Going into the weekend during which Americans celebrated the 250th anniversary of the day on which the Second Continental Congress accepted the Declaration of Independence, President Donald J.
This poem was written a few years ago. Cedar Hills Cemetery is close to my residence in Hartford and I once visited after dark on July 4 in order to observe the wildlife inside become spastic during the fireworks now used by homeowners. The following are my recollections in poem form.
I once asked a mother wheeling her new born baby down my street if fireworks disturbed her child and she told me it terrified her. I happen to have a collection of rescued cats in my house and they become terrified whenever these bombs go off. The only way we can lessen interest of residents from buying the firework bombs is for local leadership to plead with city residents to stop exploding these devices.
The Woods Are Alive
Bill Di Mauro Katz
The woods come to life after dusk on this July 4th
As I take an evening stroll
Through the Land of the Dead
In Cedar Hills Cemetery.
Deer dart and zig zag into geometric chaos -
Their only spastic need is to escape;
Boom… boom… bam
Birds high above jump from the safety of tree nests.
They are kaleidoscopically lovely, although possibly my oldest "flashbulb" memory is of being scared by the booms in a stadium as a very small child. Then I loved them. Our dogs hated them, although our current Ozzie seems unfazed. I don't light them off any more, but neighbors do biggly. The biggest display (and crowd) I ever saw was in Japan.
It has occurred to me that we associate the 4th of July and the birth of our county perhaps excessively with war. The war was an important part of it for sure, but wars in and of themselves need not bring liberation. We pay less attention to the revolution in thought that set the stage for a democratic republic, and flawed yet abiding integrity that built that republic, while some others so named are or have been in name only. USSR, for example. There is a strain of thought in our nation that violence is the ultimate legitimizer, but that misses most of the point. I keep playing this oldie, but it is so relevant and rich with wisdom:
"
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength our gallant and disciplined army? These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of those may be turned against our liberties, without making us weaker or stronger for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men (sic), in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." -- Lincoln
"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." -- Lincoln"
I've always loved that passage and it's so apropos regarding this era. I could be a "wikipedia genius or search engine genius" and just look that up, but JL, was that not from his "Lyceum speech" ?
Now that I've contemplated that passage further, it occurs to me that Lincoln repeated that portion or very similar many times, numerous speeches (correct me if I'm mistaken). It was as though this reference was thematic for Lincoln, hence he repeated it; Thematic in that denial of personal liberty for any human, was in fact either immediately or later, a threat to the personal liberties of all, and that bothered him deeply. Deeply enough to suspend habeas corpus, and defy a scotus ruling; Maga intellectual types point to that in defense of the mango mussolini's actions.
I love fireworks. I saw the best one at a small-town concert venue. Imagine heart shaped fireworks! However, I do feel a bit guilty when I think of the soldiers who suffer when they hear fire works. If you can find it, a young country western singer Cooper Allen has a song called the Fifth of July which addresses it. Tears in my eyes thinking of it. It really is a worthwhile listen.
I agree, but I know many people who hate them and now don't like th Fourth or NYE. As I posted to Bill, we think the cost of gas (have to drive to WA reservations to get the illegal ones) and the cost of the fireworks made it less bad, at least around here
Bill, we think the price of gas and the cost of fireworks cut down on the fireworks around here. People have to drive to reservations in WA to get the ones that are illegal here. So the doggie got through the night in his thunder vest pretty well. But not too far north of us in our neighborhood, some fools had mortars. Five people were injured, four seriously and they also did damage to nearby cars and buildings. So not a good night for them. 8 people were arrested in Lincoln City (on the coast) for starting a brush fire with fireworks. Portland does not allow them.
Of course you do. It's a much better song. It deserves to be the national anthem.
I had a high school classmate who knew the words to "To Anacreon in Heaven," whose tune was taken for the Star-Spangled Banner. A drinking song, a rather learned drinking song. Maybe it's easier to manage the tune, which has a range of an octave and a half, when you're drunk.
This poem really emphasizes the fact the there is no safe place for wildlife anymore. In a suburb of Los Angeles where I live, this weekend the booming and crashing went on until after 2am. Although our house is well insulated, our two cats still couldn’t figure out what all the noise was and kept racing around. I wasn’t sure if they were scared or just overexcited but it was not normal behavior.
very sad. Not only does our wildlife have guns but also bulldozers. The trump administration wants to pave Paradise and put up a parking lot ( in trump's case a golf course, luxury hotel, or a wall and possibly a highway). Use the Rose "garden" as an example.
Our puppies/dogs typically hear sounds from four times the distance that humans can. If you can hear a normal noise from 25 feet away, your dog can pick it up from 100 feet away. Under optimal conditions, dogs can detect certain sounds from up to a mile away.
While humans only process sound frequencies between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, dogs can hear high-frequency sounds up to 45,000 to 65,000 Hz
Cats can hear sounds from up to 2,300 to 3,000 feet (700 to 900 meters) away. This means they can detect noises four to five times farther away than humans.
Humans can hear up to 20,000 Hz, but cats can hear an incredible range of 48 Hz to 85,000 Hz. This allows them to hear ultrasonic frequencies that many rodents and small animals use to communicate.
Horses possess exceptional hearing and can detect sounds up to 2.5 to 4 miles (4 km) away. Thanks to their rotating, radar-like ears, they can pinpoint noises across a wide frequency range (from 14 Hz up to 35,000 Hz) and are even capable of hearing a human heartbeat from about 4 feet away.
Cows are easily startled by sudden, high-frequency, or loud noises (such as car horns or yelling), which can elevate their heart rate and cause stress. Cows hear a wider frequency spectrum than humans, spanning from 23 Hz to 35,000 Hz .
Rabbits can hear sounds from up to 2 miles (over 3 kilometers) away. Their large, mobile ears act like satellite dishes that gather and funnel sound waves to the eardrum.
Donkeys can hear up to 60 miles away. This exceptional range is due to their large, satellite-dish-like ears, which can swivel independently to pinpoint the exact direction of a sound.
So, like you, I think local fireworks should be limited to one time, not weeks before or after. Sensitive and respectful people need to understand noise pollution and its effects on babies, animals, elderly, those battling illnesses, diseases and epilepsy...
He watched and internalized Maverick and it was Bart who often said "you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, and those are pretty good odds", attributing the statement to his daddy. As to Trump, he can be full of shit and hot air at the same time, so one day I'm betting he will explode.
But as W said, you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones to concentrate on. Rupert certainly had this as mission statement since 1996. Chump hopped on board and made it his political strategy for minority rule. I don’t think the DNC noticed.
Communism is the greatest mortal threat to American liberty. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both. Trump is not a patriot. He doesn’t want good. He doesn’t love or want God. He has no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or our God-given rights. His actions reveal his belief in an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder. Trump is not a "far right" conservative and is instead a "far down" commie!
Compared to Trump, Bernie Sanders is a capitalist. Unlike Trump, Sanders actions reveal his belief in Adam Smith's "theory of moral sentiments" (1759).
It's all his projection. Blatant mirror of himself. And he'll never see it or own it. We just have to keep educating the American people over and over again.
Exactly, His language is projection. He's a sociopathic, pathological liar. He hates the human race as is evident in his comment, "I don't care..." if people a suffering financially (due to tariffs). He is so vile, but we can't forget the real "leader" in this, Peter Thiel and Project 2025.
Communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, and authoritarian dictatorship are three labels for political entities that are functionally the same. The newsletter includes a Trump quote in which he accurately describes the danger of authoritarianism as he also accurately describes the behavior of his own administration.
Authoritarianism, period, is the greatest threat to American liberty. Hitler and Stalin were opposite sides of the same coin. Only fatigue led Harry Truman to veto General Patton's suggestion to keep on going to Moscow, after V-E Day. Communism, per se, exists now only in Cuba and Nicaragua. China and Viet Nam are hybrid Marxist/Capitalist states North Korea is a cult-ruled monstrosity, existing only because Xi Jin-ping finds it to his advantage to keep the Kims in power.
After years of fighting there would have been no public support to take the fight to the USSR. An unfortunate reality because as you say, Stalin was not an improvement on Hitler.
But at the present time communism is a spent force. Trump is using it as a scare tactic. Expect to hear about it from now until election day.
I agree that "Authoritarianism, period, is the greatest threat to American liberty." Communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, and authoritarian dictatorship are three labels for political entities that are functionally the same.
Left-wing dictatorship, right-wing dictatorship are just two different flavors of merde. Simplistic thinking. The right tool for the right job is always wiser. Capitalism? It has a place, but no natural right to impunity, and yes, Adam Smith knew better than than that. The public sector? Also indispensable, and some functions are too vital and/or dangerous to be contracted out. That seemed like mainstream thinking mid 20th Century.
We are being had. "Liberty and justice for ALL is exactly that, and you can't have one without the other. Governance of, by and for The People; why the hell not? "Centrist"? No, that's simplistic too, but dynamic balance if four dimensional (with consequences over time). Nothing in excess and as much as it takes. It takes more disciplined thinking, but that's what got us out of caves. Question everything. Bernie Sanders has a "heart", and Trump doesn't; and ya' gotta have heart. Miles and miles...
Get the simple part right to make the complicated part possible. Get the simple part wrong to make the complicated part impossible. To get the simple part right, be moral by treating others the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot. To get the simple part wrong, do unto others before they do unto you.
It's the Hippocratic Oath writ large: before causing something to happen, make sure it won't cause unnecessary harm.
Weave explanation: Communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, and authoritarian dictatorship are three labels for political entities that are functionally the same.
They didn't become that way overnight though. It's the result of half a century of deliberate betrayal by the GOP of their own voter base, through always more sophisticated and widespread propaganda machines.
I heard an interesting snippit from Lucas Bean claiming that propaganda works on vulnerabilities of human brain function, thus the Orwellian belief in the patently unbelievable. Kinda like optical illusions, only an induced psychosis. My sixth grade teacher spoke about Nazi propaganda worked and how to recognize fallacies, one of the few lessons I still remember. BS detection should be taught in every grade, not just a vignette. Finland seems to be doing it.
Fact check: Reagan said "Facts are stupid things" at the 1988 Republican National Convention—he was attempting to quote John Adams, who actually said "Facts are stubborn things."
Reagan bungled the quote and said "stupid" instead of "stubborn."
You mean like the Contra aid controversy with Oliver North and John Poindexter? Reagan allegedly could not recall any allegations that North and Poindexter were given directions by him. He denied the claims more than 80 times. He may well have been going through early onset dementia by this time. And then again.....
Riad, dementia sneaks up on its victims. My mother was sharp as a tack; taught in public school until she retired at age 83. She continued to be mentally sharp until she reached age 91, at which time she started having trouble finding the word she wanted to use in conversation on rare occasions. Then she started having trouble remembering what day it was. Then she forgot how to start her coffeemaker. In a year's time, she was wheelchair-bound, unable to read or speak, unable to toilet alone or dress herself.
