyy said the next day that a political-level agreement had been reached on licensing PAC-3 interceptor production.
On July 28, when Zelenskyy met with Trump at the White House ahead of Lindsey Graham's funeral, Trump reaffirmed the deal.
Trump walked it back yesterday, July 31. Apparently, Graham's pro-Ukrainian influence on Trump did not last past his burial. During a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump said "we have not agreed to that," and he wasn't sure whether the U.S. would actually grant the license, calling it "a hard thing to give away that kind of technology" and stressing the need to be "very careful" since the recipient of such technology "can someday turn it on you."
The big winner here is Xi. He is well on his way to turning Russia into a Chinese vassal state as Russia's economy implodes and American influence erodes. We are watching the destruction of American power by the manipulation of Trump's fragile ego and the diminution of Russia's because of Putin's delusions of empire. Mind wars are killing hundreds of thousands, while XI waits.
Oh good grief. I heard he withdrew his offer, but he fears that such technology “can someday turn it on you” then I would suggest that President Zelenskyy stop showing us how to build drones, stop training our military how to use them, and maybe not allow Saudi Arabia to purify uranium at home. You just never know where all that can lead… /s
Add in the paranoia Trump has about the ICC, undoubtedly stoked by BiBi and Mamdani’s highlighting the possibility of arresting Bibi if he comes to the UN General Assembly. Mamdani eventually said that he did not have any jurisdiction that would allow him to arrest Bibi.
Back on July 13, Rubio announced a "whole-of-government" campaign to "systematically disable" the ICC's ability to seek justice for those who commit war crimes. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rubio wrote that the U.S. will "dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary," and put out video statement, where he juiced the rhetoric further: "Today, it threatens every aspect of our political and legal system... If they believe they can deprive us of our sovereignty, we will teach them the full meaning of American resolve," accusing the court of "waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law."
The State Department put out a release listing what actions it would take to neuter the ICC:
diplomatic pressure on allied nations to withdraw from the Rome Statute. the US had signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and withdrew in 2002, because George W. Bush feared ICC actions against members of the US armed forces after September 11.
"increased scrutiny" of nations that rely on U.S. assistance but refuse to reject the ICC's authority,
visa revocations and travel bans for ICC personnel. The US has already put sanctions on eight ICC judges that Trump regime says have against US and Israeli interests and are designed to hurt them with a “financial death penalty” denying them access to US bank accounts, credit cards, major financial instituions and places travel
expanded sanctions against the court and affiliated organizations. bans on them.
Does Rubio not understand that his statements and his plans to cripple the ICC indicate he affirmatively supports war crimes? We already know that Hegseth (the nincompoop) does. Horrifying.
Hello Georgia... Destruction of the ICC?... Maybe the Political Wars of the Post-DJT Era have begun... I believe that Marco Rubio is starting to Realize that Rubio has made a Deal-With-The-Devil when Rubio joined DJT's Cabinet... Ask Mike Pence How That Worked Out....
Rubio is jockeying to be Trump’s heir apparent. He is going to parrot Trump’s whims at top volume as often as he can, with as much bluster as he can muster. I also think it is clear that he could be indicted if opposition leadership, post-Trump, decided to ratify the Rome Treaty. My guess is that he realizes Trump will be in the great beyond (below???) and he and Hegseth will bear the brunt of justice.
Any person with half a brain would remember what the Iranians did to Jimmy Carter in 1980. But Trump doesn't know how to end the war with Iran. The US is in no better position today than it was on Day 2 of the War. Actually, much worse. Thanks DonOLD and all of you do nothing Republicans in Congress.
Maybe if Republicans started talking about how as a gesture, Barron and Kai should enlist to go to Iran, Trump's head would explode and we could end this stupid war.
The Iranians rejected Carter's negotiations to release the hostages because the Reagan camp made them a more lucrative offer - guns and money if they kept the hostages until after the election. Which led to the Reagan Bush Iran Contra operations.
How about the other two morons, Eric and Donald making up to 220% profit on their investment thanks to inside trader and access to military and policy secrets. It's easy to go from millionaires to billinaires if your dad is DonaldTrump. You want the war to end?, sent them there as soon as possible.
The wealthy children would still find ways not to be drafted. Remember G.W. Bush who evaded the draft? Djt - 5 deferrals? Until the Generals in the Pentagon and everyone in the DoD are experienced and qualified, there should not be a draft. The Iran "war" was initiated without intelligence, planning, or expectation of its ending, resulting in the deaths of our best asset - our men and women in uniform - including hundreds wounded.
On Thursday, July 30, 2026 The Guardian reported that Russia destroyed a drone manufacturing plant last week in Kyiv owned by a US company. It was the first time in the Ukraine War that US interests were hit.
Terminal Autonomy is a Delaware-registered US defense company operating in Ukraine. The plant produced AQ-400 Scythe and AQ-100 Bayonet drones, which are designed to keep working under Russian electronic warfare jamming.
Plenty of Ukrainian ones too…This is the a blow to Ukraine—it is absolutely leading edge drone technology for Ukrainian infrastructure attacks on Russian oil, weapons, and logistics support for the war.
I am not sure that Trump wants it to be published that Russia hit an American interest. I think it was more of a warning to Trump and NATO allies from Putin about his displeasure that US companies and NATO allies are building weapons manufacturing plants in Ukraine and getting technology transfer in return.
Georgia, I'm interested in social genealogy, so I googled your surname. Are your roots in Ukraine? If so this must all be particularly galling - and heartbreaking - to you.
Yes. I am ¾ Ukrainian and ¼ Belgian, second generation American born.
Yes, it is devasting to me. While I was not taught to speak Ukrainian, Ukrainian culture was prominent in my parents’ home, as was Ukrainian Catholicism, the religious tradition in which I was raised. (Many first generation Ukrainian-Americans born in the early 20th century were discouraged from being multilingual because of discrimination and so did not speak fluently or teach their kids. There was also controversy over the Ukrainian nationalists joining with Hitler during WWII.)
Thanks, all of you. My version of Ukraine came from a Polish history written by a Brit, Norman Davies, who turns out to have taught our own Michael McFaul at Jagellonian! Once I learned about Holomodor, welcoming the German Army into Ukraine did not surprise.
My paternal great grand father, Prussian, was part of the 1848 rebellion against VonBismarck. Imprisoned, he somehow got to America where he joined with other Poles to fight with the Union.
Perhaps Professor Gerdes reported that on YouTube. He is usually very thorough on damage to both sides.
At some point, Georgia, do you think Ukraine will destroy the Kerch bridge? They could have already, but the Russians in Crimea would be trapped. With train traffic into Crimea down to around 4 a day as of last week, will the Russians abandon Crimea or hold on until the last Russian soldier is dead?
Phillips O’Brien (I think) quoted Sun Tzu about never cutting off your enemies’ path to retreat. So I think the Kerch bridge stays in place with damaged railroad tracks so heavy equipment can’t be moved in or out while Ukraine cuts all of the overland Russian supply routes. I think the 30,000 North Korean troops will be put in Crimea as cannon fodder. Ukrainian air and sea drones will cut off transport across the Caspian and Black Seas to halt resupply back and forth between Russia and Iran and Russia and Crimea and Donetsk. What Zelenskyy has to engineer is an economic collapse in Russia by destroying all of the oil infrastructure and weapons manufacturing plants and hope that Putin is so backed up against a wall that he calls for a general mobilization.
Someone mentioned O'Brien before Georgia. It may have been you, but point well taken. No one wants to slaughter innocent civilians who have no way of escaping, well except Putin, Trump and Bibi.
And Georgia, these idiots, in the meantime, leave us Americans impotent and vulnerable to attacks. I dunno, I get heartburn thinking this entire regime is orchestrated by and for Putin. I have thought for many years that he planted people in our government for these times. Why else would a bunch of them go to Moscow? To get their orders.
Will anyone be surprised if there is an attack somewhere in the US? Or if Trump attacks a group of people within the US? Oh, wait, I guess that's already happening.
Georgia, please don’t underestimate the 90-minute phone calls Trump-Putin. Papa Putin is very effective with Trump who probably checked in after his conversations with Zelenskyy.
And right out of Putin's weaponization of immigrants playbook...
Please follow me on this one, or much better listen to intelligence experts Malcolm Nance and Dexter Ingram.
Spain. WTF. Who benefits.
Ceuta is a small autonomous Spanish city located on the northern coast of Africa that is completely surrounded by Morocco except for its Mediterranean coastline. It has been part of Spain since 1580. Morocco wants it.
Suddenly 60,000 young Moroccan men enter Ceuta. A crisis for the Spanish government. Which has just liberalized protection of immigrants. This has all the earmarks of an organized information operation against Spain.
Musk and the white supremacist crowd are madly posting: England you're next. Trump is on it: “I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place. It looks like an invasion of a country. Hundreds of thousands of people. And that same thing’s going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected, except worse, much bigger, much easier to get into." Rubio is blaming the Socialist administration of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
IMMIGRANT INVASION BLAME SOCIALISTS. Made for the 2026 midterms. Literally. This was made to order.
Who benefits?
Morocco is one of the few nations to sign the Abrahamic accords. After which the Trump regime officially designated Ceuta as occupied territory. Trump owes them.
Trump hates the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez because he has criticized Israel's genocide against Palestinians and because he has refused to assist in the US Israel war against Iran. And he's a socialist. This could bring down his government.
This also gives Trump and Musk an anti-immigrant talking point for the midterms.
Weaponization of Migration: A Powerful Instrument in Russia’s Hybrid Toolbox
As part of Moscow’s hybrid war toolbox, Russia’s weaponization of migration becomes an even more apparent means of destabilizing the West. Across three continents, a pattern of strategically engineered migration emerges as a result of Russian military and hybrid activities.
I understand that Bibi, also, calls djt daily. We have real estate people, not experienced diplomats, "negotiating" in Iran and Gaza. What could go wrong? Iran has sent a note (through back channels) to JD Vance to disclose that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are only interested in real estate, not peace deals. The original agreement with Iran under Obama took several diplomats 21 months to accomplish. And that;s why we are in a quagmire, and are inviting the Saudis into this mess. Our government has been decimated of experienced people.
Georgia, as my mother slid deeper and deeper into dementia, her behavior was also "mercurial." One day, she was determined to do one thing; the next day, she was determined to do the opposite. Also, she didn't sleep at night, but frequently fell asleep in the daytime, even mid-sentence.
Mom's condition was pitiful. But she didn't have the power to sic lawyers or killers on people she didn't like.
Ultimately we see Trump does what he can to help Putin. He dies this even as Russia helps Iran. That suggests that he must. But I dont see Putin's influence behind this flip flop. I see thst of Lockheed Martin and Boeing corporations. You see, it was rather like excluding Netanyahu from his ceasefire talks with Tehran, then committing Israel to an extension of the ceasefire to Lebanon. We know he did this and the ceasefire immediately unraveled as a result. Netanyahu made sure of that.
Do you really think Trump asked the owners of the Patriot missile system and its components if they would agree to license production of them to a Ukrainian company when he announced that he would do so ? Of course not ! He does not confer with anyone before announcing his intentions. He wheels and deals.
Then later he learned quietly that Boeing and Lockhead are not keen on licensing their best selling product to a foreign company. Is there any wonder why ?
Trump is covering his tracks now. When he talks of others using "our" missiles against us, he is talking about foreign manufacturers competing against "us". Anti-Ballistic Missile Missiles are defensive weapons. They can of course be used to shoot down airliners. But lots of things can do that.
In a way this silly syllogism reminds of the 1970s controversy over putting Pershing Ii missiles in Europe. If I recall correctly they are an ABM for anti-ballistic missiles. The Soviets objected strenuosly and engaged in threatening behavior. They maintained the Pershing Ii deployment would constitute a threat that would e "destabilizing" of a detente that underlayment peaceful coexistence in Europe. It undergirded mutually assured destruction. "Dont do that", the Russians said. If you do, then we wont be sure of being able to annihilate western Europe".
As I recall, Carter backed down. But Reagan went ahead. Thst resulted in the ABM treaty and SALT II, now considered rd to the dustbin of history.
Whatever, if Ukraine wants an a ti ballistic missile missile they will have to get it somewhere else or make it. And Trump is not going to promise Starlinks for them on behalf of Elon Musk. This will lead to a further expansion of the war as ballistic missiles is all that Putin has left.
Maybe if our schools and news organizations spent more time teaching and reporting on those people who make society work (instead of the bad people breaking things), the overall population would understand why we need scientists in charge of things.
Steve, Please spare us another effort to blame our situation on educators in US schools! Sorry but we take no responsibility for the oligarchs, racists and misogynists who couldn’t tolerate Harris at the helm.
I see you haven’t ever studied systems thinking. If you had, you’d understand everything in society is connected… and you’d understand an education system designed to produce mentally healthy families (not just cogs in the machinery of the world) would have created a civilization that rejects the concept of fighting wars … the concept of domination instead of partnership. This is why Buckminster Fuller often said education is the solution to our problems. He knew a an education systems designed around the principles of a win-win world could make it possible to literally live in a utopia.
I’m not blaming teachers. I’m blaming the design of our education system in which all teachers teach.
Steve, Sorry but I’m unfamiliar with Fuller’s views or his research. However, would you please stick to the facts and stop your personal attacks. They are boring and offensive here. EG You boldly assume that I have never studied systems or systems thinking. Well, you are wrong as I have spent some years studying social systems while obtaining my MS and PhD in Sociology. My education is irrelevant. Stick to the subject.
A more enlightened population would be a good thing, ignoring the people that are destroying this country to focus only on only "those people that make society work" would be a mistake.
As a conservative thinker, not cowboy, put it: "Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half-an-hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years." –Edmund Burke, ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’; 1790.
Wait a minute! Over time I have met some cowboys, my cousin for one. He detests trump! hegseth's D.o.D. : a fat-head purging fat solders. Department *of War; D.O.G.E.; Gulf of America . . . trump has *done a fine job of re-shaping American culture.
Hello Ned... Hegseth is a Cartoon Character of a Warrior... What ever Brains he might have once had, Hegseth Drank Away... The Tang Dynasty Mandarins, which some consider China's Greatest, were Cultivated Scholars as well as Warriors... Same for the Daimo in Feudal Japan...Allegedly, Drunken Pete prepares 2-Minute Videos for DJT that show Stuff Blowing-Up for DJT's Entertainment every Morning... Learning Handicapped DJT thinks that is War.. The USA had Absolute Kinetic Dominance in Afghanistan, and How Did That Turn Out?...
Hegseth clearly demonstrates at every instance that he doesn’t know jack shit about any “warrior ethos”. A real warrior is no Rambo-style berseker going into every problem with guns blazing: a REAL warrior knows when NOT to fight, better yet, he knows how to end a conflict WITHOUT fighting - that is the essence of ‘bushido’. What Hegseth propagates is not a ‘warrior ethos’, but a ‘bully ethos’.
Probably totally f*cked up little psychopathic narcissist racists. That, or SO fed up with their sick dad they left to do humanitarian work. There is no middle ground here.
Marlene, I didn't know Kegsbreath has children! In fact, he reproduced 4 times and acquired 3 more when he married his current wife. Those kids must be their teachers' worst nightmares!
why is everyone assuming that his kids are messed up? lots of kids happen to be intelligent enough to experience cognitive dissonance. even if they can't conceptualize/describe that 'something's wrong'. and sometimes it stays with them until they CAN start putting the feelings and ideas together and not want any part of what was making them feel that way.
I disagree. Almost always far more long-lasting and complicated than the process you outline. I wish it were. What it might do, if the children are not damaged beyond their ability recognize themselves, is sensitize adults coming from a 'messed up' background to perceive nuances in interactions and to detect high-POCK-rissy.
D.M., Retired LTG Mark Hertling writes about these topics insightfully and concisely on 'Bulwark'. The basic disconnect? The military leadership is vetted for integrity and mental fitness as well as generally very well educated.
I think they make the common mistake many of us make, "If I were trump et al., I would do XYZ."
This thinking implicitly makes to assumptions: that Team Treason in 0val office thinks as theydo and that the trump-dump members are similar to military leadership. In this case, those assumptions do not hold.
Quite an interesting take... Do you think there is some integrity left in US military leadership, Ned? I find it hard to see, but maybe LTG Hertling has quite a different view on that...
Well, it comes from working with the military (as a civilian; never served) in counter-insurgency. Some officers have "stars in there eyes" and ben more easily as career pursuits dicate.
Many do not. I was speaking on the military as an institution. Like any human entreprise, peopel within are subject to the same frailties and temptations that beset the rest of us.
Yet the premium upon honor, set institutionally, has a moralizing (not prefecting) effect on most involved.
Send trump back to the sand-box with his toy soldiers. Agreed 111%
.What, of course, is far, far worse is the SecDef's -- no, schmuckDef's -- purging, or thwarting the career advancement of, officer's of color and women.
Apache, virtual friend whom I admire, I really believe these alpha-brats are not well. Not insane but not well; they are fully responsible for their reprehensible actions.
I also believe the old Democratic Party is exhausted; these progressives deserve to be heard . . . in the hallowed, now shallow, halls of Congress.
Hello Ned... Thanks for the Compliment... Your Work Is Admirable Too... The Old Democratic Party is exhausted.... Too Corrupt... Election Reforms need to be made, starting with SCOTUS, Election Reforms, Term-Limits, etc...
The State Department showed up at an international AIDS conference with an AI-generated map of Africa on which every highlighted country was mislabeled or misplaced. Nigeria had been dumped into the Sahara, Mozambique wandered off toward the Horn of Africa, and Côte d’Ivoire was relocated as if it had missed a connecting flight.
Apparently, American diplomacy now begins with, “Alexa, where is Africa?”
The department blamed a last-minute change to the slide deck, which raises several questions. Who changed it? Who approved it? Did anyone look at it before projecting it in front of people who actually live there? Or did everyone simply nod because the map had colors, borders, and the quiet confidence of something completely wrong?
