I had L Leo and Roberts mixed up; however, *their fleas have the same DNA.
In other matters, I haven't changed my view of that alleged 'debate' - it simply was not worthy of being noted as a U.S. presidential debate. It was a CNN media event to collect viewership ratings for that company's business profile. If one reads the transcript of the 'event' without watching it, you come away with a far different view than the media and partisan frenzies going on since said event. I recommend doing that. I'll agree the event was certain 'type' of disaster - it was an optical disaster. Who controlled the optics of the production ? In the commercial run-up to this production, a lot of lip service was given to a notion that there would be microphone muting. That didn't happen, although it should have. I only heard warnings given to Biden, who had been quite disciplined - especially compared to tfg. It seemed to me that Joe was most flummoxed when no moderating was done as advertised. He won't say that, 'cuz he won't be accused of whining - or even appearing to. The Biden - Harris team, what they stand for by way of their actions, their accomplishments - too many to list against fierce odds are stained only by their fair weather friends. I'm not one of those. I'm in the same camp as Mark Cuban when he said on March 5, 2024, ...“If they were having his last wake, and it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rites, I would still vote for Joe Biden.” Later, he told Axios, “I don’t want a snake oil salesperson as president. I’m voting for Biden-Harris over Trump all day every day. It’s the snake oil salesperson vs. the incumbent, traditional politician. One will tell you his snake oil will cure everything that ails you. The other will show you the details of his policies through charts, graphs, and statements. [Biden] is precise and methodical and wants to sell the steak. Not the sizzle.” He added: “Trump voters are happy with their snake oil whether it works or not.”
Jake Tapper and Dana Bash just trashed their reputations. They were tepid and mealy-mouthed, giving Trump rein to do anything he wanted. Shame on them and CNN.
It wasn't a debate. Many of us debated in high school or college and there were rules that would have prevented the CNN debacle.
First of all, calling it a debate is like calling an elephant a donkey. They have nothing in common. They should call it a "free for all" with no rules.
CNN is working so hard to reinvent themselves with very little on-air talent. They still have Anderson Cooper and a few others worthy of being called journalists, but Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are not in that group.
They are trying to lure in the Fox viewers, but that market is over-crowded at this point with Newsmax and OAN and the Sinclair Network.
Many readers have likely judged real debates and have to cringe at the format of this debacle.
Their were no winners. Trump lied over and over with Impunity. Why didn't they put Trump's lies on the crawler? And he never answered any questions asked of him.
Here's my question that Convicted Felon Trump will NEVER answer.
Name 4 things that MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN done by your administration. That's only one a year. Why won't CFDT, or his campaign, or any Republican answer what MAGA has done for us.
My grades for the debate - Trump (F), Biden (D) and CNN (D-).
In doing so, they are also complicit in the death of American Democracy. I'm not folding though. Truth is power and I am going to do all I can to spread facts. I will use my own words and I will also repost those of the more eloquent. Please unite behind Biden/Harris. Fight maga, not ourselves, for God's sake!
Should not have in the first place. Everyone knew he was going to lie and bully; that's what he does. An occasionally muted microphone and compliant moderators weren't going to change that.
why is all the focus on Biden's mental acuity and not on that other thing's incapacity for anything but himself? These are crazy emphases on all the wrong things.
I agree with you Sandra P. Campbell that it should have been called -and agreed to as - a Free-For-All. But I disagree that it was an ambush. trump does not debate. He spews and demeans and distracts. They “prepped” Biden for a Debate. That was wrong. Knowing ahead of time that CNN decided they would NOT fact-check in real time, was a glaring, red-flashing clue it would be a vomit of lies vs Joe Biden. Not what Biden was prepped for. Who has ever been on stage with trump and not been discombobulated as national media zero in on your faults and not the guy fire-hosing lies?
Biden's team agreed to the "rules" of the "debate" including that NO live fact checking would take place - in other words, the felon would not be interrupted or called out. All the talking heads could do, and they did, was ask Trump over and over to answer their question, which he rarely did. I agree with Dan that CNN screwed Biden on OPTICS, with the camera sabotage and holding the split screen on our President when he was unable to breath through his nose and looked like the moron that the Felon actually is.
Roy, why must we continue to assign such a dignified term ((pathological liar) to such a total degenerate (#45)? Everything he comes up with is a distortion designed to derail and turn any attempted critical response into libtard blather. We've (you, me, Joe) have been on the receiving end of his regurgitation-of-baloney over and over. The "debate", which it was not, needs to be the last time #45 pukes his distortions onto the table without his face being shoved into it... and feeding it right back down his flabby-ass throat. I've watched K.Harris.., she can be a real bitch.., hand her the ladle.., let her spoon it back to him (#45). Don't make Joe do it. Let Kamala handle that turd (#45). That'd be a show stopper for sure. C'mon Whitehouse.. pull your head out!
Do you realize if Biden is not President in 2025 we will not be able to comment like this anymore. Our discussions will be banned under an R admin.
We are playing for the choir. How do we let the other 329 million or so non HCR readers know an insurrection is taking place under their noses today- while they grill hamburgers, light off fireworks, and work on their tans?
The irony of celebrating the fourth while an insurrection is taking place is making my little head explode!
The 4th of July that was celebrated in Ashland, OR featured the Ashland City Band in concert. One of the pieces they played was a soft medley of a number of historically patriotic songs. About 2 minutes into the piece, a fellow dressed as Abraham Lincoln stepped forward and recited the Gettysburg Address. Those words are as pertinent today as they were in 1863, the difference being that the battlefield today is not yet a graveyard.
Marj, well said, Have you thought about how it might be better for Biden to acknowledge he is ill, step down and allow Harris to be President now? Under federal campaign law she is the only one the Biden campaign money can go to , so that support could go on. She has been working with the team that has helped to make the progress toward equality that has been more than any other President since FDR. It has been the Biden -Harris agenda for all the. positive changes that have occurred that are supporting the majority of Americans for a better standard of life and safety, environmental protections, and the fight against monopolies and billionaires , and much more, For the past 8 months she has been calling for a ceasefire,,she has championed women’s rights, workers rights, black rights, all rights for equality, As the incumbent candidate, there would not be a crazy convention which will distract from the governing that needs to be happening now. Our Declaration of Independence was inspired by the dream of equality. We are once again facing terrible tyranny and need a plan to fight for a democracy that dreams of coming ever closer to equality for all Americans, and for all LIFE that is on this symbiotically interconnected Spaceship Earth we call home.
As I said elsewhere, very few people know about Project 2025, so it follows that very few people know that it's' architect, Kevin Roberts, said the other day that unless the left steps aside, this revolution will be bloody. Abject failure of main street media.
I think we all, every one of us, commit to being surrogates for Biden. I am going to personally call all the young people I know to tell them the stakes and to encourage them to vote for Biden and to get all their friends to vote for Biden -- that this is NOT one to sit out or to vote 3rd party. We must ALL do this, if we do, we'll win.
You don't hear any sounds of dissent coming from Orbanites. Nope. That's because 'they' have a way of dealing with such matters. Retribution. Done quietly, it's so hard to prove. You quickly learn to keep your mouth shut in those countries.
But no matter who "handles the turd" there must be some actual cooperation from whichever media broadcasts it - and quite honestly I dont have a clue where we would find that.
You don’t debate a liar; you denounce him. Biden should have known that. Biden wax off his game but then Biden has never been a great debater.
Biden should have rebutted Trump with “there you go, folks, another pack of lies from the Lie-o-matic (liar in chief) …. Nothing lower than lying to the American people ….Shame on you…but then you’re not only a liar but also shameless. Americans don’t do business with shameless liars.”
Fair question: How does one actually lose a debate when the opponent is a pathological liar?. It's the appearance that matters and Biden failed miserably. That's just a fact that we must acknowledge and deal with. That is the reality. What do we do now to give us the best chance of defeating Trump in November?
Yes and educate voters about Project 2025 about what living under a dictator is really like because the media is not focused on the issues but on generating conflict to increase profit.
A “lack of confidence” in Joe Biden ? We are sounding like the other side of the MAGA coin’s blind obedience for Donald Trump. I know what I saw on TV on Jan. 6th and I know what I saw the night of the debate. I have nothing but eternal gratitude for what the Biden administration has done for the last 3 1/2 years but I worry about the next 4. Blaming CNN, blaming the MSM etc etc, well enough,but I know what I saw.
AMEN! No one else at this point in time can come up against the Republicans. We have to support all of our Democrat candidates because if they win so do we! We have to get rid of the MTGs and the Bobrats both male and female that are trying to take away our democracy that have been elected to the House and Senate! Also, we need to remake the Supreme Court that has been contaminated! I hope we are strong enough to do it! It will be a very big job! The word has to be gotten out. Project 2025 should have been in the news (even with us) for a long time. Actually I believe I first heard about it here from a comment. It was hard to find but when I added the www.project2025.org it popped up! At last I am beginning to hear people talk about it more often....but not enough....and I hope those that need too start paying attention!
Listen to Stuart Stevens, Former chief Republican strategist, Lincoln Project adviser … don’t panic, give Biden some time and support. I add this: sell the Democratic Party’s history - recent and long - of service and accomplishments to large portions of the American population - both rich, not-so-rich and the poor … and be proud of what this party and its leadership has done … and listen to Heather and Joe Scarborough both of whom have had recent and relatively recent interactions with Joe Biden!
Biden has been a good president. His debate performance hints (and his recent comment that he needs more sleep) at the possibility of the achievements being buried under missteps due to aging. Biden would serve his legacy well if he withdrew from the race and let another candidate step in. Knowing when to quit is the mark of the self-aware.
Jennifer, further to your point, Biden hasn't been just a "good president;" he has been a great president. Our economy is the envy of the world (according to the Wall Street Journal,) the stock market has surged, our inflation rate is the lowest in the industrialized world and our infrastructure is being rebuilt. I just returned from a 1300 mile road trip to Texas - construction all along the way. But, that is no longer the issue. The issue is: can Biden now beat Trump. Does what Biden/Harris have accomplished amount to a hill of beans to those who are ignorant of these feats along with ignorance of Project 2025?
How would one WIN a debate when the opponent is a pathological liar? It's impossible to debate someone who only snarls endless lies, abuse, and insults.
Well Roy - he did. It's all in the definition, but if winning is being the more convincing, then the polls indicate Trump won. I am very sad to say this. Believe me. I am getting a little tired of listening to excuses. To the other side, or more importantly to the folks on the fence, that is just what it sounds like Childish excuses. If Biden is growing senile, man up DNC - convince him to hand over the reigns. BTW, I predict I too will succumb to dementia some day sooner than I want. And if it was a one-off, fire the planners who made him show up at a hugely important debate too exhausted to be there. The damage done is immeasurable. And at the same time, get Joe out there ASAP to demostrate he still has his marbles. No more excuses.
Biden seems to do just fine with world leaders. Also, I was raised with the expression, the proof is in the pudding. He is our president and the country is well run. Lies don't do that, and neither did Trump! How hard is it to understand that. So what if he is not a good debater. If that is what you want to see, because Trump is not either, you should go to watch a high school debate club perform. I think it is perhaps showing itself to be an outdated forum to get information to the citizenry. Trump did not follow the rules of debate so what he won was shallow people's opinion of success. Not by the substance of what he said.
Let’s count the ways: by agreeing to appear? By looking lost and confused? By mumbling incoherent sentence fragments? By reinforcing the voters’ single greatest concern about you?
I would vote for Biden (or anyone else running sgainst Trump) but that debate performance was the greatest piece of malpractice I have ever seen.
Now Mr. Biden is in a phase where he has to reassure the electorate or exit gracefully.
You counter with your facts non stop and your own record.
Moderators could have said to trump no that's false. And moved on. Thete should have a lie counter above each person's head. And a transcript immediately posted and written in all media , newspapers fterwards
Is it the job of the president to debate? NO! that is the job of a campaigner. Is it the job of the president to run the country well? YES! That he is doing. Which do you prefer? A good debater or a good president if you have to choose? With Biden you will get a good president, with Trump you get a fascist and pathological liar!
Tropes are so easy but, may have serious consequences.
Per The Hill:
"To be clear" [Biden said] "Border Patrol endorsed him [Biden] & his 'position' on immigration"
"The Border Patrolled did not endorse Biden. though a union for its agents endorsed a bipartisan Senate proposal that the Whitehouse negotiated with Republicans." The Border Patrol took off to "The Hills'.
******
James A - now the you are a Substack "Author" which is a defined contract term along with the definition of "Reader". James A is now contractually bound to Substack Inc's Author contract & related "Terms & Conditions".
You can fight with Substack Inc if you wish, Tropes & all, at 'JAMS SF' a nationally recognized mediation service if you have any contract issues with Substack Inc's content moderation efforts.
Note, however, there is no insulation whatsoever from California tort law. Substack Inc's attorneys are Wilson Sonsini -- a capable firm
The big problem is that Trump supporters have little knowledge of Project 2025 because they have heard nothing of what it is really about, except maybe peripherally. They don't read newspapers, and the only news they do access is right wing misinformation. They are completely contained in a bubble, brainwashed, similarly as German Citizens of the Hitler era.
Why the excellent work of Prof. Richardson, and others like her, isn't offered and made more available by MSM to all Americans is frustrating and frankly, frightening.
D- I agree. I wish this letter could be mailed to every household in America! It's concise, to-the-point, easy to understand, and points out the dangerous acts that Trump will be able to conflict on us. You're right. Most people don't know what Project 2024 stands for.
If people can read this and STILL want to see Donald Trump as president, then those people are not True Americans, by the definition of our Constitution. They're claiming that THEY are the patriots, and those of us who believe in democracy are the villians.
It amazes me to read the fourth "principle" of this document, and should amaze those who read it.-- The country must "secure our God-given individual rights to live freely."
What??? Freely by whose standards? There will be no freedoms, except those that are imposed on us. Freedom does not include being forced to live my life as someone as vile and ignorant as Trump sees fit.
Absolutely. In a discussion yesterday I was informed that Democrats are using Project 2025 as a propaganda tool and was informed that it was no more real than the Steele Dossier. Huh?
Drawing the parallels to how Orbán or any dictator has taken over a democracy doesn't seem like it would affect MAGA loyalists. It is not in their nature. At the moment Trump's posted position is that he doesn't agree with Project 2025, but since nothing Trump states has any relation to what he will state next, we cannot use anything he says. He is hedging his bets by posting that he "disagrees with some of the things they are saying," being ambiguous by not being specific, using this nebulous position to support any nonsense he later states as what he has been saying all along, and hoping nobody can follow the necessarily complicated counterargument. We have seen this before.
The SCOTUS is apparently banking on Trump winning, and the dictator-like power that they are granting the president becoming effective just as he takes office. Or perhaps they know that a Democrat will always respect democracy and will never use the military to go after his opponents, so there is no risk in offering both sides this unconstrained power. In any event, I see the ruling as an invitation to take each Republican in Congress to task: state sufficient evidence that the last election was stolen or face charges of treason, by decree of an Official Act of the President of the United States.
Basically what they tried to do in the 1940’s. Listening to Rachel Maddow’s poscast ULTRA. So mind blowing 🤯 Everyone should listen. History repeats itself. Yikes 😳
It seems that a majority have not yet heard the news about CNN being bought (like soooo many others...) by a Right Wing organization. They have been on the edge of reality for a while anyway.
I am done with CNN. It is another enemy of We The People.I think it like the NYT and others have not been in Biden’s corner for quite some time and were just waiting for some misstep of his so that they could heat up the rhetoric to dump him. It just so happened that the debate was the opportunity that they had been waiting for. CNN and MSNBC were already bashing Biden before the debate was over.The only person defending our president was Lawrence O ‘Donnell.Yes, getting rid of Biden fits right in with the corporate design to aid Russia/Putin and turn the country into an Christo-fascist authoritarian regime. We The People are going to have to go it alone in defending Biden.
I agree with you about Lawrence O’Donnell. He was the only anchor who didn’t jump on the bandwagon with other commentators on MSNBC who were focusing on the negativity about President Biden. Granted there were issues with the debate, but bigger issues were Trump’s lies throughout the debate and the news media’s incompetence in monitoring the debate and reporting at the end.
Rachel Maddow never bashed Biden. Stephanie Ruhle never bashed Biden. I never heard Alex Wagner bash Biden or Chris Hayes bash him. They may have discussed his poor performance at the debate, but I don't remember them asking for his removal. You're right, Lawrence was the only journalist that made a full throated Biden defense.
Rachel didn’t directly bash Biden but by omission, she sure didn’t defend him either.Same with Alex Wagner.I was a bit disappointed especially with Rachel .
Victoria Wilson -- I totally agree with you!! Done with CNN except for Fareed Zakaria. The press in general has NEVER supported President Biden. Never! They never covered him, what he was actually accomplishing in the presidency. They all invoke my ire! Except for Lawrence O'Donnell, who has been away for the past week or so, Jen Psaki. Rachel Maddow, and Fareed Zakaria.
I gave up cable tv years ago including CNN. Media is in biz to make money, not inform the public.
Didn't you notice the beginning of this insurrection when your local newspapers started being bought up by big corp?
The dems are terrible at long term planning. The R's are winning this game. It sickens me to see people like gym jordan treat my rights like a sports event.