Reagan was a rotten human and fully capable of devious schemes. He didn't become a vegetable overnight. The swap of "stubborn" and "stupid" seems typical of dementia to me.
News media of the day often noted times in which Reagan was way confused, though most news stories seemed to dismiss its significance, unlike with Biden, whose faux pas were mild by comparison. I suspect Reagan was in early Alzheimer's throughout his presidency. The deference of the press, unlike the case with Nixon, greatly helped him peddle his scams.
The party keeps trying to tell you what you see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, taking place all around you, isn't really happening, that you're just making it up, you're just a disaffected lib-ruhl, that you hate America, that you're a godless communist, that you're vermin, that you like seeing Haitians eat cats and dogs....the list of inanities is endless.
Your judgement is their first intended victim. Do not cooperate with them.
I completely agree and they want to believe Democrats are pushing communism although it is hard for any of them to tell you the difference between socialist and socialism because either they don't know or they don't want to know. The narrative maga is pushing now is no different than the dog and cat eating propaganda they pushed the last election. It is a case of "here we go again".
Klutt, and, their cult picks it up from the mouths of the evil ones and swallows it whole, every time, trying to convince themselves it makes sense, of course it does, that's what those left-wing radicals would do or would be or would think or something. If any of them were asked what a Communist or a Socialist or a Democratic Socialist is, they would have no clue and would try to accuse the questioner of being one of THEM and think that is a good answer. Ugh!
Uh... "socialist" is the adjective of the noun "socialism". There is no difference.
And I'm quite sure that many on the left don't know the difference between communism and socialism either.
Karl Marx studied the savage capitalism of his time and predicted that it will crumble under its own contradictions, sooner or later. Instead of allowing the wealthiest and CEOs (and stockholders) to keep all the money produced by their workers/employees for themselves, workers would begin to demand the right to sit at the table and weigh in on decisions about how the money produced is spent. That is "socialism". It means that the profits generated by private companies are no longer the ownership of the 1%. Instead, through government regulations (labor laws) and negotiations with unions, in each private company, workers/employees have the power to negotiate their own working conditions, including salaries.
Communism, Marx predicted, will be the next step. Once capitalism generated wealth and socialism then used that wealth to improve the situation of everyone, citizens will no longer need private companies at all. Now, the (democratically elected and operating) government, formed by ordinary citizens, will take over the economy as a whole, so that no one is forced to do dehumanizing jobs in dehumanizing conditions at all anymore.
The idea that communism would be anti-American was created by neoliberals in the 1940s. But their analyses were flawed from the very beginning. By "communism" they actually meant the fascist regimes in Russia and China who CALLED themselves "communist", and who did have governments that took control of everything. What they skipped, however, is what Marx showed was absolutely crucial: they tried out going from a foedal, agrarian society to a communist one overnight instead of first developing the means of production through a capitalist economy, and then, when wealth was high enough, add socialism, long before moving to communism becomes an option.
The result was not only a century-old dictatorship but also very poor economic development, compared to what capitalism in the West had achieved in the 19th century (when it moved from agrarian to industrialized economies).
Today, there are no communists in the US. There are communist parties in Northern Europe, and they're all democratic. They're also not very popular.
Meanwhile, in the US the GOP is installing neofascism, a combination of fascism and the savage capitalism that is called "Network State" economy (see Gil Duran for the details).
Being IN the cult means having to defend it with knee-jerk whataboutism. That's what I get when I [still, foolishly] try to offer to a cult-invested-relative some information about what is, actually, happening in our country. I'm met with no response to the actual ruination of the Forest Service, USAID, prices, etc., but with ya but whatabout... xyz.
Why I'm having a hard time admitting there is no reason to keep trying to break through with reason:
In the back of my mind are the words of a grad school instructor I had at Teachers College in NYC in the 1970s who, in a philosophy course on education and mass communication, kept insisting on the critical role of "ratiocination" in order to maintain a sane and democratic society. I looked up the word, of course. I found that while he could have spoken about the critical role of "reason," using ratiocination is a process of using reason. He was brilliant. Martin Dworkin, a film critic. Bless him. He handed out a mimeographed list of books we should read in our lifetimes. It was single-spaced and probably 20 pages long. He said, "This is a finite task. Do it."
Every MAGAt should follow a philosophy and critical thinking course. Then again, the Kool Aid may have shrunk their brains too far to understand that kind of stuff...
Sometimes the comments in this forum sound very cult like. There is adherence to a certain belief, fear and hatred of the other and unwillingness to tolerate differences of opinion.
I invite you to start at the beginning and read every single comment in one week's work of Letters from An American.
EUWDTB--not trying to argue, but just wondering how you are defining "wokism".
To me, it simply means being aware of and acknowledge the struggles of people who differ from you. Understanding how perceptions of some people towards people who have such differences can impact relations.
Also, to me "wokism" is the truest interpretation of the teachings of Jesus.
This is already part of the problem: somehow today, Americans both on the left and right imagine that there is no objective meaning of words and that, instead, we should just go with whatever we subjectively associate with them.
How can we ever fight back against huge things such as neofascism if we can't even accept basic facts about language?
It's not ME who's defining "wokism" here. Definitions of broad ideological movements are objective. They're the result of experts studying ideologies and the way they are implemented.
For more info about wokism and progressive criticism of this newly invented ideology, see for instance Jon McWorther or Susan Neiman.
If they could do that (discern truth from fiction) they would never have bought into that ridiculous meme coin he was selling. Clearly a sucker's bet, the only one guaranteed to make bank was him. Everyone else lost their collective shirts.
Carthago, yes, and then they blame Democrats for doing something to the whole thing to make them lose their money. Republicans and the cult members in general just can't imagine they are wrong or made a bad decision or are following a total narcissist, sociopath, dementia-laden fool. Heck, they wouldn't even know what those words mean because they are so entrapped by Trumplandia!
True: but most of his followers are essentially poorly educated. They never really learned how to think critically. Maybe it was the school system to which they went, or maybe, it was their home life. Who knows? This leads into one of Trump's famous lines concerning his followers: "I love the poorly educated."
It's Come to This, yes, and that is why we need to encourage each other to do a fact check on everything the current regime says or prints or broadcasts. The could involve logic, checking with trusted sources, and understanding that if they say it, it is most likely a lie. Then we have to use the word lie! Lying is the coin of their realm and they will use it at every occasion, making even more outlandish claims just to see what will fly. Let's work harder to make sure that all of it stays on the ground and is crushed under the foot of truth/facts.
So now we have the celebration of our 250th anniversary of the the Declaration of Independence that has been scandalized by tRump. We have the greenflection pool scandal. We have the Iran war scandal. We have the high inflation scandal. What happened to the Epstein scandal? What about the Judge Aileen Cannon scandal that kept the orange puke out of jail. Sorry, but I just don't see anything getting crushed by truth or facts or anything else. We just allow this animal to move from one scandal to another.
You are too generous. This is probably a good thing. Those of us who are less admirable have reached a point where we regard any statement emitted by any regime member as inherently untrue. Then we fact-check if seen as necessary 😊
Sorry, apparently I hit the post button before I finished my post replying to It Comes to This. Hannah Arendt - one of the great philosophers on evil and tyranny. A Jewish woman who escaped Hitler and Nazism in Germany who came to the U.S. here is a YouTube video of her someone posted of her concerning how tyrants begin their work; https://youtube.com/shorts/WQmpLqze9gc?is=vlNFQlr52IGUsPEA Dr. Arendt was a prolific author on this and many related topics - a truly amazing human being.
It still meserizes me, too. With America becoming a “shithole country” as fast as lightning under the Orange Goblin King, and STILL 37% of Americans are cheering him on, all the while becoming poorer and poorer…
DM, but are they REALLY cheering him on? When was the last time you heard someone talk about how great Trump, SCOTUS and Congress are doing?
So, it's the far-right media, who for the past 10 days, has told us to believe them and not our own eyes showing video of empty fairgrounds in DC. Trump and the far-right media are the only ones bragging about what a great job the Republicans are doing.
Watching the Faux newscasters in front of that vast empty field, I started to wonder if someone in the evil empire had turned and was showing the emptiness deliberately, to expose the lie of "huge crowds."
Well, as Melinda Quivik wrote here: "Being IN the cult means having to defend it with knee-jerk whataboutism. That's what I get when I [still, foolishly] try to offer to a cult-invested-relative some information about what is, actually, happening in our country. I'm met with no response to the actual ruination of the Forest Service, USAID, prices, etc., but with ya but whatabout... xyz."
I think the 37% don’t care what the truth is. They are full of anger/hatred/spite. DJT just keeps egging them on to direct all that venom outward. And they will believe anything that justifies the feelings thanks to lots of lies and a huge boost by social media.
And those 40 percent will support Trump when he declares a National Emergency In Order To Stop the Communist Threat... cancelling the midterm elections. And CBS News will NOT say "Trump is crazy / lying about all this" for a moment.
Wake up, people. The Trump Regime doesn't care how many of us oppose it. It doesn't have to; it's got the thoroughly ChristoNazified USian military, the world's deadliest, most sadistic band of war criminals.
The Regime's 40 percent popularity -- every supporter a "kill-a-Commie-for-Christ" fanatic -- merely gives Trump an additional reserve of unquestionably obedient storm troopers, malevolently cheering his embrace of "an anticommunism that exaggerates even the excesses of the McCarthy era," eager to torture, rape and murder.
Note too our eternally diminished expectations -- "what today’s Democratic Socialists call for is much more limited than what the Republicans under President Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted in 1956" -- absolute proof our omnipotent masters are winning, with 79 years of ever-more-irreversible capitalist savagery already on the scoreboard.
"And so the 251st year of American democracy begins with reality reasserting itself."
A few weeks ago I called the ongoing process the start of the "Great Repair" But, after after reading Justice Ketanji Brown's citations in her "Birthright" case opinion to Isabel Wilson, I purchased the book, "CASTE The Origins of Our Discontent". I see the process more like a constitutional metamorphosis.
I don't believe it is fixable. Nevertheless, I very fervently believe we should keep trying to fix it, simply because -- though our Mother Earth, fate, karma and whatever deities may or may not exist have obviously not just turned against us, but cursed us with the most apocalyptically Evil despot in this planet's history -- we might yet stumble on a solution by blind stupid happenstance. Otherwise I no longer doubt we're doomed.
I don’t think the current system is fixable either. But it is replaceable*. That’s Innovation Theory 101. When what no longer works is also finally seen as obsolete, that opens the door to replacing it with something that does. The Founding Fathers did this 250 years ago… with a revolution. What we need now is an evolution. I’ll be talking about this more in my new Substack essay… hope to have it finished later today or this evening.