This is what happens when experts are treated as unnecessary government clutter. Why hire regional specialists, editors, geographers, or one reasonably alert seventh grader when artificial intelligence can rearrange a continent in seconds?
Maybe the map was not a mistake. Maybe it was Trump administration foreign policy in graphic form. Geography is now negotiable. Nigeria wants its coastline back? Fill out a form. Mozambique insists it belongs in southeastern Africa? Fake news. Côte d’Ivoire claims its name refers to a coast? Sounds suspiciously French.
The map appeared during a presentation about American health agreements in Africa, adding a special layer of reassurance. Nothing tells another country “we understand your public health needs” like moving it 2,000 miles and hoping nobody in the room owns an atlas.
The State Department apologized and said the rest of the discussion was productive. Of course it was. Once you have misplaced half a continent, the meeting has nowhere to go but up.
America’s governing formula is now painfully simple: fire the experts, ask a chatbot, skip proofreading, embarrass the nation, issue a statement, and praise the excellent progress made during the remaining seventeen minutes.
At this rate, the Pentagon’s next map will place Iran beside Toledo and announce that peace in the Middle East is finally within driving distance.
Reminds me of an old skit by the late, great Dame Edna. in 1999, as Britain was preparing to cede Hong Kong back to China after its 100-year-old lease expired, she mimicked a panicked Margaret Thatcher dialing her up in the middle of the night in tears...."Edna, you're Australian, where IS Hong Kong, anyway?"
I can’t believe a weekend talk show host with no command experience isn’t doing a better job running (what used to be considered) the most powerful military in the world.
"The paradox of expertise is that when it works well, people stop noticing it. Its success begins to look unnecessary."
Yes, and that's why people are refusing vaccinations for their children. THEY grew up in a time when none of their peers remembered how HORRIBLE polio, diphtheria, tetanus, etc. were. It will take years to assess the catastrophe of the current measles outbreaks. Like chicken pox (the future includes shingles), measles has an array of future negative possibilities for those who contract it and survive.
Nancie, having had a very bad case of both measles and chicken pox (and knowing two people who had shingles) I am both sad and furious. (BTW, I had two of the first shingles shots and two more later.)
Isaac Asimov nailed this attitude perfectly, and the Trumpies exemplify it in practice, and demonstrate it enthusiastically to a degree only the truly obliviously arrogant can pull off.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.“ Isaac Asimov.
One of democracy’s greatest strengths is that every citizen has an equal voice. One of its greatest dangers is believing every claim is equally supported by evidence. Every citizen gets one vote. Facts still have to earn their place through evidence.
The regime believes they can use their "warriors" to force the entire world to do what they want. They haven't the intelligence to reach for any other tool.
Yes, to the paradox of expertise, that when it works, people stop noticing it. I have been in discussions with people who pooh-pooh the idea that any regulations are necessary to limit what the free market can do. I ask them if they think there should no longer be regulations to ensure clean drinking water, and they look at me like I'm crazy. They just assume that their drinking water will be pure, forgetting or possible never knowing that the number one reason for the increase in life expectancy since 1900 is that people no longer die from water borne diseases. And that is because of government mandated and enforced regulations to ensure clean drinking water.
The Camp David Peace Accords meant something in 1978 when lasting peace between Israel and Egypt, signed by Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat and President Jimmy Carter was a huge deal. But everything Trump touches dies. - Rick Wilson
Such an elemental, obvious truth. Camp David succeeded not just because of Jimmy Carter's keen interest in peace and skilled diplomatic hand. Sadat himself had set the process in motion -- a vision of pointless war, endless bloodshed and permanent enmity over generations had come to him while deep in prayer. Determined to break the cycle of violence, he asked to come to Jerusalem to address the Knesset in person --something no Arab leader had ever proposed before, much less done. And despite provocations and crises over the years, Israel and Egypt remain at peace with one another today. Because when exhaustion and deep desire combine with skill in getting there, peace really does come.
By contrast, our stupid, cruel administration neither wants peace nor possesses the skill to bring it about. Quite the reverse. Going after the Geneva Conventions for setting up rules of war since 1922? What hubris. Right now, theaters all over the world are showing Christopher Nolan's sweeping re-imagining of The Odyssey. Ancient lessons in the proper conduct of war, the protection of the innocent, and what happens when contempt for those rules ("Zeus's law") ensues abound.
Nuremberg did not create the stage for international judgment, it repeated and codified what has been known since Homer -- war itself has rules that even in the worst times must be obeyed. Do not target civilians, spare women, children and non-combatants, never torture or abuse prisoners of war or those in captivity. Honor age-old rules for protecting the stranger, for God often comes to you as a beggar, not as a king, to test you.
Seeing the Odyssey last week made me realize again how much contempt I have for Hegseth and his ilk. Odysseus was made to wander 10 years in a wilderness, lost all his men, forced to defend his own kingdom from pretenders and suitors because the Trojan War was not a glorious victory, but a testament to cruelty and perfidy. Repentance alone finally brought him home to Penelope and Telemachus.
Who will compel repentance on us? How long will we, as a nation, be forced to wander, losing what we love, in order to reconcile ourselves with these ancient -- and modern -- rules, which today we violate as though they never existed?
" Albert Camus said of the Spanish struggle: It is now nine years that men of my generation have had Spain within their hearts. Nine years that they have carried it with them like an evil wound. It was in Spain that men learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many men, the world over, regard the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.”
Gregg Scott, a visitor left with us in 2009 (?) several copies of the Nation. In one of them was an ad for a reunion of the Americans who went to Spain to fight. Writing this I wonder about the Americans who went to fight in Cuba with Castro. How many Americans realize that he only saw help from American occupation in Russia, etc.? I despise “Little Marco” for what he has led Trump to do to Cuba. He is an “American Sugar Company” Cuban, in spirit if not in fact. Most settled in Florida and joined up with Republicans who share their values.
Many Americans and people from around the world joined the Republican forces. As we know Hemingway and Orwell were among those. Once Stalin got involved the cohesion of the Republican coalition began to suffer. There were many factions and it was complicated. It is a real lesson toward building flexible coalitions and not brittle ones.
As for Cuba, I haven't studied that real closely, but I do know there were Americans who joined up with Castro and fought. I don’t know how many and cannot list any casualty figures for them.
Gregg Scott, I knew a working class guy from Detroit who went to join Castro, but have no idea either. Finding it ironic that we have a naval base off Spain, central to Trump’s war, while he curses Spain. That tells me (again) that he’s really out of it.
Sadly what has traditionally been an unflappable oath to the constitution in defense of our democratic values, this administration and the Republican Party has redefined and pissed on everything that was good in us, and in its place and foisted a freak show of corruption, incompetence and pure unadulterated evil. In “us against them” it is clearly a case of good versus evil, and no doubt they feel the same about us and have an overall contempt for democracy. To be clear, they are fascist, making it impossible to engage in reasonable dialogue.
Let’s be 2big2rig and show up in such great numbers that there should be no doubt as to the future and of democratic and a progressive movement well into the next decade.
I also saw how the ancient tale still applies while watching the movie. We will watch it again when it begins streaming. It was too loud in the theater.
My eldest son bought tickets for eight of us to see the movie together. The story was told to us the way it was originally, in the dark among family and many others eager to be entertained by an embellished hero's journey with insights into human nature and the bonds between us.
It WAS loud, and at times the dialogue not easily discernible -- at least to these 71-year-old ears. At some point, perhaps buying the DVD and putting on sub-titles to light the way through the banging, the crashing, the screaming, the roaring...
It should come to one of our streaming services and be less expensive than buying the DVD, at least for a year or so. We have closed captions which we use for some movies and series.
I just can't go to the movies anymore, it's painfully LOUD to my ears. I use hearing protection at the rifle range, but I just feel silly walking into the movies with my neon green Peltor earmuffs. These are the ones with a Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) of 30 dB.
It's just not pleasant to have to cover my ears for an entire movie.
YES! I saw it yesterday, and I had to literally put my fingers in my ears at times because the sound was deafening. I had also gone last weekend to see Hadestown in the movie theater, and the Odyssey was in the adjacent room. There were times we could barely hear our movie over it.
Thank you for your thoughts on all of this. I look forward to your comments on this substack. I do everything I am capable of to stop this slide into authoritaian nightmare. What eles can one do?
"Nuremberg did not create the stage for international judgment, it repeated and codified what has been known since Homer -- war itself has rules that even in the worst times must be obeyed. Do not target civilians, spare women, children and non-combatants, never torture or abuse prisoners of war or those in captivity."
Nope. Nuremberg had multiple objectives, but not to uphold what a man self-styled as "It's Come to This" claims. IT was the US and UK that deliberately bombed civilians. It was called the Strategic Bombing Campaign, under which Britain bombed cities -- cities -- by day, and the US hit factories by night. We flattened 11 German cities and all of the humans in them. And then we turned to Japan, where we firebombed the cramepd, populous wooden city of Tokyo, incinerating 100,000 men, women and children in a single weekend. That aside from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So please, get your history right. Or has it come to this?
Do you *really think I'm somehow not aware of Hiroshima, or Dresden, or Tokyo in March 1945? Do you think I woke up this morning, read your post, and went 'gosh, I guess those facts invalidate EVERYTHING the Nuremberg tribunal ever said? I guess Nuremberg no longer matters, and isn't recognized by international law (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing) everywhere? That its findings weren't codified into the domestic law of many countries afterward?
Or is your own view of history such that when someone breaks the rules, that can only mean there are no rules, or that it's too much trouble trying to create rules and enforce them, since somebody might break them anyway?
The signers of the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting gas and chemical warfare would like a word with you. And Homer hasn't even weighed in yet...
The following story is from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." It describes Trump's behavior as well as many leaders through human history and what they do to appease their egos by destroying the progress of especially the one who came before. (billkatz@substack.com)
The ancient Roman Republic self destructed on account of human greed and repeated inferior leadership. The US in in throus of self-destruction without doubt. We have elected a series of destructive leaders during many of our lives the noted ones are Reagan for destroying the concept of regulation, for George W for needless invasions and now Donald Trump as the antiChrist of the ages and he has destroyed anything good remaining in the 250 year span which is I suppose a fitting ending of 250 imperfect years of striving for a more perfect state. I shall not remain silent. I will give my life for the cause of real freedom if necessary.
What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump
During ancient Egyptian dynasties, monarchs often defaced or destroyed statues representing the previous ruler to erase the reputation and deeds of the former ruler. Sometimes damage was limited to facial disfigurement as with Pharaoh Senwosrett III (1878-1840 BC) whose nose was broken off because ancients believed that the life force emanates through the nose.
Trump shares this goal when renegotiating and tearing up Clinton and Obama-era treaties.
NAFTA is one such remake that removes Clinton’s name from the global trade agreement. As Politico writer Adam Behsudi quotes Lori Wallace, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.” There are no improvements -- only the removal of the Obama legacy and any other former president’s name.
This symbolic effigy-smashing of Obama extends to the Iran Nuclear Deal, to recertify to Congress every 90 days that the Iranians are complying with the rules; the Paris Climate Agreement; The Affordable Healthcare Act and all other agreements that Obama successfully negotiated regarding the environment and human rights.
In the land that I call home, tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola, resulting in the election of a malevolent quasi-life form that makes George W. seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one. Maybe our next president, if we are still electing presidents that is, will take cues from Trump and the ancients as well. A good start would be to remove any future White House portrait of him that might eventually be installed.
Mike, if we’re not hungry enough now many of US will be by January. Republicans cannot mention climate change and Trump is trying to kill US off for Putin.
Why is Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling for Netanyahu to be arrested as a war criminal? Check the 12 war crimes that Netanyahu has been charged for by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with this infographic. How many of those crimes can you spot that Trump's administration has committed?
Yes, Deepak, criminal Donald should worry very much as to his being called to account.
Dems long should have been united, indignant, full-voiced about the criminality long underway. But Dems, schooled only to the neutered forms of humanity such as testing worships, have been unable to draw on any of the massive hurt other elites have spread across the land.
Dem Senate Minority Leader Schumer, can only write a "strongly worded letter." And leave it at that.
No. Dems have betrayed America by their casual deference to the monstrous corruption, the cold-blooded murders by thug federal police on American streets, and the constant extortions by which criminal Donald and his crew have wasted elite law, top universities, legacy media, and techie and social media.
Good for Heather keeping her indignation severe, red-hot, and focused on those criminal Donald cronies and all their congressional enablers who indeed really do need to come before justice.
Phil, are you saying the Dems should be more macho and attack the Republicans like “warriors”? There is a “rule of law”, one of the parts of the checks and balances, and the Dems are winning there… but for #47, there have been few consequences as yet. The teeth of the courts are dull, but they are biting. The stupidity and cruelty of the administration is horrible to live through, but they will be defeated.
Agree, Karen. Throughout, I have been following my 3 Dem reps who have been consistently calling out this administration and their Republican colleagues.
Just the other day, Senator Kaine spoke on the floor of the Senate, calling out as illegal the 3 wars this so-called peace president has sent our military to fight:
1, Operation Southern Sphere...striking fishing boats in international waters near South America.
2. Operation Absolute Resolve...invading Venezuela/arresting Maduro and wife.
3. Operation Epic Fury...Bombing Iran.
I have watched Senator Warner several times being interviewed in his capacity as Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence where he is constantly calling out this regime's authoritarian reach as regards the Iran war as well as other topics.
Rep Subramanyam is all over social media constantly speaking out in defense of the Epstein survivors as well as rising prices of gas, groceries, housing, among many other things.
I venture to say many other Democrat reps are doing the same. Trouble is they are not getting wide media coverage because they aren't as "entertaining" as their Republican counterparts. Or maybe because many media outlets are now owned by mega billionaires who align with Trump, so don't want to give Dems the coverage they give Republicans. Just my opinion.
Also check this this free app for the top 140 best pro-democracy newsletters I know of. (Obviously including Heather's). You can search the list by name, topic or keyword. Let me know of any others that should be included.
I've argued for several years now that our best Dems ought to appear with each other -- trios and quartets -- and call out not only the corruption but elite connivance with it.
Be specific. United. Male Dems with female Dems -- and we've many fine ones of both genders, who should coordinate with each other and cite actions (legal, rallying, and public articulation) by peers elsewhere deserving celebration and cohering support.
Jamie Raskin, Cory Booker, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Andy Kim, AOC, Bernie Sanders, and many others are reaching across the aisle, writing legislation, but guess what? There are more Republicans in office than Democrats. It’s not that they aren’t trying, they are outnumbered by a bunch of Republican Congress Critters who seem to be more interested in maintaining their power (and therefore capitulate to their leader who would destroy them if they don’t). And maybe a bit of grift money? Who knows?
I know Phil, it’s so hard to be feeling so helpless
One has to doubt that Hegseth has EVER read the Geneva Conventions. And if he has, his attitude is "damn the conventions, full speed ahead!" Fortunately it appears we still have at least SOME functioning officers in our military who are not that stupid. One can hope that they might, at some point in time, be able to prevail once again, as Mark Milley did in the first Trump misadministration.
I guess Whiskey Pete doesn't realize that if the US doesn't follow the rules of war and the Geneva Conventions, our enemies don't have to either. What happens if an enemy captures and starts executing our prisoners, Pete? Then what?
To my understanding, the Roberts Supreme Court can only grant Trump immunity in the USA. Outside the US he would be under the jurisdiction of the ICC other than countries like Israel that do not recognize the ICC. Funny how the countries with the most prosecution exposure, are the most scared of the ICC. Must be just a coincidence...
Correct, SCOTUS can’t protect him from the ICC, but if he ever sets foot in a country that recognizes the power of the ICC he can be arrested and taken to their court for trial. Bibi and Putin are trapped like that as well. #47 would take a big risk going to many EU countries to even attend a meeting for that reason.
He has no immunity from death. And like other banana republic dictators he’s putting up gold statues to himself as fast as he can in a pathetic attempt to achieve some form of immortality. The guy is too stupid to understand that it won’t work.
"He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war" as opposed to every other US president who invaded another country with the intent of a long, drawn-out war?
Get back In your sandbox with your pale and shovel, and why don’t you stay in your own country and mind your own business since you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about
Pail. And you can thank Apple’s voice texting for any misspelled words like pail One thing you liberals never learn either… you Seldom have your brain engaged before you put your mouth in gear
I would like to be known for who I am. The thing that you actually hate
The fact bag. And liberals just hate facts.
By the way, I don’t like Trump. But all his policies are working to perfection for America, and for the world.
I’ll be awake for the next 2 1/2 years watching the pre-ordained decision to put Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore right next to Teddy Roosevelt. And not because I like him because he’s done so much for the American people in the world.
And there’s the fact that you have no argument to provide. Sorry, Merrill
Your honor my name is David Ronnow And rick sender wouldn’t know a legitimate fact if it hit him in the face and that’s a fact
Judge. OK David and what do you base that statement upon? Do you have any supporting evidence? Do you have any facts or proof to validate that statement?
Well, no Your Honor but he just wouldn’t know one.
Judge. Then come back when you have some facts. Otherwise get the fuck out of my court room.
Yeah, it’s still six years shorter than the for any war we’ve ever fought and it’s the only war we’ve won since World War II. Heather is lately out of her fucking mind. And listing dumb dumber dumbest even dumber than that as references like Andrea Mitchell holy shit. The other day they had to put a tire pump in her mouth just to blow any air into her brain because the air was leaking.
The Trump admin staff/State Dept staff couldn’t even get the countries in Africa straight. It was easier just to plot them anywhere on a map, as long as it was in the shape of Africa. At the moment, we have been overrun by pedophiles and pin heads🙈
The key phrase was "a map [drawn by the stupid and the ignorant] who did not bother to check their work."