" . . . an enemy of We The People." We the people is exactly what the extremist MAGAs think they are, and nobody else is. Pathologically ingrained from the narcissist in residence at Mar a Lago.
We know the enemy when we see it. It's so obvious when you look at the record and the July 1 domestic Pearl Harbor.
All need to check out what Keith Olbermann said on one of his "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" shows. He spells it out quite clearly and cleanly about who Trump really is and WHAT CNN really is,
Trump has dominated the media for decades as an abusive, bullying megalomaniac. His theatrics captivate audiences, his torrent of shock jock blabber and lies overwhelms our ability to bring any reason into play. He doesn't allow you to think, only to feel. If you agree with him you feel rage. If you don't agree with him you feel steamrolled and helpless. Like children of a violent, abusive father the media cringes under its bed, paralyzed with fear of violence enabled by fear of abandonment. In counseling there is a saying, Every family is a dictatorship controlled by the most dysfunctional member. And so it seems is America's political situation.
Yup. Dana and Jake give us a clue about how journalists will act in a 2nd Trump administration. This is how the press acts in Hungry, and worse in Russia. Do what we tell u, or find another job. Fall in line or fall out of a high rise window. That or the gulag.
If I was President Biden, and the Liar called me by my first name, a tactic used to diminish one’s opponent, I would have called Donald out. I would have said, “You will address me as Mr (legitimate) President” I am not as Joe to you. The fact that President Biden allowed Donald to call him by his first name as if they were buddies, showed me how Biden has changed since he debated the turd the first time and didn’t allow him to get away with his outrageousness.
The media has changed from reporting news to generating clicks. There was a day when journalists sought the next big story by uncovering lies and deceits - now they just focus on what will generate the highest number of clicks for profit: negativity and catastrophe. As Derek Thompson of the Atlantic states, the "audience is just about equally to blame" since it is the reader's clicks that drive profitability. Sadly, the fourth leg of Democracy has succumbed to commercialization and the internet of dysfunction.
Agree. Decades ago while campaigning for POTUS, little bush refused to answer question about his use of drugs and his absences from National Guard duty. He flat out refused and the media rolled over for him.
Yesterday, NBC evening news rehashing the farce last Thursday night between President Biden and the amoral orange creature! WHY! For over 3 years Biden has delivered for the common person and the unfortunate, 3 years…how many hours is that? Yet he is now defined by a tv farce that lasted mere minutes compared the good he has accomplished!
Basta, Joe! Stop answering and apologizing for last Thursday!
The President's latest comment about last Thursday's debacle was that he was totally exhausted, having been traveling constantly for days (or weeks), and that he will no longer schedule anything after 4 pm. He gets up very early in the morning. Biden needs NO apologies. And let us not forget what Heather Cox Richardson taught us about what the former guy did that night -- The Gish Gallop. I'll not be forgetting that new term.
"The purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems." —The British Academy
The principle applies to the journalism business, the purpose of which is to inform profitably, and not be like CNN and Fox who profit from misinforming.
The media and the audience are to blame in the same way that the liquor store and the alcoholic are to blame for alcoholism.
Addiction is "a compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." In this case, the rewarding stimuli is blame. The authoritarian's message is, "Those other people who are responsible for your unhappiness will be defeated." And it works because it makes the authoritarian's supporters feel better. So, the authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization.
"[T]he authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization."
I am proud to say I am a graduate of a fine four year university. I do not need to prove my intelligence ( pretend intelligence) by having gone to an “elite” school. What we did at my school was learn. We figured out how to decide possible answers for possible problems. We shared the truths of history and built scenarios that would make change for the better.
We did not look backwards to find comfort. We looked to those who “live to lead”. We shared reality and glorified nature.
We were , and are proud of those who gambled with their own safety to tell the world the truth. Our hopes kept shining through because there were humans looking at the impossible and making things that were better.
Thank all those humans who are tethered by honesty and morality and godliness.
Wash our hands and our ears and our eyes of these morbid lying fake mouthpieces of chaos and hate.
I know we are much more intelligent than those slimy cancers think! Let’s take them on!!!!
After Samuel “Slimy Cancer” Alito’s recent association with the word “godliness” by that undercover recording and the whole Christian Nationalist Heritage Foundation’s goal to force religion down all our throats, I have to take umbrage with your word choice here. I’m also going to cringe a bit at that word “morality” because it sounds awfully subjective at this point in time, given the theocratic fascist’s fever dream of forcing their version of “morality” down our throats as well.
But I appreciate everything you wrote here and the passion behind it! Let’s take these backward thinkers on indeed!!!
I think when we talk about unsubscribing these are responses to basic coup like behavior from our press. It is important to recognize when they do it. Continuing to listen to things that you inherently know is wrong is unhealthy to one's self confidence.
Most public libraries do. Some have joined together for digital accessibility, so that folks can access content from home at no cost. It's honestly awesome.
(This is a repeat from yesterday however, since Heather has written on the same topic, I thought to piggy back. My satire was written about 5 years ago with a few add-ons. I reconken to be the Charlie Chaplin to the MAGA movement as Chaplin was to Hitler -- kinda. And it comes from my book "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." Please enjoy it if you can.)
Fred Jackson and the Second American Revolution
(Homage to Donald Trump’s ‘Proud Boys’ and Others)
Fred Jackson was a proud rebel in The Great Northern Militia Alliance. He and his wife Ruth were often found hosting summer neighborhood barbecues. They easily found new supporters for the coming war to take back America. Fred stationed himself at the pit and handed out chicken legs drenched in homemade sauce to new, unsuspecting recruits -- kinda like a politician on election-day would do; promising a chicken in every pot. Talk of big government, guns and revolt would come later.
Fred and his cohorts believed themselves to be the direct Anglo-Saxon descendants of America's 18th century rabble-rousers who tossed bales of tea into Boston harbor after news of the British Stamp Act reached these shores. But tea-toddlers, they weren’t.
He was proud of his new-found abilities to recruit and had recently been promoted by the Alliance to the rank of sergeant of his own local militia. Wasting no time consolidating resources, Fred collected everything from boxes of canned food to crates of assault weapons. All were discreetly stored away in basements and underground bunkers in his local neighborhood.
Strategic plans were soon under way as this historic moment arrived, the moment to take back America. A secret, unnamed Northern Alliance militia representative from high up the chain of command visited one evening to give a short pep talk to the men and their wives in the basement of Jackson's home.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the mysterious commander said, “the time has come to act. We must stop the tyranny and treasonous actions of our government. Today we take action. We will starve the beast into submission. We will bring the entire nation to a screeching halt by whatever means are necessary. And we will un-steal the election. You know who I’m talking about; the great populist himself, codenamed, “OrangeFatso.””
“Yep”… they screamed in unison, “Save our leader, OrangeFatso.”
He jabbered on like this awhile longer and then said something about how it was one's duty to avoid payment of taxes like they did in the Boston revolt.
A rebel in the audience was overheard mumbling that, “Maybe them damned liberals wouldn't be so bad if we could just shoot a few.” as he cleaned and oiled his weapon. After the rousing speech ended, the mysterious speaker made way out of Fred's hatchway as quickly as he had arrived and was driven off into the night before anyone could ask questions.
The next day, Fred called for another drill. The basement was a good place to train without attracting attention. His supportive wife listened from upstairs as she tapped her foot to the muffled sounds of her husband's marching orders.
During the drill, Fred's wife heard her husband cry,
"Oh no… not again. I told you not to march forward in the cellar."
"Ruthie honey," Fred yelled from the basement, "Billy bumped into the wall again and now has a nose bleed. Quick, get me an ice pack."
One thing that should be noted about the division of labor between the men folk and their women; it was written in the Northern Militia Alliance's “Code of Conduct” that men would do the fighting and the women would play supportive roles – just like in the olden days of the founders. Their women were as important as Betsy Ross – who is thought to have sewn the first flag – was to the cause of revolt.
The country of Fred's birth was no longer recognizable to him. Waves of foreigners had migrated across the unprotected southern frontier. His leader had often spoken of building a really high wall to keep out the hordes. The government, Fred believed, was overrun with big-spending liberals and nanny-state socialists. Fred even thought that his own past president of the United States was born in another country.
“He wasn’t born here. You know he owes his allegiance to the United Nations,” cried Fred.
Encrypted communiques were now being sent and received with increasing frequency throughout the “Alliance.” The days of waiting had drawn to a close.
And so it came to pass. The militia teams began assembling. They gathered along every mountain pass and byway. They took positions beside bridges and waterways. Fred's platoon prepared to assault its assigned mountain. This really was only a big hill but these rebels had a tendency to magnify everything around them including the importance of they’re mission. Their watches were synchronized.
Sergeant Jackson finally gave the order to charge.
“CHARRRRRRGE!” he screamed.
The men began their long, wild, rickety-split charge to the top of the assigned hill. Fred held his assault rifle in the air with one hand, and with the other grabbed his pants before they slipped down below his protruding belly – an unfortunate victim of too many beer-drinking strategy sessions.
Well they whooped and hollered for so long that soon most of the militia troops were out of breath. By the time they reached the summit, the sergeant could be heard cussing' (at no one in particular.) He wondered if he had rushed up the wrong hill. His GPS repeated, “recalculating... recalculating...” His phone vibrated on his belt and he quickly grabbed it and listened intently.
His head turned slowly downward as he stared at his mud-caked boots. His heart was pounding. He was breathing fast.
“Yes sir, I see. But when are we...? Win the hearts and minds, first? But...OK, I’ll inform the men.”
The sergeant ordered roll call and sadly told his men that not only did they seize the wrong hill, but the unseen generals had decreed that this was only a drill. The real revolution was yet to come but now, without the element of surprise. Dejected, they began to hobble down the green hill.
Then suddenly, Sergeant Jackson received another message. This time, he could hardly contain himself. Something new had just happened and word was spreading like wildfire. His fingers quivered as he responded:
“I’ll tell the men right away.” The sergeant rallied the now exhausted rag-tag men around him and excitedly yelled,
“All hands to Burns, Oregon. The government is assaulting some ranchers. The Bunkerville boys from Nevada are leading the counter assault. I'll be driving out at first light if anyone needs a ride.”
Fred finally made it home in his Ford pick-up truck while still sweating from the long charge. His dear sweet Ruthie waited at the half-opened door as dusk settled in.
“Come in my hero. I made your favorite hot soup for you.”
Fred stumbled in and sat at their kitchen table and slurped down the refreshing food. He then went straight to bed without explaining anything to his worried wife about the disappointing details of the false deployment.
Fred dreamed about the new revolution soon to sweep the land of his birth – the land he hardly recognized any more. And he dreamed that his name would one day be enshrined 100 years from now, along the nearby interstate highway where he lived. The sign would read: “The Sergeant Fred Jackson Expressway: Named for a Patriot of The Second American Revolution Who Stood His Ground and Helped Take Back America.”
Then Fred farted and repositioned his head on the pillow as he slept like a baby all night long.
(I’ll be sitting at a table in front of the White House next week passing out my book. I’m doing all I can do. And I’ll bring my guitar to perform my selection of compositions about Trump including “The Shit Hole Song” found on my YouTube channel under “Catman Bill — Hartford, Connecticut)
If Tapper & Bash were being paid to do what they did.., they did their job well. Far as I'm concerned, the two of them suck big time and belong in the same gym shower-room with Jordan. Wanna talk about having "rounded heels".., like Susan C..?.., well there's two more.
That is deliberate, per their new CEO John Malone, a Warner Brothers guy and a man who stated, quite clearly, that he wanted to make over CNN to be more in the model of Fox. He's a billionaire and is entirely motivated by money. Why all those CNN people stay is beyond me.
John Malone is not as active as he was when he installed Jeff Zucker, Zaslow and Licht. The relationship of AT&T, Discovery, Warner and CNN is confusing and difficult to untangle. I think Malone is or was a member of the Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo., the guy that chose the 6 SC justices.
Very few people I've been talking to lately know about Project 2025. That is an abject failure of main street media, especially when it's architect, Kevin Roberts, is talking about a bloody revolution unless the left steps aside.
I admire Joe Biden and have admired him since his role on the Foreign Relations Committee decades ago.
I think he’s done a remarkable job as President, and gotten more done than any president than LBJ.
That having been said, the debate was a disaster. Biden’s appearance and demeanor underlined the single-most concern the electorate has about him.
Anyone who blames his performance on CNN or the moderators is pretty desperate to absolve Biden of responsibility.
Biden is professional enough to accept his responsibility and you have seen him do so.
Now he has to deal with the aftermath—it’s in the past. Now we see if he can repair it. If not, my personal hope is that he defers to Harris. In a way that gives her the biggest boost possible.
Parsing whether Bash and Tapper “should” have fact-checked is immaterial. They said beforehand they wouldn’t. Reading a transcript and re-thinking who did better is an empty exercise. No one else experienced it that way, and no one else will. 50 million people—half of whom support the Pres.—saw him slack-jawed and confused.
I would not have gone so far as to call Trump "the devil himself," but it sure looked like CNN was throwing softballs at him while at the same time allowing him to speak lie after lie for 90 minutes.
^^^^ this. We have several members of this group expounding from “on high”. One who repeatedly pushes his book and speaks condescendingly to any that challenge him, and two others that have absented themselves from the country and do the same.
Hi Mary, Thanks for the links. I read Hubbell, I had not read Truscott. I feel he put beautifully what I am feeling about those in the Democratic party who are questioning Biden as well as the NYT, which I dropped after having some dumber than dirt exchanges with some little Ivy league baby twit political editor whose name I don't recall who has absolutely no life qualifications to be reporting on anything other than partying with the Millennials, who had the gall to argue with what I was saying rather than post my comment against their polling. Now I have dropped WaPo too, and while I don't normally read US Politico, I have been super angry at the Berlin version in German and had to write to them several times on their US misinformation.
We are on the precipice of deciding on a State aligned with Despots and Dictators or people of good will and intentions . How we got here is fairly clear: Corporations are human and money is their voice. Insane, absurd, oh yes! Of course the Oligarchs will pay any price to buy the government. We just weren't paying enough attention... We have one more chance to stop this madness and move toward A More Perfect Union. Get Out The Vote! And drive the villains back underground where they belong.
Thanks David. I went to this site and found a sheer misrepresentation on AMMENDMENT proposal for WV again so written as to confuse the general public what they actually vote for, repeatedly done here.Double Talk. 🤦♀️
And now that SCOTUS has chosen the “nuclear option” with their immunity opinion, we can look back—as far back as Citizens United—and see where their decisions have been deliberately leading us. The immunity opinion was a shock, but really, in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been.
Not a shock. A girl can dream but wasn’t surprised in the least. The writing on the wall has been become brighter and brighter, we have succumbed to a Christian nationalist Supreme Court.
And has anyone been thinking/ talking/worrying about the machinations probably already begun to “rig” the election at the state level? They have learned from their past mistakes and are working to be sure not to let that happen again.
It is probably a done deal with the Supreme's in tfg's back pocket. I believe Biden could win in a landslide and they would still throw the election to the R's
D4N I made the observation a few days ago that if this "debate" had been in 1860, the newspaper headline would have been "Trump Lied, Biden tired" and people would have read the copy along with some pundits remarks and eye witness accounts from the 500 people there who could hear. Biden would win....and I agree that Trump is the best snake oil salesman in the US.
The sad part is the Biden campaign invited Trump to debate. My close friends and I who have worked in political campaigns believed this was a mistake. They should have instead when asked if they would debate said " He's a serial liar, he's in total denial about his Big Lie, losing the election and J6 and he's a convicted felon. Plus he doesn't "debate", he just repeats his false talking points, why should we give him airtime with the President who already beat him ?"
He should have fired them all and hired Jen Psaki back. He needs to surround himself with smart young people who know what is going on - and David Axelrod & Rick Wilson. They all knew the debate was a mistake.
I am afraid there is too much ego involved in all this and this is never good.
I dont think he was shocked as much as feeling bullied. It may have been he felt intimidated by Butch. Watch The Little Rascals. You’ll know what I mean
And for some reason the media continues to dog Biden. No mention of Trump's lies, no mention of his 34 guilty verdicts, no mention of the Heritage Foundation and it's connections to Orban and Russia. Only news of ANOTHER Democrat saying he should step down.
Susan, you’re so right. I worked for the ABC-TV affiliate in Washington, DC during Watergate. Can you imagine how I feel about how low our Fourth Estate has since sunk? So many enforcements that kept radicalism in check then are gone now. They were chiseled away one after the other by the far right. Now, ownership of U.S.media is a short list of billionaires without conscience. The sameness is mind-numbing: literally and on purpose. We have to rely on smaller but more truthful sources — and each other.
Susan -- And the President said ( yesterday on the 4th, I think) that he was totally exhausted at the "debate"/debacle, having been traveling nonstop for days! He also said that he will no longer schedule anything after 4:00. I'm an old lady (8 years older than Biden) and need a nap every afternoon so I can stay up until midnight! ;-)
I will, any day, every day, from here to eternity, choose to follow someone who elevates us, ALL of us, who calls on us to always be our better selves, rather than bow to a fearmongering, name-calling, egotistical fool who lies and rips others apart at the slightest opportunity.