Loren I think we are cursed with the most "evil despot" to show us that the system hasn't been working for all and there needs to be changes. Many people have their eyes wide open now and realize how many loopholes are being exploited by this regime. The old system may not be fixable but I think it could be made better and now we know HOW to make it better and what we actually want as a country. The founding fathers, the declaration of independence both guide us. I cling to the hope of a better America.
Back in 1758, Linnaeus struggled with the classification of his own species so he compromised by placing us with the apes and monkeys based on trivial morphological features like the numbers of fingers and toes and only entered the Socratic injunction nosce te ipsum - 'know thyself'. That struggle continues today, nowhere more potently than in America, the birthplace of Intelligent Design. Trump's recent denunciations of 'godless communists' (not of course including his pal Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB agent) hearken back to the days of the Scopes Trial.
TJB, it amazes me that HCR and others still refer to to the support for the scumbag president at "only" about 40%....do they know how many millons is 40%?. I didn't know that there're so many stupid people in the whole world much less in just one country...
Right now it is 35%. This is about right for any percentage of disagreement. There will always be a core group around a person or idea. It is really weird to me that people don't flip it and realize that around 65% is against this guy and everything he stands for.
Go to a pollster Strength in Numbers. Look at the breakdowns.
In a Democracy there is always percentages of disagreement. This is actually a sign of a healthy Democracy. You are calling for an authoritarian form of government where freedom to disagree is stamped out. In Orwell's 1984 it was called groupthink. In order to reach want you want independent thought, opinions and a two Party system would cease to exist.
It is way past time for people to stop blaming someone else for where we are today. The Democrats blame Republicans, people blame a paltry 35%, Russia, aliens or whatever to shed personal responsibility.
We can either stop focusing on those bad guys or we can do what is appropriate in a Democracy to right the ship.
I think the 40 percent (actually 37%) is about the "Trump base" which hasn't fluxuated much since 2016. His approval ratings HAVE varied, because outside of his base, most people are more willing to both believe and disbelieve his nonsense. As they vary in their beliefs, his approval ratings fluxuate from a top of about 55% in favor to the current low which is pretty much everyone disagreeing with him EXCEPT his solid base.
Personally, it doesn't worry me, though it will still require constant attention to how the ballot boxes are handled in all states, especially in the swing states. I expect we can take a 10+ vote surplus in the House and MAYBE a 2-3 vote surplus in the Senate (although I am less sure of that because the Senate is only electing 33 people this year, vs the House is voting on all 435 seats).
when Nixon left office he still had 25% approval. There is always a 25-35 % of a population that can't be moved. Ignorance and apathy. The government wants and needs stupid people
Not necessarily. We have a huge Country. Given its size, geographical variations, historical backgrounds, family legacy, educational levels, financial variations etc. there will be reinforced beliefs. We do a disservice trying to pin where we are today on one factor. It is a limiting belief. And Dr. Richardson said it best last week. Until we address the core racism in this Country, we will continue to experience these cycles. Look at the thread running through so many hide bound beliefs, and you will see racism at its historical core.
TJB, it occurs to me that a person's world-view is shaped by either knowledge or beliefs. (Most people operate with percentages of both.) The "problem" with knowledge is that it can be altered by the introduction of new facts. People who operate on the basis of knowledge can, and do, modify their positions on any given topic based on the admission of new information. Knowledge is maintained in the intellect.
Beliefs, however, are almost impossible to change because they exist without the support of facts. Beliefs are couched in emotion.
Many surveys document that 85% of MAGA are evangelicals (conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics). As a corollary, Pew Research finds that approximately 34% of the U.S. population identify as evangelical. Pew classifies Roman Catholics separately, but doesn't distinguish between "regular" and conservative Catholics.
These conservative Christians' world-view is governed entirely by beliefs. There's your 40%.
Go figure, we have people so committed to his vision that they willfully ignore the truth in front of their eyes. I can understand his close friends who are profiting beyond their wildest dreams, but people who are caught up in his failing economy and are struggling to stay afloat, you would think might wake up. Not yet. 🤬🤬🤬
We have a vile, poser for President who has nothing better to do than whip up people's fears about commie threats we defeated 90 years ago. Like all countries, we have problems to solve, lives to improve, less fortunate people to help. What in heaven's name is Donald Trump talking about? Maybe he got mixed up between "Communist" and "Comedians".
I agree, but we have judgement to surrender. Trump is appealing to those who lack good judgement. That is the problem.
My book club is currently reading "The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging" by Noelle Cook. It is giving me a better understanding of the thinking of women who joined the January 6 attacks on the Capitol. The women she follows have lives of deep trauma and they subscribe to QAnon and mystical thinking along with things like Charismatic christianity and new age spirituality, as well as being big believers in intuition. They have live experiences that show them to have PTSD. They fill a void of loneliness with belonging to these far right conspiracy groups. It does not bode well for the sanity of our nation.
''The Red Scare Rerun: Trump Finds a New Old Villain''
Going into America’s 250th birthday, Donald Trump had a tiny messaging problem. By tiny, I mean the kind that includes inflation, oil trouble, fertilizer shortages, crypto grift, a green Reflecting Pool, an empty National Mall fair, Epstein file questions, and approval numbers that look like they were assembled by a very sad intern with a dying laptop.
So naturally, he found the real threat to America.
Communists.
Not corruption. Not food prices. Not oil shocks. Not donors being routed through patriotic funhouse mirrors. Not a memecoin where regular people lost billions while the Trump cash register played “Hail to the Chief.” No, the true emergency is apparently your cousin who thinks insulin should not cost rent money.
This is vintage Republican panic marketing. When life gets expensive, yell “communism.” When the fair is empty, yell “communism.” When the giant patriotic arch looks like it was ordered from Temu with rush shipping, yell “communism,” then blame the algae on vandals.
Trump’s handlers seem to have reached into the dusty campaign closet, pushed aside “caravans,” “antifa,” and “critical race theory,” and found Joe McCarthy’s old jacket. It still smells like paranoia, but with the right lighting and a donation link, they think it might fit.
The problem is that democratic socialism is not communism. Wanting public schools, public roads, affordable health care, and a government that does not operate like a casino with nuclear codes is not the Bolshevik Revolution. It is basically what America has done, unevenly and imperfectly, for generations.
Meanwhile, Trump screams about communism while trying to turn public institutions, private business, elections, and national celebrations into extensions of his personal brand. That is not freedom. That is a souvenir shop with authoritarian lighting.
But panic is easier than policy. You do not need a plan if you have a villain. You do not need results if you have a fog machine.
So here we are, year 251 of American democracy, watching a president scream about communists while the Reflecting Pool turns green.
At least something in Washington is honest about being swampy.
Brilliantly said! And with nearly 40 percent still approving of him, Trump will push this fear of commies all the way to November … when I fully expect him to declare a state of emergency and cancel the election to “save the nation“!
However, for far too many people, reality is subjective and "facts" are not unassailable. They also change over time: look at "facts" from the 19th century concerning women, people of color, social class, etc.
Lest I be accused of demonizing the democrats, I would like to point out references by other historians which trace the ascendency of presidential powers back to Franklin Roosevelt, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan and Obama. Although trump has taken full advantage of this evolution. This has been aided by social media which has been destructive for democracy, followed by courts, journalism and universities. Public discourse is now automated, rather than happening in real time in real places. Technology has polarized us. We are in free fall off a cliff. And as many years it has taken the US to assume full dictatorship, can we expect a return to some sort of "normalcy" to arrive in another 30 to 40 years?
It looks as though I've been ostracized, isolated or relegated to the "trash bin." No one responded to my above paragraph. I'm not looking for likes; this is not facebook, but a rebuttal or two or agreement. (I've been absent for awhile, travelling, other commitments, therefore not posting.) It's supposed to be a place where we share what we know, what we believe. Sometimes I am misinformed or make propositions which lack depth. I receive comments, some are rude. But....I'm on your side. Perhaps this site has transformed into a kind of clique where popular voices are accepted, or allowed and others dismissed, if they don't conform exactly to a certain strain of opinion. (And I'm not talking about Rick Sender!!!) Perhaps this is how the US has become so divisive. Disagreement is a normal part of social interaction and how it is handled impacts communication. Maybe when we're not delivering our opinions in person, anonymity encourages rancor rather than a constructive response. Well, maybe I'm just being defensive.
The problem is that the US no longer teaches kids and adults how to develop their "own" judgment.
Teaching critical thinking requires so much more than blindly validating no matter what someone else thinks, as American education methods all too often do, and for decades already now.
It requires us to engage in real debates with those who disagree with us, and on a daily basis. It requires learning how to be okay with noticing that you were mistaken.
The installation of neofascism is the result of a long erosion of excellence in the US. It will take decades to rebuild it.
First step: raising awareness of the problem, because for now, the only ones thinking about reforming education methods ARE the neofascists, and obviously, what they propose will only make things even worse when it comes to preserving democracy.
"That’s why civic responsibility begins with refusing to surrender our judgment." Indeed true. But that comes with education. It appears too late to start educating voters now. The founding fathers never imagined that three branches of the government work together to benefit wealthy people at the expenses of uneducated voters.
Hiro, I believe it is never too late. People have the capacity to learn into old age and we should all be taking advantage of that ability. We can trust people to learn. Clearly, a bunch learned that Donald Trump would give them whatever they wanted through his words, but his actions taught them something quite different. Now we need to learn and spread the directions for how to break out of the prison that is Trumplandia, then pass it along to those imprisoned there.
$30 million spent on their candidate by Schumer and AIPAC in Michigan
Americans know more about the World Cup than the data above. If there are some who know these things then ask why there aren't more. Americans has become too rich, too lazy and too cocky. Too many people are not feeling the effects of reality. It's not about propaganda. It is about being protected financially from what is happening. Or it is about so consumed with survival to care.
This foul man fleeces everything he touches. Why should his dim-witted followers be any exception? Join his “winning” team indeed and watch your investment lose 97% of its value! Who wouldn’t sign up for that?
Yesterday, our whining, howling, diapered baby-in-chief did what he’s done his whole too-long, wretched life — steal something of value not his to begin with and turn it into shit in a flash. He took what should have been a non-partisan birthday celebration and made it into a stupid, masturbatory carnival worthy of a debauched Roman emperor.
All he's ever done, ever will do, is try to grab everything by the you-know-what — women, history, the Constitution, human decency, then force it to gyrate to his grandiose, stolen gay anthems, with a self-pitying, whinybitchy beat and voice. However solemn the occasion, however neutral, he has to make it about him, 24/7/365. Not just the most corrupt, most indecent, most arrogant moron ever to soil the White House, but the most exhausting. A psychotic 2-year-old constantly shitting all over us, all the time, without letup.