We all keep wondering if this basic incompetence is going to end up saving us. Every day, Trump says something even more stupid than whatever it was he said the day before. The insults and contempt for his own base grows exponentially. And guess what? MAGA is actually beginning to crumble like feta cheese.
The United States of America is a rogue nation. It's leader is guilty of war crimes and should be indicted and prosecuted as such. Officials of the regime who have enabled these crimes must also be prosecuted as aiding and abetting war crimes. Every republican member of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate are complicit in those war crimes and should be named as co-conspirators.
The bar is already low. The power of the pardon, which is built into our Constitution, like it or not, means that no one in the Trump administration is likely to be held accountable in a US court after being given one of Trump's end of term pardons. And many will be, starting with Todd Blanche and probably Jeanine Pirro.
Well, Joe Biden wasted $180 billion giving it to Ukraine and Obama wasted billions and billions giving it to Iran, which is now causing us to take it back
Yeah, and if not for the reflecting pond, this country would not exist. The world would stop spinning on its axis. Everybody would fall out gravity, cease to exist, thank God for the reflecting pond.
A fine analysis, as usual. I offer one additional Influence: the works of Ayn Rand, Hitler’s revenge, which became widespread and popular among young, unsocial male readers who longed for a modern-day fictional hero who was not a cowboy but who was ‘smarter’ and ‘braver’ than everyone else. Rich, talented, successful characters like John Galt (Gelt is Yiddish for ‘money’) had a profound influence on readers like young Ron Paul, whose unsuccessful campaign for president did produce a son who became a United States senator named for his dad’s idolized author. Rand’s philosophy tracks closely with that of the hero cowboy, without the hat or the horse —it retains the horseshit characteristic , however.
Right. It’s not the cowboys. It’s the cowboy mythology. It’s Tom Mix. It’s Roy Rogers. It’s the Lone Ranger. And it’s thousands of real-life Texas Rangers prancing around with cowboy hats and guns. It’s Dirty Harry and a couple dozen other movie cops who don’t need no stinkin’ laws. It’s “Where you sleep out every night and the only law is right.”
Gail, the Marlboro Man always comes to my mind when the topic of cowboy mythology comes up.
From Wikipedia: Five men who appeared in Marlboro-related advertisements—Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Dick Hammer, Eric Lawson and Jerome Edward Jackson, aka Tobin Jackson—died of smoking-related diseases, thus earning Marlboro cigarettes, specifically Marlboro Reds, the nickname "cowboy killers".
Do not blame Ayn Rand, her works promoted individualism and the right to make your own destiny, I believe she was a refugee from a territory controlled by Soviet Russia. She hated Hitler and the Nazis. She loved freedom. Her only mistake in my opinion is that she trusted people too much and too much individualism can come at the expense of others when it starts to mutate. Still she had good ideas, though not perfect.
John Galt WAS NOT REAL. HE WAS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN "ATLAS SHRUGGED" AYN RAND'S MOST POWERFUL AND IMPORTANT BOOK, though I think he does show up near the end of the book, he was a symbol of Individual freedom, which as I said above still needs to be supervised, so ones freedom does not destroy another person's freedom. For those who do not know the literal translation of Atlas Shrugged, Atlas is the Greek God who holds the entire earth on his shoulders, if he should "Shrug" the world will likely fall off of his shoulders and everything on it, including humans will die.
I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged somewhere along the way, maybe 10th grade? What a waste of time. No wonder Rand is the hero of the right, buying into exceptionalism.
Elena, as a youth, I read all of Ayn Rand's books, even her treatise on Objectivism. As an aspiring architect, I was especially fond of Howard Roark, the angry, self-absorbed architect in The Fountainhead.
Then I grew up.
Ayn Rand is a fitting hero for The Right. She was a fraud. She spent a lifetime railing against social programs, but still applied for and received Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Despite all her writing success, she died in poverty, alone, friendless and estranged from her sister. Just as she should have.
"Her philosophy, called Objectivism, directly challenged foundational cultural and religious traditions by declaring self-sacrifice immoral and championing individual self-interest as a supreme virtue."
This is where the Dems are going now? Might as well be MAGA. Narcissism as 'leadership'? Everyone for themselves? Let me guess... you think Elon Musk is a role model.
I am not objectifying anyone. I admitted in my post which I guess you failed to read the following: "She trusted people too much, and too much individualism can come at the expense of others when it starts of mutate" That was NOT a compliment, it was a critic of her views. YOU REALLY NEED TO READ WHAT PEOPLE POST MORE CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU MAKE IRELEVANT COMMENTS LIKE YOU JUST DID!
Are you aware that a Lincoln died? Are you aware that we haven’t been one thing since a Lincoln died? A Lincoln was a great president. You on the other hand or a doofus for using that quote.
You are such a fucking pea-brain. Dishonest, cruel, delusional, stupid -- there are things crawling at the bottom of ponds with more intelligence than you.
We've all noticed how frequently you now come here to piss in the wind. Your fear is so obvious it practically glows in the dark.
Oh, did I upset you again? Well, I am certainly not being dishonest. I am cruel to people who hate America, who deserve my cruelty. Anything but delusional and I am anything but stupid
How do usual? The left has only opinion, and your opinion usually goes like this
I have these incredible unsupported accusations to make… I have a ton of evil insults, which Art Alice gently on the offensive after reading one of my posts. Sound familiar?
And worse, they were almost always consumed and hatred for Donald Trump for no reason whatsoever for any action he has taken during his presidency. Period
Fear? Fear did you say? I am living a life every day that exceeds most people’ dreams
And what I find here amongst the Heather rubble or nothing but a bunch of whiners, but for no reason at all because this country has never run better…
Economically, democratically, creating democracy all over the planet. And every single one of his policies are working like they’re supposed to work, lifting all boats helping all Americans, and even surprising, most liberal economists.
But it’s OK you keep on hating and maybe one day you’ll say geez I don’t even know what the hell I’m heading for which is what you should say from the day he took office till now.
I hate America haters. I hate haters of Donald Trump because ever since he’s become president every single one of his policies have worked. and are working on behalf of all Americans. Creating democracy in America, and all around the world.
If you want to hate him for anything he did before he was president that’s your personal . Presidents impact every citizen when the’re president.NOT BEFORE That’s when they need to be judged. The fact that A majority of American voters put them into office by large margins, should tell you how ignorant you are of what’s happening on the other side of the aisle.
Grow up Donald Trump is your President support him because he’s supporting America
You know, I have a more famous quote for you there JL. A more meaningful quote than all the bullshit you keep quoting here which is unbelievably stupid and irrelevant. But I have a going for you Fred Flintstone had a big quote for you ready he said yabba dabba doo
“[Trump] erupted last week during a meeting with his national security team, shouting expletives at the officials in the room.”
Why do they put up with his hissy fits? Why don’t they say, “It’s your mess, you fix it,” and walk out. I would have gotten up and left the room. I’m retired now, but when I was working, yell at me once and I’m gone; history.
Unlike Trump’s numerous other failures, he can’t walk away from this one, leaving others holding the bag. Why does anybody still stand behind the stupid bastard?
I think Trump prefers loyal weak sycophants over strong independents who aren’t afraid of telling the president what he doesn’t want to hear. Any of the latter type historically don’t stay around long.
Thus, we end up with a psychopath president being advised by dopes, and everything is a mess.
As to why the Republican legislators don’t speak against their leaders, look back to the McCarthy era and Margaret Chase Smith’s speeches to the flaccid and mute members of her party. Here’s a taste:”The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as "Communists" or "Fascists" by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”
Ralph, the answer to your question is far more complicated than the one I will give, but I think the following is true.
Political office used to be a form of public service. Most political candidates were recruited. They agreed to run for office because they became convinced that they could make life better for their constituents.
That is no longer the case.
The modern understanding of political office is that it's an investment opportunity. The elected official is paid a pretty good salary with exceptional benefits and a most attractive retirement program. The work calendar is extremely light, requiring only 160 days' attendance in the workplace, compared to the minimum 260-day requirement of the typical full-time job. Additionally, the elected official is privy to information that is useful when planning one's investments.
Given the potential financial rewards, individuals who possess no other marketable skills are attracted to elected office. Rather than hoping to be recruited, they actively seek sponsors who will help fund their election campaigns. Taking on a life of their own, the campaigns are managed by branding/marketing professionals and the so-called "candidate" is really just along for the ride.
If they are lucky enough to have acquired enough funding from deep-pocketed donors, they will be elected to office because, as the Supreme Court has declared, "money is speech."
Once in office, their job entails maintaining public visibility, not pissing off any power brokers, and maintaining their donor base. Legislation is an afterthought – unless it's legislation that lines the pockets of donors, and indirectly, themselves. Because losing a sweet job like this would be a financial catastrophe.
The "not pissing off any power brokers" part of the job is the answer to your question.
If I started naming profoundly unqualified, incompetent cabinet members, I would end up naming all of them, but Linda McMahon as Education Secretary(!) must be the worst.
The Constitution assigns the power to declare war to the branch elected to answer to the people who bear its costs. A war that is never put up for a vote leaves those people with no record of where their own representatives stood. In such a war, accountability is counted among the casualties.
To be accurate, BLB, the State Department didn't exactly blame it on AI. A sharp-eyed journalist at Reuters spotted the OpenAI watermark on the map and called it to public attention. The State Department was then forced to own up to their carelessness.
Since Trump and Hegseth are such fans of the "cowboy mentality", perhaps they should listen to the advice from someone who portrayed some of our most iconic cowboys on film: John Wayne. He said...
"Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid!"
“Courtney Kube, Monica Alba, Peter Nicholas, Gordon Lubold, Katherine Doyle, and Andrea Mitchell of NBC News reported Wednesday that President Donald J. Trump is “exasperated” that the Iran war is dragging on and that his advisors can’t agree what to do next. Reportedly, he erupted last week during a meeting with his national security team, shouting expletives at the officials in the room. One of Trump’s allies told the reporters that Trump had not expected the war to last as long as it has. “There was not a real strategy for how long or what they should do to get to the endpoint.... He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war,” the person said. “
Those pesky little 'special military operations' in Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine -- the ones coming to Cuba, Greenland -- they do have a way of turning to shit in your hands, don't they?
The paradox of expertise is that when it works well, people stop noticing it. Its success begins to look unnecessary.
Institutions, international agreements, and professional judgment weren’t built by accident. They were built because earlier generations had already learned the cost of doing without them.
Dismantling them is easy. Rebuilding the trust, stability, and legitimacy they provided is much harder.
Anti-intellectualism has surged in the United States and it has infected your government. A recent study in Science found that 10,000 STEM Ph.Ds had left the government since Trump returned to office. Your health secretary is an anti-vaxxer and all-round nincompoop. Trump has never found any use for people who are people who are smarter than he is and that's why he's surrounded himself with idiots.
To repeat a line I came across the other day by a Canadian writer (I think his name is David Cochrane), America is not this way because Trump is president. Trump is president because America is this way.
Not all of us, but enough of us who are in power. The truth hurts.
And it galls me every time Trump's distortions appear on "Truth Social."
When I was a child there were laws and policies to curb monopolies, especially of "necessities" and mass media. That mattered.
Well, JL, except that if you dig deep enough, you come to realize that those laws and policies really WEREN'T intended or designed to "curb monopolies" but rather to provide the APPEARANCE of curbing monopolies. It was important to provide the American people with a reason to believe that the government was doing the right thing, but at the same time, to protect the value of contracts and commitments given by the federal government to a whole host of private corporations, particularly BIG ones capable of making BIG political contributions.
Actually, the specious assertion that government regulations have only given the appearance of curbing monopolies, while protecting private and political interests, is debunked by the history of - and monopolist opposition to - such regulation. From Teddy Roosevelt, Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson and the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission to Joe Biden who focused the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice on strengthening and enforcing anti-trust law.
Your rhetoric feeds into the lie of 'the duopoly' which sells the voter suppression-vote splitting snake oil of false equivalency between today's Democratic and Republican parties. And helps elect Republicans such as Donald Trump and JD Vance, who indeed speak with split tongues on the issue. Mouthing populist anti-monopoly sentiments while gutting antimonopoly law and institutions.
"Biden committed to the cause like no other president had in modern times. He appointed one of the movement’s brightest and most aggressive reformers, Lina Khan, to run the FTC, as well as other fierce critics of corporate concentration in key posts, including Jonathan Kanter, who took over the antitrust division of the DOJ, and Tim Wu, who became a key economic adviser inside the White House. Six months after taking office, Biden issued a whole-of-government executive orderthat called on 17 different government agencies to take 72 actions to foster competition and protect consumers against monopolies. As a result, agencies like the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Food and Drug Administration have cracked down on public scourges like price gouging, noncompete contracts, and banking-related junk fees, and created new rules to make consolidated industries like the hearing aid market more competitive."
Trump vs. Biden: Who Got More Done on Antitrust? | Washington Monthly
.https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/04/07/trump-vs-biden-who-got-more-done-on-antitrust/.
AT&T was broken up into the Baby Bells. Monopolies were blocked in former administrations. (The proposed merger of two massive grocery corporations that together totaled 11 companies was blocked. By the FTC under the Biden administration.)
Well said and very true.
J L Graham makes a straightforward historical claim: there were stronger antitrust laws and enforcement, and that had value. Whether one agrees or not, it’s a proposition that can be examined against history.
The reply, though, is much broader. It asserts that the laws were never really intended to curb monopolies, only to create the appearance of doing so, while protecting large corporations. That’s an extraordinary claim, because it requires believing that Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive movement, the New Deal antitrust efforts, postwar enforcement, the breakup of AT&T, and countless judges, regulators, and legislators over more than a century were all participating in essentially the same sham.
History doesn’t support that. Antitrust enforcement has waxed and waned depending on the era and the prevailing legal philosophy. There have certainly been periods of regulatory capture and weak enforcement. But there have also been periods when governments genuinely dismantled monopolies or prevented mergers. The historical record is mixed, not monolithic.
The rhetorical trick is subtle. Instead of saying, “The laws often failed because corporations had too much influence,” the commenter says, in effect, “The laws were never intended to work.” Once you make that move, every piece of contrary evidence becomes part of the conspiracy.
I also notice another habit that’s common in political discussions: confidence untethered from evidence. The commenter doesn’t say, “I suspect…” or “One could argue…” He says, “if you dig deep enough, you come to realize…” That phrasing implies he has uncovered a hidden truth rather than presenting a debatable interpretation. It’s persuasive rhetoric to some other conspiracy-minded folk, but not honest or sound reasoning.
Georgia - And the idea that the site is called "Truth Social" galls me...However the more he lies, the more people are onto him... It's exhausting, but we must breathe deep and live to fight another day...
I call it Lies Anti-Social
A very astute label for it!
Lies occur in a context and I think some are pretty benign, though. I think. often more pernicious than they seem. I think there are some circumstances in which it is wise to withhold one's knowledge, even virtuous, such as lying to Nazi's about the presence of potential victims. That said, many a relationship is damaged by lies, and many a time that justice is thwarted. And lies can kill' racism, sexism, homophobia, pretexts for wars, lies about vaccines and COVID just a few examples. Certainly for the most part lies and liars where truth is crucial are wisely rejected, including and likely especially, provable lies from politicians.
If you came of political age reading George Orwell, with a side of Aldous Huxley and Kafka, "Truth Social" is exactly right. Remember “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”?
Georgia, it's not just those in power, and it sure didn't start with Trump. "America is this way" doesn't specify what "this way" is, but having come of political age in the late 1960s, I'll hazard a guess that it has a lot to do with racism and sexism. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" turned most of the white Southern Democrats into Republicans (while newly enfranchised Black people in the South understandably gravitated to the Democrats), and gave Reagan the white working- and middle-class votes he needed to become president twice.
Reagan gave a 1980s campaign speech on states' rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi. That sure wasn't lost on me, or on anyone who was paying attention, especially Black people. The Reagan administration made a big show of gutting civil rights initiatives to make "the base" happy while giving all sorts of tax and other breaks to the wealthy. We're still dealing with the repercussions, which Clinton and, especially, Bush II made worse.
I am always surprised to see President Clinton lumped in with Reagan and Bush II. Unfairly, I believe.
* If you refer to NAFTA, NAFTA predated Clinton. It was negotiated largely under George H. W. Bush. Clinton inherited it, renegotiated some side agreements on labor and the environment, and then signed it.
It had bipartisan support. Although Republicans supplied most of the votes, many Democrats voted for it, including influential Democrats who believed freer trade would benefit American consumers and exporters. Organized labor and many other Democrats opposed it, but it was hardly a fringe proposal.
The intended rationale was economic efficiency, not racial policy. The argument was that each country would specialize in what it produced most efficiently, lowering prices, expanding markets, and ultimately creating wealth. Critics warned that manufacturing jobs would migrate to Mexico. Both sides were arguing economics, not race.
• If you mean mass incarceration, Clinton deserves a share of the responsibility for that because of the 1994 crime bill. Just remember that The Congressional Black Caucus not only supported the bill, but led on it because Black neighborhoods were distinct victims of the gang violence surrounding the street drug business.
• Kweisi Mfume and Charles Rangel supported the crime bill. Today, many progressives forget the extreme violence of the era and mistakenly single out Clinton as some sort of racially biased figure.
* If you mean racial fairness or civil-rights protections, the comparison to Reagan is ridiculously unfair. Clinton’s administration generally expanded federal civil-rights enforcement, appointed over 500 liberal federal judges, and put Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.
I’m referring primarily to “welfare reform” and to the repeal of most of Glass-Steagall.
Surely you can't be disparaging Saint Ronnie! Susanna, you're singing my song.
The speech in Philadelphia Mississippi was the one to kick off Reagan's Presidential campaign.
No coincidence that Philadelphis was where Goodman, Cheney, and Schwerner were murdered in 1964, and their bodies found buried in a earthen dsm.
I think that there are varying human nature proclivities for fearing and/or dominating others, especially when socially reinforced. I read a book by a black historian who argued that racism was actively reinforced by wealthy slaveowners who benefited economically by divide and conquer. It fit's my picture. It still does.