We cannot continue to over focus on the past and move this campaign forward. We must secure a win for Joe Biden. Anything else is a drag on the momentum of the campaign.
Well, I belong in Mark Cuban's camp too. And I completely agree - the only entity in control of that dam debate was CNN & the rest of the so-called media!
Biden never had a chance. I heard someone who understood the technicalities of the mics etc say there was no reason someone couldnt have increased the audio on Biden's mic. Obviously that wouldnt have solved the problem with the opposite "podium" but it might just have made things a bit more, shall we say, even??
As Katie Porter said on ASpen Ideas - the time to replace Joe Biden was two or three years ago! How the Dems are so shocked & awed by his age NOW? He was older THEN!
I agree with the accusation of media paralysis in reporting the debate. I watched the entire debate and was struck by Trump’s verbal diarrhea of the usual lies, half truths and meaningless noise that I presumed Joe Biden was so stunned he could not respond with rationality.
The President did fumble a couple of times and age could produce such moments but a dedicated person must be weighed by accomplishment rather than stage presence.
Trump was resuming his role as a TV entertainer and played the part well. As in his life he relishes and enjoys creating the image of capability much as did Edgar Bergen’s “Charlie McCarthy.” A puppet without visible strings.
Yes to what you have written here. Still, we need to figure out how to defeat Trump and MAGA candidates for the Congress on this coming election. The key issue is should Biden step down, and if so what is the best ticket. Please share your thoughts.
My Democrats Abroad group is talking about it. I love that she points out that SCOTUS is staging a coup of our government. They certainly are not following the constitution which they have sworn to uphold. I think we should be asking all of our politicians, not just ones on the Judicial committee to impeach them.
Yes, highly recommend listening to this; just finished and HCR basically stated that it's not about the two people currently running but rather, what their respective administrations will do for the country, and she feels it's a clear choice to elect the one that's not going to destroy democracy, not engaging in a "legal coup." (I am paraphrasing; any misinterpretation is solely my own error.)
We must support and vote for whoever is the Democratic candidate for POTUS in November. Just the way we did 4 years ago. No protests, no sitting out and we must turn out the vote, especially in the swing states.
Thank you Linda for the link. I have just watched. Excellent. DEMs should develop a short platform, easy to understand, and make the election in terms of not Biden vs Trump but in terms of Biden's platform vs Trump's.
The last three and a half years of progress and healing make that quite clear. This isn't the first time pretend allies have promoted the notion of changing horses in midstream. It's not a new tactic, but with the short time between now and the election it'd guarantee a loss.
That SHOULD be "Clear as Daylight" to anyone capable of rational thought. BUT this election cycle is getting shorter fast. Don't change horses in the middle of a stream... That's why they are OLD sayings, they're TRUE. That option has passed. AND Biden is a very good president.
It's President Biden's decision, based on his knowledge of his own condition, his meetings with trusted elected officials and staff and his family's input. Our job is too defeat Donald Trump no matter who the Democratic candidate is. We should tell our elected officials how we feel in direct communication with them. A floor fight at the convention is absurd. In 1876 Sitting Bull had a vision and Crazy Horse carried it out. They united Native tribes who had never worked together before to focus on George Custer and his 7th Calvary. They destroyed Custer's unit in the most total and overwhelming defeat in US Military history. That's what we must do.
I so agree with you. It is egregious to discount all of the work President Biden has accomplished based upon one “debate”. Has everyone forgotten his State of the Union Address? Thank you for your post.
At its heart, the question — how old is too old to be president? — is about competence.
Ronald Reagan faced those same questions even before he was elected as the oldest president to that point.
Debates seemed natural settings for the smooth-talking former Hollywood actor. But his performance in the first showdown with Mondale in the 1984 campaign brought the age issue roaring back.
The president, then 73, rambled and hesitated. He seemed to lose his train of thought at one point and appeared tired at others.
No one had seen him perform publicly in such a way, recalled Jaroslovsky, who co-authored a story headlined: “New Question in Race: Is Oldest U.S. President Now Showing His Age?”
Reagan's age — really, his fitness for a second term — was now indelibly part of the 1984 race.
Reagan's operation said he had been tired. There was sniping about the staff overpreparing him.
When no one watches their broadcasts and thus does not view the ads that support the network perhaps the loss of revenue will influence their actions. BOYCOTT CNN AND THE OTHER REPUBLICAN OWNED MEDIA!
Very well said - and I appreciate your comment about reading the transcript. Biden did make a lot of good points, during the debate. It's so damn sad that they were overshadowed by trump, and then the complicit media.
They do not have to be removed. If Biden (or some other Democrat) can win and we keep the Senate, but with real Dems, not Sinema and Manchin, the DEm President can nominate and the Senate approve of 3 additional Justices retaking the majority. Roberts could impede progress, but probably couldn't stop it. Hopefully, an inforcable code of conduct who cause Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves.
The problem with that is that term limits for the SC will most likely require a constitutional amendment, which is nigh near impossible. As it is designed to be.
However, expanding the court only requires an act of Congress, since that is fully within the purview of Congress. Last set at 9 in 1869, it's due for a change, since we're a much more populous nation now.
13 seats on the Supreme Court to match the number of District Courts.
SCOTUS needs yo be expanded to 13 justices which would mean one justice per circuit court of appeals, consistent with how the number of justices was originally determined, so each justice can oversee one circuit.
After Democrats ended the filibuster for all presidential nominees except SCOTUS, Republicans ended the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees ("Reid orchestrated a move to lower the Senate vote threshold to 51 to confirm most presidential appointments — but not nominees to the Supreme Court."):
Alas, not a chance that Joe Biden would do that. He has done well for the past 3+ years and I applaud his progress. But he is a traditional politician and stacking the court is not a traditional action. I agree that increasing the size of the court and appointing liberal justices is a good idea. I just don't think it's feasible.
“Stacking the court” needs to be replaced with “aligning the court to correspond to the number of circuit courts as originally designed.” More palatable?
Bryan, I'm thinking Judge Chutkan having an evidentiary hearing being held closer to the election where Jack Smith gets to lay his case all out - with the public having access through the press (?) might end up being better in the long run?
A bloodless one if the left will allow it, according to Kevin Roberts. Why isn't that in my morning news feed...instead of another Democrat thinks Biden should step down.
If Trump is elected...it will be the media that has helped him.
Trump violated the Logan Act when he entertained Victor Orban at Mar-a-Lago in March. That unofficial visit interferes with US foreign policy--and Biden should have Trump arrested for this unofficial act--for which he is not immune according to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, no guns are allowed in Hungary. Tell that to Trump supporters!
I had thought about it, and you encouraged me. So I just wrote to the White House. I’ll let you know if I get a response. ( I doubt it). I had previously sent this comment to my Senator, hoping he would be more influential. No response yet.
If Trump takes power, removing guns from the population will probably be the next step (a la Orban). Those of us who want this to happen, will be happy....and not see it is the next step in the Heritage plan.
Don’t forget the underlying motive here. To protect Big Capital from even the slightest concession to working people, to destroy the Left that represents the interests of working people, and to deceive those people into supporting their own demise as though they were threatened by the Left when in fact it is the Right that wants to exploit and then discard them. Don’t forget that Capital will choose fascism over democracy to prevent concessions to the people. With trillions of wealth having been transferred from the middle class to the owning class they are still threatened and horrified at the thought of giving back anything to the rest of us. The game of stirring up fear of losing patriarchal and white power has been played for so long and never gets old, but to shore it up they find ever new forms of culture war. Eyes on the Prize! It’s not really the family they care about, it’s their own power.
Yes. The executive powers of agencies neutered while empowering the Chief Executive? Transparency on motives for the king and his minions seeking no constraints on their actions.
The first time I started reading Dark Money by Jane Mayer, I wasn't familiar with the names, and it was all confusing, and I gave up. I've just picked it up again, and now the names are all too familiar. I've just started, and I've got hundreds of pages to go, but even not being very far into it, I recommend it highly. She wrote it in 2016, so it's not current, but I'm sure that there are recent articles in the New Yorker where she'll bring us up to date if we're patient--background first, current events second, but all asap so that we understand the depth and breadth of the powers that we're facing. As Benjamin Franklin warned us, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Be resolved--now is the time for solidarity.
Excellent thank you Jessica. I’ll go to sleep now & re read everything tomorrow. The money piece is HUGE … in this drama… and there’s so many moving pieces’ …and the word ‘Drama’ belittles the extreme possible outcomes/consequences of not truly seeing the many possible outcomes/crashes/
Right now the Republican Party is fine with no restrictions on guns. Why would they be. For now they see those weapons in the hands of their supporters, their own private army to be used to suppress any protest from those who support a true democracy. Let us not forget Kyle Rittenhouse ( as soon as I began to type the “R” my auto correct finished for me) that pathetic little whiner murdered two protesters and was found not guilty and went on to be a darling of the Right. If the far right succeeds , the second amendment will have served it purpose and an armed citizenry would no longer be needed as the US military would be their own private army. That is when the government will be taking their guns away and from their cold dead arms.
This is the most serious crisis for the country in my lifetime, and I am 74. I want to see everyone unite behind Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot. United we stand and divided we fall. The danger here is not Biden; it’s Trump, Leonard Leo, Kevin Roberts, a radical Supreme Court gang of six, and Project 2025. This is very serious and we have to fight for democracy or we can kiss it goodbye. We must fight by voting and alerting people to the real dangers; not the distractions. I’m not religious, but in a sense of the word I am praying that an overwhelming majority of people will fight for democracy. And that means voting for Biden and Democrats top to bottom on the ballot.
This is the most serious crisis for the world in my lifetime, and I am 84, born one month into the Second World War.
The issue to be put to the vote in November is nothing to do with personalities, nothing to do with old men.
It is DO YOU WANT THE DICTATORSHIP OF BIG MONEY -- ALL power, ALL freedom to vast occult forces, in America, offshore, in Moscow, in Beijing, in Pyongyang and elsewhere?
OR
DO YOU WANT TO UPHOLD AND DEVELOP GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE?
When faced with great power, there is no choice. You have to take account of that power.
An obvious metaphor: sailing and there's a strong wind. You can let yourself be driven before it... onto the rocks... Or you can tack against it and hold your course.
There's a world of difference between the two actions, the two courses.
One represents guaranteed suicide, with the other, there's a chance.
They are very different but both are beholden to the corporations that now control our government through lobbying and the capture of our government agencies. Bobby Kennedy will stop this and Trump and Biden had their chance but failed. Trump is a liar and Biden is inept.
I do not think Biden is inept—just the contrary. Look at his presidency. I do however think a vote for Robert Kennedy Jr. amounts to a vote for Trump. We simply can’t afford that.
I understand that Liz Smith and the DNC are pushing that narrative that a vote for Bobby is a vote for Trump. I don’t agree with that. To me it’s Orwellian propaganda to stop Bobby, who gives us a real chance to throw off the corporations and answer to we the people!
I've recently subscribed to Ground News. Everything is reported by multiple sources, and each source is analyzed for political view (left, center, and right) with summaries for each viewpoint. It's the antidote to disinformation and left or right knowledge silo thinking.
Yes, the press is missing the issue here. “Is Biden too old” isn’t the issue. He’s not, but that’s not the issue. The issue is the Republican coup attempt.
I wouldn t vote for a Biden ever again! I already made that mistake once. The worst president of my lifetime by far: we are on the brink of nuclear annihilation in two areas of the world. Ukraine - at least half a million dead - in a war provoked deliberately by US/NATO to use Ukraine as a proxy to attack Russia. The present government of Israel are the dangerous extreme end-times believing religious fanatics with nuclear weapons that the world has long feared and Bush/Cheney neocon war mongers like Joe Biden are just salivating for their long held plans to take out Iran and other countries in the region. Far right-wing neocon War criminal Joe Biden (that uses wokeism and "liberalism" as a fig leaf) has since the start of his presidency used social media corporations to censor Americans free speech and so called liberal wing members of the Supreme Court just granted massive corporate and government censorship. Look up the definition of fascism: an authoritarian government that combines state and corporate control, which is what we have here now thanks to Genocide Joe Biden! Sanctions implemented by Biden along with massive money printing by the US banking mobsters has led to massive inflation in the US and dumping of the US Dollar around the world. These sanctions have also led to famines in parts of Africa because of restrictions of fertilizer that were created.
Wow, the MAGA poo machine has really done a number on you - brainwashed into believing the far right actually care about you and have your best interests at heart. But once your daughters and granddaughters are saddled with ten children each or die from an ectopic pregnancy, and you yourself have no social security or medical care to support you when times are tough, no government pension to see out your retirement and you've ended up living in a cardboard box hoping your bump stock machine-gun wielding brethren don't mow you down on a whim, then maybe you'll realise you were shafted.
Your ridiculous, hysterical, conspiracy-theory style comments told me exactly what you’ve been listening to and believing. Do your homework. Read widely. Look at the economic facts. Biden, like him or not, is your greatest hope to retain the rights and freedoms you and your family currently take for granted. Biden has been creating prosperity in the US and it will only get better for the hard working average Joe and his family. Unless you’re part of the mega rich billionaire set who create the propaganda you listen to, then you’ll be shafted, living in a world where you have to put up and shut up while they sip French champagne on their yachts.
Your reply attributes views to myself which I have never stated and completely ignores what I did say since I assume you are not willing to engage on those topics.
That has been my assessment of so called liberals who have swallowed the latest cold war propaganda by the US military industrial complex. Former hippies have turned into Russia hating Bush/Cheney neocon warmongers because of being told Trump is in cahoots with Putin and believing falsehoods repeated continually by Joe Biden and the corporate western media that Putin is the new Hitler and that Russia intends to invade Europe. Rooting for corrupt neocon war criminal Joe Biden is very much like hippies in the 60's cheering for the other corrupt war criminal LBJ, which would have never happened.
Using Trump derangement syndrome to turn so called liberals into bloodthirsty neocon warmongers was a masterful CIA psyop, I must admit. They use liberals because they are presently the majority political entity whereas previously in the 1960's and 1950's they had sold anti-communism to conservatives to promote their colonial wars of aggression. But the imperialist US and British oligarchical empires have always masters of playing different groups against each other.
Interesting during the Trump administration US/Nato training and arming of Ukraine continued. It was also during the Trump administration that the US withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, a dangerous and major escalation of strategic tensions that Putin loudly protested. Odd if Trump wants Putin's approval.
As a former lifelong Democrat till recently, there is little I like about Trump. But the slim chance that he might intervene to prevent WW3 makes him far better as a candidate than neocon war monger Joe Biden. Bottom line is Joe Biden won't talk to Putin and continues the path of Ukraine becoming part of NATO. Putin has said they will use nukes before allowing Ukraine to be part of NATO.
Biden obviously won t negotiate to let Ukraine be neutral as it was before 2014 so we have a very dangerous situation. Do you want Ukraine part of NATO or do you want to be alive in a year?
Perhaps you haven't observed corrupt neocon war criminal Joe Biden's actual nature because you have been paying too much attention to the western corporate media, including the NY Times, which is nearly useless in arriving at a reliable assessment of realty.
A hint may make it easier: days before whining repeatedly about swastika carrying Nazis in Charlottesville being the reason he ran for president, his administration approved sending US weapons to the openly Nazi Azov battalion in Ukraine. Let that sink in.
Neocon War criminal Joe Biden has always wholeheartedly approved and supported every US neocon war of choice with millions of dead in Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine.
Perhaps you haven t noticed neocon war criminal Victoria Nuland, former prominent member of the Biden's administration foreign policy team (and good friend of Hillary Clinton). She is married to Robert Kagan who was a co founder of the think tank Project for the New American Century. She worked under Dick Cheney for many years during the time of the Iraq war. During the Obama administration, she directed the color revolution in Ukraine that toppled the democratically elected government of Victor Yannucovich and installed pro-Nazi anti-Russian extremists that began a CIA directed dirty war that killed tens of thousands of ethnic Russian Ukranians, especially in eastern Ukraine.
There are many other neocons in Biden's administration.
Last year Biden nominated prominent neocon Elliott Abrams to a diplomacy commission. A former Republican official, Abrams was described as an apologist for mass murder and "defender of Latin American death squads and cheerleader for murderous US foreign policy interventions."
You are mistaken if you think there really is any difference between the two parties.
You do pack a lot of information into one comment. I could fact check each one of these statements, but I believe the Biden administration and Democrats in general are doing a good job of working for the American people, and I also believe that the Republicans want to take over the reins of government so they can ram their agenda down our collective throats. For me there is no equivalency whatsoever. I understand that you see it differently.
Well that is a novel excuse! Even if they wanted to, I doubt most subscribers to this blog are even remotely capable of engaging in a coherent debate on foreign policy issues. So far I have seen none.
Boy you MAGAS love to project. None of the crap you are talking about ever existed. You are FOS about Ukraine even brainwashed with conspiracy theories. This is the biggest piece BS I've ever read
There is not nearly the heightened state of panic in this country about the prospect of another t presidency. A compliant media, flaccid leaders, Democrats who treat this emergency as just another political rivalry and a lethargic, apathetic public are converging for the demise of democracy and the establishment of a formal American dictatorship.