And yet he continues to find enablers — those who fluff him on command, flatterers and stooges, sycophants and stage props who titter and giggle while he boasts he can do ‘whatever he wants.’ This I just don’t get. I never will. With some it's money, with others it's some sick, bizarre sense of belonging, a fear of being left out. But what does it gain you to curry favor like that, eating from the debauched pervert’s table, losing your own soul -- not to mention 97% of your investments -- in the process?
I don't get it either ICTT - prior to Trump I always thought that most Americans had a solid footing in common sense, whether they'd had a higher education or not. But not a shred to be found in his followers. The sense of belonging must be a very strong and primal need.
If a MAGA invested $2500 in Trump crypto, meme coins and the Trump phone, and Trump stock in Truth Social, they would now be able to cash in those investments for around $125 before brokers fees. I'm not quibbling with your 97% loss number, I'm just reporting what I heard from Thom Hartmann.
So parents, today you can apply for your $1000 Trump accounts or you could go to Six Flags or Disney World. Which do you think brings more value to you and your family?
We can always hope that someday DonOld will as well. Hopefully his cell mate will be a large athletic black guy with an MMA background that's looking for some action.
I quibble with your point that this shit shown is worthy of a Roman emperor. At least they had bread and circuses. (Yes I’m just being silly…if I don’t laugh, I cry at what he and his shit sycophants have done to this country.)
Kudos for this rant! All to many try to cite various experts to explain or categorize the sub human creature called Trump’s words or policies! You have crafted phrases like “eating from the debauched pervert’s table” which emanate the from the bowels of your viscera! Bravo!
ICTT, decades ago I had a ‘conversation’ with a woman, a professional cartoonist, who claimed she was a communist. She was or seemed to be bright; at least she thought so as I could almost smell a superior attitude some people wear like perfume.
As the ‘conversation’ progressed or descended, it was increasingly apparent to me that she didn’t possess one creative thought. Everything was a party line.
At least I had the temerity to say that… and, worse for me, she was boring like our own brat in ‘the drowning pool’.
It's time for Trump to put his anti-communist rhetoric to practical use. Let him give Ukraine the weapons they need to fend off the Russian drone and other air attacks on Kyiv's civilian targets.
Russians appear to have traded one form of dictatorship for another. Terhe greatest legacy the nation's founders passed to us is the fact that they DID NOT go for a new boss, same as the old boss. Plenty of imperfections, but distinctly and structurally not an autocratic form of governance; if we can keep it.
Trump's phony anti-communist rhetoric is warmed-over Joe McCarthy demagoguery, courtesy of Roy Cohn.
Dear Heather: You write so clearly and accurately about T! I can hardly stand to read about him. He is nauseating. And evil, and greedy, and so on. Bless you for being able to look this monster in the face and accurately describe what he's up to. Thank you!
You're welcome, Lynell! What I wrote was my visceral first response to Heather's prose. I see that my post struck quite a nerve here. Frankly, I'm amazed. And gratified.
She has self-described as a "Republican Historian" perhaps in reference to her books "The Greatest Nation On Earth," "The Death Of Reconstruction," "To Make Men Free," etc. I have no idea how she personally feels about the Republican Party these days. She is an historian after all.
Goodness he’s such a narcissistic/self absorbed person.
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress. Be LOUD! Trump/the administration is dangerous for our country 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly!
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Our local Democratic chapter is meeting this week to organize writing letters to the editors or commentary to the various daily and weekly newspapers across our state.
If your local papers or other publications accept LTTE, write letters reminding people to vote Blue and what the consequences are when we elect Republicans.
Endorsements from labor groups, students, parents and celebrities can also help your candidates.
Stephen King endorsed Hannah Pingree for Governor and she won by a nose in RCV last month against three well qualified candidates.
Morning, Ally!! So good to catch up with you here. So, now my TV won't let me watch movies anymore. I discovered this while trying to view "1776," the musical from 1972 - which I had never seen before. I did see the musical play with my family some 60+ years ago, however, and have fond memories of how our story, told with a bit of literary license and humor, unfolded.
The good news is our other TV in another room had no trouble finding the internet; so, I was able to extend my 250 experience on Sunday, the day after.
I bring you up-to-date today with this small story. I can't remember how long ago it was since I last saw fireflies (lightning bugs!) "flooding the zone" every summer. I do know I was at least around nine or ten. Sitting in the dark on my porch this morning waiting for the dawn to break, I spied a small, greenish light flash near a tree leaf. I stayed fixed on that spot when soon it flashed again. Then, another flash right next to it!
As I stood up to walk away, one of them just beyond my reach flew past me as if to say, "Keep fighting for our return!" Will do, little one. Will do!"
The other night when I was walking the dog, the fireflies were out in force. It seems they are making a comeback here in rural ME where there is very little light pollution.
Has anyone else noticed the return of the birds? Robins, doves, gulls, cardinals and many other species have really made a comeback since the bird flu decimated their populations a couple of years ago.
I've been seeing fireflies in our backyard, especially around our overgrown garden. We must be doing something right (like not weeding regularly and never using "lawn products").
They definitely like the thicker landscaping. We've had several friends who have had Lyme disease and so we spray for ticks around the perimeter of our property which is woods. They say it is an all natural product but we wait until the bees have had a couple of months to flowering weeds, bushes, plants and trees.
My birds have made a good comeback. My fireflies not so much. I live in town and I guess the new LED streetlights are bad for them. I've seen a few in the backyard but nothing like we used to have.
GJ, over here south of Boston I notice the absence of flies. I can leave my screen doors open and allow my little pups easy access to the decks. I never would do this before.
I am hoping the nasty stinging green heads have also disappeared!
Lynell, yes, lightening bugs in a jar on the 4th of July…to be released as the fireworks dimmed their soft greenish yellow glimmer!
Also from those days living near the east coast as a child, I miss the tickle of sand crabs squirming under my feet as I raced across the hot sand to body surf the midsummer waves. I haven’t felt that tickle under my toes in many years!
I never saw them when I lived in OR either Ally, you need to fly to Savannah or Charleston and then go out to one of the more remote outer islands while avoiding golf courses to see them in their millions. I know it’s a long ways to go to see a bug, so maybe in another lifetime, but if you were to find yourself over here, put the low country on your map.
We don't have the in California as far as I've seen in my decades of hiking and camping. I've only seen one when in July, when I was working in Eastern Utah. I initially thought it was a small light on the fender of a car, until it flew in a loop.
I see them in my yard near Atlanta, it’s pesticide free, mosquito treatment kills them, so I treat myself and allow them to live as intended by nature. They are magical to watch especially after a thunder storm, I have seen pictures of them in the low country where they were so numerous they formed a floating blanket through trees and over the marshes.
Lynell, when I moved out here to my new house in a patch of the wilderness 26 years ago, I elected not to have a dusk-to-dawn streetlight installed, as most other folks have in this neck of the woods. I did install shielded landscape lighting because it's pitch-black at night. I also chose to "tame" only a small patch of ground in front of the house and left the woods in its natural state on the other three sides of the house. The lightning bugs have thanked me.
I have concluded that lightning bugs must emerge in broods like cicadas. Some years, they emerge in late May, while in other years, I don't see them until mid-July. They also seem to have territories. One year, on the south side of the house, the next year to the west.
I especially enjoy the nightly "launches." About 8:45, a silent signal must go out as the ground suddenly lights up with millions of twinkling, greenish "diamonds." Then another silent signal goes out and the sparkling "blanket" rises, then dissipates as the fireflies begin their search of a "date" for the evening. Disney animators couldn't produce a better show.
It's a bit of a brain twister, I think. We are each an individual, with unique DNA ('cept for twins, etc.) and unique thoughts and experiences, AND we are profoundly social creatures with shared characteristics and needs, sharing most of our DNA with other primates, and even some with plants. That's why the Constitution addresses both individual rights and the common good. It's doublethink to suppose they are separable. Neglect justice for one and destroy it for the other. All for one, one for all.
Professor Richardson -- Thank you for jumping back in the saddle after the long holiday to make sense of the flood of news events from the weekend. From my vantage point in Japan, I am mortified when my Japanese neighbors ask me how so much overt corruption continues to go unchecked in the United States. They simply cannot comprehend how our president, his family, and his cronies can act so egregiously. Many have said that they used to admire the ideals America represents, but now, they say, our country resembles the common perception of Russian society. As a proud, taxpaying American citizen living abroad, I am ashamed of my country.
Elon Musk spent over $200 million to get Trump elected. To almost all of us, $200 million is more than we will make in a lifetime. He has parlayed this $200 million into hundreds of billions in less than 2 years and almost bankrupted Tesla in the process of firing tens of thousands of hard working Federal employees.
Imagine, investing $200 and having it be worth $200,000 or more in less than two years.
And he's not the only billionaire who has increased their wealth several fold.
And Trump has rewarded all his billionaire allies in his pay-to-play schemes.
Thanks for putting this in perspective! The figures are staggering, but $200 million is quite literally pocket change for Elon Musk at this point. We must regain control and nullify Citizens United, among many other initiatives.
Believe me, Brian, my list of needed reforms is long. And reforming SCOTUS and the judicial branch are on the list. But everything else pales in comparison to the importance of the two priorities I listed.
- Wage an ineffective and illegal war, disrupting the global economy, raising prices
- Murdering people at sea, no attempt to apprehend or provide evidence of smuggling
- Aiding and abetting our enemy named Putin
- Abandoning our allies since WWII
- Holding hands with Bibi the war monger
- Shutting down USAID, sentencing millions to die (780,000 already)
"47" will be known as the president with the most chaotic, incompetent and treasonous foreign "policy" (what policy, actually?) in the history of our nation.
Great list, Marc! Straight forward, we have reality laid out for us! We must not be silent, but we must be tactful to break through the fog of the MAGA mind.
I can't argue with you there. When your entire strategy is "attack, attack, attack", "deny, deny, deny" and it works, no reason to change it up and become a benevolent dictator.
Dr. COX Richardson quoted the orange helium balloon 's 4th of July speach:
“They don’t want good. They don’t love God and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion and they don’t want religion and they won’t have it.… They have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or your God-given rights. It’s an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder…. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”
Interesting how he attributed to his perceived "enemies", those of us who are leaning left, Social Democrats, or Democrats in general, all the things that HE IS GUILTY OF:
mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder…. And called us communists. It is called PROJECTION. HE IS THE BIGGEST CON ARTIST IN THE HISTORY OF OUR GREAT NATION.
We ALL know that trump cheats at golf. All the time. The secret service stationed along the fairway moves his ball up and into the fairway, and the opponents' balls back and into the rough. Seriously, and not a controversial narrative.
Now, with help from infantino ('peace prize' bootlicker), trump is cheating at the World Cup. Not a surprise, from trump or Infantino. It is unacceptable, and a disgrace. The US coach, Mauricio Pochettino, who I admire, is beside himself to have this naked cheating foisted on his very successful team. It is now THE story of the tournament, no matter what else happens, and a severe demerit on whatever the USMNT accomplishes in the rest of the tournament.