Who was the historian? That doesn’t strike me as controversial at all. Consider how in the 19th and 20th centuries white people used racism to justify first slavery, then Jim Crow, then keeping Black people out of subdivisions, jobs, etc. Now let’s go back a century or two or three: What was it that persuaded white Christian ship captains that it was OK to capture Black Africans with the intention of selling them into slavery across the ocean?
“ not all of us”? I often wonder how our “ liberal “ attitudes and insistence on purity have triggered some of the resentment that have paved the way for Trump and his band of thugs.How many of our own liberal voices have been intimidated into shushing themselves or accused of not being liberal for simply demonstrating skepticism or criticism? I am giving this reply as someone who admires and values your recent comments including this one.
"Shit Social"
Anti-intellectualism has also been rampant on the left (including academia) for decades already. So no, it's not just "those in power".
The problem is widespread. That's what made the installation of neofascism in the US possible.
Having spent 30+ years as a prof at several universities in the US, Canada, and the UK, I don’t and didn’t see anti-intellectualism as rampant in academia. Sure, there were a few religious nuts who tried to build a wall between their beliefs and the products of science, but scientific debate was alive and well in all the universities where I was employed, and where I visited.
I loosely define anti-intellectualism as dismissing evidence, expertise, or historical nuance because it complicates a preferred narrative.
What is your definition? And can you specify some concrete examples of anti-intellectualism on the left, that you say is so rampant? I have two siblings who have been in academia for decades. I have heard their occasional complaints about their profession, but never heard them say anti intellectualism exists, much less is “rampant”.
Well, he doesn’t know how to think! Bluster is his method. I don’t like being ‘mean’ but I remember knowing that people voted for trump for ‘a change’…I wonder what they think now…
The internet allows those who speak the loudest or the longest, using sinister speech, or use catch phrases like "as you know" to look like they are the majority of the population. The majority to whom we must all agree and aquese.
Kruschev banging his shoe on the table at the UN.
Trump used the unvetted internet as his "magaphone" to call to worship all those who hate into action.
The truth is that everybody hates something, so trump just took the most popular voter friendly "hates" and personified them his "hates" as well.
He took the easy ones first, Presidents like Obama, scientists like Fauci, immigrants ( which we ALL are) into 2 categories...recent or legacy (AKA white) and blamed them for all of America's woes. Trump is a bigot, unread, and hates to work for a living. Three positions that are easy to team build around...intimidators.
It's the old we were here first, we are the loudest, there are more of us than you. as you know.
Have you ever met someone who is always right besides Trump or my mother in law?? Never admits they were wrong or apologizes or has actual remorse or empathy that wasn't self serving?
I'm not saying its the internet's fault that it is unvetted, its simply a new tool that is used quickly and cheaply to convert lies into truths.
I call those lies "Trumps" ...lies spoken to manipulate, in machine gun vollies so trumps all you hear, and can't be fact checked in real time.
"Trumps" have become normal because they are so ubiquitous, and like the weather, something you simply storms live thru, hoping for better weather tomorrow.
Can i wind up my thoughts with uplifting advice or a plan...not really, except "this too shall pass" and thankfully so will he. We who survive get to write his obit and demortilze him.
and we do have one method to stop the noise GET OUT AND VOTE. That is how you save America.
I hope when this horrible, chaotic time passes, that Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Aileen Cannon, and the Sleazy Six on the SCOTUS are prosecuted. We need the American version of the Nuremberg trials. I do not want to move on or just get past this time. The country will not be able to heal until the traitors of the malignant Trump era are punished and excised. Decades were spent hunting down Nazis, who studied the US as a model for their atrocities. That includes Republican politicians who could have stopped the orange felon, but chose not to.
With you, Jenn. Accountability MUST be had in order for any kind of healing to occur.
Jenn, so true, so true!
As HCR says all the time, she cannot fathom why Congress just does nothing. As for me, I am astounded by the hypocrisy I see regarding everything this administration does. I think of the debate and how Biden was badgered out of running. I don't want to get into the argument here regarding should he/should he not have run for a second term, simply stating that the constant crap Trump does gets overlooked.
I think of the old "fiddling while Rome burns"--our country LITERALLY is burning with wildfires. Trump is painting everything gold, spending OUR money on tributes to himself, etc, etc.
We simply cannot just let bygones be begones this time. You are absolutely correct. Justice must be served.
Congress isn't defying trump because the GOP office holders obviously approve and agree with everything trump has done and they are equally responsible.
I don't understand why everybody doesn't hold them all responsible.
JennSH I have to agree with you. It seems to me that mike johnson and john thune are as guilty as anyone just by their blatant complicity to these criminals surrounding the orange face in the oval office. Like mcconnel, were they just political actions or are they criminal actions? It "feels" to me like they are criminal actions, but I am no lawyer. I need to remember that I am very angry at this whole corrupt republican push for autonomy. Should I let that turn to hate or turn to action? At this point I am not sure if I can discern between hate and anger. It all started with mitch mcconnell.
Mark, I read your little bio and your few words summed up my feelings. I know that many good people here are of other faiths--or none at all--but I try hard to be a Jesus Christian. By that, I mean, I try to live by the example of the life of Jesus, not simply by MY interpretation of the words of the Bible.
I have stated this on here and elsewhere, so pardon repetition for those who've already read it: of all the things I hate about this administration, what I hate the most is the attempt to strip people of their humanity, mine included. I get so upset with MAGA that part of me really wants to hate them, and I have to wrestle with my consciousness. Fighting hate with hate just leads to war, and yet, justice must be served. This is a real struggle for me, and as this summer of discontent goes on, it has been wearing on me in a way I find hard to explain. I saw the term "moral fatigue" and I think that fits it.
I am grateful for this community so I know that as (TcinLA frequent commentor here and writer of his own fine Substack "That's Another Fine Mess") says on every one of his posts "we are not the crazy ones."
I wish that could happen, JenSH, with immunity for trump from SCOTUS and virtual immunity given to everyone else by trump preemptive pardons, the only real hope to bring justice is the International Criminal Court.
Let's not forget the odious Musk and his minions.
"I hope when this horrible, chaotic time passes ..."
We need to work together to put an end to this horrible, chaotic time.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
Yes even the odious Fetterman counts towards a Democratic majority. Which would control the committee chairs and numbers, determines the rules, decides which legislation is brought to a vote and when, and if large enough can override a presidential veto.
Amen, Paul. As a writer of GOTV postcards (at 92, no more marches until pushed in wheel chair —will I be able to afford one when I can no longer walk?—Medicare was not meant for “ancients”) my hope is that there is still enough “Independence Spirit” to vote the bums out no matter what it takes.
I write and mail at leaat 10 cards per day and manage with the help of friends the $.65 stamps. That’s DeJoy in case anyone here didn’t know.
Thank you again Virginia for writing and spending 56 cents to mail a postcard.
My town has an establishment where we donate all our no longer needed equipment handicapped people need and then donate these things to people in need. It is run completely with volunteers and donors. From crutches to wheelchairs. Maybe your area has something like this?
"and we do have one method to stop the noise GET OUT AND VOTE. That is how you save America."
... and we do have one method to combat the noise GET OUT AND VOTE BLUE. That is how you save America.
lin- There's a meeting in Blue Hill on Tuesday afternoon to discuss LTEs. The HCDC has more information if you're interested.
Good to hear.
I was involved with their LTE outreach for several years.
They really need to credit the photo of EB White on the website. Have tried to no avail. You might bring it up.
Jill Krementz, 1976. Featured on the cover of Jill Krementz's 1980 book The Writer's Image.
The ending of the "Western" movie SHANE is available on YouTube & other cinema Platforms.
Many conclude that he much discussed ending of Shane means "... that a man of violence cannot live in a peaceful family world. Shane rides away because killing leaves a permanent mark, and the young boy Joey cries out "COME BACK SHANE!". The character, young "Joey desperately wants his hero and the safety he brought to stay."
Statements from the movie's script:
Shane tells Joey that "there's no living with a killing" and that "right or wrong, it's a brand that sticks".
Show not Tell:
Interpreted by many that "Shane cannot wash the blood off his hands to live as a quiet farmer."
Protecting the Family:
Clearly, "Shane loves Joey and his mother, Marian, but he knows his presence threatens their safe, honest home". With a glance toward a distant mountain ridge Shane rides off on his horse steadily through the heavy brush to preserve mother and son's peace.
One conclusion:
Shane represents the old gunfighting West. "Shane clears the valley of bad men so that families and law can take root, but once the job is done, a gunman has no place in that new society".
My conclusion:
Shane is a fantasy Shane does not belong & Shane is not coming back never
The whole gunslinger myth was created at least in part by a bunch of armed veterans with PTSD who had no where to go so they went west after the Civil War. Not so romantic when you realize the hyperviolence of the 'wild west' was created by traumatized mentally ill veterans.
Warren Zevon’s sarcastic take
https://youtu.be/LumGif_cmAU?is=Elfxa66BxUwKllSu
or 'Pete, the Headless Gunner'. ; - )
how's Doolin these days, dave? i thought you might choose 'lawyers, guns and money' when i looked...
maybe tomorrow...
Another Zevon great- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKscd2LkSZk&list=RDSKscd2LkSZk&start_radio=1
Is this correct? I have a different memory, but it has been a long time.I thought Shane was wounded in the gunfight and did not expect to survive and left to spare the boy his death.
I think that is the DEI remake, driven by AI tech.
Or maybe it is the other way 'round? 🤔
I have only seen the original film - nothing recent - so it has to be the other way around.
I just used this in my reply!
America is this way today because the wealthy power-brokers are using their heft to allow them to run roughshod over every law that they don't like. Start with the Koch brothers and Ronald Reagan who slashed the tax code. And don't forget "Citizens United" and the SCOTUS. Money is their god, and it has no moral code whatsoever.
They also use their heft to ruin public education. They want workers and consumers, not engaged citizens.
"𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎 𝑖𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 ℎ𝑒'𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡. 𝐻𝑒'𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠." --David Cochrane, CBC political commentator
So sad but, I'm afraid, true! There have always been crooks, bigots, and misogynists. They exist all over the world. They just haven't been charge of our government until now; so we've joined the group of countries "ruled" by this ilk. I don't think we like it. We'll see how much we don't like it in November.
pts, I repeat what I've been posting long ago :much of the American voters are deeply stupid and that's why we have trump, for a second time. Definitely the Canadian writer you cited pts, is much nicer than i am but the idea it's the same.
I think it’s a bit of both & it rests squarely upon the shoulders of the politicians in our Red/GOP run states. They, like 47 prefer un & under-educated voters, so repeatedly underfund public education. Educated people tend to think critically, ask questions & demand accountability.
Educated voters even know propaganda when they hear and see it. In another life, I taught about propaganda to high school students. They understood it, that it can be both good and for ill and that critical thinking is what stands in the way of believing everything we see and hear. Without education, every lie sounds like truth. Propaganda is powerful!
Apparently nothing is more important to MAGA than hierarchy and white suprematism. The GOP knows and exploits this ideology while dismantling our social system for the benefit of billionaires and oligarchs. Trump mocks “affordability” as a voting agenda for hard working people, and his cult laughs as they blindly spend increasing amounts for food, gas, supplies, and healthcare. The old adage that unscrupulous politicians can pick their pockets while telling them they are superior has never been more true.
So sad to even read this PTS!
pts,sorry to disagree, but Most of America is NOT this way! I will agree that a large number is and while some believed it couldn't happen here and didn't bother to take Project 2025 and it's backers seriously, the whole world is drawn into this quagmire. I do believe America will return stronger, and much closer to the" shining beacon on the hill" it never quit achieved before.
I agree. We often mistake volume for consensus. History reminds us that the loudest voices aren’t always the majority—but they can still reshape a society if enough people stop paying attention.
That’s a sad and disturbing reality. It makes me feel even hopeless for this country…. Trump leaving office will not get rid of the problem. America is doomed
Amen to that
🤣touché!
Ya, many Canadians seem to be ultra-willing to judge us, meanwhile this shit happens all over the world and in Canada.
Wow, that hit me like a brick, but he’s correct.
I’m not exactly sure when education stopped being important. I still think that the invention of the cellphone and development of the internet has contributed to this decay.
Yes. Trump is a consequence of America’s disastrous public idiocy not its cause.
It is a minority in power. Yes the ‘exceptionalism’ and ‘anti-intellectualism’ have always been a factor, but the exploitation of ubiquitous big $$$ Corporate media masquerading as ‘news’ has certainly and the Ellison/EMusk/Murdoch trifecta along with Zuck and his slippery ilk have created an overworked, underfed, undereducated populace and cultivated a culture of grievance. Intentionally, to mask the current power grab that is beyond belief for most Americans. The robust evidence of remote manipulation in ‘24 has been ignored by both parties shamefully. Trump in his usual manner accused the wrong intervening nations and candidates in his ‘fraud’ election speech—accusations being confessions—and even FOX deemed it too close to the real theft to air on TV.
If the 2026 midterms cannot be salvaged from the sabotage of this regime (it can only be done so through local veracity, if at all, at this point) it is not likely there will be a rebound for a very long time—if at all.
…… and as Mahatma Ghandi once said “ If there is an idiot in power it means that those who elected him are well represented “.
Until he starts making THEM feel like idiots for having selected him...We may be in the midst of this already. From many different angles and perspectives, the idiots seem to be having second thoughts right now.
It can't come a moment too soon.
Um...do you really think you're telling us something we ourselves don't already know?
As a foreigner, you'd be more effective with a less condescending tone. Finding common ground through shared ideas is generally more effective than finger-wagging from an imaginary high ground in the distance.
Just saying.
I, for one, welcome constructive criticism from anyone in the world and I reject your use of the term “foreigner” in this context.
The economy of our state and many others have been hit hard because Trump and many of his moronic sycophants want the US to be isolated from the rest of the world in every way possible.
BT (before Trump), I would see several cars with Canadian plates everyday and in the summer, at least a dozen. Yesterday, I saw the first 4 Canadian plates of the year and I live close to Acadia National Park.
My wife's response to our neighbor's to the North, East and West was, "The Canadians are really good at boycotting."
In early 2026, two Native Americans were arrested by CBP when returning from Canada to the US. One of them had a ceremonial drum with him that CBP confiscated and then arrested him. His partner was later arrested when she crossed the border to the US because "she had too many clothes with her for a 10 day visit."
Susan Collins to the rescue and we haven't heard another fucking word about the incident.
"You can't cure stupid." A phrase oft repeated and true as it ever was.
I recently read that tourism from Canada into Vermont has declined significantly - a loss of something like $75 million in visitor spending.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, we have entire neighborhoods filled with folks of Canadian origin. In many cases, they hold dual citizenships, own/and or work for businesses in both the US and Canada, and are mostly registered Republicans.
Now, trade has diminished; we've lost billions in tourism.
Hopefully, they'll oppose all MAGA candidates in the mid terms.
YEAH! send those Natives back where they CAME from!
Bravo, William!
There was a reason people once sat round a fire and told stories. Sometimes the stories were just stories - and sometimes the stories told a lesson that could bear repeating. And the kids would say "Which of the wolves grew bigger, Grandfather?"
Just saying!
The one you choose to feed
Indeed.
It's a good lesson to learn - but sometimes a hard one to follow.
was the reason because there was no tv? (not making fun of what you're saying. i like what you're saying AND that Martha introduced the punch line for those that might not know it. just trying to insert some humor in the midst of all the grim).
Breaks my heart that you should come back with a perfectly gentle reply - then feel you have to apologise for it as people are so sensitive these days - in fact a lot of the time it seems a certain proportion of the population (and NOT just "MAGA") are out LOOKING for tid-bits for the "black wolf."
There was an article in the WaPo today saying Americans are getting MORE religious. Christ was a good story teller - I wish he'd had the wolf one in his book. I wonder if any one ever composed a book called "All the wise things people of every religion have said including atheists and agnostics" That would make a nice change from just reading the Bible, or the Koran etc.
i've been misunderstood WAY too many times in my life to not, sometimes, go out of my way to explain something to prevent a misunderstanding. i feel this community deSERVES that...has earned the bit of extra effort.
what EYE like, Lady, is that life, for those of us with the luxury of experiencing it so, is a smorgasbord. after being raised learning the Jewish stories i was curious to see what others' beliefs were based on, beginning with the New Testament...and i really loved a lot of what was attributed to Jesus...kindness...forgiveness...instead of 'i am a jealous and vengeful God'???? hahaha...not MINE you ain't...and then there's the patriARchal slant. imo, a LARGE part of what has held back humanity. male dominance.
and then it was buddhism...didn't understand much of Watts', 'the Way of Zen'...but i hoped that it might make sense to me at some later date...b/c i believe that some portion of us(not necessarily the brain...i believe in cellular memory...maybe even genetic memory beyond the physical) retains all that we experience.
to everything a yin and yang, viewed through our dualistic lenses...but then it's where i focus that will dictate much of how i react. am i looking at the dog shit on the sidewalk or the rest of the beautiful scenery? not a very poetic illustration...but it DOES engage the senses...
but this is not to say that i should igNORE what is dangerous. as Loren would put it, 'ecogenocidal'. amazing how much nonsense we have to slog through to get to the basics...a planet that can still support life.
You're going to have to tolerate even the most supportive people from elsewhere in the world losing their patience from time to time.
Oh, I don't know the US has strutted its stuff for decades looking down our collective noses at other countries so some finger wagging at the US seems to be "just desserts".
HEY! NEVER belittle desserts!
But, behind the scenes Americans traveled the world assisting others in need and being the beautiful Americans. Of course, because of Trump and his cruel and hateful ilk we're being judged as Ugly Americans.
Yes. We know you're just saying. Another way to finger-wag with no solutions offered.
My solution? The World Court should begin prosecutions NOW.