Neither media nor politicians are really telling the truth. It’s like a surreal rom com. There is so much idea pollution out there. We’re on our pun with the help of guides like history, through Heather and a few others. Thank you Heather.💙
Well said Marilyn. Biden said he would not run for re-election, he was a bridge. Perfect. He picked a still unpopular (zero delegates in her primary for President)/not particularly qualified VP to try and satisfy/rectify centuries of racism. FDR knew he was dying and dumped VP Wallace for Truman. Because Dems never agree on anything, because no natural alternative emerged, because perhaps Biden got a little full of himself, he ran again. Now with 5 months to the election Dems STILL can not agree on anything/anyone and will do....what? What exactly is the Dems' plan to save our democracy, NATO and the torch of free fair elections around the world? Rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, so far.
Biden cannot beat Trump because independents and undecideds don't consider deeper concepts like Heather's wonderful column. If Biden stays in the race, the effect will be no different than Ruth Bader Ginsberg not retiring when there was a chance to place a qualified justice. Trump will win and our republic will end.
You’ve cleared away many questions and helped me begin to see the whole picture of what’s been happening in recent years and what some (Orban, Putin, Heritage Foundation et al) intend for us — American citizens). We’ve got serious work to do.
The alliance of Victor Orban, Donald Trump, and Steve Bannon has brought us to the brink of fascism. We cannot go over the edge. Thankfully, the UK elections shows us a different path.
Now that the Supreme Court 6 "conservative" justices are also domestic enemies of the Constitution, where does that leave USians? Can a sitting President maybe say "no thanks" to the Supreme Court ruling, "I reject these expanded powers! And my Justice Department is going to charge you with treason!" That would be very ironic.
They did what Winston said that we do. Do everything else before doing the right thing. The sentence with the most devastating and consequential ramifications for us is this one. “While Hungry still holds elections, state control of the media and the apparatus of voting means that it is impossible for the people of Hungry to remove him from power.” Well duh.
Happy 4th Heather! Thank you for making saving our democracy your life’s work. We are incredibly fortunate to have you in our corner at this moment in time. I think one of the threats we face is that all that matters to mainstream media news is click-bait, not the truth. Sure wish we could bring back the fairness doctrine! 💙🇺🇸
We are fk'd because Americans in 2024 are selfish and are the bystander effect personified. We will continue to slow walk into ALL of what we read here because people would rather complain online than protest/march. Waiting until November is not going to save us. They are admitting they won't even accept the election results!!! We have to weaken their resolve by taking a Nationwide public stand to show them we are the majority and we won't cede anything to fascists without a fight! Imagine how many people would be inspired and motivated to speak up if we marched! They aren't playing by the same old rules and some of us will die, yes die, if trump gets into office! Wake up!!! Get out there! MSM won't save you!
One thing is certain. We won't be doing much marching if Trump wins. His unmarked troops will be allowed to shoot to kill. Immunity is a powerful thing.
The enemy is Project 2025. Recognition of that is beginning to get some traction but has a long way to go and needs the singing of a much larger choir.
The corrupt supreme court has begun the destruction of our democracy. We cannot allow another republican to be elected president for decades, or they will cram more corrupt judges down our throats and we will completely lose the democracy that remains.
We are losing our freedom. The trumpicans like bannon are destroying our country, bit by bit. What are we going to do about it?
Project 2025 is everything Heather mentions here and much more. The impact of its dismantling of the administrative state - which dovetails nicely with what the unqualified wingnuts on the Supreme Court have just unloaded on the citizenry - will make it extraordinarily difficult for the U.S. to prepare for (much less prevent) the rapidly developing climate and biodiversity crises. Political theater is one thing, but burning down the theater with us in it is quite another.
The human theater exists within planetary realities which will neither pause for nor respect the political triumph of a religious minority over common decency. For those of you interested in the environmental implications of Project 2025, I've written on it here (https://jasonanthony.substack.com/p/over-the-cliff). This is from February, so it needs updating, which I'll do this summer when I republish it.
The corruption of the Supreme Court through the appointment of ideological zealots by Republican presidents has been at the heart of the oligarchs' strategy to destroy American democracy. The oligarchs have had the Devil's own luck at times with stacking the Court but they have succeeded through the single-minded agency of Leonard Leo (a tip of the hat also to Mitch McConnell).
The oligarchs, Christian fundamentalists, and neo-fascists at the Heritage Foundation celebrate the capture of the Supreme Court as it delivers decisions that have devastating consequences for American democracy.
With the Supreme Court in their pocket and armed with its decision in Trump v. United States, the oligarchs and the menagerie of malcontents associated with them are giddy with expectation about the return of King Donald to the throne. He will smite the hated liberals and reign over an America reshaped by the dystopian framework elaborated in Project 2025.
If the oligarchs are to be denied their ultimate goal of ensuring that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" perishes from the earth, voters must be clear-eyed as to the danger posed by Trump. He must be stopped at the ballot box lest he complete the oligarchs' plan to destroy American democracy.
I awoke here in the UK to a country that has the potential to be very different from the last 14 years of Tory ineptitude, but like the British in 1939, the situation is precarious because the UK cannot hold the line against fascism all alone. Keir Starmer, the new PM, is a boring but secretly very smart guy whose claims to fame have been that he is a noted human rights lawyer and grew up in a working class household, so is the kind of success story that occurred during the last major Labour regime, that of Tony Blair in the 1990s. But the nationalist fascist party, "Reform" is going to be seated in Parliament with 4 seats, largely as a result of people switching from the Conservatives. The good news is that the centrist party, the Lib-Dems, has built a much larger third-party presence after the total disaster of their coalition with the Tories under David Cameron (who has been the foreign secretary but who will always be remembered as the guy who, when at university, stuck his wanky into the mouth of a roasted pig's head during a fancy Oxford High Table dinner party). They are a solid partner, ideologically, with the Labour Party as it is far less socialist these days and far more centrist, on the Blair model. This is instructive. If the USA flips to the fascist side, the UK will be exposed in a way it has never been since 1939. And expect Putin to invade not only Ukraine, but everything to the Danube. And meet up with the fascist "National Rally" party in France and all the extremist parties in Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy. I am utterly serious here: it's not just our survival that is at stake.
That it's not just the survival of the US of A that's at stake - it's everyone and, may I say everything (our liveable planet) that's at stake - it's a truly existential moment.
I'm here for combination of work and a week of rest from the mayhem at home but I always follow British politics closely, as it makes a difference for me in terms of work, colleagues, and friends as academia is (like in the USA) being hollowed out. I am hoping things do change here--I might need somewhere for me and my dog to go should things go south in November at home!
I got an Ad last we from a company that sells homes to the growing American Expatriate Colony in Portugal - Muito bien. If it goes south Go South. I Always loved the South Island in New Zealand but, I am a stay-and-figh-kinda guy - retired Trial Attorney & still Active ABA. Salud.
I have former colleagues who just retired and moved to Portugal, but the situation on the Continent is, I think, anxiety inducing. I have reasons for staying in the USA, but I also belong to the kind of demographic that would be in the first wave of rounding up for "re-education" should Project 2025 come into play . . . So as I have many dear friends here in the UK, it feels a bit safer as a potential bolt hole. On the basis of your name, gender, and (ahem) whiteness, you would be less likely to be targeted than I--an academic, feminist, female, not a Christian, not hetero-cis, etc.
Understand all your points, But, I am quite visible busy supporting the Forensic Psychiatrists Team who are weighing in on the tfg's mental capacity & threat to the entire World.
Dr. Bandy Lee is holding a digital Meeting at NOON Eastern,TODAY, 7/5/24, Nine AM Pacific which gives me 80 minutes to get ready for "LIVE Session with Dr. Lee: New Series" The topics are 'Why Trump Needs To Be:
1. Imprisoned
2. Properly Tested
3. Kept on Probation' by the NY Dept of Corrections & Probation
These Psychiatrists are putting there physical lives & professional careers on the line.
YES, if you are asking I have kept Dr Lee aware that Judge Merchan will rule on tfg's 2 bogus motions on August 8, 2024.
Also, Judge Merchan has TENTATIVELY re-scheduled tfg's Sentencing Hearing now docketed for August 18, 2024.
I have been reminding folks that separate from the 34 Felonies, the Court has already found tfg in contempt on 10 separate counts & warned the Perp of possible "incarceration."
FYI, Dr. Bandy X. Lee has been posting her new book chapter-by- chapter for her Substack Subscribers. Dr. Lee is on CHAPTER 12, essentially treatment.
I saw a film not all that long ago. In one scene there was the most curious dialogue..
“If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone”
~Michael Corleone
The Godfather Part II, art imitating life..
These have been desperate times we’ve been living in, it’s high time for desperate measures. Jan 6th was an act of war, we have yet to respond accordingly.
We act, by means of those who we sent to D.C. to represent our interests. We demand that they deploy the appropriate resources and responses that an act of war against us requires. We demand that which should have been deployed just after Jan 6th be deployed now. Like In any other country that has its seat of government attacked by an aggressor trying to overthrow it.
Oh Anne, none taken. Actually I meant that those that were responsible for the act of war on Jan 6th be taken into custody and held without bond as enemy combatants, tried in front of a military tribunal for waging war against the United States. This is what should have happened by the end of that week, as Jan 6th 2021 was a Wednesday.
I had L Leo and Roberts mixed up; however, *their fleas have the same DNA.
In other matters, I haven't changed my view of that alleged 'debate' - it simply was not worthy of being noted as a U.S. presidential debate. It was a CNN media event to collect viewership ratings for that company's business profile. If one reads the transcript of the 'event' without watching it, you come away with a far different view than the media and partisan frenzies going on since said event. I recommend doing that. I'll agree the event was certain 'type' of disaster - it was an optical disaster. Who controlled the optics of the production ? In the commercial run-up to this production, a lot of lip service was given to a notion that there would be microphone muting. That didn't happen, although it should have. I only heard warnings given to Biden, who had been quite disciplined - especially compared to tfg. It seemed to me that Joe was most flummoxed when no moderating was done as advertised. He won't say that, 'cuz he won't be accused of whining - or even appearing to. The Biden - Harris team, what they stand for by way of their actions, their accomplishments - too many to list against fierce odds are stained only by their fair weather friends. I'm not one of those. I'm in the same camp as Mark Cuban when he said on March 5, 2024, ...“If they were having his last wake, and it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rites, I would still vote for Joe Biden.” Later, he told Axios, “I don’t want a snake oil salesperson as president. I’m voting for Biden-Harris over Trump all day every day. It’s the snake oil salesperson vs. the incumbent, traditional politician. One will tell you his snake oil will cure everything that ails you. The other will show you the details of his policies through charts, graphs, and statements. [Biden] is precise and methodical and wants to sell the steak. Not the sizzle.” He added: “Trump voters are happy with their snake oil whether it works or not.”
Shamelessly, CNN has morphed into Fox Lite.
Jake Tapper and Dana Bash just trashed their reputations. They were tepid and mealy-mouthed, giving Trump rein to do anything he wanted. Shame on them and CNN.
It must be asked —How does one actually lose a debate when the opponent is a pathological liar?
It wasn't a debate. Many of us debated in high school or college and there were rules that would have prevented the CNN debacle.
First of all, calling it a debate is like calling an elephant a donkey. They have nothing in common. They should call it a "free for all" with no rules.
CNN is working so hard to reinvent themselves with very little on-air talent. They still have Anderson Cooper and a few others worthy of being called journalists, but Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are not in that group.
They are trying to lure in the Fox viewers, but that market is over-crowded at this point with Newsmax and OAN and the Sinclair Network.
Many readers have likely judged real debates and have to cringe at the format of this debacle.
Their were no winners. Trump lied over and over with Impunity. Why didn't they put Trump's lies on the crawler? And he never answered any questions asked of him.
Here's my question that Convicted Felon Trump will NEVER answer.
Name 4 things that MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN done by your administration. That's only one a year. Why won't CFDT, or his campaign, or any Republican answer what MAGA has done for us.
My grades for the debate - Trump (F), Biden (D) and CNN (D-).
They made the rich richer, full stop
In doing so, they are also complicit in the death of American Democracy. I'm not folding though. Truth is power and I am going to do all I can to spread facts. I will use my own words and I will also repost those of the more eloquent. Please unite behind Biden/Harris. Fight maga, not ourselves, for God's sake!
Completely agree. My thought: no one gets on stage again with #45.
Should not have in the first place. Everyone knew he was going to lie and bully; that's what he does. An occasionally muted microphone and compliant moderators weren't going to change that.
D- is too high for CNN
why is all the focus on Biden's mental acuity and not on that other thing's incapacity for anything but himself? These are crazy emphases on all the wrong things.
I call it the Henny Penny network
"They should call it a "free for all" with no rules." Or an ambuse, because it was.
I agree with you Sandra P. Campbell that it should have been called -and agreed to as - a Free-For-All. But I disagree that it was an ambush. trump does not debate. He spews and demeans and distracts. They “prepped” Biden for a Debate. That was wrong. Knowing ahead of time that CNN decided they would NOT fact-check in real time, was a glaring, red-flashing clue it would be a vomit of lies vs Joe Biden. Not what Biden was prepped for. Who has ever been on stage with trump and not been discombobulated as national media zero in on your faults and not the guy fire-hosing lies?
ambush/abuse = ambuse. Good word.
Ambuse--ambush plus abuse!
Biden's team agreed to the "rules" of the "debate" including that NO live fact checking would take place - in other words, the felon would not be interrupted or called out. All the talking heads could do, and they did, was ask Trump over and over to answer their question, which he rarely did. I agree with Dan that CNN screwed Biden on OPTICS, with the camera sabotage and holding the split screen on our President when he was unable to breath through his nose and looked like the moron that the Felon actually is.
Roy, why must we continue to assign such a dignified term ((pathological liar) to such a total degenerate (#45)? Everything he comes up with is a distortion designed to derail and turn any attempted critical response into libtard blather. We've (you, me, Joe) have been on the receiving end of his regurgitation-of-baloney over and over. The "debate", which it was not, needs to be the last time #45 pukes his distortions onto the table without his face being shoved into it... and feeding it right back down his flabby-ass throat. I've watched K.Harris.., she can be a real bitch.., hand her the ladle.., let her spoon it back to him (#45). Don't make Joe do it. Let Kamala handle that turd (#45). That'd be a show stopper for sure. C'mon Whitehouse.. pull your head out!
Do you realize if Biden is not President in 2025 we will not be able to comment like this anymore. Our discussions will be banned under an R admin.
We are playing for the choir. How do we let the other 329 million or so non HCR readers know an insurrection is taking place under their noses today- while they grill hamburgers, light off fireworks, and work on their tans?
The irony of celebrating the fourth while an insurrection is taking place is making my little head explode!
The 4th of July that was celebrated in Ashland, OR featured the Ashland City Band in concert. One of the pieces they played was a soft medley of a number of historically patriotic songs. About 2 minutes into the piece, a fellow dressed as Abraham Lincoln stepped forward and recited the Gettysburg Address. Those words are as pertinent today as they were in 1863, the difference being that the battlefield today is not yet a graveyard.
Marj, well said, Have you thought about how it might be better for Biden to acknowledge he is ill, step down and allow Harris to be President now? Under federal campaign law she is the only one the Biden campaign money can go to , so that support could go on. She has been working with the team that has helped to make the progress toward equality that has been more than any other President since FDR. It has been the Biden -Harris agenda for all the. positive changes that have occurred that are supporting the majority of Americans for a better standard of life and safety, environmental protections, and the fight against monopolies and billionaires , and much more, For the past 8 months she has been calling for a ceasefire,,she has championed women’s rights, workers rights, black rights, all rights for equality, As the incumbent candidate, there would not be a crazy convention which will distract from the governing that needs to be happening now. Our Declaration of Independence was inspired by the dream of equality. We are once again facing terrible tyranny and need a plan to fight for a democracy that dreams of coming ever closer to equality for all Americans, and for all LIFE that is on this symbiotically interconnected Spaceship Earth we call home.
As I said elsewhere, very few people know about Project 2025, so it follows that very few people know that it's' architect, Kevin Roberts, said the other day that unless the left steps aside, this revolution will be bloody. Abject failure of main street media.
I think we all, every one of us, commit to being surrogates for Biden. I am going to personally call all the young people I know to tell them the stakes and to encourage them to vote for Biden and to get all their friends to vote for Biden -- that this is NOT one to sit out or to vote 3rd party. We must ALL do this, if we do, we'll win.
You don't hear any sounds of dissent coming from Orbanites. Nope. That's because 'they' have a way of dealing with such matters. Retribution. Done quietly, it's so hard to prove. You quickly learn to keep your mouth shut in those countries.
But no matter who "handles the turd" there must be some actual cooperation from whichever media broadcasts it - and quite honestly I dont have a clue where we would find that.
“Total degenerate” the name for for that person. 👍
You don’t debate a liar; you denounce him. Biden should have known that. Biden wax off his game but then Biden has never been a great debater.
Biden should have rebutted Trump with “there you go, folks, another pack of lies from the Lie-o-matic (liar in chief) …. Nothing lower than lying to the American people ….Shame on you…but then you’re not only a liar but also shameless. Americans don’t do business with shameless liars.”