No one besides trump, infantino and the bloviating, bootlicking alexi lalas, wants this 'post-truth' World Cup. For the 4 billion supporters who love association football, it ruins the biggest event in the sport.
Yes they could do so. But they won't do so. I was hoping for the US team to have a successful tournament, but not like this. It will be a relief when Belgium or Spain end the US run in this event.
That is so unfair to the US team who had no part in this and to Balogun himself who handled a very controversial call with grace. I have prayed all along that Trump would not show up and ruin this team's chance, but he had to find a way to make it about himself. The World Cup and fans from all over have made this an exciting and positive moment , one that contrasts with what MAGA is trying to do to our country. This team has shown themselves so well, and now whatever they do could be tainted. There have been other suspensions in this World Cup for a number of reasons that have allowed members to play, but Trump had to say he "made a phone call" - the kiss of death. And you will be relieved if our team goes down?
What trump and fifa did is disgraceful and totally unacceptable. 3.99 BILLION global football supporters including most in the US are disgusted by this action (listen to the reaction of Charlie Stillitano, 'Mr USA Soccer').
KARMA is now warming up on the Belgian sideline.
The LAST thing I want is trump taking public credit -- and he will do so -- for a USMNT victory. Same comment about that bloviating dipshit, Alexi lalas. Better if trump curses USMNT, as he cursed the Knicks by attending Game 3 of the Finals.
Nazi Republicans Spitting On The Constitution: White Power Politics
July 4th on the 250th anniversary marked the continued racist division. This time however instead of a physical Civil War, it’s a battle in the collective mind of the nation about who belongs and who doesn’t. Now it’s the CNPP(Christian Nationalist Ped Party) who says that not all men are created equal and that the country needs to go back to pre Civil war years where slavery was ok.
Our country is based on the rule of law. WE the People demand that our government uphold the rule of law and the foundational principle that all men are created equal. Executive orders to get rid of DEI and to abolish integration by government contractors done in the first weeks of the Nazi Republican occupation tell the story of a developing Confederacy and the eugenics philosophy that there are humans that are superior and deserve power.
Nazi Republican Congressional legislators turn a blind eye to this racist lawless conduct by a traitorous hateful racist misogynistic president supported by the partisan black robbed hacks that are called jurists on the Supreme Court. Regardless no one should give these Nazi Republicans any leeway because they are ALL complicit in the lawlessness and racist behavior. They took oaths to the Constitution but they’re spitting on that oath.
WE the People’s DNA demand WE fight tyrants. The Declaration of Independence was actually an indictment of a tyrant, at the time King George III. Now the tyrants of today, like those in WWII, are the Nazi Republicans. WE lose every fight WE don’t fight. So get angry and get ready to fight for all men are equal.
Heather mentioned the Reflecting Pool, and so posting this video again which explains the paperwork uncovered by the Drey Dossier who revealed her suspicions about Trumps obsession the East Wing construction and the construction being covered up regarding the Reflecting Pool -> she found connecting documents being tied to water infrastructure into a data center bunker under the East Wing.
⛔️ Trump is lying about the Reflecting Pool - Drey Dossier (7/3/26) *watch video*
This video, JaKsaa, just more frightening evidence of the tyranny being built.
For those interested, the woman in the video presents her research as to criminal Donald building a data center under the former East Wing, for biometrics he intends to have control over regarding every single American.
He's modeling his data center on one Netanyahu has in Israel.
The reflecting pool? Coolant, she's guessing, needed for the data center.
“…, for biometrics he intends to have control over regarding every single American.”
“Andra explains that Project 2025’s “state-sanctioned moral values” mirror China’s social credit system, but are rooted in Christian Nationalist biblical law rather than Communist Party loyalty. Meanwhile, Palantir’s surveillance tools would enable enforcement of this theocratic code across every aspect of American life.
The result would be a technocratic theocracy that punishes “immorality” through both visible and invisible means — from jail time to digital blacklisting. In other words, we could see a Christian Nationalist legal framework that bans or restricts abortion, birth control, IVF, and even miscarriage care; criminalizes trans identity, LGBTQ+ life, premarital sex, and cohabitation; outlaws pornography, adultery, divorce, and certain speech — and more.”
Earlier in the day on the 250th Anniversary of America’s Independence 🇺🇸, President Donald Trump and Russia’s Communist Vladimir Putin had a 90 minute conversation, supposedly very business like. But it was on the 250th Anniversary of our Independence.
President Donald Trump later gave a speech (the second over the weekend) accusing others of being Godless Communists.
President Donald Trump had just spent 90 minutes on the phone with a Godless Communist - so President Trump - what is it???
To be completely fair, Putin has converted himself very successfully into a capitalist gangster, much like Trump really, so there are reasons for their elective affinity.
Reality isn't just reasserting itself, as Heather concludes. Its corruption is crushing us.
Many media outlets have reported -- as Heather superbly does here today, too -- on the criminal Donald wealth grab.
But it’s all much worse than the obvious corruption he’s now flaunting – because it all comes combined with the latest rulings by what we used to call the Supreme Court for total dismantling of any limits on how billionaires may now openly buy politicians as well as court justices.
Morality? Ethics? These things are as quaint anymore as the notion that students in schools ever again read any whole books.
Let testing rip. Turn all to ciphers. Numericize, monetize all “life.” Let computers grade all the tests as billionaire social media algorithms provide all the slogans for all the hatreds.
The Maine Monitor reported that Susan Collins reelection campaign has received almost $10 million from 97 billionaires (so far).
Graham Platner has received less than $25,000 from 5 billionaires (so far).
Maine has no resident billionaires so all of this is from out of state.
Using these (mostly) dark money funds from PACs the RNC is sending out weekly mailings to the voters in ME touting the money Collins has brought into Maine.
We need to shout it from the roof tops that we won't allow billionaires to buy our politicians, especially ones who don't live here.
AIPAC is spending $30million dollars to attack the progressive candidate Abdul El Sayed (in the primary) because they want the establishment Democrat to be in the general instead. These PACs are anti-democratic and the party needs to call it out. The Democratic Party must read the room—they need to reject PAC money and call for election finance reform. HCR reported on a poll just last week, that if I remember correctly showed almost 80% of Americans want finance reform.. and only the progressives are running on this.
Thank you HCR for explicitly explaining that “progressive” candidates are actually equivalent to republicans during FDR’s era. Look how the Overton window has shifted!
"Maine has no resident billionaires so all of this is from out of state."
This is not technically correct. Susan Alfond lives in Scarborough. But I've never heard of the Alfonds trying to purchase politicians. Mostly they promote projects for kids and healthcare.
I didn't realize Alfond was a billionaire - worth an estimated $3.4 billion. And she is a trustifarian, having inherited 1/3 of her parent's wealth. Growing up in Omaha, we would drive by his house occasionally. Once in a while he was out in the yard, doing yard work stuff.
The reason I mention him is that years ago, Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway bought Alfond's Dexter Shoes and kept most of the stock which has appreciated dramatically.
Many of the large philanthropic projects in Omaha, were built with Berkshire Hathaway money. The doctor that delivered me in 1954 donated an entire wing in the University of Nebraska Medical Center with the money he made for BRK stock.
So, I'm glad to see it go to good use here in Maine.
Pretty much every hospital and branch of the university in the State has an Alfond building. And I think the big Boys and Girls club in Waterville was an Alfond grant. Now of course.. lots of that stuff was her parents. But I understand that the kids have been keeping up the tradition.
Isn't it a stretch to say Trump's followers were fleeced when they purchased Trump's memecoin? Surely they knew they were simply giving money to Trump when they bought any of them. Did anyone expect to profit from that transaction? He could have blown them a kiss and they would have given him money for that.
If what you say is true, that Trump’s boast is true of being able to shoot someone publicly and get away with it, then Trump is not drunk on his own con, but well aware of his power.
Of course MAGA expected to profit. I'm not talking about the Saudi princes or Eastern European royalty... but Mom and Pop MAGA? Yes. They ARE that stupid.
They continue to believe that Trump is a great financial wizard and that money given to him will return to them 10 fold. I know a woman who's son convinced her it was an easy way to finance her retirement. Emptied her 401K to put into one of these Trump coin scams. Her hard earned (very hard earned as a hairdresser) savings is now worth about $5. And her son had the nerve to ask her how 'she' could have 'f#$@ed it up so bad'... They are still drinking the koolaid though. They are sure it's a mistake and that eventually she will be a millionaire.
Reality has a way of outlasting propaganda. The danger is the damage done while people are convinced not to trust what they’re seeing.
That’s why civic responsibility begins with refusing to surrender our judgment.
“Facts are stubborn things” John Adams
They will outlive us, that's for sure.
From "When They Tuned on the Tap at the Watergate:
"But the same old truth was sittin' there in the middle of the slime,
You can't fool all the people, all the time.'
This poem was written a few years ago. Cedar Hills Cemetery is close to my residence in Hartford and I once visited after dark on July 4 in order to observe the wildlife inside become spastic during the fireworks now used by homeowners. The following are my recollections in poem form.
I once asked a mother wheeling her new born baby down my street if fireworks disturbed her child and she told me it terrified her. I happen to have a collection of rescued cats in my house and they become terrified whenever these bombs go off. The only way we can lessen interest of residents from buying the firework bombs is for local leadership to plead with city residents to stop exploding these devices.
The Woods Are Alive
Bill Di Mauro Katz
The woods come to life after dusk on this July 4th
As I take an evening stroll
Through the Land of the Dead
In Cedar Hills Cemetery.
Deer dart and zig zag into geometric chaos -
Their only spastic need is to escape;
Boom… boom… bam
Birds high above jump from the safety of tree nests.
They fly in circles. “Ooh” & “Aah” the neighbors
Moan and groan and watch from nearby verandas.
Bam… bam… boom
Go Roman candles and rockets
Red glare now made
In Asia and designed to keep
We the…
Deluded…
But…
Feeling Happy & Free.
While here, the woodlands are filled with
Terrified wildlife seeking a peaceful
Repose in their disrupted homes this very night. (Billkatz@substack.com)
Not sure of the psychology that loves fireworks, but it clearly is near universal.
They are kaleidoscopically lovely, although possibly my oldest "flashbulb" memory is of being scared by the booms in a stadium as a very small child. Then I loved them. Our dogs hated them, although our current Ozzie seems unfazed. I don't light them off any more, but neighbors do biggly. The biggest display (and crowd) I ever saw was in Japan.