Hasnt this moron in chief done enough to Canada without our calling them foreigners?
I have to assume, to Canadians, our neighbors, it's pretty clear where we are and how we got here. So they shouldnt say that? Avoid our hurt feelings?
Imagine how "upset" maga gets at hearing that!!!
Oh please! Stop deciding who has the right to share their thoughts!
Sounds like you’re projecting. I especially dislike the sarcastic, “Just Saying.” 🤦♀️
Feel free to dislike whatever it is you dislike....
If I went to Britain, and somebody asked me what do I think of Starmer's recent resignation, I might preface my comments by saying 'as an outsider, as an American' to indicate that I might not be in the best position to judge, whatever my opinions might be.
Just saying.
You have a valid point. But don't forget the role BIG money and foreign influences on social media played in getting the Orange Blight elected. Beware!, if the morbidly rich and morally bankrupt succeed in bring the United States down, your country could be next.
It may be funny to you or it may be that you're enjoying our current state of shame and disorder. But remember this, inspite of the endless pursuit of Hillary Clinton's "illegal" emails. The investigation proved there was nothing to the accusations. And she WON the popular vote by almost three million votes. The Electoral College defeated her.
Who's "enjoying" this? And how did Hillary manage to enter the conversation?
I was just pointing out that the orange blight wasn't a legitimate president in 2016. That's extremely important.
…but we can still learn from this ICTT….right?
WOOF!
10k is no joke. I didn’t realize it was that high. We have been losing on that issue since 2001 though. We like to be consistent in our idiocy.
after 9/11, didn't bush jr sign something saying that if the World Court came for an American(undoubtedly, though not specified, meaning a politician) it would be considered an act of war?
Well stated and all true. Americans are more religious than in other wealthy supposedly educated countries. My theory is they have been robbed and lied to for decades by their churches so are primed to accept lies (with no evidence!) from politicians, especially if they pretend to be "Christian". We are in big trouble because those religious people are not going anywhere, education has gotten much worse, media is misleading us every day because there are three huge corps who own most of it AND the richest people IN THE WORLD are against us.
The religious white Evangelicals have been reaping what the have sown with Focus on the Family Fox News folks
We are all paying the price for their home schooling and Christian school movements
Their purity culture
They want a leader like Trump who will “fight” for their vision of this country where the women are barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and gay folks are in the closet and the others stay in their lanes
They are happy with their American Caligula
This is a long laid plan—the dismantling of the fairness doctrine, the rise of cable 24 news and punditry, and the Limbaugh-type Nixonian investment in culture warfare (anti-abortion, gender and ‘DEI’ villainization, anti-immigrant sentiment) have been propagated through right wing Evangelical pulpits—and lucratively for a few peddlers. .
"Nincompoop Pete"
Thank you very much!
Just so I have this right, he thought by changing the name from Department of Defense to the Department of War would what? terrify other countries and they would then automatically comply with whatever demands trump set down? Seriously? trump went into this Iran War believing they would do whatever he said because in his mind he is tough and strong. I don't believe any country in the world sees trump that way. What a mess.
I'll bet Hegseth just likes the merch. Fits into his cartoonish he-man fantasy.
and he really does act like a cartoon character, has no clue what he's doing yet believes he knows all.....ughhh
yep klutt, like I say 'we shoulda listened to his mom when she threw Petey under the bus- until they paid her not to'.
They are badly behaved, not-very-bright children.
And every day they prove it.
Also correct..😬
🥴😁🤣😝
Even idiots are smarter that this 'stable genius.'
Has anti-intellectualism really *surged*? It's been a powerful current in U.S. life for a very long time -- Richard Hofstadter's ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE was published in 1963; I read it in college a few years later, and saw it in action on a regular basis, having come of political age listening to George Wallace railing against "pointy heads" and Spiro Agnew going on about "nattering nabobs of negativism." Once I got down to seriously studying U.S. history, I learned that it went back much further than that, and that very wealthy and corporate interests liked to mobilize their version of the masses using anti-intellectual slogans (and conveniently ignoring the fact that they themselves were generally very well educated and that many had lifted themselves up not by their bootstraps but by their "old school ties").
Since the civil rights and women's rights advances of the mid-1960s and the 1970s, anti-intellectualism has teamed up with its close allies racism and sexism to give us Reagan and, eventually, Trump. The puppeteers, those very wealthy and corporate interests, have been around all along pulling the strings, bankrolling Republican candidates and signing up to fund Trump's ridiculous ballroom -- they were particularly freaked out by the election of Barack Obama: Jane Mayer's DARK MONEY is essential reading on this.
Russell, every day, some breaking news story about our government reminds me of those TV ads featuring dogs driving a car. Except dogs would be more competent than the (alleged) humans currently driving our government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya0_S8Qmj1Y
Anti-intellectualism has been with us ever since the U.S. was founded. Even though several of the "Founding Fathers" were non-deists, they found it expedient to accommodate the numerous Christians who had come to North America because they couldn't get along with their neighbors where they came from across the sea.
Until the mid-Twentieth Century when so-called "Mainline" denominations drifted toward a more intellectual approach to religion, the Christian position was that "God is in charge." In that world-view, everything, including education, science, the arts, social culture and politics are subservient to "God's will." Though not always blatant, this is reflected in our governing documents and policies.
A prime example is U.S. policy toward Israel, which is based on the declaration in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) that "nations who bless Israel will be blessed by God." In the same manner that white Europeans took land from the Indigenous peoples of North America, the U.S. participated in the taking of land to create the nation of Israel. Since then, the U.S. government has turned a blind eye to the Israelis' abuses of Palestinians, then pretends to be surprised that Hamas formed.
The U.S. has been home to many of the world's breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but always in spite of – not because of – the outsized influence of Christianity. Ironically, U.S. Christians, especially evangelicals, claim to be a persecuted minority, when in fact, they've always had the upper hand. If anyone doubts this, consider our "Blue Laws," which still exist in some form to this day.
https://www.history.com/articles/blue-laws-sunday
That is a somewhat inaccurate reading. The biblical reference probably only applies to the view of the actually antisemitic evangelicals of CUFI (Christians United For Israel, the largest Netanyahu regime lobbying group.)
Also, you gloss over the well documented and much contested history of the region. And of Zionism itself. And sincere efforts at justice and a fair two state solution by American politicians, most notably Democrat Jimmy Carter in and out of office, and most recently Democratic Maryland senator Chris VanHollen who helped expand our Leahy laws to stop delivery of offensive military aid to nations in violation of humanitarian law. Biden and Blinken did not listen.
The Trump unilateral move of the US embassy to Jerusalem and Abraham Accords - a solution to the "Palestinian problem" without Palestinians at the table led directly to the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7. By effectively taking a two state solution off the table, Which are being followed by Trump regime supported ethnic cleansing to create a Gazan seaside luxury resort without Palestinians. And now, Republicans want to directly tie Pentagon procedures to Israeli priorities.
Israel News - Haaretz.com
.https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news.
And you entirely elide Israeli self-criticism - such as in Israel's oldest newspaper Haaretz and scholar Omer Bartov.
A Genocide Scholar Asks “What Went Wrong” in Israel
The Israeli historian Omer Bartov argues in his new book that a “state ideology” of Zionism has led to what he calls genocide in Gaza.
.https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/a-genocide-scholar-asks-what-went-wrong-in-israel.
Historian Omer Bartov on why he believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza : NPR
.https://www.npr.org/2025/07/17/nx-s1-5468953/historian-omer-bartov-on-why-he-believes-israel-is-committing-genocide-in-gaza.
Subject: Israel WEAPONISED Holocaust Memory To Commit Genocide - Israeli Scholar
.https://youtu.be/DyBRCD0FJjs?si=fqS93pOT2V8S4wnl.
Anti-Semitic Zionists
"Among Evangelical groups in the USA, Christian Zionists have a special relation to the state of Israel. As important Trump constituents, they have a huge influence on his foreign policy and are increasingly crowding out Jewish interest groups. Their ideology is inherently anti-Semitic, but they tend to hide this fact.
Among Trump supporters, Christian Zionists are especially strong, whereas Jewish voters tend to oppose him.
Christian Zionism is a belief held by many Evangelicals, who number one quarter of the US Christian population, but adhere to a fundamentalist interpretation of the bible. Christian Zionists believe that Israel must gather all the Jews of the world, enlarge its territory, destroy Muslim holy places, and ethnically cleanse “the holy land” of all non-Jews. Many assume that this must be done to facilitate the return of Christ. Evangelicals of this kind support Israel, but not Judaism. In their worldview, Jews play a merely instrumental role. The implicit subtext is that Jews do not belong in American communities, because good Jews move to Israel. Their ideology is tinged with anti-Semitism, and it fits the picture that Trump himself has a pattern of using anti-Semitic memes (see essay by Benjamin Baltheser in D+C/E+Z e-Paper 2019/10, Focus section).
These things, however, are only rarely expressed explicitly. "
.https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/how-evangelicals-have-usurped-jewish-americans-support-israel.
Lin•, your reply is well-cited, but you kind of missed my point.
I do take exception to two of your points.
The use of "antisemitism" in any discussion of Middle East problems invalidates the argument. Semite (thus antisemite) is an obsolete term that refers to people who speak Semitic languages, INCLUDING JEWS AND ARABS.
Secondly, your characterization and narrowing of the biblical reference to only CUFI is just plain mistaken. I covered the history of this sentiment in my comment. Rephrasing: Western Protestant theology and doctrine was largely the same among the denominations until the mid-Twentieth Century. The fathers of Protestantism, Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley differed in their views of the sacraments and the role of the Bible in Christian discipleship, but they all agreed that Israelis were "God's chosen people." Their followers who became the denominations represented in the American colonies strongly influenced the "Founding Fathers."
It wasn't until the mid-Twentieth Century that the denominations diverged. Calvin's Baptists stuck with anti-intellectualism, while his Presbyterians, Luther's Lutherans and Wesley's Methodists drifted to more liberal positions. However, their reverence for Israel remained largely unchanged.
But isn't it the case that despite the points you've made the majority of Israelis still support the wars in Gaza and Lebanon? Even were Netanyahu to be deposed in October, I'm not sure that this would necessarily mean the end of these conflicts, despite the waning international support adn sympathy for Israel, even in America.
I am not sure that the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis was ever meant to apply to the current state of Israel, even though some of its behaviour is very Old Testament.
You're right that there's no escaping our shared Christian heritage in the US and the UK as it is reflected in our language, literature, laws and customs. There's also no denying the uneasy relationship between science and religion. My favourite author, Stephen J. Gould, famously described them as "non-overlapping magisteria". I wish that were true but it seems to me that it has never been the case.
Perhaps the real enemy of religion and science is irrationalism, in the sense of unreasonableness verging on fanaticism. Science at least has a methodology that guarantees a certain amount of self-correction. For every Einstein there are a hundred Velikovsky's. Much of the evangelical support for Trump seems to me to be of the irrational camp, distrusted even by the majority churches.
Russell, I love your comment. Regarding your first sentence, it's hard to say what the intent was, mainly because the text now known as the Hebrew Scriptures was the commitment to writing of oral traditions that had been handed down through generations. Not to mention that those texts were lost, found, translated, edited, abridged and appended numerous times. And from a rationalist's point of view, the whole Judeo-Christian system was/is based on a deity fabricated by ancient men sitting around their fires. I do find it suspicious that the Covenant that protects a group was "recorded" by a member of the protected group. Nevertheless, as you suggested, it's very unlikely that such a covenant, if real, was meant to apply to the current nation.
"Perhaps the real enemy of religion and science is irrationalism, in the sense of unreasonableness verging on fanaticism."
The leap of faith is by definition unmoored from reason and empirical evidence. Belief - an irrational habit of mind - is the essence of religion. The leap of faith is entirely appropriate to the pew and prayer rug, but, as the Founders knew, toxic to the procedures of government. Which is why they strictly walled of religion from government - which they based on coming to consensus through reasoned debate of empirical evidence. The Constitution in effect translates the Scientific Method into good government.
Well you will be unsurprised that the Felon and his merry band of moronic minions are about to gut Head Start (they tried to get rid of it entirely but were blocked so they're making it untenable as a program instead), Medicare (including the Rx spend limit that Biden's administration introduced), Medicaid, special education, student loans, and anything else that could lead to a healthy, educated, informed populace.
Your analysis makes me laugh Russell! Why is a conundrum ..sadly accurate is funny? That has me wondering I should perhaps go to a therapist? A comedian’s rich source for choice jokes is truth.. funny how that works, huh? While experts or the eloquent dole out best sellers telling truth more than half the world shook their heads as progress was set back minimally 300 years by a bully.
The irony was an early Emperor with no clothes caricature whose only real affidavit was screaming lies the loudest , deviant habits, and narcisstic selfish pleasures. That nearly half of America clung to this conman still boggles me.
Perfect is the myth created only in one’s mind ..telltale for it amuses far too many. And is used by people who want to rewrite history so we won’t feel guilty?…they never could admit mistakes are lessons…could we please understand the difference? This is the key to species disappearing perhaps?
Thank you Russell …and Heather ..another fine letter enjoyed.🫶
Trump has no use for anyone smarter than him, which still leaves plenty of stupid Americans available for the work.
Sadly, it's not just a US phenomenon.
Russell, you are soooo right! I do blame Trump for his utter stupidity (stupidity is a choice, and Trump chooses it all the time).
I do hold the Project 2025ers who pumped out a "document" designed to trick, abuse, confuse, disenfranchise, ignore, and disinform the American people for the purposes of making this a white nation run by white men who should be the only people able to vote or work outside the home (utter stupidity). That should be just another BS writing from a fringe group. However, it has a whole lot of money behind it, probably foreign influences too. This should not be legal, but it has penetrated so much of our government and has resonance with young white men who somehow got the idea that if they don't have everything they want, someone is keeping it from them. That is toddler thinking held by children who are badly-parented and permitted to rule their house. They are currently ruling our house with their whining, tantruming, and violence against people they don't understand or care about, just as one would expect of such toddler-adults.
The current targets of this white house, Supreme Court, and congressional Republican toddler pool attacks are immigrants of color, trans women, and women in general. We need to stand against all of this cruelty, hate, and let's call it, insanity!
👏every word, Russell.
That vile man has endangered the lives of more than a handful of people with his incompetence. Seriously, nincompoop is not a strong enough word to characterize him.
Now that Trump has been lured into a forever war with Iran, Putin is using it to put pressure on NATO. Trump and Hegseth are withdrawing forces in Europe to focus on Iran while they decimate the US command ranks. Trump's flip-flop on licensing Patriot manufacturing to Ukraine is a sign that Putin's vicious attacks on Ukrainian civilians and missile incursion into Poland have convinced him that Zelenskyy and NATO are again no longer "winning," so it is time to switch sides again and align with the interests of his strong-men buddies, Putin and Xi. The frequency of the oscillation is increasing, which is a sign of increasing instability. Yesterday the NY Times described Trump's behavior as "mercurial."
Trump first announced the Patriot licensing deal on July 8-9, 2026, at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, where he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alongside him that the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air-defense interceptor missiles domestically — saying "We're going to give a license to you to make Patriots... That's pretty cool, right? This way, he can't complain that we're not giving them enough" . Zelenskyy said the next day that a political-level agreement had been reached on licensing PAC-3 interceptor production.
On July 28, when Zelenskyy met with Trump at the White House ahead of Lindsey Graham's funeral, Trump reaffirmed the deal.
Trump walked it back yesterday, July 31. Apparently, Graham's pro-Ukrainian influence on Trump did not last past his burial. During a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump said "we have not agreed to that," and he wasn't sure whether the U.S. would actually grant the license, calling it "a hard thing to give away that kind of technology" and stressing the need to be "very careful" since the recipient of such technology "can someday turn it on you."
The big winner here is Xi. He is well on his way to turning Russia into a Chinese vassal state as Russia's economy implodes and American influence erodes. We are watching the destruction of American power by the manipulation of Trump's fragile ego and the diminution of Russia's because of Putin's delusions of empire. Mind wars are killing hundreds of thousands, while XI waits.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-says-both-sides-ukraine-war-want-settlement-2026-07-08/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-welcomes-zelenskiy-ahead-funeral-senate-ally-who-championed-ukraine-2026-07-28/
https://politicalwire.com/2026/07/31/trump-backtracks-on-ukraine-patriot-pledge/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/us/politics/trump-ukraine-patriot-missiles.html
Oh good grief. I heard he withdrew his offer, but he fears that such technology “can someday turn it on you” then I would suggest that President Zelenskyy stop showing us how to build drones, stop training our military how to use them, and maybe not allow Saudi Arabia to purify uranium at home. You just never know where all that can lead… /s
Add in the paranoia Trump has about the ICC, undoubtedly stoked by BiBi and Mamdani’s highlighting the possibility of arresting Bibi if he comes to the UN General Assembly. Mamdani eventually said that he did not have any jurisdiction that would allow him to arrest Bibi.
Back on July 13, Rubio announced a "whole-of-government" campaign to "systematically disable" the ICC's ability to seek justice for those who commit war crimes. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rubio wrote that the U.S. will "dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary," and put out video statement, where he juiced the rhetoric further: "Today, it threatens every aspect of our political and legal system... If they believe they can deprive us of our sovereignty, we will teach them the full meaning of American resolve," accusing the court of "waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law."
The State Department put out a release listing what actions it would take to neuter the ICC:
diplomatic pressure on allied nations to withdraw from the Rome Statute. the US had signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and withdrew in 2002, because George W. Bush feared ICC actions against members of the US armed forces after September 11.