It's time for Biden to stop following 'the rules'
He just got permission!
Fair question: How does one actually lose a debate when the opponent is a pathological liar?. It's the appearance that matters and Biden failed miserably. That's just a fact that we must acknowledge and deal with. That is the reality. What do we do now to give us the best chance of defeating Trump in November?
Stop demonstrating a lack of confidence in your party’s nominee.
Yes and educate voters about Project 2025 about what living under a dictator is really like because the media is not focused on the issues but on generating conflict to increase profit.
A “lack of confidence” in Joe Biden ? We are sounding like the other side of the MAGA coin’s blind obedience for Donald Trump. I know what I saw on TV on Jan. 6th and I know what I saw the night of the debate. I have nothing but eternal gratitude for what the Biden administration has done for the last 3 1/2 years but I worry about the next 4. Blaming CNN, blaming the MSM etc etc, well enough,but I know what I saw.
AMEN! No one else at this point in time can come up against the Republicans. We have to support all of our Democrat candidates because if they win so do we! We have to get rid of the MTGs and the Bobrats both male and female that are trying to take away our democracy that have been elected to the House and Senate! Also, we need to remake the Supreme Court that has been contaminated! I hope we are strong enough to do it! It will be a very big job! The word has to be gotten out. Project 2025 should have been in the news (even with us) for a long time. Actually I believe I first heard about it here from a comment. It was hard to find but when I added the www.project2025.org it popped up! At last I am beginning to hear people talk about it more often....but not enough....and I hope those that need too start paying attention!
Well said, Tyler.
YES, for starters!
Now that sounds like a cult-like remark worthy of MAGA. Dems discuss facts and truth. Sometimes that falls out of line with the practice of politics.
Listen to Stuart Stevens, Former chief Republican strategist, Lincoln Project adviser … don’t panic, give Biden some time and support. I add this: sell the Democratic Party’s history - recent and long - of service and accomplishments to large portions of the American population - both rich, not-so-rich and the poor … and be proud of what this party and its leadership has done … and listen to Heather and Joe Scarborough both of whom have had recent and relatively recent interactions with Joe Biden!
And Lawrence O'Donnell
Biden has been a good president. His debate performance hints (and his recent comment that he needs more sleep) at the possibility of the achievements being buried under missteps due to aging. Biden would serve his legacy well if he withdrew from the race and let another candidate step in. Knowing when to quit is the mark of the self-aware.
Jennifer, further to your point, Biden hasn't been just a "good president;" he has been a great president. Our economy is the envy of the world (according to the Wall Street Journal,) the stock market has surged, our inflation rate is the lowest in the industrialized world and our infrastructure is being rebuilt. I just returned from a 1300 mile road trip to Texas - construction all along the way. But, that is no longer the issue. The issue is: can Biden now beat Trump. Does what Biden/Harris have accomplished amount to a hill of beans to those who are ignorant of these feats along with ignorance of Project 2025?
How would one WIN a debate when the opponent is a pathological liar? It's impossible to debate someone who only snarls endless lies, abuse, and insults.
Roy C: Because it was not a debate. Biden came prepared to debate in what turned into a media circus for the head clown.
Well Roy - he did. It's all in the definition, but if winning is being the more convincing, then the polls indicate Trump won. I am very sad to say this. Believe me. I am getting a little tired of listening to excuses. To the other side, or more importantly to the folks on the fence, that is just what it sounds like Childish excuses. If Biden is growing senile, man up DNC - convince him to hand over the reigns. BTW, I predict I too will succumb to dementia some day sooner than I want. And if it was a one-off, fire the planners who made him show up at a hugely important debate too exhausted to be there. The damage done is immeasurable. And at the same time, get Joe out there ASAP to demostrate he still has his marbles. No more excuses.
Biden seems to do just fine with world leaders. Also, I was raised with the expression, the proof is in the pudding. He is our president and the country is well run. Lies don't do that, and neither did Trump! How hard is it to understand that. So what if he is not a good debater. If that is what you want to see, because Trump is not either, you should go to watch a high school debate club perform. I think it is perhaps showing itself to be an outdated forum to get information to the citizenry. Trump did not follow the rules of debate so what he won was shallow people's opinion of success. Not by the substance of what he said.
Linda Biden will meet with the New UK PM. Keir Starmer in a few days at the NATO Summit. FYI, Starmer is a former Human Rights Lawyer.
Sunday comes with the welcome news that the Anti-fascist Left in FRANCE has WON the NationaL French Election & is forming a new government.
Oui, Party in Paris tonite. Even bigger celebration on Bastille Day July 14, 2024 & a bigger Party in the Champ de Mars.
Vive Le France
Let’s count the ways: by agreeing to appear? By looking lost and confused? By mumbling incoherent sentence fragments? By reinforcing the voters’ single greatest concern about you?
I would vote for Biden (or anyone else running sgainst Trump) but that debate performance was the greatest piece of malpractice I have ever seen.
Now Mr. Biden is in a phase where he has to reassure the electorate or exit gracefully.
You counter with your facts non stop and your own record.
Moderators could have said to trump no that's false. And moved on. Thete should have a lie counter above each person's head. And a transcript immediately posted and written in all media , newspapers fterwards
Damn great question Roy !
When certain media outlets have put profit above facts and Democracy.
By being incapable of responding effectively.
Is it the job of the president to debate? NO! that is the job of a campaigner. Is it the job of the president to run the country well? YES! That he is doing. Which do you prefer? A good debater or a good president if you have to choose? With Biden you will get a good president, with Trump you get a fascist and pathological liar!
It is the job of a would-be president to get elected.
You are right. In front of America Biden said that the Border Patrol Union
endorsed him, In an unprecedented move the Union tweeted during the debate, "that they have never endorsed Biden and never will".
This is not an exaggeration ITS A LIE.
Name one thing Trump lied about during the debate?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/us/politics/trump-debate-performance-falsehoods.html
Tropes are so easy but, may have serious consequences.
Per The Hill:
"To be clear" [Biden said] "Border Patrol endorsed him [Biden] & his 'position' on immigration"
"The Border Patrolled did not endorse Biden. though a union for its agents endorsed a bipartisan Senate proposal that the Whitehouse negotiated with Republicans." The Border Patrol took off to "The Hills'.
******
James A - now the you are a Substack "Author" which is a defined contract term along with the definition of "Reader". James A is now contractually bound to Substack Inc's Author contract & related "Terms & Conditions".
You can fight with Substack Inc if you wish, Tropes & all, at 'JAMS SF' a nationally recognized mediation service if you have any contract issues with Substack Inc's content moderation efforts.
Note, however, there is no insulation whatsoever from California tort law. Substack Inc's attorneys are Wilson Sonsini -- a capable firm
The big problem is that Trump supporters have little knowledge of Project 2025 because they have heard nothing of what it is really about, except maybe peripherally. They don't read newspapers, and the only news they do access is right wing misinformation. They are completely contained in a bubble, brainwashed, similarly as German Citizens of the Hitler era.
Why the excellent work of Prof. Richardson, and others like her, isn't offered and made more available by MSM to all Americans is frustrating and frankly, frightening.
D- I agree. I wish this letter could be mailed to every household in America! It's concise, to-the-point, easy to understand, and points out the dangerous acts that Trump will be able to conflict on us. You're right. Most people don't know what Project 2024 stands for.
If people can read this and STILL want to see Donald Trump as president, then those people are not True Americans, by the definition of our Constitution. They're claiming that THEY are the patriots, and those of us who believe in democracy are the villians.
It amazes me to read the fourth "principle" of this document, and should amaze those who read it.-- The country must "secure our God-given individual rights to live freely."
What??? Freely by whose standards? There will be no freedoms, except those that are imposed on us. Freedom does not include being forced to live my life as someone as vile and ignorant as Trump sees fit.
Oh my!!
"
Absolutely. In a discussion yesterday I was informed that Democrats are using Project 2025 as a propaganda tool and was informed that it was no more real than the Steele Dossier. Huh?
Oh, good grief.
I have found it impossible to reason with these people! I wish I'd been in the Debate Club in HS. I was in the Art Club instead.
Project 2025 reads like a Chinese government manifesto under Mao--Or Xi.
Drawing the parallels to how Orbán or any dictator has taken over a democracy doesn't seem like it would affect MAGA loyalists. It is not in their nature. At the moment Trump's posted position is that he doesn't agree with Project 2025, but since nothing Trump states has any relation to what he will state next, we cannot use anything he says. He is hedging his bets by posting that he "disagrees with some of the things they are saying," being ambiguous by not being specific, using this nebulous position to support any nonsense he later states as what he has been saying all along, and hoping nobody can follow the necessarily complicated counterargument. We have seen this before.
The SCOTUS is apparently banking on Trump winning, and the dictator-like power that they are granting the president becoming effective just as he takes office. Or perhaps they know that a Democrat will always respect democracy and will never use the military to go after his opponents, so there is no risk in offering both sides this unconstrained power. In any event, I see the ruling as an invitation to take each Republican in Congress to task: state sufficient evidence that the last election was stolen or face charges of treason, by decree of an Official Act of the President of the United States.
Most people are not going to read through the almost 1000 page Project 2025 Manifesto. Two resources I’ve been using to share and educate.📣
From the Biden campaign
https://joebiden.com/project2025/
Andra Watkins is a NYT best-selling author who “escaped” Christian
Nationalism decades ago. She has read and dissected P2025.She often
uses shareable quotes and page # .
https://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy/p/p2025-promise-3-defend-our-nations?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I just ordered my ASK ME ABOUT PROJECT 2025 button.10$ with shipping.
https://www.zazzle.com/s/personalized+buttons
Ordered button! THX!
To read it, is like taking a drink through a firehose.
I've read. about 50 pages and it is both scary and boring as hell.
In 2020, the GOP Presidential platform was - whatever CFDT wants to do.
In 2024, it's the Heritage Foundation remake of the entire Federal government and a rewrite of the US Constitution.
Basically what they tried to do in the 1940’s. Listening to Rachel Maddow’s poscast ULTRA. So mind blowing 🤯 Everyone should listen. History repeats itself. Yikes 😳
It's not just the Republican supporters who are ignorant of Project 2025. Most people are.
Please read through it. Sit down with pen and paper and make notes. then talk about it.
It seems that a majority have not yet heard the news about CNN being bought (like soooo many others...) by a Right Wing organization. They have been on the edge of reality for a while anyway.
Yeah.. CNN... "rounded heels" and all. Talk about prostitution? There's an example.
Craig, I hadn't heard that. Which right-wing org? Google says it's owned by Warner Bros Discovery. I wasn't aware that was right-wing?!
I don't believe it was an organization. John Malone had a controlling interest in CNN and Zucker, former CEO I think, carried out his orders.
I haven’t. But it might explain some things.
I am done with CNN. It is another enemy of We The People.I think it like the NYT and others have not been in Biden’s corner for quite some time and were just waiting for some misstep of his so that they could heat up the rhetoric to dump him. It just so happened that the debate was the opportunity that they had been waiting for. CNN and MSNBC were already bashing Biden before the debate was over.The only person defending our president was Lawrence O ‘Donnell.Yes, getting rid of Biden fits right in with the corporate design to aid Russia/Putin and turn the country into an Christo-fascist authoritarian regime. We The People are going to have to go it alone in defending Biden.
I agree with you about Lawrence O’Donnell. He was the only anchor who didn’t jump on the bandwagon with other commentators on MSNBC who were focusing on the negativity about President Biden. Granted there were issues with the debate, but bigger issues were Trump’s lies throughout the debate and the news media’s incompetence in monitoring the debate and reporting at the end.
Rachel Maddow never bashed Biden. Stephanie Ruhle never bashed Biden. I never heard Alex Wagner bash Biden or Chris Hayes bash him. They may have discussed his poor performance at the debate, but I don't remember them asking for his removal. You're right, Lawrence was the only journalist that made a full throated Biden defense.
Rachel didn’t directly bash Biden but by omission, she sure didn’t defend him either.Same with Alex Wagner.I was a bit disappointed especially with Rachel .
MIka on Morning Joe supported Biden.
Victoria Wilson -- I totally agree with you!! Done with CNN except for Fareed Zakaria. The press in general has NEVER supported President Biden. Never! They never covered him, what he was actually accomplishing in the presidency. They all invoke my ire! Except for Lawrence O'Donnell, who has been away for the past week or so, Jen Psaki. Rachel Maddow, and Fareed Zakaria.
So my wonder is: what are the so-far-still-credible journalists going to do? They still need to pay their mortgages.
And guess who just bought Paramount??? Larry Ellison’s rich trust baby, so I read yesterday.
I gave up cable tv years ago including CNN. Media is in biz to make money, not inform the public.
Didn't you notice the beginning of this insurrection when your local newspapers started being bought up by big corp?
The dems are terrible at long term planning. The R's are winning this game. It sickens me to see people like gym jordan treat my rights like a sports event.
" . . . an enemy of We The People." We the people is exactly what the extremist MAGAs think they are, and nobody else is. Pathologically ingrained from the narcissist in residence at Mar a Lago.
We know the enemy when we see it. It's so obvious when you look at the record and the July 1 domestic Pearl Harbor.
Anyone watching should have smelled rats each time they called Trump, "President" ...
To my eye, it felt like a speed dating session…very strange, frenetic and devoid of substance.
It was in the cards. John Malone and Zucker, former influencers at CNN, put their thumbs on the scale.
All need to check out what Keith Olbermann said on one of his "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" shows. He spells it out quite clearly and cleanly about who Trump really is and WHAT CNN really is,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q0NNnn_kCE
Trump has dominated the media for decades as an abusive, bullying megalomaniac. His theatrics captivate audiences, his torrent of shock jock blabber and lies overwhelms our ability to bring any reason into play. He doesn't allow you to think, only to feel. If you agree with him you feel rage. If you don't agree with him you feel steamrolled and helpless. Like children of a violent, abusive father the media cringes under its bed, paralyzed with fear of violence enabled by fear of abandonment. In counseling there is a saying, Every family is a dictatorship controlled by the most dysfunctional member. And so it seems is America's political situation.
Definitely true.
Yup. Dana and Jake give us a clue about how journalists will act in a 2nd Trump administration. This is how the press acts in Hungry, and worse in Russia. Do what we tell u, or find another job. Fall in line or fall out of a high rise window. That or the gulag.
If I was President Biden, and the Liar called me by my first name, a tactic used to diminish one’s opponent, I would have called Donald out. I would have said, “You will address me as Mr (legitimate) President” I am not as Joe to you. The fact that President Biden allowed Donald to call him by his first name as if they were buddies, showed me how Biden has changed since he debated the turd the first time and didn’t allow him to get away with his outrageousness.
The media has changed from reporting news to generating clicks. There was a day when journalists sought the next big story by uncovering lies and deceits - now they just focus on what will generate the highest number of clicks for profit: negativity and catastrophe. As Derek Thompson of the Atlantic states, the "audience is just about equally to blame" since it is the reader's clicks that drive profitability. Sadly, the fourth leg of Democracy has succumbed to commercialization and the internet of dysfunction.
Agree. Decades ago while campaigning for POTUS, little bush refused to answer question about his use of drugs and his absences from National Guard duty. He flat out refused and the media rolled over for him.
Yesterday, NBC evening news rehashing the farce last Thursday night between President Biden and the amoral orange creature! WHY! For over 3 years Biden has delivered for the common person and the unfortunate, 3 years…how many hours is that? Yet he is now defined by a tv farce that lasted mere minutes compared the good he has accomplished!
Basta, Joe! Stop answering and apologizing for last Thursday!
The President's latest comment about last Thursday's debacle was that he was totally exhausted, having been traveling constantly for days (or weeks), and that he will no longer schedule anything after 4 pm. He gets up very early in the morning. Biden needs NO apologies. And let us not forget what Heather Cox Richardson taught us about what the former guy did that night -- The Gish Gallop. I'll not be forgetting that new term.
Exactly Louis.
Andrew:
You just reminded me of a rhetorical question attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
"If you call a horse's tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?"
[pause]
"Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it one!"
How often lately our political glossary has been perverted by disingenuous, cynical actors serving the interests of their sponsors!
\Vince S
Bravo
"The purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems." —The British Academy
The principle applies to the journalism business, the purpose of which is to inform profitably, and not be like CNN and Fox who profit from misinforming.
The media and the audience are to blame in the same way that the liquor store and the alcoholic are to blame for alcoholism.
Addiction is "a compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences." In this case, the rewarding stimuli is blame. The authoritarian's message is, "Those other people who are responsible for your unhappiness will be defeated." And it works because it makes the authoritarian's supporters feel better. So, the authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization.
"[T]he authoritarian is like a drug dealer selling fentanyl, except fentanyl only destroys lives, families, and communities one at a time, whereas the authoritarian is selling something with the power to destroy civilization."
Well said, James.
And that Andrew is the scariest of the scary!
I am proud to say I am a graduate of a fine four year university. I do not need to prove my intelligence ( pretend intelligence) by having gone to an “elite” school. What we did at my school was learn. We figured out how to decide possible answers for possible problems. We shared the truths of history and built scenarios that would make change for the better.
We did not look backwards to find comfort. We looked to those who “live to lead”. We shared reality and glorified nature.