It has occurred to me that we associate the 4th of July and the birth of our county perhaps excessively with war. The war was an important part of it for sure, but wars in and of themselves need not bring liberation. We pay less attention to the revolution in thought that set the stage for a democratic republic, and flawed yet abiding integrity that built that republic, while some others so named are or have been in name only. USSR, for example. There is a strain of thought in our nation that violence is the ultimate legitimizer, but that misses most of the point. I keep playing this oldie, but it is so relevant and rich with wisdom:
"
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength our gallant and disciplined army? These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of those may be turned against our liberties, without making us weaker or stronger for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men (sic), in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." -- Lincoln
"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." -- Lincoln"
I've always loved that passage and it's so apropos regarding this era. I could be a "wikipedia genius or search engine genius" and just look that up, but JL, was that not from his "Lyceum speech" ?
Now that I've contemplated that passage further, it occurs to me that Lincoln repeated that portion or very similar many times, numerous speeches (correct me if I'm mistaken). It was as though this reference was thematic for Lincoln, hence he repeated it; Thematic in that denial of personal liberty for any human, was in fact either immediately or later, a threat to the personal liberties of all, and that bothered him deeply. Deeply enough to suspend habeas corpus, and defy a scotus ruling; Maga intellectual types point to that in defense of the mango mussolini's actions.
I love fireworks. I saw the best one at a small-town concert venue. Imagine heart shaped fireworks! However, I do feel a bit guilty when I think of the soldiers who suffer when they hear fire works. If you can find it, a young country western singer Cooper Allen has a song called the Fifth of July which addresses it. Tears in my eyes thinking of it. It really is a worthwhile listen.
I agree, but I know many people who hate them and now don't like th Fourth or NYE. As I posted to Bill, we think the cost of gas (have to drive to WA reservations to get the illegal ones) and the cost of the fireworks made it less bad, at least around here
I’m just tired of being around stupid people.
Bill, we think the price of gas and the cost of fireworks cut down on the fireworks around here. People have to drive to reservations in WA to get the ones that are illegal here. So the doggie got through the night in his thunder vest pretty well. But not too far north of us in our neighborhood, some fools had mortars. Five people were injured, four seriously and they also did damage to nearby cars and buildings. So not a good night for them. 8 people were arrested in Lincoln City (on the coast) for starting a brush fire with fireworks. Portland does not allow them.
Flash and bang, the new American Anthem. I always preferred America The Beautiful over the Star Spangled Banner
Of course you do. It's a much better song. It deserves to be the national anthem.
I had a high school classmate who knew the words to "To Anacreon in Heaven," whose tune was taken for the Star-Spangled Banner. A drinking song, a rather learned drinking song. Maybe it's easier to manage the tune, which has a range of an octave and a half, when you're drunk.
America The Beautiful has such touching and inspiring words.also Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus
This poem really emphasizes the fact the there is no safe place for wildlife anymore. In a suburb of Los Angeles where I live, this weekend the booming and crashing went on until after 2am. Although our house is well insulated, our two cats still couldn’t figure out what all the noise was and kept racing around. I wasn’t sure if they were scared or just overexcited but it was not normal behavior.
very sad. Not only does our wildlife have guns but also bulldozers. The trump administration wants to pave Paradise and put up a parking lot ( in trump's case a golf course, luxury hotel, or a wall and possibly a highway). Use the Rose "garden" as an example.
Our puppies/dogs typically hear sounds from four times the distance that humans can. If you can hear a normal noise from 25 feet away, your dog can pick it up from 100 feet away. Under optimal conditions, dogs can detect certain sounds from up to a mile away.
While humans only process sound frequencies between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, dogs can hear high-frequency sounds up to 45,000 to 65,000 Hz
Cats can hear sounds from up to 2,300 to 3,000 feet (700 to 900 meters) away. This means they can detect noises four to five times farther away than humans.
Humans can hear up to 20,000 Hz, but cats can hear an incredible range of 48 Hz to 85,000 Hz. This allows them to hear ultrasonic frequencies that many rodents and small animals use to communicate.
Horses possess exceptional hearing and can detect sounds up to 2.5 to 4 miles (4 km) away. Thanks to their rotating, radar-like ears, they can pinpoint noises across a wide frequency range (from 14 Hz up to 35,000 Hz) and are even capable of hearing a human heartbeat from about 4 feet away.
Cows are easily startled by sudden, high-frequency, or loud noises (such as car horns or yelling), which can elevate their heart rate and cause stress. Cows hear a wider frequency spectrum than humans, spanning from 23 Hz to 35,000 Hz .
Rabbits can hear sounds from up to 2 miles (over 3 kilometers) away. Their large, mobile ears act like satellite dishes that gather and funnel sound waves to the eardrum.
Donkeys can hear up to 60 miles away. This exceptional range is due to their large, satellite-dish-like ears, which can swivel independently to pinpoint the exact direction of a sound.
So, like you, I think local fireworks should be limited to one time, not weeks before or after. Sensitive and respectful people need to understand noise pollution and its effects on babies, animals, elderly, those battling illnesses, diseases and epilepsy...
very sad. The wildfire not only have guns to fear but also bulldozers as trump is paving paradise and putting up a parking lot
Arguably, Trump has shown that you can fool enough of the people some of the time (and some of them all of the time) and somehow it works for him.
He watched and internalized Maverick and it was Bart who often said "you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, and those are pretty good odds", attributing the statement to his daddy. As to Trump, he can be full of shit and hot air at the same time, so one day I'm betting he will explode.
But as W said, you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones to concentrate on. Rupert certainly had this as mission statement since 1996. Chump hopped on board and made it his political strategy for minority rule. I don’t think the DNC noticed.
Communism is the greatest mortal threat to American liberty. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both. Trump is not a patriot. He doesn’t want good. He doesn’t love or want God. He has no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or our God-given rights. His actions reveal his belief in an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder. Trump is not a "far right" conservative and is instead a "far down" commie!
Compared to Trump, Bernie Sanders is a capitalist. Unlike Trump, Sanders actions reveal his belief in Adam Smith's "theory of moral sentiments" (1759).
It's all his projection. Blatant mirror of himself. And he'll never see it or own it. We just have to keep educating the American people over and over again.
Exactly, His language is projection. He's a sociopathic, pathological liar. He hates the human race as is evident in his comment, "I don't care..." if people a suffering financially (due to tariffs). He is so vile, but we can't forget the real "leader" in this, Peter Thiel and Project 2025.
Yep, so many lack that part of the brain that has atrophied from disuse.
Why exactly would communism be "the greatest mortal threat to American liberty"?
And how can you claim this while a neofascist GOP is destroying all liberties step by step, and at a very fast pace?
EUWDTB, agree. The greatest threat to us is fascism and to the whole planet, climate change.
Communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, and authoritarian dictatorship are three labels for political entities that are functionally the same. The newsletter includes a Trump quote in which he accurately describes the danger of authoritarianism as he also accurately describes the behavior of his own administration.
Authoritarianism, period, is the greatest threat to American liberty. Hitler and Stalin were opposite sides of the same coin. Only fatigue led Harry Truman to veto General Patton's suggestion to keep on going to Moscow, after V-E Day. Communism, per se, exists now only in Cuba and Nicaragua. China and Viet Nam are hybrid Marxist/Capitalist states North Korea is a cult-ruled monstrosity, existing only because Xi Jin-ping finds it to his advantage to keep the Kims in power.
After years of fighting there would have been no public support to take the fight to the USSR. An unfortunate reality because as you say, Stalin was not an improvement on Hitler.
But at the present time communism is a spent force. Trump is using it as a scare tactic. Expect to hear about it from now until election day.
I agree that "Authoritarianism, period, is the greatest threat to American liberty." Communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, and authoritarian dictatorship are three labels for political entities that are functionally the same.
"Authoritarianism, period, is the greatest threat to American liberty"
Kind of what the Declaration of Independence was articulating.
Everything trump is accusing others of doing he himself is doing.
Left-wing dictatorship, right-wing dictatorship are just two different flavors of merde. Simplistic thinking. The right tool for the right job is always wiser. Capitalism? It has a place, but no natural right to impunity, and yes, Adam Smith knew better than than that. The public sector? Also indispensable, and some functions are too vital and/or dangerous to be contracted out. That seemed like mainstream thinking mid 20th Century.
We are being had. "Liberty and justice for ALL is exactly that, and you can't have one without the other. Governance of, by and for The People; why the hell not? "Centrist"? No, that's simplistic too, but dynamic balance if four dimensional (with consequences over time). Nothing in excess and as much as it takes. It takes more disciplined thinking, but that's what got us out of caves. Question everything. Bernie Sanders has a "heart", and Trump doesn't; and ya' gotta have heart. Miles and miles...
Get the simple part right to make the complicated part possible. Get the simple part wrong to make the complicated part impossible. To get the simple part right, be moral by treating others the way you would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot. To get the simple part wrong, do unto others before they do unto you.
It's the Hippocratic Oath writ large: before causing something to happen, make sure it won't cause unnecessary harm.
Not following your “weave”
Weave explanation: Communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, and authoritarian dictatorship are three labels for political entities that are functionally the same.
That's because you are in TX and not in the mid Atlantic
37.5% are fool all the time.
37.5% would eat the peanuts out of his dirty diaper just so they could kiss his worthless ass.
They didn't become that way overnight though. It's the result of half a century of deliberate betrayal by the GOP of their own voter base, through always more sophisticated and widespread propaganda machines.
I heard an interesting snippit from Lucas Bean claiming that propaganda works on vulnerabilities of human brain function, thus the Orwellian belief in the patently unbelievable. Kinda like optical illusions, only an induced psychosis. My sixth grade teacher spoke about Nazi propaganda worked and how to recognize fallacies, one of the few lessons I still remember. BS detection should be taught in every grade, not just a vignette. Finland seems to be doing it.
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/finland-has-been-world-leader-media-literacy-many-years-children-young-kindergarten-age-are
Possibly a bit too graphic, but never less accurate. 👍🏻
"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time." -- James Thurber
Who was no fool.
Just 40%!
"Facts are stupid things" G.W. Bush.
Fact check: Reagan said "Facts are stupid things" at the 1988 Republican National Convention—he was attempting to quote John Adams, who actually said "Facts are stubborn things."
Reagan bungled the quote and said "stupid" instead of "stubborn."
Regardless both were stupid.
Perhaps an early "slip" caused by Alzheimer's?
You mean like the Contra aid controversy with Oliver North and John Poindexter? Reagan allegedly could not recall any allegations that North and Poindexter were given directions by him. He denied the claims more than 80 times. He may well have been going through early onset dementia by this time. And then again.....
Riad, dementia sneaks up on its victims. My mother was sharp as a tack; taught in public school until she retired at age 83. She continued to be mentally sharp until she reached age 91, at which time she started having trouble finding the word she wanted to use in conversation on rare occasions. Then she started having trouble remembering what day it was. Then she forgot how to start her coffeemaker. In a year's time, she was wheelchair-bound, unable to read or speak, unable to toilet alone or dress herself.