"increased scrutiny" of nations that rely on U.S. assistance but refuse to reject the ICC's authority,
visa revocations and travel bans for ICC personnel. The US has already put sanctions on eight ICC judges that Trump regime says have against US and Israeli interests and are designed to hurt them with a “financial death penalty” denying them access to US bank accounts, credit cards, major financial instituions and places travel
expanded sanctions against the court and affiliated organizations. bans on them.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yegvd9ddeo
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/us/politics/trump-international-criminal-court.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2FA.rRVL.ac3WADonBnP2&smid=url-share
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/07/state-department-launches-campaign-to-dismantle-international-criminal-courts-threat-to-american-sovereignty
https://www.reuters.com/world/rubio-says-us-sanctioning-icc-judges-targeting-israel-2025-12-18/
Does Rubio not understand that his statements and his plans to cripple the ICC indicate he affirmatively supports war crimes? We already know that Hegseth (the nincompoop) does. Horrifying.
Funny how these idiots cosplaying as world leaders with their blathering about being strong men and warriors are so afraid of the ICC…
Dutch Mike, they are all afraid of being held accountable by any court and having to pay for their arrogance and wrong doing.
who likes being sent to the principal's office?
Hello Georgia... Destruction of the ICC?... Maybe the Political Wars of the Post-DJT Era have begun... I believe that Marco Rubio is starting to Realize that Rubio has made a Deal-With-The-Devil when Rubio joined DJT's Cabinet... Ask Mike Pence How That Worked Out....
Rubio is jockeying to be Trump’s heir apparent. He is going to parrot Trump’s whims at top volume as often as he can, with as much bluster as he can muster. I also think it is clear that he could be indicted if opposition leadership, post-Trump, decided to ratify the Rome Treaty. My guess is that he realizes Trump will be in the great beyond (below???) and he and Hegseth will bear the brunt of justice.
Hello Georgia... Notice how JD is Backing Away... Yes, DJT Will Be 'Below' When That Time Arrives...
Really? Do you think Rubio is that self aware? And if so, will he just ride into hell with trump, or stand on what might be left of his principles?
They're all such power hungry, money grubbing hypocrites. Maybe the ICC will eventually 'get them'.
Hello CRL... We will find out in the Post-DJT Succession Games..
I do so hope…
Any person with half a brain would remember what the Iranians did to Jimmy Carter in 1980. But Trump doesn't know how to end the war with Iran. The US is in no better position today than it was on Day 2 of the War. Actually, much worse. Thanks DonOLD and all of you do nothing Republicans in Congress.
Maybe if Republicans started talking about how as a gesture, Barron and Kai should enlist to go to Iran, Trump's head would explode and we could end this stupid war.
The Iranians rejected Carter's negotiations to release the hostages because the Reagan camp made them a more lucrative offer - guns and money if they kept the hostages until after the election. Which led to the Reagan Bush Iran Contra operations.
Yup, the Iran-Contra scandal that Bill Barr arranged to end as Attorney General under George H.W. Bush.
Exactly, and why they brought him back to clean up after Trump.
How about the other two morons, Eric and Donald making up to 220% profit on their investment thanks to inside trader and access to military and policy secrets. It's easy to go from millionaires to billinaires if your dad is DonaldTrump. You want the war to end?, sent them there as soon as possible.
Time for the draft. Big mistake to have abolished it. Great mixer.
The wealthy children would still find ways not to be drafted. Remember G.W. Bush who evaded the draft? Djt - 5 deferrals? Until the Generals in the Pentagon and everyone in the DoD are experienced and qualified, there should not be a draft. The Iran "war" was initiated without intelligence, planning, or expectation of its ending, resulting in the deaths of our best asset - our men and women in uniform - including hundreds wounded.
On Thursday, July 30, 2026 The Guardian reported that Russia destroyed a drone manufacturing plant last week in Kyiv owned by a US company. It was the first time in the Ukraine War that US interests were hit.
Terminal Autonomy is a Delaware-registered US defense company operating in Ukraine. The plant produced AQ-400 Scythe and AQ-100 Bayonet drones, which are designed to keep working under Russian electronic warfare jamming.
Interesting timing…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/30/us-firm-drone-factory-terminal-autonomy-ukraine-russia
Have done a quick search - and The Guardian seems to be the only Western paper reporting this.
Plenty of Russian ones, though.
Plenty of Ukrainian ones too…This is the a blow to Ukraine—it is absolutely leading edge drone technology for Ukrainian infrastructure attacks on Russian oil, weapons, and logistics support for the war.
I am not sure that Trump wants it to be published that Russia hit an American interest. I think it was more of a warning to Trump and NATO allies from Putin about his displeasure that US companies and NATO allies are building weapons manufacturing plants in Ukraine and getting technology transfer in return.
Georgia, I'm interested in social genealogy, so I googled your surname. Are your roots in Ukraine? If so this must all be particularly galling - and heartbreaking - to you.
Yes. I am ¾ Ukrainian and ¼ Belgian, second generation American born.
Yes, it is devasting to me. While I was not taught to speak Ukrainian, Ukrainian culture was prominent in my parents’ home, as was Ukrainian Catholicism, the religious tradition in which I was raised. (Many first generation Ukrainian-Americans born in the early 20th century were discouraged from being multilingual because of discrimination and so did not speak fluently or teach their kids. There was also controversy over the Ukrainian nationalists joining with Hitler during WWII.)
Thanks, all of you. My version of Ukraine came from a Polish history written by a Brit, Norman Davies, who turns out to have taught our own Michael McFaul at Jagellonian! Once I learned about Holomodor, welcoming the German Army into Ukraine did not surprise.
My paternal great grand father, Prussian, was part of the 1848 rebellion against VonBismarck. Imprisoned, he somehow got to America where he joined with other Poles to fight with the Union.
Perhaps Professor Gerdes reported that on YouTube. He is usually very thorough on damage to both sides.
At some point, Georgia, do you think Ukraine will destroy the Kerch bridge? They could have already, but the Russians in Crimea would be trapped. With train traffic into Crimea down to around 4 a day as of last week, will the Russians abandon Crimea or hold on until the last Russian soldier is dead?
Phillips O’Brien (I think) quoted Sun Tzu about never cutting off your enemies’ path to retreat. So I think the Kerch bridge stays in place with damaged railroad tracks so heavy equipment can’t be moved in or out while Ukraine cuts all of the overland Russian supply routes. I think the 30,000 North Korean troops will be put in Crimea as cannon fodder. Ukrainian air and sea drones will cut off transport across the Caspian and Black Seas to halt resupply back and forth between Russia and Iran and Russia and Crimea and Donetsk. What Zelenskyy has to engineer is an economic collapse in Russia by destroying all of the oil infrastructure and weapons manufacturing plants and hope that Putin is so backed up against a wall that he calls for a general mobilization.
Someone mentioned O'Brien before Georgia. It may have been you, but point well taken. No one wants to slaughter innocent civilians who have no way of escaping, well except Putin, Trump and Bibi.
And Georgia, these idiots, in the meantime, leave us Americans impotent and vulnerable to attacks. I dunno, I get heartburn thinking this entire regime is orchestrated by and for Putin. I have thought for many years that he planted people in our government for these times. Why else would a bunch of them go to Moscow? To get their orders.
Will anyone be surprised if there is an attack somewhere in the US? Or if Trump attacks a group of people within the US? Oh, wait, I guess that's already happening.
Georgia, please don’t underestimate the 90-minute phone calls Trump-Putin. Papa Putin is very effective with Trump who probably checked in after his conversations with Zelenskyy.
And right out of Putin's weaponization of immigrants playbook...
Please follow me on this one, or much better listen to intelligence experts Malcolm Nance and Dexter Ingram.
Spain. WTF. Who benefits.
Ceuta is a small autonomous Spanish city located on the northern coast of Africa that is completely surrounded by Morocco except for its Mediterranean coastline. It has been part of Spain since 1580. Morocco wants it.
Suddenly 60,000 young Moroccan men enter Ceuta. A crisis for the Spanish government. Which has just liberalized protection of immigrants. This has all the earmarks of an organized information operation against Spain.
Musk and the white supremacist crowd are madly posting: England you're next. Trump is on it: “I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place. It looks like an invasion of a country. Hundreds of thousands of people. And that same thing’s going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected, except worse, much bigger, much easier to get into." Rubio is blaming the Socialist administration of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
IMMIGRANT INVASION BLAME SOCIALISTS. Made for the 2026 midterms. Literally. This was made to order.
Who benefits?
Morocco is one of the few nations to sign the Abrahamic accords. After which the Trump regime officially designated Ceuta as occupied territory. Trump owes them.
Trump hates the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez because he has criticized Israel's genocide against Palestinians and because he has refused to assist in the US Israel war against Iran. And he's a socialist. This could bring down his government.
This also gives Trump and Musk an anti-immigrant talking point for the midterms.
CEUTA SPAIN CRISIS - TRUMP FUCKERY? W/Malcolm, Dexter,
.https://malcolmnance.substack.com/p/ceuta-spain-crisis-trump-fuckery.
Weaponization of Migration: A Powerful Instrument in Russia’s Hybrid Toolbox
As part of Moscow’s hybrid war toolbox, Russia’s weaponization of migration becomes an even more apparent means of destabilizing the West. Across three continents, a pattern of strategically engineered migration emerges as a result of Russian military and hybrid activities.
.https://www.hoover.org/research/weaponization-migration-powerful-instrument-russias-hybrid-toolbox.
.https://www.hoover.org/research/weaponization-migration-powerful-instrument-russias-hybrid-toolbox.
That was a very interesting conversation between Malcolm and Dexter.
Yes. Be ahead of the news - Black Man Spy Nance and his colleagues!
Black Man Spy - Malcolm Nance | Substack
.https://substack.com/@malcolmnance.
I understand that Bibi, also, calls djt daily. We have real estate people, not experienced diplomats, "negotiating" in Iran and Gaza. What could go wrong? Iran has sent a note (through back channels) to JD Vance to disclose that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are only interested in real estate, not peace deals. The original agreement with Iran under Obama took several diplomats 21 months to accomplish. And that;s why we are in a quagmire, and are inviting the Saudis into this mess. Our government has been decimated of experienced people.
Georgia, as my mother slid deeper and deeper into dementia, her behavior was also "mercurial." One day, she was determined to do one thing; the next day, she was determined to do the opposite. Also, she didn't sleep at night, but frequently fell asleep in the daytime, even mid-sentence.
Mom's condition was pitiful. But she didn't have the power to sic lawyers or killers on people she didn't like.
Ultimately we see Trump does what he can to help Putin. He dies this even as Russia helps Iran. That suggests that he must. But I dont see Putin's influence behind this flip flop. I see thst of Lockheed Martin and Boeing corporations. You see, it was rather like excluding Netanyahu from his ceasefire talks with Tehran, then committing Israel to an extension of the ceasefire to Lebanon. We know he did this and the ceasefire immediately unraveled as a result. Netanyahu made sure of that.
Do you really think Trump asked the owners of the Patriot missile system and its components if they would agree to license production of them to a Ukrainian company when he announced that he would do so ? Of course not ! He does not confer with anyone before announcing his intentions. He wheels and deals.
Then later he learned quietly that Boeing and Lockhead are not keen on licensing their best selling product to a foreign company. Is there any wonder why ?
Trump is covering his tracks now. When he talks of others using "our" missiles against us, he is talking about foreign manufacturers competing against "us". Anti-Ballistic Missile Missiles are defensive weapons. They can of course be used to shoot down airliners. But lots of things can do that.
In a way this silly syllogism reminds of the 1970s controversy over putting Pershing Ii missiles in Europe. If I recall correctly they are an ABM for anti-ballistic missiles. The Soviets objected strenuosly and engaged in threatening behavior. They maintained the Pershing Ii deployment would constitute a threat that would e "destabilizing" of a detente that underlayment peaceful coexistence in Europe. It undergirded mutually assured destruction. "Dont do that", the Russians said. If you do, then we wont be sure of being able to annihilate western Europe".
As I recall, Carter backed down. But Reagan went ahead. Thst resulted in the ABM treaty and SALT II, now considered rd to the dustbin of history.
Whatever, if Ukraine wants an a ti ballistic missile missile they will have to get it somewhere else or make it. And Trump is not going to promise Starlinks for them on behalf of Elon Musk. This will lead to a further expansion of the war as ballistic missiles is all that Putin has left.
Maybe if our schools and news organizations spent more time teaching and reporting on those people who make society work (instead of the bad people breaking things), the overall population would understand why we need scientists in charge of things.
Steve, Please spare us another effort to blame our situation on educators in US schools! Sorry but we take no responsibility for the oligarchs, racists and misogynists who couldn’t tolerate Harris at the helm.
I see you haven’t ever studied systems thinking. If you had, you’d understand everything in society is connected… and you’d understand an education system designed to produce mentally healthy families (not just cogs in the machinery of the world) would have created a civilization that rejects the concept of fighting wars … the concept of domination instead of partnership. This is why Buckminster Fuller often said education is the solution to our problems. He knew a an education systems designed around the principles of a win-win world could make it possible to literally live in a utopia.
I’m not blaming teachers. I’m blaming the design of our education system in which all teachers teach.
Steve, Sorry but I’m unfamiliar with Fuller’s views or his research. However, would you please stick to the facts and stop your personal attacks. They are boring and offensive here. EG You boldly assume that I have never studied systems or systems thinking. Well, you are wrong as I have spent some years studying social systems while obtaining my MS and PhD in Sociology. My education is irrelevant. Stick to the subject.
A more enlightened population would be a good thing, ignoring the people that are destroying this country to focus only on only "those people that make society work" would be a mistake.
As a conservative thinker, not cowboy, put it: "Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half-an-hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years." –Edmund Burke, ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’; 1790.
Wait a minute! Over time I have met some cowboys, my cousin for one. He detests trump! hegseth's D.o.D. : a fat-head purging fat solders. Department *of War; D.O.G.E.; Gulf of America . . . trump has *done a fine job of re-shaping American culture.
Hello Ned... Hegseth is a Cartoon Character of a Warrior... What ever Brains he might have once had, Hegseth Drank Away... The Tang Dynasty Mandarins, which some consider China's Greatest, were Cultivated Scholars as well as Warriors... Same for the Daimo in Feudal Japan...Allegedly, Drunken Pete prepares 2-Minute Videos for DJT that show Stuff Blowing-Up for DJT's Entertainment every Morning... Learning Handicapped DJT thinks that is War.. The USA had Absolute Kinetic Dominance in Afghanistan, and How Did That Turn Out?...
Hegseth clearly demonstrates at every instance that he doesn’t know jack shit about any “warrior ethos”. A real warrior is no Rambo-style berseker going into every problem with guns blazing: a REAL warrior knows when NOT to fight, better yet, he knows how to end a conflict WITHOUT fighting - that is the essence of ‘bushido’. What Hegseth propagates is not a ‘warrior ethos’, but a ‘bully ethos’.
Thanks Dutch Mike.. That is 'Bushido', that is the 'Art Of War'...
I can’t help but always picturing Petey playing with his GI Joe battlefield set. Can you imagine just how messed jp his kids are? Of course you can!
Probably totally f*cked up little psychopathic narcissist racists. That, or SO fed up with their sick dad they left to do humanitarian work. There is no middle ground here.
Marlene, I didn't know Kegsbreath has children! In fact, he reproduced 4 times and acquired 3 more when he married his current wife. Those kids must be their teachers' worst nightmares!
Great minds think alike, *Marlene. Had exactly the same thought about trump.
EDIT: Marlene, I know you are fierce but I confounded you with the 'Marlese Falcon'. Mini-haha on my typo.
why is everyone assuming that his kids are messed up? lots of kids happen to be intelligent enough to experience cognitive dissonance. even if they can't conceptualize/describe that 'something's wrong'. and sometimes it stays with them until they CAN start putting the feelings and ideas together and not want any part of what was making them feel that way.
I disagree. Almost always far more long-lasting and complicated than the process you outline. I wish it were. What it might do, if the children are not damaged beyond their ability recognize themselves, is sensitize adults coming from a 'messed up' background to perceive nuances in interactions and to detect high-POCK-rissy.
D.M., Retired LTG Mark Hertling writes about these topics insightfully and concisely on 'Bulwark'. The basic disconnect? The military leadership is vetted for integrity and mental fitness as well as generally very well educated.
I think they make the common mistake many of us make, "If I were trump et al., I would do XYZ."
This thinking implicitly makes to assumptions: that Team Treason in 0val office thinks as theydo and that the trump-dump members are similar to military leadership. In this case, those assumptions do not hold.
Quite an interesting take... Do you think there is some integrity left in US military leadership, Ned? I find it hard to see, but maybe LTG Hertling has quite a different view on that...
Well, it comes from working with the military (as a civilian; never served) in counter-insurgency. Some officers have "stars in there eyes" and ben more easily as career pursuits dicate.
Many do not. I was speaking on the military as an institution. Like any human entreprise, peopel within are subject to the same frailties and temptations that beset the rest of us.
Yet the premium upon honor, set institutionally, has a moralizing (not prefecting) effect on most involved.
aka 'bullshido'.
Send trump back to the sand-box with his toy soldiers. Agreed 111%
.What, of course, is far, far worse is the SecDef's -- no, schmuckDef's -- purging, or thwarting the career advancement of, officer's of color and women.
Apache, virtual friend whom I admire, I really believe these alpha-brats are not well. Not insane but not well; they are fully responsible for their reprehensible actions.
I also believe the old Democratic Party is exhausted; these progressives deserve to be heard . . . in the hallowed, now shallow, halls of Congress.
Hello Ned... Thanks for the Compliment... Your Work Is Admirable Too... The Old Democratic Party is exhausted.... Too Corrupt... Election Reforms need to be made, starting with SCOTUS, Election Reforms, Term-Limits, etc...
One short-term improvement would be open primaries.
Hegseth is a homicidal idiot.
''The State Department Discovers Fantasy Africa''
The State Department showed up at an international AIDS conference with an AI-generated map of Africa on which every highlighted country was mislabeled or misplaced. Nigeria had been dumped into the Sahara, Mozambique wandered off toward the Horn of Africa, and Côte d’Ivoire was relocated as if it had missed a connecting flight.