We were , and are proud of those who gambled with their own safety to tell the world the truth. Our hopes kept shining through because there were humans looking at the impossible and making things that were better.
Thank all those humans who are tethered by honesty and morality and godliness.
Wash our hands and our ears and our eyes of these morbid lying fake mouthpieces of chaos and hate.
I know we are much more intelligent than those slimy cancers think! Let’s take them on!!!!
After Samuel “Slimy Cancer” Alito’s recent association with the word “godliness” by that undercover recording and the whole Christian Nationalist Heritage Foundation’s goal to force religion down all our throats, I have to take umbrage with your word choice here. I’m also going to cringe a bit at that word “morality” because it sounds awfully subjective at this point in time, given the theocratic fascist’s fever dream of forcing their version of “morality” down our throats as well.
But I appreciate everything you wrote here and the passion behind it! Let’s take these backward thinkers on indeed!!!
CNN has become a foil for Fox News, allowing Fox to say that even the “mainstream media” says what they’re saying. It’s deliberate.
Absolutely true.
I deleted their app!
I think when we talk about unsubscribing these are responses to basic coup like behavior from our press. It is important to recognize when they do it. Continuing to listen to things that you inherently know is wrong is unhealthy to one's self confidence.
I have many other news outlets that i subscribe to. I feel they have lost their way and are no longer unbiased. Hit ‘em in the pocketbook.
I agree! I have been doing the same thing. Let their MAGA audiences support them.
The MAGAts are the visible supporters, the rich ones are coming out of the woodwork every day. Like Timothy Mellon. They aren’t hiding anymore
Exactly; that's where it hurts
I unsubscribed to New York Times. And told them why.
I did too. And I think my Mom is going to as well.
Ditto
me too
I did just yesterday and the WAPO at the same time.
Do you think they are getting new subscribers from the right that makes up the difference?
Maybe Gary. I do know the Times comments have been overtaken by anti-Biden, anti-Democrats types and you have to have a subscription to comment.
As far as WaPo I have seen the comments overtaken as well. It's a lot of extreme MAGA stuff because WaPo does not censor.
To answer your question I doubt it because publications are still considered elite, "leftist" papers.
What do you think?
Yes. And referring to the crap that #45 reverses and twists around as "lies" is so childish. hahahaaa..."Don't lie to me"... GMAFB!
I won’t delete it, for the very same reason I glance at Faux Noise —know your enemy. 😉
TheRighting.com is another great source for keeping up with what the right-wing media are spewing at their minions.
you can stop your paid subscription and have limited access so you will still 'know your enemy'.
Your enemy needs financial solvency to continue putting out their lies.
Folks can check to see if their local libraries allow free access to the NYTimes and other publications.
Most public libraries do. Some have joined together for digital accessibility, so that folks can access content from home at no cost. It's honestly awesome.
(This is a repeat from yesterday however, since Heather has written on the same topic, I thought to piggy back. My satire was written about 5 years ago with a few add-ons. I reconken to be the Charlie Chaplin to the MAGA movement as Chaplin was to Hitler -- kinda. And it comes from my book "Donald's Vanity Tantrums." Please enjoy it if you can.)
Fred Jackson and the Second American Revolution
(Homage to Donald Trump’s ‘Proud Boys’ and Others)
Fred Jackson was a proud rebel in The Great Northern Militia Alliance. He and his wife Ruth were often found hosting summer neighborhood barbecues. They easily found new supporters for the coming war to take back America. Fred stationed himself at the pit and handed out chicken legs drenched in homemade sauce to new, unsuspecting recruits -- kinda like a politician on election-day would do; promising a chicken in every pot. Talk of big government, guns and revolt would come later.
Fred and his cohorts believed themselves to be the direct Anglo-Saxon descendants of America's 18th century rabble-rousers who tossed bales of tea into Boston harbor after news of the British Stamp Act reached these shores. But tea-toddlers, they weren’t.
He was proud of his new-found abilities to recruit and had recently been promoted by the Alliance to the rank of sergeant of his own local militia. Wasting no time consolidating resources, Fred collected everything from boxes of canned food to crates of assault weapons. All were discreetly stored away in basements and underground bunkers in his local neighborhood.
Strategic plans were soon under way as this historic moment arrived, the moment to take back America. A secret, unnamed Northern Alliance militia representative from high up the chain of command visited one evening to give a short pep talk to the men and their wives in the basement of Jackson's home.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the mysterious commander said, “the time has come to act. We must stop the tyranny and treasonous actions of our government. Today we take action. We will starve the beast into submission. We will bring the entire nation to a screeching halt by whatever means are necessary. And we will un-steal the election. You know who I’m talking about; the great populist himself, codenamed, “OrangeFatso.””
“Yep”… they screamed in unison, “Save our leader, OrangeFatso.”
He jabbered on like this awhile longer and then said something about how it was one's duty to avoid payment of taxes like they did in the Boston revolt.
A rebel in the audience was overheard mumbling that, “Maybe them damned liberals wouldn't be so bad if we could just shoot a few.” as he cleaned and oiled his weapon. After the rousing speech ended, the mysterious speaker made way out of Fred's hatchway as quickly as he had arrived and was driven off into the night before anyone could ask questions.
The next day, Fred called for another drill. The basement was a good place to train without attracting attention. His supportive wife listened from upstairs as she tapped her foot to the muffled sounds of her husband's marching orders.
"Left...right...left...right...left...right...left...right."
During the drill, Fred's wife heard her husband cry,
"Oh no… not again. I told you not to march forward in the cellar."
"Ruthie honey," Fred yelled from the basement, "Billy bumped into the wall again and now has a nose bleed. Quick, get me an ice pack."
One thing that should be noted about the division of labor between the men folk and their women; it was written in the Northern Militia Alliance's “Code of Conduct” that men would do the fighting and the women would play supportive roles – just like in the olden days of the founders. Their women were as important as Betsy Ross – who is thought to have sewn the first flag – was to the cause of revolt.
The country of Fred's birth was no longer recognizable to him. Waves of foreigners had migrated across the unprotected southern frontier. His leader had often spoken of building a really high wall to keep out the hordes. The government, Fred believed, was overrun with big-spending liberals and nanny-state socialists. Fred even thought that his own past president of the United States was born in another country.
“He wasn’t born here. You know he owes his allegiance to the United Nations,” cried Fred.
Encrypted communiques were now being sent and received with increasing frequency throughout the “Alliance.” The days of waiting had drawn to a close.
And so it came to pass. The militia teams began assembling. They gathered along every mountain pass and byway. They took positions beside bridges and waterways. Fred's platoon prepared to assault its assigned mountain. This really was only a big hill but these rebels had a tendency to magnify everything around them including the importance of they’re mission. Their watches were synchronized.
Sergeant Jackson finally gave the order to charge.
“CHARRRRRRGE!” he screamed.
The men began their long, wild, rickety-split charge to the top of the assigned hill. Fred held his assault rifle in the air with one hand, and with the other grabbed his pants before they slipped down below his protruding belly – an unfortunate victim of too many beer-drinking strategy sessions.
Well they whooped and hollered for so long that soon most of the militia troops were out of breath. By the time they reached the summit, the sergeant could be heard cussing' (at no one in particular.) He wondered if he had rushed up the wrong hill. His GPS repeated, “recalculating... recalculating...” His phone vibrated on his belt and he quickly grabbed it and listened intently.
His head turned slowly downward as he stared at his mud-caked boots. His heart was pounding. He was breathing fast.
“Yes sir, I see. But when are we...? Win the hearts and minds, first? But...OK, I’ll inform the men.”
The sergeant ordered roll call and sadly told his men that not only did they seize the wrong hill, but the unseen generals had decreed that this was only a drill. The real revolution was yet to come but now, without the element of surprise. Dejected, they began to hobble down the green hill.
Then suddenly, Sergeant Jackson received another message. This time, he could hardly contain himself. Something new had just happened and word was spreading like wildfire. His fingers quivered as he responded:
“I’ll tell the men right away.” The sergeant rallied the now exhausted rag-tag men around him and excitedly yelled,
“All hands to Burns, Oregon. The government is assaulting some ranchers. The Bunkerville boys from Nevada are leading the counter assault. I'll be driving out at first light if anyone needs a ride.”
Fred finally made it home in his Ford pick-up truck while still sweating from the long charge. His dear sweet Ruthie waited at the half-opened door as dusk settled in.
“Come in my hero. I made your favorite hot soup for you.”
Fred stumbled in and sat at their kitchen table and slurped down the refreshing food. He then went straight to bed without explaining anything to his worried wife about the disappointing details of the false deployment.
Fred dreamed about the new revolution soon to sweep the land of his birth – the land he hardly recognized any more. And he dreamed that his name would one day be enshrined 100 years from now, along the nearby interstate highway where he lived. The sign would read: “The Sergeant Fred Jackson Expressway: Named for a Patriot of The Second American Revolution Who Stood His Ground and Helped Take Back America.”
Then Fred farted and repositioned his head on the pillow as he slept like a baby all night long.
(I’ll be sitting at a table in front of the White House next week passing out my book. I’m doing all I can do. And I’ll bring my guitar to perform my selection of compositions about Trump including “The Shit Hole Song” found on my YouTube channel under “Catman Bill — Hartford, Connecticut)
Yes 👍🏼
If Tapper & Bash were being paid to do what they did.., they did their job well. Far as I'm concerned, the two of them suck big time and belong in the same gym shower-room with Jordan. Wanna talk about having "rounded heels".., like Susan C..?.., well there's two more.
That is deliberate, per their new CEO John Malone, a Warner Brothers guy and a man who stated, quite clearly, that he wanted to make over CNN to be more in the model of Fox. He's a billionaire and is entirely motivated by money. Why all those CNN people stay is beyond me.
https://www.vox.com/2022/8/26/23322761/cnn-john-malone-david-zaslav-chris-licht-brian-stelter-fox-peter-kafka-column
John Malone is not as active as he was when he installed Jeff Zucker, Zaslow and Licht. The relationship of AT&T, Discovery, Warner and CNN is confusing and difficult to untangle. I think Malone is or was a member of the Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo., the guy that chose the 6 SC justices.
I have tried to send CNN some feedback on their news coverage but their site is not amenable to those kind of comments. They are a disgrace.
Very few people I've been talking to lately know about Project 2025. That is an abject failure of main street media, especially when it's architect, Kevin Roberts, is talking about a bloody revolution unless the left steps aside.
I admire Joe Biden and have admired him since his role on the Foreign Relations Committee decades ago.
I think he’s done a remarkable job as President, and gotten more done than any president than LBJ.
That having been said, the debate was a disaster. Biden’s appearance and demeanor underlined the single-most concern the electorate has about him.
Anyone who blames his performance on CNN or the moderators is pretty desperate to absolve Biden of responsibility.
Biden is professional enough to accept his responsibility and you have seen him do so.
Now he has to deal with the aftermath—it’s in the past. Now we see if he can repair it. If not, my personal hope is that he defers to Harris. In a way that gives her the biggest boost possible.
Parsing whether Bash and Tapper “should” have fact-checked is immaterial. They said beforehand they wouldn’t. Reading a transcript and re-thinking who did better is an empty exercise. No one else experienced it that way, and no one else will. 50 million people—half of whom support the Pres.—saw him slack-jawed and confused.
Yea. I have been calling then that for many years.
Calm down, Roy. It hasn’t. We can’t and shouldn’t think we can get only what we want to agree with.
They do not challenge guests to back up their positions enough.
Stop it, now.
My position is firm. Rather than clarion calls, CNN is throwing softballs at the devil himself.
I would not have gone so far as to call Trump "the devil himself," but it sure looked like CNN was throwing softballs at him while at the same time allowing him to speak lie after lie for 90 minutes.
I have to agree with you Roy. I used to flip stations between MSNBC and CNN but I noticed the same thing with CNN. Lots of softballs.
Wow, what a reply. This forum is for discussion; listening and logical argument, not authoritarian "parenting".
^^^^ this. We have several members of this group expounding from “on high”. One who repeatedly pushes his book and speaks condescendingly to any that challenge him, and two others that have absented themselves from the country and do the same.
I am 100% behind Biden and Harris.
Linda, in addition to what Biden and Harris have accomplished, these two articles explain why I’m 100% behind them.
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/grow-a-spine-democrats?utm_medium=reader2
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/step-outside-the-bubble?utm_medium=reader2
Hi Mary, Thanks for the links. I read Hubbell, I had not read Truscott. I feel he put beautifully what I am feeling about those in the Democratic party who are questioning Biden as well as the NYT, which I dropped after having some dumber than dirt exchanges with some little Ivy league baby twit political editor whose name I don't recall who has absolutely no life qualifications to be reporting on anything other than partying with the Millennials, who had the gall to argue with what I was saying rather than post my comment against their polling. Now I have dropped WaPo too, and while I don't normally read US Politico, I have been super angry at the Berlin version in German and had to write to them several times on their US misinformation.
Read them both, thanks, Mary!
Morning, Lynell! Some really good reading here.
Afternoon, Ally! Gone are the good old days when there were only 2 or 3 major newspapers to read.
BTW, I just read that Jill Biden will be the cover star of Vogue Magazine's August 2024 edition. How cool!
Both of those are great reads!💙💙💙
And I am 1,000% behind shooting Trump and Orbán into deep space or another galaxy.🚀
¿Why? 🫣
Because each looks like he just exited the 'Star Wars' bar-room scene. 🥳
🚽🍊💩
We are on the precipice of deciding on a State aligned with Despots and Dictators or people of good will and intentions . How we got here is fairly clear: Corporations are human and money is their voice. Insane, absurd, oh yes! Of course the Oligarchs will pay any price to buy the government. We just weren't paying enough attention... We have one more chance to stop this madness and move toward A More Perfect Union. Get Out The Vote! And drive the villains back underground where they belong.
And don't forget your down ballot races. BlueVoterGuide.org makes tracking your ballot races easier. Spread the word.
Thanks David. I went to this site and found a sheer misrepresentation on AMMENDMENT proposal for WV again so written as to confuse the general public what they actually vote for, repeatedly done here.Double Talk. 🤦♀️
And now that SCOTUS has chosen the “nuclear option” with their immunity opinion, we can look back—as far back as Citizens United—and see where their decisions have been deliberately leading us. The immunity opinion was a shock, but really, in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been.
Apparently, the current conservative Supreme Court has not read the declaration of independence. We don’t want a king!
Not a shock. A girl can dream but wasn’t surprised in the least. The writing on the wall has been become brighter and brighter, we have succumbed to a Christian nationalist Supreme Court.
Do you think the supremes will let a resounding Biden win stand?
And has anyone been thinking/ talking/worrying about the machinations probably already begun to “rig” the election at the state level? They have learned from their past mistakes and are working to be sure not to let that happen again.
It is probably a done deal with the Supreme's in tfg's back pocket. I believe Biden could win in a landslide and they would still throw the election to the R's
D4N I made the observation a few days ago that if this "debate" had been in 1860, the newspaper headline would have been "Trump Lied, Biden tired" and people would have read the copy along with some pundits remarks and eye witness accounts from the 500 people there who could hear. Biden would win....and I agree that Trump is the best snake oil salesman in the US.
Biden was in shock at the crude, crass, liar permitted to share the forum. Shock!
The sad part is the Biden campaign invited Trump to debate. My close friends and I who have worked in political campaigns believed this was a mistake. They should have instead when asked if they would debate said " He's a serial liar, he's in total denial about his Big Lie, losing the election and J6 and he's a convicted felon. Plus he doesn't "debate", he just repeats his false talking points, why should we give him airtime with the President who already beat him ?"
HRC told them pretty much the same, so I read. Joe should really be pissed at his trusted advisors
He should have fired them all and hired Jen Psaki back. He needs to surround himself with smart young people who know what is going on - and David Axelrod & Rick Wilson. They all knew the debate was a mistake.
I am afraid there is too much ego involved in all this and this is never good.
American democracy done in by egos, God, I hope not
Also, I agree that he should not have even stepped on stage with a serial liar..convicted felon. That was a mistake.
I dont think he was shocked as much as feeling bullied. It may have been he felt intimidated by Butch. Watch The Little Rascals. You’ll know what I mean
And for some reason the media continues to dog Biden. No mention of Trump's lies, no mention of his 34 guilty verdicts, no mention of the Heritage Foundation and it's connections to Orban and Russia. Only news of ANOTHER Democrat saying he should step down.
Susan, you’re so right. I worked for the ABC-TV affiliate in Washington, DC during Watergate. Can you imagine how I feel about how low our Fourth Estate has since sunk? So many enforcements that kept radicalism in check then are gone now. They were chiseled away one after the other by the far right. Now, ownership of U.S.media is a short list of billionaires without conscience. The sameness is mind-numbing: literally and on purpose. We have to rely on smaller but more truthful sources — and each other.
Exactly. This coup comes to look like an all-out assault that includes journalists who should have been expected to be responsible. Shameful.
Susan -- And the President said ( yesterday on the 4th, I think) that he was totally exhausted at the "debate"/debacle, having been traveling nonstop for days! He also said that he will no longer schedule anything after 4:00. I'm an old lady (8 years older than Biden) and need a nap every afternoon so I can stay up until midnight! ;-)
I will, any day, every day, from here to eternity, choose to follow someone who elevates us, ALL of us, who calls on us to always be our better selves, rather than bow to a fearmongering, name-calling, egotistical fool who lies and rips others apart at the slightest opportunity.