Reagan was a rotten human and fully capable of devious schemes. He didn't become a vegetable overnight. The swap of "stubborn" and "stupid" seems typical of dementia to me.
Early onset and deliberate lies is my take. Politicians are often "forgetful" when asked embarrassing or incriminating questions.
News media of the day often noted times in which Reagan was way confused, though most news stories seemed to dismiss its significance, unlike with Biden, whose faux pas were mild by comparison. I suspect Reagan was in early Alzheimer's throughout his presidency. The deference of the press, unlike the case with Nixon, greatly helped him peddle his scams.
Huh! Thank YOU! We are in the midst of a serious advancement of “facts are stupid things”…. Hmmmmm….
Truths can be "inconvenient".
Great example of a stubborn fact :-).
Figures.
Thank you. Must be creeping dementia 😊
Republicans at their core
Admissible facts both state & federal are exceedingly stubborn.⚖️
When the "fix" isn't in.
Concur.
The party keeps trying to tell you what you see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, taking place all around you, isn't really happening, that you're just making it up, you're just a disaffected lib-ruhl, that you hate America, that you're a godless communist, that you're vermin, that you like seeing Haitians eat cats and dogs....the list of inanities is endless.
Your judgement is their first intended victim. Do not cooperate with them.
Unfortunately, it is obvious that most of his followers lack the ability to discern truth from fiction.
Dunno if it's lack of ability, but it seems that they really, really WANT to believe in the snakeoil.
Yep, it’s that. They WANT to be part of the cult.
I completely agree and they want to believe Democrats are pushing communism although it is hard for any of them to tell you the difference between socialist and socialism because either they don't know or they don't want to know. The narrative maga is pushing now is no different than the dog and cat eating propaganda they pushed the last election. It is a case of "here we go again".
Klutt, and, their cult picks it up from the mouths of the evil ones and swallows it whole, every time, trying to convince themselves it makes sense, of course it does, that's what those left-wing radicals would do or would be or would think or something. If any of them were asked what a Communist or a Socialist or a Democratic Socialist is, they would have no clue and would try to accuse the questioner of being one of THEM and think that is a good answer. Ugh!
Uh... "socialist" is the adjective of the noun "socialism". There is no difference.
And I'm quite sure that many on the left don't know the difference between communism and socialism either.
Karl Marx studied the savage capitalism of his time and predicted that it will crumble under its own contradictions, sooner or later. Instead of allowing the wealthiest and CEOs (and stockholders) to keep all the money produced by their workers/employees for themselves, workers would begin to demand the right to sit at the table and weigh in on decisions about how the money produced is spent. That is "socialism". It means that the profits generated by private companies are no longer the ownership of the 1%. Instead, through government regulations (labor laws) and negotiations with unions, in each private company, workers/employees have the power to negotiate their own working conditions, including salaries.
Communism, Marx predicted, will be the next step. Once capitalism generated wealth and socialism then used that wealth to improve the situation of everyone, citizens will no longer need private companies at all. Now, the (democratically elected and operating) government, formed by ordinary citizens, will take over the economy as a whole, so that no one is forced to do dehumanizing jobs in dehumanizing conditions at all anymore.
The idea that communism would be anti-American was created by neoliberals in the 1940s. But their analyses were flawed from the very beginning. By "communism" they actually meant the fascist regimes in Russia and China who CALLED themselves "communist", and who did have governments that took control of everything. What they skipped, however, is what Marx showed was absolutely crucial: they tried out going from a foedal, agrarian society to a communist one overnight instead of first developing the means of production through a capitalist economy, and then, when wealth was high enough, add socialism, long before moving to communism becomes an option.
The result was not only a century-old dictatorship but also very poor economic development, compared to what capitalism in the West had achieved in the 19th century (when it moved from agrarian to industrialized economies).
Today, there are no communists in the US. There are communist parties in Northern Europe, and they're all democratic. They're also not very popular.
Meanwhile, in the US the GOP is installing neofascism, a combination of fascism and the savage capitalism that is called "Network State" economy (see Gil Duran for the details).
Being IN the cult means having to defend it with knee-jerk whataboutism. That's what I get when I [still, foolishly] try to offer to a cult-invested-relative some information about what is, actually, happening in our country. I'm met with no response to the actual ruination of the Forest Service, USAID, prices, etc., but with ya but whatabout... xyz.
Why I'm having a hard time admitting there is no reason to keep trying to break through with reason:
In the back of my mind are the words of a grad school instructor I had at Teachers College in NYC in the 1970s who, in a philosophy course on education and mass communication, kept insisting on the critical role of "ratiocination" in order to maintain a sane and democratic society. I looked up the word, of course. I found that while he could have spoken about the critical role of "reason," using ratiocination is a process of using reason. He was brilliant. Martin Dworkin, a film critic. Bless him. He handed out a mimeographed list of books we should read in our lifetimes. It was single-spaced and probably 20 pages long. He said, "This is a finite task. Do it."
Every MAGAt should follow a philosophy and critical thinking course. Then again, the Kool Aid may have shrunk their brains too far to understand that kind of stuff...
Sometimes the comments in this forum sound very cult like. There is adherence to a certain belief, fear and hatred of the other and unwillingness to tolerate differences of opinion.
I invite you to start at the beginning and read every single comment in one week's work of Letters from An American.
A lack of critical thinking and the ability to read are leading causes of the 37% support for the regime.
I'm not sure that it's so much better on the left. Wokism isn't exactly a great example of critical thinking either...
EUWDTB--not trying to argue, but just wondering how you are defining "wokism".
To me, it simply means being aware of and acknowledge the struggles of people who differ from you. Understanding how perceptions of some people towards people who have such differences can impact relations.
Also, to me "wokism" is the truest interpretation of the teachings of Jesus.
This is already part of the problem: somehow today, Americans both on the left and right imagine that there is no objective meaning of words and that, instead, we should just go with whatever we subjectively associate with them.
How can we ever fight back against huge things such as neofascism if we can't even accept basic facts about language?
It's not ME who's defining "wokism" here. Definitions of broad ideological movements are objective. They're the result of experts studying ideologies and the way they are implemented.
For more info about wokism and progressive criticism of this newly invented ideology, see for instance Jon McWorther or Susan Neiman.
Better than ANYTHING the right has to offer.
I don't see why. Why?
MAGA: "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck - it's probably a pigeon. . ."
Or
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ozCD8nD5pLo
🤣
That guy was a LITERAL "bobble head."
Very, very sad. . .
An Apt description!!! :-)
If they could do that (discern truth from fiction) they would never have bought into that ridiculous meme coin he was selling. Clearly a sucker's bet, the only one guaranteed to make bank was him. Everyone else lost their collective shirts.
The $Trump coin is a perfect summary of Trump's career.
Carthago, yes, and then they blame Democrats for doing something to the whole thing to make them lose their money. Republicans and the cult members in general just can't imagine they are wrong or made a bad decision or are following a total narcissist, sociopath, dementia-laden fool. Heck, they wouldn't even know what those words mean because they are so entrapped by Trumplandia!
True: but most of his followers are essentially poorly educated. They never really learned how to think critically. Maybe it was the school system to which they went, or maybe, it was their home life. Who knows? This leads into one of Trump's famous lines concerning his followers: "I love the poorly educated."
And refuse to acknowledge it even if it smacks them in their face or their bank account! Willfully ignorant with a stunning arrogance….
It's Come to This, yes, and that is why we need to encourage each other to do a fact check on everything the current regime says or prints or broadcasts. The could involve logic, checking with trusted sources, and understanding that if they say it, it is most likely a lie. Then we have to use the word lie! Lying is the coin of their realm and they will use it at every occasion, making even more outlandish claims just to see what will fly. Let's work harder to make sure that all of it stays on the ground and is crushed under the foot of truth/facts.
So now we have the celebration of our 250th anniversary of the the Declaration of Independence that has been scandalized by tRump. We have the greenflection pool scandal. We have the Iran war scandal. We have the high inflation scandal. What happened to the Epstein scandal? What about the Judge Aileen Cannon scandal that kept the orange puke out of jail. Sorry, but I just don't see anything getting crushed by truth or facts or anything else. We just allow this animal to move from one scandal to another.
The press can’t linger on any given scandal because there’s always some new outrage.
You are too generous. This is probably a good thing. Those of us who are less admirable have reached a point where we regard any statement emitted by any regime member as inherently untrue. Then we fact-check if seen as necessary 😊
Too many already have. Cult has been ruling for awhile now.
Thank YOU…. Summed ‘it’ up ….! I will NOT cooperate!
The Party told us that the perpetrators of the massive Jan. 6th riot were "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse".
Sorry, apparently I hit the post button before I finished my post replying to It Comes to This. Hannah Arendt - one of the great philosophers on evil and tyranny. A Jewish woman who escaped Hitler and Nazism in Germany who came to the U.S. here is a YouTube video of her someone posted of her concerning how tyrants begin their work; https://youtube.com/shorts/WQmpLqze9gc?is=vlNFQlr52IGUsPEA Dr. Arendt was a prolific author on this and many related topics - a truly amazing human being.
As all fascist and neofascist propaganda has ever done...
It’s like the ‘mansplaining’ presidency.
Here we are after all the bullsh_t of 16 months of trump 2.0 and the disapproval/approval polls are still stuck at 60/40.
It still meserizes me, too. With America becoming a “shithole country” as fast as lightning under the Orange Goblin King, and STILL 37% of Americans are cheering him on, all the while becoming poorer and poorer…
DM, but are they REALLY cheering him on? When was the last time you heard someone talk about how great Trump, SCOTUS and Congress are doing?
So, it's the far-right media, who for the past 10 days, has told us to believe them and not our own eyes showing video of empty fairgrounds in DC. Trump and the far-right media are the only ones bragging about what a great job the Republicans are doing.
Watching the Faux newscasters in front of that vast empty field, I started to wonder if someone in the evil empire had turned and was showing the emptiness deliberately, to expose the lie of "huge crowds."
Well, as Melinda Quivik wrote here: "Being IN the cult means having to defend it with knee-jerk whataboutism. That's what I get when I [still, foolishly] try to offer to a cult-invested-relative some information about what is, actually, happening in our country. I'm met with no response to the actual ruination of the Forest Service, USAID, prices, etc., but with ya but whatabout... xyz."
I think the 37% don’t care what the truth is. They are full of anger/hatred/spite. DJT just keeps egging them on to direct all that venom outward. And they will believe anything that justifies the feelings thanks to lots of lies and a huge boost by social media.
It makes no sense.
Right on, it’s national suicide
They believe what they are fed in their information silos. Discouraging. There is no reason or rational thought.
And those 40 percent will support Trump when he declares a National Emergency In Order To Stop the Communist Threat... cancelling the midterm elections. And CBS News will NOT say "Trump is crazy / lying about all this" for a moment.