Apparently, American diplomacy now begins with, “Alexa, where is Africa?”
The department blamed a last-minute change to the slide deck, which raises several questions. Who changed it? Who approved it? Did anyone look at it before projecting it in front of people who actually live there? Or did everyone simply nod because the map had colors, borders, and the quiet confidence of something completely wrong?
This is what happens when experts are treated as unnecessary government clutter. Why hire regional specialists, editors, geographers, or one reasonably alert seventh grader when artificial intelligence can rearrange a continent in seconds?
Maybe the map was not a mistake. Maybe it was Trump administration foreign policy in graphic form. Geography is now negotiable. Nigeria wants its coastline back? Fill out a form. Mozambique insists it belongs in southeastern Africa? Fake news. Côte d’Ivoire claims its name refers to a coast? Sounds suspiciously French.
The map appeared during a presentation about American health agreements in Africa, adding a special layer of reassurance. Nothing tells another country “we understand your public health needs” like moving it 2,000 miles and hoping nobody in the room owns an atlas.
The State Department apologized and said the rest of the discussion was productive. Of course it was. Once you have misplaced half a continent, the meeting has nowhere to go but up.
America’s governing formula is now painfully simple: fire the experts, ask a chatbot, skip proofreading, embarrass the nation, issue a statement, and praise the excellent progress made during the remaining seventeen minutes.
At this rate, the Pentagon’s next map will place Iran beside Toledo and announce that peace in the Middle East is finally within driving distance.
Love the biting, nasty, funny-as-hell take.
Reminds me of an old skit by the late, great Dame Edna. in 1999, as Britain was preparing to cede Hong Kong back to China after its 100-year-old lease expired, she mimicked a panicked Margaret Thatcher dialing her up in the middle of the night in tears...."Edna, you're Australian, where IS Hong Kong, anyway?"
Well said, Michael!
"Dismantling them is easy. Rebuilding the trust, stability, and legitimacy they provided is much harder."
10 years to build trust, 10 seconds to break it.
Well said Kelli.
I can’t believe a weekend talk show host with no command experience isn’t doing a better job running (what used to be considered) the most powerful military in the world.
Stupidity is indeed very, very, very expensive.
"The paradox of expertise is that when it works well, people stop noticing it. Its success begins to look unnecessary."
Yes, and that's why people are refusing vaccinations for their children. THEY grew up in a time when none of their peers remembered how HORRIBLE polio, diphtheria, tetanus, etc. were. It will take years to assess the catastrophe of the current measles outbreaks. Like chicken pox (the future includes shingles), measles has an array of future negative possibilities for those who contract it and survive.
Nancie, having had a very bad case of both measles and chicken pox (and knowing two people who had shingles) I am both sad and furious. (BTW, I had two of the first shingles shots and two more later.)
!!!
Isaac Asimov nailed this attitude perfectly, and the Trumpies exemplify it in practice, and demonstrate it enthusiastically to a degree only the truly obliviously arrogant can pull off.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.“ Isaac Asimov.
One of democracy’s greatest strengths is that every citizen has an equal voice. One of its greatest dangers is believing every claim is equally supported by evidence. Every citizen gets one vote. Facts still have to earn their place through evidence.
Wouldn't it be great if we all just transitioned to as much solar as we can?
Brilliant comment. Thank you
It's only paradoxical to; nonthinkers.
The regime believes they can use their "warriors" to force the entire world to do what they want. They haven't the intelligence to reach for any other tool.
So well-stated, Kelli K. Sigh.
Yes, to the paradox of expertise, that when it works, people stop noticing it. I have been in discussions with people who pooh-pooh the idea that any regulations are necessary to limit what the free market can do. I ask them if they think there should no longer be regulations to ensure clean drinking water, and they look at me like I'm crazy. They just assume that their drinking water will be pure, forgetting or possible never knowing that the number one reason for the increase in life expectancy since 1900 is that people no longer die from water borne diseases. And that is because of government mandated and enforced regulations to ensure clean drinking water.
The Camp David Peace Accords meant something in 1978 when lasting peace between Israel and Egypt, signed by Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat and President Jimmy Carter was a huge deal. But everything Trump touches dies. - Rick Wilson
Such an elemental, obvious truth. Camp David succeeded not just because of Jimmy Carter's keen interest in peace and skilled diplomatic hand. Sadat himself had set the process in motion -- a vision of pointless war, endless bloodshed and permanent enmity over generations had come to him while deep in prayer. Determined to break the cycle of violence, he asked to come to Jerusalem to address the Knesset in person --something no Arab leader had ever proposed before, much less done. And despite provocations and crises over the years, Israel and Egypt remain at peace with one another today. Because when exhaustion and deep desire combine with skill in getting there, peace really does come.
By contrast, our stupid, cruel administration neither wants peace nor possesses the skill to bring it about. Quite the reverse. Going after the Geneva Conventions for setting up rules of war since 1922? What hubris. Right now, theaters all over the world are showing Christopher Nolan's sweeping re-imagining of The Odyssey. Ancient lessons in the proper conduct of war, the protection of the innocent, and what happens when contempt for those rules ("Zeus's law") ensues abound.
Nuremberg did not create the stage for international judgment, it repeated and codified what has been known since Homer -- war itself has rules that even in the worst times must be obeyed. Do not target civilians, spare women, children and non-combatants, never torture or abuse prisoners of war or those in captivity. Honor age-old rules for protecting the stranger, for God often comes to you as a beggar, not as a king, to test you.
Seeing the Odyssey last week made me realize again how much contempt I have for Hegseth and his ilk. Odysseus was made to wander 10 years in a wilderness, lost all his men, forced to defend his own kingdom from pretenders and suitors because the Trojan War was not a glorious victory, but a testament to cruelty and perfidy. Repentance alone finally brought him home to Penelope and Telemachus.
Who will compel repentance on us? How long will we, as a nation, be forced to wander, losing what we love, in order to reconcile ourselves with these ancient -- and modern -- rules, which today we violate as though they never existed?
I expect neither Hegseth nor Trump has the intellect to actually read Homer.
Even if it were translated into 3rd-grade English.
" Albert Camus said of the Spanish struggle: It is now nine years that men of my generation have had Spain within their hearts. Nine years that they have carried it with them like an evil wound. It was in Spain that men learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many men, the world over, regard the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.”
Gregg Scott, a visitor left with us in 2009 (?) several copies of the Nation. In one of them was an ad for a reunion of the Americans who went to Spain to fight. Writing this I wonder about the Americans who went to fight in Cuba with Castro. How many Americans realize that he only saw help from American occupation in Russia, etc.? I despise “Little Marco” for what he has led Trump to do to Cuba. He is an “American Sugar Company” Cuban, in spirit if not in fact. Most settled in Florida and joined up with Republicans who share their values.
Many Americans and people from around the world joined the Republican forces. As we know Hemingway and Orwell were among those. Once Stalin got involved the cohesion of the Republican coalition began to suffer. There were many factions and it was complicated. It is a real lesson toward building flexible coalitions and not brittle ones.
As for Cuba, I haven't studied that real closely, but I do know there were Americans who joined up with Castro and fought. I don’t know how many and cannot list any casualty figures for them.
Gregg Scott, I knew a working class guy from Detroit who went to join Castro, but have no idea either. Finding it ironic that we have a naval base off Spain, central to Trump’s war, while he curses Spain. That tells me (again) that he’s really out of it.
Hello ICCT... Nice Post....
Sadly what has traditionally been an unflappable oath to the constitution in defense of our democratic values, this administration and the Republican Party has redefined and pissed on everything that was good in us, and in its place and foisted a freak show of corruption, incompetence and pure unadulterated evil. In “us against them” it is clearly a case of good versus evil, and no doubt they feel the same about us and have an overall contempt for democracy. To be clear, they are fascist, making it impossible to engage in reasonable dialogue.
Let’s be 2big2rig and show up in such great numbers that there should be no doubt as to the future and of democratic and a progressive movement well into the next decade.
I also saw how the ancient tale still applies while watching the movie. We will watch it again when it begins streaming. It was too loud in the theater.
My eldest son bought tickets for eight of us to see the movie together. The story was told to us the way it was originally, in the dark among family and many others eager to be entertained by an embellished hero's journey with insights into human nature and the bonds between us.
It WAS loud, and at times the dialogue not easily discernible -- at least to these 71-year-old ears. At some point, perhaps buying the DVD and putting on sub-titles to light the way through the banging, the crashing, the screaming, the roaring...
It's come to this!
It should come to one of our streaming services and be less expensive than buying the DVD, at least for a year or so. We have closed captions which we use for some movies and series.
I just can't go to the movies anymore, it's painfully LOUD to my ears. I use hearing protection at the rifle range, but I just feel silly walking into the movies with my neon green Peltor earmuffs. These are the ones with a Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) of 30 dB.
It's just not pleasant to have to cover my ears for an entire movie.
I hear you...
YES! I saw it yesterday, and I had to literally put my fingers in my ears at times because the sound was deafening. I had also gone last weekend to see Hadestown in the movie theater, and the Odyssey was in the adjacent room. There were times we could barely hear our movie over it.
Thank you.
Thank you for your thoughts on all of this. I look forward to your comments on this substack. I do everything I am capable of to stop this slide into authoritaian nightmare. What eles can one do?
Thank you, ICTT. You’ve put into words the thoughts on my heart.
You have beautifully stated our tragic reality.
May I call you Izzy? Well crafted comment, Izzy!
Thank you,wonderful comment s
This sermon-of-the-day has a few errors.
"Nuremberg did not create the stage for international judgment, it repeated and codified what has been known since Homer -- war itself has rules that even in the worst times must be obeyed. Do not target civilians, spare women, children and non-combatants, never torture or abuse prisoners of war or those in captivity."
Nope. Nuremberg had multiple objectives, but not to uphold what a man self-styled as "It's Come to This" claims. IT was the US and UK that deliberately bombed civilians. It was called the Strategic Bombing Campaign, under which Britain bombed cities -- cities -- by day, and the US hit factories by night. We flattened 11 German cities and all of the humans in them. And then we turned to Japan, where we firebombed the cramepd, populous wooden city of Tokyo, incinerating 100,000 men, women and children in a single weekend. That aside from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So please, get your history right. Or has it come to this?
Do you *really think I'm somehow not aware of Hiroshima, or Dresden, or Tokyo in March 1945? Do you think I woke up this morning, read your post, and went 'gosh, I guess those facts invalidate EVERYTHING the Nuremberg tribunal ever said? I guess Nuremberg no longer matters, and isn't recognized by international law (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing) everywhere? That its findings weren't codified into the domestic law of many countries afterward?
Or is your own view of history such that when someone breaks the rules, that can only mean there are no rules, or that it's too much trouble trying to create rules and enforce them, since somebody might break them anyway?
The signers of the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting gas and chemical warfare would like a word with you. And Homer hasn't even weighed in yet...
Touché
That Dresden was flattened even as Germany was surrendering was a heinous act by the American military!
The following story is from my book, "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." It describes Trump's behavior as well as many leaders through human history and what they do to appease their egos by destroying the progress of especially the one who came before. (billkatz@substack.com)
The ancient Roman Republic self destructed on account of human greed and repeated inferior leadership. The US in in throus of self-destruction without doubt. We have elected a series of destructive leaders during many of our lives the noted ones are Reagan for destroying the concept of regulation, for George W for needless invasions and now Donald Trump as the antiChrist of the ages and he has destroyed anything good remaining in the 250 year span which is I suppose a fitting ending of 250 imperfect years of striving for a more perfect state. I shall not remain silent. I will give my life for the cause of real freedom if necessary.
What Some Ancient Rulers Have in Common with Trump
During ancient Egyptian dynasties, monarchs often defaced or destroyed statues representing the previous ruler to erase the reputation and deeds of the former ruler. Sometimes damage was limited to facial disfigurement as with Pharaoh Senwosrett III (1878-1840 BC) whose nose was broken off because ancients believed that the life force emanates through the nose.
Trump shares this goal when renegotiating and tearing up Clinton and Obama-era treaties.
NAFTA is one such remake that removes Clinton’s name from the global trade agreement. As Politico writer Adam Behsudi quotes Lori Wallace, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch said, “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.” There are no improvements -- only the removal of the Obama legacy and any other former president’s name.
This symbolic effigy-smashing of Obama extends to the Iran Nuclear Deal, to recertify to Congress every 90 days that the Iranians are complying with the rules; the Paris Climate Agreement; The Affordable Healthcare Act and all other agreements that Obama successfully negotiated regarding the environment and human rights.
In the land that I call home, tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t tell the difference between shit and Shinola, resulting in the election of a malevolent quasi-life form that makes George W. seem like Jesus, Moses, and George Washington rolled into one. Maybe our next president, if we are still electing presidents that is, will take cues from Trump and the ancients as well. A good start would be to remove any future White House portrait of him that might eventually be installed.
Excellent points. We need to be like Hungary but are we hungry enough.
Mike, if we’re not hungry enough now many of US will be by January. Republicans cannot mention climate change and Trump is trying to kill US off for Putin.
Why is Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling for Netanyahu to be arrested as a war criminal? Check the 12 war crimes that Netanyahu has been charged for by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with this infographic. How many of those crimes can you spot that Trump's administration has committed?
https://thedemlabs.org/2026/07/18/war-crime-trump-netanyahu-accusations/
Yes, Deepak, criminal Donald should worry very much as to his being called to account.
Dems long should have been united, indignant, full-voiced about the criminality long underway. But Dems, schooled only to the neutered forms of humanity such as testing worships, have been unable to draw on any of the massive hurt other elites have spread across the land.
Dem Senate Minority Leader Schumer, can only write a "strongly worded letter." And leave it at that.
No. Dems have betrayed America by their casual deference to the monstrous corruption, the cold-blooded murders by thug federal police on American streets, and the constant extortions by which criminal Donald and his crew have wasted elite law, top universities, legacy media, and techie and social media.
Good for Heather keeping her indignation severe, red-hot, and focused on those criminal Donald cronies and all their congressional enablers who indeed really do need to come before justice.
Phil, are you saying the Dems should be more macho and attack the Republicans like “warriors”? There is a “rule of law”, one of the parts of the checks and balances, and the Dems are winning there… but for #47, there have been few consequences as yet. The teeth of the courts are dull, but they are biting. The stupidity and cruelty of the administration is horrible to live through, but they will be defeated.
Agree, Karen. Throughout, I have been following my 3 Dem reps who have been consistently calling out this administration and their Republican colleagues.
Just the other day, Senator Kaine spoke on the floor of the Senate, calling out as illegal the 3 wars this so-called peace president has sent our military to fight:
1, Operation Southern Sphere...striking fishing boats in international waters near South America.
2. Operation Absolute Resolve...invading Venezuela/arresting Maduro and wife.
3. Operation Epic Fury...Bombing Iran.
I have watched Senator Warner several times being interviewed in his capacity as Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence where he is constantly calling out this regime's authoritarian reach as regards the Iran war as well as other topics.
Rep Subramanyam is all over social media constantly speaking out in defense of the Epstein survivors as well as rising prices of gas, groceries, housing, among many other things.
I venture to say many other Democrat reps are doing the same. Trouble is they are not getting wide media coverage because they aren't as "entertaining" as their Republican counterparts. Or maybe because many media outlets are now owned by mega billionaires who align with Trump, so don't want to give Dems the coverage they give Republicans. Just my opinion.
Speaking of media coverage, check this infographic of billionaire owned media outlets and some of the journalists they've fired to appease Trump.
https://embed.kumu.io/ff7ba7fcbf12a5fa8d8cdff1c144ee05#billionaires-media-barons
Also check this this free app for the top 140 best pro-democracy newsletters I know of. (Obviously including Heather's). You can search the list by name, topic or keyword. Let me know of any others that should be included.
https://makeitfast.org/newsletters
Morning, Lynell! Thanks for this report. Lots of action, both visible and behind the scenes.
No macho, Karen.
I've argued for several years now that our best Dems ought to appear with each other -- trios and quartets -- and call out not only the corruption but elite connivance with it.
Be specific. United. Male Dems with female Dems -- and we've many fine ones of both genders, who should coordinate with each other and cite actions (legal, rallying, and public articulation) by peers elsewhere deserving celebration and cohering support.
Jamie Raskin, Cory Booker, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Andy Kim, AOC, Bernie Sanders, and many others are reaching across the aisle, writing legislation, but guess what? There are more Republicans in office than Democrats. It’s not that they aren’t trying, they are outnumbered by a bunch of Republican Congress Critters who seem to be more interested in maintaining their power (and therefore capitulate to their leader who would destroy them if they don’t). And maybe a bit of grift money? Who knows?
I know Phil, it’s so hard to be feeling so helpless
It's the corruption. Perpetrated and tolerated abuses of power. The "dark side" of the "Force", for America and the human race.
One has to doubt that Hegseth has EVER read the Geneva Conventions. And if he has, his attitude is "damn the conventions, full speed ahead!" Fortunately it appears we still have at least SOME functioning officers in our military who are not that stupid. One can hope that they might, at some point in time, be able to prevail once again, as Mark Milley did in the first Trump misadministration.
I picture Hegseth wearing superhero pjs to bed - and dreaming that he is a warrior. He's a childish buffoon with a scary amount of power.
I guess Whiskey Pete doesn't realize that if the US doesn't follow the rules of war and the Geneva Conventions, our enemies don't have to either. What happens if an enemy captures and starts executing our prisoners, Pete? Then what?
Oh but Trump has immunity.
/s
To my understanding, the Roberts Supreme Court can only grant Trump immunity in the USA. Outside the US he would be under the jurisdiction of the ICC other than countries like Israel that do not recognize the ICC. Funny how the countries with the most prosecution exposure, are the most scared of the ICC. Must be just a coincidence...