We cannot continue to over focus on the past and move this campaign forward. We must secure a win for Joe Biden. Anything else is a drag on the momentum of the campaign.
Well, I belong in Mark Cuban's camp too. And I completely agree - the only entity in control of that dam debate was CNN & the rest of the so-called media!
Biden never had a chance. I heard someone who understood the technicalities of the mics etc say there was no reason someone couldnt have increased the audio on Biden's mic. Obviously that wouldnt have solved the problem with the opposite "podium" but it might just have made things a bit more, shall we say, even??
As Katie Porter said on ASpen Ideas - the time to replace Joe Biden was two or three years ago! How the Dems are so shocked & awed by his age NOW? He was older THEN!
Optics rule, doncha know…. Damn, that carnival barker is so entertaining, say the real suckers and losers
I agree with the accusation of media paralysis in reporting the debate. I watched the entire debate and was struck by Trump’s verbal diarrhea of the usual lies, half truths and meaningless noise that I presumed Joe Biden was so stunned he could not respond with rationality.
The President did fumble a couple of times and age could produce such moments but a dedicated person must be weighed by accomplishment rather than stage presence.
Trump was resuming his role as a TV entertainer and played the part well. As in his life he relishes and enjoys creating the image of capability much as did Edgar Bergen’s “Charlie McCarthy.” A puppet without visible strings.
Yes to what you have written here. Still, we need to figure out how to defeat Trump and MAGA candidates for the Congress on this coming election. The key issue is should Biden step down, and if so what is the best ticket. Please share your thoughts.
Heather Cox Richardson has spoken to this on Amanpour which Robert Hubbell provided a link to in his substack. It is around 11 minutes of HCR gold.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/03/tv/video/amanpour-heather-cox-richardson?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
My Democrats Abroad group is talking about it. I love that she points out that SCOTUS is staging a coup of our government. They certainly are not following the constitution which they have sworn to uphold. I think we should be asking all of our politicians, not just ones on the Judicial committee to impeach them.
Yes, highly recommend listening to this; just finished and HCR basically stated that it's not about the two people currently running but rather, what their respective administrations will do for the country, and she feels it's a clear choice to elect the one that's not going to destroy democracy, not engaging in a "legal coup." (I am paraphrasing; any misinterpretation is solely my own error.)
We must support and vote for whoever is the Democratic candidate for POTUS in November. Just the way we did 4 years ago. No protests, no sitting out and we must turn out the vote, especially in the swing states.
We have the capacity to sweep. Register more Democrats to empower those votes.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ft62024
Linda Weide -- many thanks for the link! I'll watch it later.
Thank you Linda for the link. I have just watched. Excellent. DEMs should develop a short platform, easy to understand, and make the election in terms of not Biden vs Trump but in terms of Biden's platform vs Trump's.
Great link, thank you!
WOW! Thank you. I will repost the link you sent often!
I agree totally with your assessment of HCR’s interview.
Stick with Joe and Kamala!
The last three and a half years of progress and healing make that quite clear. This isn't the first time pretend allies have promoted the notion of changing horses in midstream. It's not a new tactic, but with the short time between now and the election it'd guarantee a loss.
That SHOULD be "Clear as Daylight" to anyone capable of rational thought. BUT this election cycle is getting shorter fast. Don't change horses in the middle of a stream... That's why they are OLD sayings, they're TRUE. That option has passed. AND Biden is a very good president.
It's President Biden's decision, based on his knowledge of his own condition, his meetings with trusted elected officials and staff and his family's input. Our job is too defeat Donald Trump no matter who the Democratic candidate is. We should tell our elected officials how we feel in direct communication with them. A floor fight at the convention is absurd. In 1876 Sitting Bull had a vision and Crazy Horse carried it out. They united Native tribes who had never worked together before to focus on George Custer and his 7th Calvary. They destroyed Custer's unit in the most total and overwhelming defeat in US Military history. That's what we must do.
I wish I had the right answer....I don't know.
If you don’t know, wait.
All we can do is wait, but in the meantime avoid calling Biden's abilities into question. The NYT is doing enough of that for all of us.
All experts on fascism agree that we need to stand behind our candidate. See Professors Timothy Synder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-fascism
https://lucid.substack.com/p/the-debate-and-the-firehose-of-falsehood
Look at all 3 video clips in the above link, but if. you only want one, choose the last one.
I so agree with you. It is egregious to discount all of the work President Biden has accomplished based upon one “debate”. Has everyone forgotten his State of the Union Address? Thank you for your post.
D4N - "In other matters, I haven't changed my view of that alleged 'debate' - it simply was not worthy of being noted as a U.S. presidential debate."
The age question for presidential candidates is more than four decades old.
"𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑔𝑛. 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑖𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡'𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒." --President Ronald Reagan
At its heart, the question — how old is too old to be president? — is about competence.
Ronald Reagan faced those same questions even before he was elected as the oldest president to that point.
Debates seemed natural settings for the smooth-talking former Hollywood actor. But his performance in the first showdown with Mondale in the 1984 campaign brought the age issue roaring back.
The president, then 73, rambled and hesitated. He seemed to lose his train of thought at one point and appeared tired at others.
No one had seen him perform publicly in such a way, recalled Jaroslovsky, who co-authored a story headlined: “New Question in Race: Is Oldest U.S. President Now Showing His Age?”
Reagan's age — really, his fitness for a second term — was now indelibly part of the 1984 race.
Reagan's operation said he had been tired. There was sniping about the staff overpreparing him.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/questions-bidens-age-fitness-reminiscent-campaign-reagans-1984-111665472
Here, here. I absolutely agree.
When no one watches their broadcasts and thus does not view the ads that support the network perhaps the loss of revenue will influence their actions. BOYCOTT CNN AND THE OTHER REPUBLICAN OWNED MEDIA!
Very well said - and I appreciate your comment about reading the transcript. Biden did make a lot of good points, during the debate. It's so damn sad that they were overshadowed by trump, and then the complicit media.
This just makes it all the more obvious that the six SC judges are in on the plan. This is an insurrection in progress.
They must be removed from the bench, by whatever means necessary. Their actions are treason, as Jan 6th put us into war.
They do not have to be removed. If Biden (or some other Democrat) can win and we keep the Senate, but with real Dems, not Sinema and Manchin, the DEm President can nominate and the Senate approve of 3 additional Justices retaking the majority. Roberts could impede progress, but probably couldn't stop it. Hopefully, an inforcable code of conduct who cause Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves.
Stacking the court is not the answer but term limits on the justices is. Them being there for life is ridiculous considering the lifespan now is 100!
The problem with that is that term limits for the SC will most likely require a constitutional amendment, which is nigh near impossible. As it is designed to be.
However, expanding the court only requires an act of Congress, since that is fully within the purview of Congress. Last set at 9 in 1869, it's due for a change, since we're a much more populous nation now.
13 seats on the Supreme Court to match the number of District Courts.
The average lifespan of an American was 76.33 years in 2021 and has been going down for almost 10 years.
Lifespans for those that have led cushy careers aren’t going down though.
SCOTUS needs yo be expanded to 13 justices which would mean one justice per circuit court of appeals, consistent with how the number of justices was originally determined, so each justice can oversee one circuit.
Don't forget there is the filibuster. And 6-6 is not a majority.
After Democrats ended the filibuster for all presidential nominees except SCOTUS, Republicans ended the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees ("Reid orchestrated a move to lower the Senate vote threshold to 51 to confirm most presidential appointments — but not nominees to the Supreme Court."):
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/01/fact-check-gop-ended-senate-filibuster-supreme-court-nominees/3573369001/
Thanks, I didn't know.
Alas, not a chance that Joe Biden would do that. He has done well for the past 3+ years and I applaud his progress. But he is a traditional politician and stacking the court is not a traditional action. I agree that increasing the size of the court and appointing liberal justices is a good idea. I just don't think it's feasible.
“Stacking the court” needs to be replaced with “aligning the court to correspond to the number of circuit courts as originally designed.” More palatable?
Lynn, I have heard people saying stacking or expanding hits people the wrong way. Unpacking has been suggested but I like your idea of aligning.
I do believe a super majority would be needed. Since it would be Biden’s last term, he might just embark on such a plan. Don’t rule it out.
That’s a bit long to wait
HCR calls it a coup in her interview:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/03/tv/video/amanpour-heather-cox-richardson
Spot on Link Lynell. HCR in Top form:
1. SCOTUS held on to the "immunity" case to stop any trial before the Election
Caveat: More on that later as there are hearings Judge Chutkan can start holding before Labor Day
2. HCR nailed 2 SCOTUS Opinions:
* the CHEVRON opinion -- the destruction of the modern state.
* the Bribery-after-the- fact is OK; I call that case the 'Thomas Life Line.
Have a safe & politically productive 7/ 5 to 11/5/24. 4 months Everyone.
Bryan, I'm thinking Judge Chutkan having an evidentiary hearing being held closer to the election where Jack Smith gets to lay his case all out - with the public having access through the press (?) might end up being better in the long run?
Many possibilities. There are about 30 days before the case is under Chutkan's judicial authority.
exactly! a "legal coup."
Love this interview. Thank You Lynell (VA by way of MD&DC). Everybody, this is a must see interview. Share it around.
ML, I saw it on my msn feed, so it's getting lots of attention!
Thank you for that link. Important interview!
Thanks for sharing this interview
Supreme Court is the tip of the spear of Project 2025.
A bloodless one if the left will allow it, according to Kevin Roberts. Why isn't that in my morning news feed...instead of another Democrat thinks Biden should step down.
If Trump is elected...it will be the media that has helped him.
I absolutely agree with you....100%
Yesterday I called it a slow-motion coup. You nailed it, too. ❗️😢🤬
Trump violated the Logan Act when he entertained Victor Orban at Mar-a-Lago in March. That unofficial visit interferes with US foreign policy--and Biden should have Trump arrested for this unofficial act--for which he is not immune according to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, no guns are allowed in Hungary. Tell that to Trump supporters!
Send this note to Biden’s staff at the White House. Tonite. See what you get for a response. And let us know!
Please. And thank you! Karen 😊
I had thought about it, and you encouraged me. So I just wrote to the White House. I’ll let you know if I get a response. ( I doubt it). I had previously sent this comment to my Senator, hoping he would be more influential. No response yet.
???
"Vote for Trump: he's cummin' fo' yer GUNS!"
If Trump takes power, removing guns from the population will probably be the next step (a la Orban). Those of us who want this to happen, will be happy....and not see it is the next step in the Heritage plan.
And what about the Hatch Act…..
Don’t forget the underlying motive here. To protect Big Capital from even the slightest concession to working people, to destroy the Left that represents the interests of working people, and to deceive those people into supporting their own demise as though they were threatened by the Left when in fact it is the Right that wants to exploit and then discard them. Don’t forget that Capital will choose fascism over democracy to prevent concessions to the people. With trillions of wealth having been transferred from the middle class to the owning class they are still threatened and horrified at the thought of giving back anything to the rest of us. The game of stirring up fear of losing patriarchal and white power has been played for so long and never gets old, but to shore it up they find ever new forms of culture war. Eyes on the Prize! It’s not really the family they care about, it’s their own power.
So, USE government power to regulate families but ELIMINATE government power to regulate business. Do I have that right?
Yes. The executive powers of agencies neutered while empowering the Chief Executive? Transparency on motives for the king and his minions seeking no constraints on their actions.
Until the businesses are turned into slaves like Mr. P has collars on their business leaders
The first time I started reading Dark Money by Jane Mayer, I wasn't familiar with the names, and it was all confusing, and I gave up. I've just picked it up again, and now the names are all too familiar. I've just started, and I've got hundreds of pages to go, but even not being very far into it, I recommend it highly. She wrote it in 2016, so it's not current, but I'm sure that there are recent articles in the New Yorker where she'll bring us up to date if we're patient--background first, current events second, but all asap so that we understand the depth and breadth of the powers that we're facing. As Benjamin Franklin warned us, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Be resolved--now is the time for solidarity.
I’m recalling January 27, 1998, when Hillary Clinton uttered the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” and everyone mocked her. She was our Cassandra.
Also Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean. Evil Geniuses, Kurt Andersen, Prequel, Rachel Maddow, How the South Won the Civil War. Heather Cox Richardson
A warning, like Bill Moyers was. Ignored by most. Is it too late now?
Excellent thank you Jessica. I’ll go to sleep now & re read everything tomorrow. The money piece is HUGE … in this drama… and there’s so many moving pieces’ …and the word ‘Drama’ belittles the extreme possible outcomes/consequences of not truly seeing the many possible outcomes/crashes/
Holy Sh*t Jessica Benjamin, I wish I could have as eloquently summed up our situation as you just have. You have hit the nail on the head!
Right now the Republican Party is fine with no restrictions on guns. Why would they be. For now they see those weapons in the hands of their supporters, their own private army to be used to suppress any protest from those who support a true democracy. Let us not forget Kyle Rittenhouse ( as soon as I began to type the “R” my auto correct finished for me) that pathetic little whiner murdered two protesters and was found not guilty and went on to be a darling of the Right. If the far right succeeds , the second amendment will have served it purpose and an armed citizenry would no longer be needed as the US military would be their own private army. That is when the government will be taking their guns away and from their cold dead arms.
This is the most serious crisis for the country in my lifetime, and I am 74. I want to see everyone unite behind Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot. United we stand and divided we fall. The danger here is not Biden; it’s Trump, Leonard Leo, Kevin Roberts, a radical Supreme Court gang of six, and Project 2025. This is very serious and we have to fight for democracy or we can kiss it goodbye. We must fight by voting and alerting people to the real dangers; not the distractions. I’m not religious, but in a sense of the word I am praying that an overwhelming majority of people will fight for democracy. And that means voting for Biden and Democrats top to bottom on the ballot.
This is the most serious crisis for the world in my lifetime, and I am 84, born one month into the Second World War.
The issue to be put to the vote in November is nothing to do with personalities, nothing to do with old men.
It is DO YOU WANT THE DICTATORSHIP OF BIG MONEY -- ALL power, ALL freedom to vast occult forces, in America, offshore, in Moscow, in Beijing, in Pyongyang and elsewhere?
OR
DO YOU WANT TO UPHOLD AND DEVELOP GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE?
TAKE YOUR PICK.
And both parties support the dictatorship of big money so neither Trump nor Biden are acceptable.Biden is just as beholden to them as Trump.
John Daigle,
When faced with great power, there is no choice. You have to take account of that power.
An obvious metaphor: sailing and there's a strong wind. You can let yourself be driven before it... onto the rocks... Or you can tack against it and hold your course.
There's a world of difference between the two actions, the two courses.
One represents guaranteed suicide, with the other, there's a chance.
Great change is on the way, whatever happens now.
John is for chump via RFKJ, don’t be fooled
I see.
Whichever side of a skyscraper someone chooses to jump off, the outcome's the same.
Seems so to me
I guess Hillary Clinton rode the wind. She did exactly what the empire wanted and destroyed Ghadafi and LIbya
John Daigle, If you think Biden and Trump are roughly equivalent, you must not be paying attention. They aren’t even close.
They are very different but both are beholden to the corporations that now control our government through lobbying and the capture of our government agencies. Bobby Kennedy will stop this and Trump and Biden had their chance but failed. Trump is a liar and Biden is inept.
I do not think Biden is inept—just the contrary. Look at his presidency. I do however think a vote for Robert Kennedy Jr. amounts to a vote for Trump. We simply can’t afford that.
I understand that Liz Smith and the DNC are pushing that narrative that a vote for Bobby is a vote for Trump. I don’t agree with that. To me it’s Orwellian propaganda to stop Bobby, who gives us a real chance to throw off the corporations and answer to we the people!
WR. Agree totally. I would add one more danger: the press. The knee jerk attack on Biden’s age and their failure to address Trump lies is shocking.
I've recently subscribed to Ground News. Everything is reported by multiple sources, and each source is analyzed for political view (left, center, and right) with summaries for each viewpoint. It's the antidote to disinformation and left or right knowledge silo thinking.
MSNBC is left leaning and also objective. Right leaning news organizations have it wrong. The two sides are not the same.
Yes, the press is missing the issue here. “Is Biden too old” isn’t the issue. He’s not, but that’s not the issue. The issue is the Republican coup attempt.
Fox never mentions chump’s lies, spin and vitriol
See BlueVoterGuide.org for a guide to down-ballot Democratic candidates customized to your address.
Sister districts. https://sisterdistrict.com/
I wouldn t vote for a Biden ever again! I already made that mistake once. The worst president of my lifetime by far: we are on the brink of nuclear annihilation in two areas of the world. Ukraine - at least half a million dead - in a war provoked deliberately by US/NATO to use Ukraine as a proxy to attack Russia. The present government of Israel are the dangerous extreme end-times believing religious fanatics with nuclear weapons that the world has long feared and Bush/Cheney neocon war mongers like Joe Biden are just salivating for their long held plans to take out Iran and other countries in the region. Far right-wing neocon War criminal Joe Biden (that uses wokeism and "liberalism" as a fig leaf) has since the start of his presidency used social media corporations to censor Americans free speech and so called liberal wing members of the Supreme Court just granted massive corporate and government censorship. Look up the definition of fascism: an authoritarian government that combines state and corporate control, which is what we have here now thanks to Genocide Joe Biden! Sanctions implemented by Biden along with massive money printing by the US banking mobsters has led to massive inflation in the US and dumping of the US Dollar around the world. These sanctions have also led to famines in parts of Africa because of restrictions of fertilizer that were created.
Wow, the MAGA poo machine has really done a number on you - brainwashed into believing the far right actually care about you and have your best interests at heart. But once your daughters and granddaughters are saddled with ten children each or die from an ectopic pregnancy, and you yourself have no social security or medical care to support you when times are tough, no government pension to see out your retirement and you've ended up living in a cardboard box hoping your bump stock machine-gun wielding brethren don't mow you down on a whim, then maybe you'll realise you were shafted.
Your ridiculous, hysterical, conspiracy-theory style comments told me exactly what you’ve been listening to and believing. Do your homework. Read widely. Look at the economic facts. Biden, like him or not, is your greatest hope to retain the rights and freedoms you and your family currently take for granted. Biden has been creating prosperity in the US and it will only get better for the hard working average Joe and his family. Unless you’re part of the mega rich billionaire set who create the propaganda you listen to, then you’ll be shafted, living in a world where you have to put up and shut up while they sip French champagne on their yachts.
Your reply attributes views to myself which I have never stated and completely ignores what I did say since I assume you are not willing to engage on those topics.
Can I buy some of that dope you are on so I can feed it to my ex brother-in-law for screwing up my sister?
Since your reply gives no mention of specific disagreement and nothing but ad hominem, impossible to respond.
Troll
Whenever someone disagrees with you that’s ok, you are not ok to call names
I've recently learned that when I see a post by Mr. Bill Katz I hold my nose.
Get a whiff of John D
Post your Heritage Foundation email.
Propaganda works on all stripes of fools
That has been my assessment of so called liberals who have swallowed the latest cold war propaganda by the US military industrial complex. Former hippies have turned into Russia hating Bush/Cheney neocon warmongers because of being told Trump is in cahoots with Putin and believing falsehoods repeated continually by Joe Biden and the corporate western media that Putin is the new Hitler and that Russia intends to invade Europe. Rooting for corrupt neocon war criminal Joe Biden is very much like hippies in the 60's cheering for the other corrupt war criminal LBJ, which would have never happened.
Using Trump derangement syndrome to turn so called liberals into bloodthirsty neocon warmongers was a masterful CIA psyop, I must admit. They use liberals because they are presently the majority political entity whereas previously in the 1960's and 1950's they had sold anti-communism to conservatives to promote their colonial wars of aggression. But the imperialist US and British oligarchical empires have always masters of playing different groups against each other.
Trump admires Putin and wants his approval. The military industrial complex didn’t tell me that; I’ve observed it.
Now I think you are trolling.
Interesting during the Trump administration US/Nato training and arming of Ukraine continued. It was also during the Trump administration that the US withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, a dangerous and major escalation of strategic tensions that Putin loudly protested. Odd if Trump wants Putin's approval.
As a former lifelong Democrat till recently, there is little I like about Trump. But the slim chance that he might intervene to prevent WW3 makes him far better as a candidate than neocon war monger Joe Biden. Bottom line is Joe Biden won't talk to Putin and continues the path of Ukraine becoming part of NATO. Putin has said they will use nukes before allowing Ukraine to be part of NATO.
Biden obviously won t negotiate to let Ukraine be neutral as it was before 2014 so we have a very dangerous situation. Do you want Ukraine part of NATO or do you want to be alive in a year?
https://thekennedybeacon.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-the-war-in-ukraine?sd=pf
If you think I’m trolling we are not going to be able to have a conversation, so I am going to say goodbye and I wish you well.
Genocide Joe, What you’re describing does not resemble at all the Biden presidency I’ve observed. One of us is way off base here.
Perhaps you haven't observed corrupt neocon war criminal Joe Biden's actual nature because you have been paying too much attention to the western corporate media, including the NY Times, which is nearly useless in arriving at a reliable assessment of realty.
A hint may make it easier: days before whining repeatedly about swastika carrying Nazis in Charlottesville being the reason he ran for president, his administration approved sending US weapons to the openly Nazi Azov battalion in Ukraine. Let that sink in.
Neocon War criminal Joe Biden has always wholeheartedly approved and supported every US neocon war of choice with millions of dead in Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine.
Perhaps you haven t noticed neocon war criminal Victoria Nuland, former prominent member of the Biden's administration foreign policy team (and good friend of Hillary Clinton). She is married to Robert Kagan who was a co founder of the think tank Project for the New American Century. She worked under Dick Cheney for many years during the time of the Iraq war. During the Obama administration, she directed the color revolution in Ukraine that toppled the democratically elected government of Victor Yannucovich and installed pro-Nazi anti-Russian extremists that began a CIA directed dirty war that killed tens of thousands of ethnic Russian Ukranians, especially in eastern Ukraine.
There are many other neocons in Biden's administration.
Last year Biden nominated prominent neocon Elliott Abrams to a diplomacy commission. A former Republican official, Abrams was described as an apologist for mass murder and "defender of Latin American death squads and cheerleader for murderous US foreign policy interventions."
You are mistaken if you think there really is any difference between the two parties.
You do pack a lot of information into one comment. I could fact check each one of these statements, but I believe the Biden administration and Democrats in general are doing a good job of working for the American people, and I also believe that the Republicans want to take over the reins of government so they can ram their agenda down our collective throats. For me there is no equivalency whatsoever. I understand that you see it differently.
Don't engage with people who post Russian propaganda. It's a losing proposition.
Well that is a novel excuse! Even if they wanted to, I doubt most subscribers to this blog are even remotely capable of engaging in a coherent debate on foreign policy issues. So far I have seen none.
I'd really like to have some of what you're on. My arthritis has been acting up again. It's getting so it's hard to sleep at night.
Boy you MAGAS love to project. None of the crap you are talking about ever existed. You are FOS about Ukraine even brainwashed with conspiracy theories. This is the biggest piece BS I've ever read
Nope.
You are a sick man. Bless your little black heart.
Obviously, as the saying goes, you can't handle the truth.
Yes Biden is a sick demented war criminal!
Any chance that Kevin Roberts is a nephew of John Roberts?
With any luck, Bannon will demonstrate his power by coming out of prison feet first in a black plastic bag.
He is such a slime bag. Makes dump look like nothing….
Must we waste perfectly good double thick black plastic?
No. It's bad for the environment. We hafta use the biodegradable kind.
lol,
That would give SCOTUS something to think about.
There is not nearly the heightened state of panic in this country about the prospect of another t presidency. A compliant media, flaccid leaders, Democrats who treat this emergency as just another political rivalry and a lethargic, apathetic public are converging for the demise of democracy and the establishment of a formal American dictatorship.
Neither media nor politicians are really telling the truth. It’s like a surreal rom com. There is so much idea pollution out there. We’re on our pun with the help of guides like history, through Heather and a few others. Thank you Heather.💙
Well said Marilyn. Biden said he would not run for re-election, he was a bridge. Perfect. He picked a still unpopular (zero delegates in her primary for President)/not particularly qualified VP to try and satisfy/rectify centuries of racism. FDR knew he was dying and dumped VP Wallace for Truman. Because Dems never agree on anything, because no natural alternative emerged, because perhaps Biden got a little full of himself, he ran again. Now with 5 months to the election Dems STILL can not agree on anything/anyone and will do....what? What exactly is the Dems' plan to save our democracy, NATO and the torch of free fair elections around the world? Rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, so far.
Biden cannot beat Trump because independents and undecideds don't consider deeper concepts like Heather's wonderful column. If Biden stays in the race, the effect will be no different than Ruth Bader Ginsberg not retiring when there was a chance to place a qualified justice. Trump will win and our republic will end.
I dissent.
I dissent.
So true, have thought that for decades. W/Dickie scared the crap out of me…
You’ve cleared away many questions and helped me begin to see the whole picture of what’s been happening in recent years and what some (Orban, Putin, Heritage Foundation et al) intend for us — American citizens). We’ve got serious work to do.
The alliance of Victor Orban, Donald Trump, and Steve Bannon has brought us to the brink of fascism. We cannot go over the edge. Thankfully, the UK elections shows us a different path.
No matter what, some of these people need further investigation. Domestic enemy of the Constitution should be a concept easily defined and understood.
Now that the Supreme Court 6 "conservative" justices are also domestic enemies of the Constitution, where does that leave USians? Can a sitting President maybe say "no thanks" to the Supreme Court ruling, "I reject these expanded powers! And my Justice Department is going to charge you with treason!" That would be very ironic.
Joe would never
Yupper, now you are seeing it.
They did what Winston said that we do. Do everything else before doing the right thing. The sentence with the most devastating and consequential ramifications for us is this one. “While Hungry still holds elections, state control of the media and the apparatus of voting means that it is impossible for the people of Hungry to remove him from power.” Well duh.
Add Putin.
But it took years to get rid of the Conservatives. I am happy for the Brits.
...and should we ignore France?
Happy 4th Heather! Thank you for making saving our democracy your life’s work. We are incredibly fortunate to have you in our corner at this moment in time. I think one of the threats we face is that all that matters to mainstream media news is click-bait, not the truth. Sure wish we could bring back the fairness doctrine! 💙🇺🇸
We are fk'd because Americans in 2024 are selfish and are the bystander effect personified. We will continue to slow walk into ALL of what we read here because people would rather complain online than protest/march. Waiting until November is not going to save us. They are admitting they won't even accept the election results!!! We have to weaken their resolve by taking a Nationwide public stand to show them we are the majority and we won't cede anything to fascists without a fight! Imagine how many people would be inspired and motivated to speak up if we marched! They aren't playing by the same old rules and some of us will die, yes die, if trump gets into office! Wake up!!! Get out there! MSM won't save you!
One thing is certain. We won't be doing much marching if Trump wins. His unmarked troops will be allowed to shoot to kill. Immunity is a powerful thing.
I've heard real change occurs most effectively through political "movements."
Time to march.
Sit ins won’t enough. Movements needed
https://danielsolomon.substack.com/p/enlarge-the-base?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=742145&post_id=146306993&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=zc69i&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The enemy is Project 2025. Recognition of that is beginning to get some traction but has a long way to go and needs the singing of a much larger choir.
My reluctant belief
Saying we are f*cked is giving up. Don’t do it.
The corrupt supreme court has begun the destruction of our democracy. We cannot allow another republican to be elected president for decades, or they will cram more corrupt judges down our throats and we will completely lose the democracy that remains.
We are losing our freedom. The trumpicans like bannon are destroying our country, bit by bit. What are we going to do about it?
That has been their stated purpose for years. Burn it all down!
Stated, overtly and with no shame.
Project 2025 is everything Heather mentions here and much more. The impact of its dismantling of the administrative state - which dovetails nicely with what the unqualified wingnuts on the Supreme Court have just unloaded on the citizenry - will make it extraordinarily difficult for the U.S. to prepare for (much less prevent) the rapidly developing climate and biodiversity crises. Political theater is one thing, but burning down the theater with us in it is quite another.
The human theater exists within planetary realities which will neither pause for nor respect the political triumph of a religious minority over common decency. For those of you interested in the environmental implications of Project 2025, I've written on it here (https://jasonanthony.substack.com/p/over-the-cliff). This is from February, so it needs updating, which I'll do this summer when I republish it.
The corruption of the Supreme Court through the appointment of ideological zealots by Republican presidents has been at the heart of the oligarchs' strategy to destroy American democracy. The oligarchs have had the Devil's own luck at times with stacking the Court but they have succeeded through the single-minded agency of Leonard Leo (a tip of the hat also to Mitch McConnell).
The oligarchs, Christian fundamentalists, and neo-fascists at the Heritage Foundation celebrate the capture of the Supreme Court as it delivers decisions that have devastating consequences for American democracy.
With the Supreme Court in their pocket and armed with its decision in Trump v. United States, the oligarchs and the menagerie of malcontents associated with them are giddy with expectation about the return of King Donald to the throne. He will smite the hated liberals and reign over an America reshaped by the dystopian framework elaborated in Project 2025.
If the oligarchs are to be denied their ultimate goal of ensuring that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" perishes from the earth, voters must be clear-eyed as to the danger posed by Trump. He must be stopped at the ballot box lest he complete the oligarchs' plan to destroy American democracy.
Amen
I awoke here in the UK to a country that has the potential to be very different from the last 14 years of Tory ineptitude, but like the British in 1939, the situation is precarious because the UK cannot hold the line against fascism all alone. Keir Starmer, the new PM, is a boring but secretly very smart guy whose claims to fame have been that he is a noted human rights lawyer and grew up in a working class household, so is the kind of success story that occurred during the last major Labour regime, that of Tony Blair in the 1990s. But the nationalist fascist party, "Reform" is going to be seated in Parliament with 4 seats, largely as a result of people switching from the Conservatives. The good news is that the centrist party, the Lib-Dems, has built a much larger third-party presence after the total disaster of their coalition with the Tories under David Cameron (who has been the foreign secretary but who will always be remembered as the guy who, when at university, stuck his wanky into the mouth of a roasted pig's head during a fancy Oxford High Table dinner party). They are a solid partner, ideologically, with the Labour Party as it is far less socialist these days and far more centrist, on the Blair model. This is instructive. If the USA flips to the fascist side, the UK will be exposed in a way it has never been since 1939. And expect Putin to invade not only Ukraine, but everything to the Danube. And meet up with the fascist "National Rally" party in France and all the extremist parties in Germany, the Low Countries, and Italy. I am utterly serious here: it's not just our survival that is at stake.
That it's not just the survival of the US of A that's at stake - it's everyone and, may I say everything (our liveable planet) that's at stake - it's a truly existential moment.
Linda, I did not know you were in the UK. You are not in KCMO anymore. Sorry for the reference to the Labour Party as the Labor Party.
Crisp update on the UK! Best Regards.
I'm here for combination of work and a week of rest from the mayhem at home but I always follow British politics closely, as it makes a difference for me in terms of work, colleagues, and friends as academia is (like in the USA) being hollowed out. I am hoping things do change here--I might need somewhere for me and my dog to go should things go south in November at home!
I got an Ad last we from a company that sells homes to the growing American Expatriate Colony in Portugal - Muito bien. If it goes south Go South. I Always loved the South Island in New Zealand but, I am a stay-and-figh-kinda guy - retired Trial Attorney & still Active ABA. Salud.
I have former colleagues who just retired and moved to Portugal, but the situation on the Continent is, I think, anxiety inducing. I have reasons for staying in the USA, but I also belong to the kind of demographic that would be in the first wave of rounding up for "re-education" should Project 2025 come into play . . . So as I have many dear friends here in the UK, it feels a bit safer as a potential bolt hole. On the basis of your name, gender, and (ahem) whiteness, you would be less likely to be targeted than I--an academic, feminist, female, not a Christian, not hetero-cis, etc.
Understand all your points, But, I am quite visible busy supporting the Forensic Psychiatrists Team who are weighing in on the tfg's mental capacity & threat to the entire World.
Dr. Bandy Lee is holding a digital Meeting at NOON Eastern,TODAY, 7/5/24, Nine AM Pacific which gives me 80 minutes to get ready for "LIVE Session with Dr. Lee: New Series" The topics are 'Why Trump Needs To Be:
1. Imprisoned
2. Properly Tested
3. Kept on Probation' by the NY Dept of Corrections & Probation
These Psychiatrists are putting there physical lives & professional careers on the line.
YES, if you are asking I have kept Dr Lee aware that Judge Merchan will rule on tfg's 2 bogus motions on August 8, 2024.
Also, Judge Merchan has TENTATIVELY re-scheduled tfg's Sentencing Hearing now docketed for August 18, 2024.
I have been reminding folks that separate from the 34 Felonies, the Court has already found tfg in contempt on 10 separate counts & warned the Perp of possible "incarceration."
FYI, Dr. Bandy X. Lee has been posting her new book chapter-by- chapter for her Substack Subscribers. Dr. Lee is on CHAPTER 12, essentially treatment.
I saw a film not all that long ago. In one scene there was the most curious dialogue..
“If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone”
~Michael Corleone
The Godfather Part II, art imitating life..
These have been desperate times we’ve been living in, it’s high time for desperate measures. Jan 6th was an act of war, we have yet to respond accordingly.
What do we do then?
We act, by means of those who we sent to D.C. to represent our interests. We demand that they deploy the appropriate resources and responses that an act of war against us requires. We demand that which should have been deployed just after Jan 6th be deployed now. Like In any other country that has its seat of government attacked by an aggressor trying to overthrow it.
No disrespect intended, but all drama aside you’re saying we wait for November’s election results? Did I understand your opinion correctly?
Oh Anne, none taken. Actually I meant that those that were responsible for the act of war on Jan 6th be taken into custody and held without bond as enemy combatants, tried in front of a military tribunal for waging war against the United States. This is what should have happened by the end of that week, as Jan 6th 2021 was a Wednesday.
Not now. Gnite.