Correct, SCOTUS can’t protect him from the ICC, but if he ever sets foot in a country that recognizes the power of the ICC he can be arrested and taken to their court for trial. Bibi and Putin are trapped like that as well. #47 would take a big risk going to many EU countries to even attend a meeting for that reason.
He has no immunity from death. And like other banana republic dictators he’s putting up gold statues to himself as fast as he can in a pathetic attempt to achieve some form of immortality. The guy is too stupid to understand that it won’t work.
The "GOP" transformed into RICO.
The Trump administration’s stupidity, greed, and lack of humanity leaves me speechless.
If only it would leave him speechless as well
"He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war" as opposed to every other US president who invaded another country with the intent of a long, drawn-out war?
But in contrast to Trump [sic] all those other presidents were stupid.
AWG would you wanna tell me how long the following wars were here we go you’re ready. Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Vietnam…. Persian golf.
Go look up how long those wars have gone on. Oops. And guess what we won. None of those this one is over and has been over since the day it started.
Hey, Ricky the gas bag is back! Please Ricky, go find a Trump rally to attend and then go back to sleep.
That's Mister Gas Bag to you!
I have an idea for you when you post. It’s good when you have a point it makes it more interesting for the leader.
Mr. gas bag is fine if that fits you better. Actually, you might wanna be a little bit more accurate Mr. hot airbag would be better.
Just like Rick's orange idol (lower case letters intentional), he can't read a room so he is wandering aimlessly in the adult's thread!
Get back In your sandbox with your pale and shovel, and why don’t you stay in your own country and mind your own business since you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about
Pail. And you can thank Apple’s voice texting for any misspelled words like pail One thing you liberals never learn either… you Seldom have your brain engaged before you put your mouth in gear
Sometimes I’m actually enamored by the fact that liberals have no shame nor care about how embarrassed they get when they’re wrong
I would like to be known for who I am. The thing that you actually hate
The fact bag. And liberals just hate facts.
By the way, I don’t like Trump. But all his policies are working to perfection for America, and for the world.
I’ll be awake for the next 2 1/2 years watching the pre-ordained decision to put Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore right next to Teddy Roosevelt. And not because I like him because he’s done so much for the American people in the world.
And there’s the fact that you have no argument to provide. Sorry, Merrill
Here's a fact: You wouldn't know a legitimate fact if it hit you in the face. And that's a fact!
Let’s play the song, David, Shall we?
Your honor my name is David Ronnow And rick sender wouldn’t know a legitimate fact if it hit him in the face and that’s a fact
Judge. OK David and what do you base that statement upon? Do you have any supporting evidence? Do you have any facts or proof to validate that statement?
Well, no Your Honor but he just wouldn’t know one.
Judge. Then come back when you have some facts. Otherwise get the fuck out of my court room.
You are just so hysterical. What else you got, fool?
The enemy always gets a vote.
Come on Ricky. Find a Trump rally and you'll find your people.
Yeah, it’s still six years shorter than the for any war we’ve ever fought and it’s the only war we’ve won since World War II. Heather is lately out of her fucking mind. And listing dumb dumber dumbest even dumber than that as references like Andrea Mitchell holy shit. The other day they had to put a tire pump in her mouth just to blow any air into her brain because the air was leaking.
So much winning! You delusional prig.
The Trump admin staff/State Dept staff couldn’t even get the countries in Africa straight. It was easier just to plot them anywhere on a map, as long as it was in the shape of Africa. At the moment, we have been overrun by pedophiles and pin heads🙈
The key phrase was "a map [drawn by the stupid and the ignorant] who did not bother to check their work."
We all keep wondering if this basic incompetence is going to end up saving us. Every day, Trump says something even more stupid than whatever it was he said the day before. The insults and contempt for his own base grows exponentially. And guess what? MAGA is actually beginning to crumble like feta cheese.
It can't come fast enough.
The inaccurate and crazy map is a perfect metaphor for it all.
This is what happens when you transform a civil service exam into a loyalty questionnaire.
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
‼️THIS ‼️
Excellent, William!
The United States of America is a rogue nation. It's leader is guilty of war crimes and should be indicted and prosecuted as such. Officials of the regime who have enabled these crimes must also be prosecuted as aiding and abetting war crimes. Every republican member of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate are complicit in those war crimes and should be named as co-conspirators.
I'd settle for just getting them out of office/power. The rest would be a cherry on top.
Lets not lower the bar.
The bar is already low. The power of the pardon, which is built into our Constitution, like it or not, means that no one in the Trump administration is likely to be held accountable in a US court after being given one of Trump's end of term pardons. And many will be, starting with Todd Blanche and probably Jeanine Pirro.
the auto-pen will get lots of use to cover the multitudes of pardons.
Nope. They have to be punished. And the punishment must fit the crime. 💌
Absolutely not.
That is what you all did last time.
The Biden administration just swept it all under the rug... and then you all are surprised that they just crawled right back out?
An unsuccessful insurrection that goes unpunished is just a training exercise.
Water systems in Minnesota were vandalized by Antifa Operatives using box cutters to create 250 foot gashes in water pipes. Duh!
Also BIDEN!
How much public money was siphoned into official federal prosecution of innocent bystanders to cover Trump's fux paws?
Well, Joe Biden wasted $180 billion giving it to Ukraine and Obama wasted billions and billions giving it to Iran, which is now causing us to take it back
Oooooooooooooooooopsie
Oh… that’s how they did it??? /s
😆 And Obama! 😆 🤣
Yeah, and if not for the reflecting pond, this country would not exist. The world would stop spinning on its axis. Everybody would fall out gravity, cease to exist, thank God for the reflecting pond.
A fine analysis, as usual. I offer one additional Influence: the works of Ayn Rand, Hitler’s revenge, which became widespread and popular among young, unsocial male readers who longed for a modern-day fictional hero who was not a cowboy but who was ‘smarter’ and ‘braver’ than everyone else. Rich, talented, successful characters like John Galt (Gelt is Yiddish for ‘money’) had a profound influence on readers like young Ron Paul, whose unsuccessful campaign for president did produce a son who became a United States senator named for his dad’s idolized author. Rand’s philosophy tracks closely with that of the hero cowboy, without the hat or the horse —it retains the horseshit characteristic , however.
Seems to me that the real cowboys had very little to do with with the doings of Saturday matinee shoot-em-ups.
Right. It’s not the cowboys. It’s the cowboy mythology. It’s Tom Mix. It’s Roy Rogers. It’s the Lone Ranger. And it’s thousands of real-life Texas Rangers prancing around with cowboy hats and guns. It’s Dirty Harry and a couple dozen other movie cops who don’t need no stinkin’ laws. It’s “Where you sleep out every night and the only law is right.”
Don’t forget the Marlboro Man.
Gail, the Marlboro Man always comes to my mind when the topic of cowboy mythology comes up.
From Wikipedia: Five men who appeared in Marlboro-related advertisements—Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Dick Hammer, Eric Lawson and Jerome Edward Jackson, aka Tobin Jackson—died of smoking-related diseases, thus earning Marlboro cigarettes, specifically Marlboro Reds, the nickname "cowboy killers".
Well, yeah, the Marlboro Man gets to another aspect of cowboy mythology: anti-education. The “only law is right” aspect goes to anti-rule-of-law.
Do not blame Ayn Rand, her works promoted individualism and the right to make your own destiny, I believe she was a refugee from a territory controlled by Soviet Russia. She hated Hitler and the Nazis. She loved freedom. Her only mistake in my opinion is that she trusted people too much and too much individualism can come at the expense of others when it starts to mutate. Still she had good ideas, though not perfect.
John Galt WAS NOT REAL. HE WAS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER IN "ATLAS SHRUGGED" AYN RAND'S MOST POWERFUL AND IMPORTANT BOOK, though I think he does show up near the end of the book, he was a symbol of Individual freedom, which as I said above still needs to be supervised, so ones freedom does not destroy another person's freedom. For those who do not know the literal translation of Atlas Shrugged, Atlas is the Greek God who holds the entire earth on his shoulders, if he should "Shrug" the world will likely fall off of his shoulders and everything on it, including humans will die.
I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged somewhere along the way, maybe 10th grade? What a waste of time. No wonder Rand is the hero of the right, buying into exceptionalism.
I have a BS in Writing and Editing. IMHO, Ayn Rand's books are almost unreadable, not to mention morally bankrupt.
Elena, as a youth, I read all of Ayn Rand's books, even her treatise on Objectivism. As an aspiring architect, I was especially fond of Howard Roark, the angry, self-absorbed architect in The Fountainhead.
Then I grew up.
Ayn Rand is a fitting hero for The Right. She was a fraud. She spent a lifetime railing against social programs, but still applied for and received Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Despite all her writing success, she died in poverty, alone, friendless and estranged from her sister. Just as she should have.
Elena, ALL things in moderation except love and forgiveness.
All things in moderation except love and forgiveness.
Oh so now we are venerating Ayn Rand?
"Her philosophy, called Objectivism, directly challenged foundational cultural and religious traditions by declaring self-sacrifice immoral and championing individual self-interest as a supreme virtue."
This is where the Dems are going now? Might as well be MAGA. Narcissism as 'leadership'? Everyone for themselves? Let me guess... you think Elon Musk is a role model.
I am not objectifying anyone. I admitted in my post which I guess you failed to read the following: "She trusted people too much, and too much individualism can come at the expense of others when it starts of mutate" That was NOT a compliment, it was a critic of her views. YOU REALLY NEED TO READ WHAT PEOPLE POST MORE CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU MAKE IRELEVANT COMMENTS LIKE YOU JUST DID!
AND you have no right to assume anything about my views on Elon Musk, that is also is not relevant to the discussion.
I'm sorry.. but weren't you just extolling the virtues of Ayn Rand and you think I'M the one out of line?
There is a good reason why she's the Patron Saint of the Billionaire Class. And "Freedom" has nothing to do with it.
Tell ya what. I'll do us both a favor and add you to the block list.
While Galt may be similar to Gelt, Ayn was not Jewish and she had nothing to do with Jews, except that maybe a few were her friends.
Retrieved from Wikipedia 8/1/26:
Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, into a Jewish https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Bourgeois family living in https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Saint_Petersburg, the https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Russian_Empire's capital.https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Ayn_Rand#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHeller2009xiii-11 She was the eldest of three daughters born to Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Birth_name#Maiden_and_married_names Kaplan).https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Ayn_Rand#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHeller20093%E2%80%935-12 She was 12 when the https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/October_Revolution and the rule of the https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Bolsheviks under https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Vladimir_Lenindisrupted her family's lives. Her father's pharmacy was nationalized,https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Ayn_Rand#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHeller200931-13 and the family fled to https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Yevpatoria in https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Crimea, which was initially under the control of the https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/White_Army during the https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Russian_Civil_War.
Thank you!
" 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other. " - Lincoln
Are you aware that a Lincoln died? Are you aware that we haven’t been one thing since a Lincoln died? A Lincoln was a great president. You on the other hand or a doofus for using that quote.
You are such a fucking pea-brain. Dishonest, cruel, delusional, stupid -- there are things crawling at the bottom of ponds with more intelligence than you.
We've all noticed how frequently you now come here to piss in the wind. Your fear is so obvious it practically glows in the dark.
Oh, and let me leave you with a couple thoughts
On
Oh, did I upset you again? Well, I am certainly not being dishonest. I am cruel to people who hate America, who deserve my cruelty. Anything but delusional and I am anything but stupid
How do usual? The left has only opinion, and your opinion usually goes like this
I have these incredible unsupported accusations to make… I have a ton of evil insults, which Art Alice gently on the offensive after reading one of my posts. Sound familiar?
And worse, they were almost always consumed and hatred for Donald Trump for no reason whatsoever for any action he has taken during his presidency. Period
Fear? Fear did you say? I am living a life every day that exceeds most people’ dreams
And what I find here amongst the Heather rubble or nothing but a bunch of whiners, but for no reason at all because this country has never run better…
Economically, democratically, creating democracy all over the planet. And every single one of his policies are working like they’re supposed to work, lifting all boats helping all Americans, and even surprising, most liberal economists.
But it’s OK you keep on hating and maybe one day you’ll say geez I don’t even know what the hell I’m heading for which is what you should say from the day he took office till now.
Of all the commenters here, you seem to be the most hateful.
I hate America haters. I hate haters of Donald Trump because ever since he’s become president every single one of his policies have worked. and are working on behalf of all Americans. Creating democracy in America, and all around the world.
If you want to hate him for anything he did before he was president that’s your personal . Presidents impact every citizen when the’re president.NOT BEFORE That’s when they need to be judged. The fact that A majority of American voters put them into office by large margins, should tell you how ignorant you are of what’s happening on the other side of the aisle.
Grow up Donald Trump is your President support him because he’s supporting America
You know, I have a more famous quote for you there JL. A more meaningful quote than all the bullshit you keep quoting here which is unbelievably stupid and irrelevant. But I have a going for you Fred Flintstone had a big quote for you ready he said yabba dabba doo
Ms. Richardson, I love that you always name the journalists who write the stories instead of just listing the outlets that publish them.
“[Trump] erupted last week during a meeting with his national security team, shouting expletives at the officials in the room.”
Why do they put up with his hissy fits? Why don’t they say, “It’s your mess, you fix it,” and walk out. I would have gotten up and left the room. I’m retired now, but when I was working, yell at me once and I’m gone; history.
Unlike Trump’s numerous other failures, he can’t walk away from this one, leaving others holding the bag. Why does anybody still stand behind the stupid bastard?
Great question Ralph, but then when you look at MAGA, the stupid runs deep.
I think Trump prefers loyal weak sycophants over strong independents who aren’t afraid of telling the president what he doesn’t want to hear. Any of the latter type historically don’t stay around long.
Thus, we end up with a psychopath president being advised by dopes, and everything is a mess.
As to why the Republican legislators don’t speak against their leaders, look back to the McCarthy era and Margaret Chase Smith’s speeches to the flaccid and mute members of her party. Here’s a taste:”The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as "Communists" or "Fascists" by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”
Ralph, the answer to your question is far more complicated than the one I will give, but I think the following is true.
Political office used to be a form of public service. Most political candidates were recruited. They agreed to run for office because they became convinced that they could make life better for their constituents.
That is no longer the case.
The modern understanding of political office is that it's an investment opportunity. The elected official is paid a pretty good salary with exceptional benefits and a most attractive retirement program. The work calendar is extremely light, requiring only 160 days' attendance in the workplace, compared to the minimum 260-day requirement of the typical full-time job. Additionally, the elected official is privy to information that is useful when planning one's investments.
Given the potential financial rewards, individuals who possess no other marketable skills are attracted to elected office. Rather than hoping to be recruited, they actively seek sponsors who will help fund their election campaigns. Taking on a life of their own, the campaigns are managed by branding/marketing professionals and the so-called "candidate" is really just along for the ride.
If they are lucky enough to have acquired enough funding from deep-pocketed donors, they will be elected to office because, as the Supreme Court has declared, "money is speech."
Once in office, their job entails maintaining public visibility, not pissing off any power brokers, and maintaining their donor base. Legislation is an afterthought – unless it's legislation that lines the pockets of donors, and indirectly, themselves. Because losing a sweet job like this would be a financial catastrophe.
The "not pissing off any power brokers" part of the job is the answer to your question.
One supposes the same more or less applies to presidential “advisors”.
Perhaps, even moreso!
If I started naming profoundly unqualified, incompetent cabinet members, I would end up naming all of them, but Linda McMahon as Education Secretary(!) must be the worst.
Spineless like sloths but forgive me for comparing beautiful sloths to ignorant magas.
The Constitution assigns the power to declare war to the branch elected to answer to the people who bear its costs. A war that is never put up for a vote leaves those people with no record of where their own representatives stood. In such a war, accountability is counted among the casualties.
That's the theory.
The fruits of GOP cuts to education were on full display today. "Geography? We don't need no stinking Geography!"
The New Imperial March:
Dunno much about history
Don't know much geography
Never opened a science book
Only know how to be a crook
And I know how to cheat and lie
And blame it all on the other guy
Such a MAGA-ish churl I can be.
HEH! HEH! HEH! That's a good one!
👏👏👏
And the kicker is that they then turned around and blamed it on AI.
The same AI that they are replacing millions of workers with.
To be accurate, BLB, the State Department didn't exactly blame it on AI. A sharp-eyed journalist at Reuters spotted the OpenAI watermark on the map and called it to public attention. The State Department was then forced to own up to their carelessness.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/government-map-mislabels-african-countries
Carelessness as in negligence. We are paying these people to be professionals.
JL, I can think of many synonyms for carelessness, negligence, etc.
Some of us are paying them with the expectation of professionalism, but I'm not convinced that is a widespread requirement anymore.
More the fools us. The "square deal" still appeals to me.
Since Trump and Hegseth are such fans of the "cowboy mentality", perhaps they should listen to the advice from someone who portrayed some of our most iconic cowboys on film: John Wayne. He said...
"Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid!"
Almost make Hegseth a tragic figure.
Yeah. Tragic like General Jack D. Ripper in “Dr Strangelove”. 🙄
"Or precious bodily fluids!"
AND NEITHER DID PUTIN
“Courtney Kube, Monica Alba, Peter Nicholas, Gordon Lubold, Katherine Doyle, and Andrea Mitchell of NBC News reported Wednesday that President Donald J. Trump is “exasperated” that the Iran war is dragging on and that his advisors can’t agree what to do next. Reportedly, he erupted last week during a meeting with his national security team, shouting expletives at the officials in the room. One of Trump’s allies told the reporters that Trump had not expected the war to last as long as it has. “There was not a real strategy for how long or what they should do to get to the endpoint.... He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war,” the person said. “
No one ever told him that Iran would fight back.
Or he just didn’t hear it - selective listening.
Those pesky little 'special military operations' in Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine -- the ones coming to Cuba, Greenland -- they do have a way of turning to shit in your hands, don't they?
Special operations to install the Shah, Vietnam, find and destroy alleged WMDs? Yeah, there is a tendency.