Wake up, people. The Trump Regime doesn't care how many of us oppose it. It doesn't have to; it's got the thoroughly ChristoNazified USian military, the world's deadliest, most sadistic band of war criminals.
The Regime's 40 percent popularity -- every supporter a "kill-a-Commie-for-Christ" fanatic -- merely gives Trump an additional reserve of unquestionably obedient storm troopers, malevolently cheering his embrace of "an anticommunism that exaggerates even the excesses of the McCarthy era," eager to torture, rape and murder.
Note too our eternally diminished expectations -- "what today’s Democratic Socialists call for is much more limited than what the Republicans under President Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted in 1956" -- absolute proof our omnipotent masters are winning, with 79 years of ever-more-irreversible capitalist savagery already on the scoreboard.
"And so the 251st year of American democracy begins with reality reasserting itself."
Concur.
A few weeks ago I called the ongoing process the start of the "Great Repair" But, after after reading Justice Ketanji Brown's citations in her "Birthright" case opinion to Isabel Wilson, I purchased the book, "CASTE The Origins of Our Discontent". I see the process more like a constitutional metamorphosis.
Professor & Community: How do we fix this thing?
I don't believe it is fixable. Nevertheless, I very fervently believe we should keep trying to fix it, simply because -- though our Mother Earth, fate, karma and whatever deities may or may not exist have obviously not just turned against us, but cursed us with the most apocalyptically Evil despot in this planet's history -- we might yet stumble on a solution by blind stupid happenstance. Otherwise I no longer doubt we're doomed.
I don’t think the current system is fixable either. But it is replaceable*. That’s Innovation Theory 101. When what no longer works is also finally seen as obsolete, that opens the door to replacing it with something that does. The Founding Fathers did this 250 years ago… with a revolution. What we need now is an evolution. I’ll be talking about this more in my new Substack essay… hope to have it finished later today or this evening.
Loren I think we are cursed with the most "evil despot" to show us that the system hasn't been working for all and there needs to be changes. Many people have their eyes wide open now and realize how many loopholes are being exploited by this regime. The old system may not be fixable but I think it could be made better and now we know HOW to make it better and what we actually want as a country. The founding fathers, the declaration of independence both guide us. I cling to the hope of a better America.
Absolutely right, Steve.
Weird, ain't it? Our species name, Homo sapiens, means "wise man", but were not there yet.
Ha, no not by a long shot - maybe we should be called Homo Stupidus
Homo stultus... the actual Latin for "stupid man".
Yes, stultus, bardus, brutus or stupidus and others as well
Homo sapiens inhumanus
Back in 1758, Linnaeus struggled with the classification of his own species so he compromised by placing us with the apes and monkeys based on trivial morphological features like the numbers of fingers and toes and only entered the Socratic injunction nosce te ipsum - 'know thyself'. That struggle continues today, nowhere more potently than in America, the birthplace of Intelligent Design. Trump's recent denunciations of 'godless communists' (not of course including his pal Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB agent) hearken back to the days of the Scopes Trial.
Have we ever been, well we’ve had our moments
It's totally insane.
TJB, it amazes me that HCR and others still refer to to the support for the scumbag president at "only" about 40%....do they know how many millons is 40%?. I didn't know that there're so many stupid people in the whole world much less in just one country...
Right now it is 35%. This is about right for any percentage of disagreement. There will always be a core group around a person or idea. It is really weird to me that people don't flip it and realize that around 65% is against this guy and everything he stands for.
Go to a pollster Strength in Numbers. Look at the breakdowns.
Given the situation and what's at risk Barbara, even 1% it's too much.
In a Democracy there is always percentages of disagreement. This is actually a sign of a healthy Democracy. You are calling for an authoritarian form of government where freedom to disagree is stamped out. In Orwell's 1984 it was called groupthink. In order to reach want you want independent thought, opinions and a two Party system would cease to exist.
It is way past time for people to stop blaming someone else for where we are today. The Democrats blame Republicans, people blame a paltry 35%, Russia, aliens or whatever to shed personal responsibility.
We can either stop focusing on those bad guys or we can do what is appropriate in a Democracy to right the ship.
Ok teacher.....just saying sarcastically that I'm very concerned about losing this coming election most likely due vote restrictions and fraud.
I think the 40 percent (actually 37%) is about the "Trump base" which hasn't fluxuated much since 2016. His approval ratings HAVE varied, because outside of his base, most people are more willing to both believe and disbelieve his nonsense. As they vary in their beliefs, his approval ratings fluxuate from a top of about 55% in favor to the current low which is pretty much everyone disagreeing with him EXCEPT his solid base.
Personally, it doesn't worry me, though it will still require constant attention to how the ballot boxes are handled in all states, especially in the swing states. I expect we can take a 10+ vote surplus in the House and MAYBE a 2-3 vote surplus in the Senate (although I am less sure of that because the Senate is only electing 33 people this year, vs the House is voting on all 435 seats).
when Nixon left office he still had 25% approval. There is always a 25-35 % of a population that can't be moved. Ignorance and apathy. The government wants and needs stupid people
Again, unf**kingbelievable. That is minority rule in all it’s glory
Because the propaganda exists?
Not necessarily. We have a huge Country. Given its size, geographical variations, historical backgrounds, family legacy, educational levels, financial variations etc. there will be reinforced beliefs. We do a disservice trying to pin where we are today on one factor. It is a limiting belief. And Dr. Richardson said it best last week. Until we address the core racism in this Country, we will continue to experience these cycles. Look at the thread running through so many hide bound beliefs, and you will see racism at its historical core.
Exactly so!
TJB, it occurs to me that a person's world-view is shaped by either knowledge or beliefs. (Most people operate with percentages of both.) The "problem" with knowledge is that it can be altered by the introduction of new facts. People who operate on the basis of knowledge can, and do, modify their positions on any given topic based on the admission of new information. Knowledge is maintained in the intellect.
Beliefs, however, are almost impossible to change because they exist without the support of facts. Beliefs are couched in emotion.
Many surveys document that 85% of MAGA are evangelicals (conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics). As a corollary, Pew Research finds that approximately 34% of the U.S. population identify as evangelical. Pew classifies Roman Catholics separately, but doesn't distinguish between "regular" and conservative Catholics.
These conservative Christians' world-view is governed entirely by beliefs. There's your 40%.
Go figure, we have people so committed to his vision that they willfully ignore the truth in front of their eyes. I can understand his close friends who are profiting beyond their wildest dreams, but people who are caught up in his failing economy and are struggling to stay afloat, you would think might wake up. Not yet. 🤬🤬🤬
yes Kelli, the greatest act of resistance is keeping your sanity to fight another day.
We have a vile, poser for President who has nothing better to do than whip up people's fears about commie threats we defeated 90 years ago. Like all countries, we have problems to solve, lives to improve, less fortunate people to help. What in heaven's name is Donald Trump talking about? Maybe he got mixed up between "Communist" and "Comedians".
Sanity and spirit. Perseverance furthers.
Another day is today JaKsaa 😉
I agree, but we have judgement to surrender. Trump is appealing to those who lack good judgement. That is the problem.
My book club is currently reading "The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging" by Noelle Cook. It is giving me a better understanding of the thinking of women who joined the January 6 attacks on the Capitol. The women she follows have lives of deep trauma and they subscribe to QAnon and mystical thinking along with things like Charismatic christianity and new age spirituality, as well as being big believers in intuition. They have live experiences that show them to have PTSD. They fill a void of loneliness with belonging to these far right conspiracy groups. It does not bode well for the sanity of our nation.
''The Red Scare Rerun: Trump Finds a New Old Villain''
Going into America’s 250th birthday, Donald Trump had a tiny messaging problem. By tiny, I mean the kind that includes inflation, oil trouble, fertilizer shortages, crypto grift, a green Reflecting Pool, an empty National Mall fair, Epstein file questions, and approval numbers that look like they were assembled by a very sad intern with a dying laptop.
So naturally, he found the real threat to America.
Communists.
Not corruption. Not food prices. Not oil shocks. Not donors being routed through patriotic funhouse mirrors. Not a memecoin where regular people lost billions while the Trump cash register played “Hail to the Chief.” No, the true emergency is apparently your cousin who thinks insulin should not cost rent money.
This is vintage Republican panic marketing. When life gets expensive, yell “communism.” When the fair is empty, yell “communism.” When the giant patriotic arch looks like it was ordered from Temu with rush shipping, yell “communism,” then blame the algae on vandals.
Trump’s handlers seem to have reached into the dusty campaign closet, pushed aside “caravans,” “antifa,” and “critical race theory,” and found Joe McCarthy’s old jacket. It still smells like paranoia, but with the right lighting and a donation link, they think it might fit.
The problem is that democratic socialism is not communism. Wanting public schools, public roads, affordable health care, and a government that does not operate like a casino with nuclear codes is not the Bolshevik Revolution. It is basically what America has done, unevenly and imperfectly, for generations.
Meanwhile, Trump screams about communism while trying to turn public institutions, private business, elections, and national celebrations into extensions of his personal brand. That is not freedom. That is a souvenir shop with authoritarian lighting.
But panic is easier than policy. You do not need a plan if you have a villain. You do not need results if you have a fog machine.
So here we are, year 251 of American democracy, watching a president scream about communists while the Reflecting Pool turns green.
At least something in Washington is honest about being swampy.
Brilliantly said! And with nearly 40 percent still approving of him, Trump will push this fear of commies all the way to November … when I fully expect him to declare a state of emergency and cancel the election to “save the nation“!
Facts.
We must stay in touch with reality and hold onto our values and be consistent
However, for far too many people, reality is subjective and "facts" are not unassailable. They also change over time: look at "facts" from the 19th century concerning women, people of color, social class, etc.
And it's why the repubs try to suppress education.
Lest I be accused of demonizing the democrats, I would like to point out references by other historians which trace the ascendency of presidential powers back to Franklin Roosevelt, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan and Obama. Although trump has taken full advantage of this evolution. This has been aided by social media which has been destructive for democracy, followed by courts, journalism and universities. Public discourse is now automated, rather than happening in real time in real places. Technology has polarized us. We are in free fall off a cliff. And as many years it has taken the US to assume full dictatorship, can we expect a return to some sort of "normalcy" to arrive in another 30 to 40 years?
It looks as though I've been ostracized, isolated or relegated to the "trash bin." No one responded to my above paragraph. I'm not looking for likes; this is not facebook, but a rebuttal or two or agreement. (I've been absent for awhile, travelling, other commitments, therefore not posting.) It's supposed to be a place where we share what we know, what we believe. Sometimes I am misinformed or make propositions which lack depth. I receive comments, some are rude. But....I'm on your side. Perhaps this site has transformed into a kind of clique where popular voices are accepted, or allowed and others dismissed, if they don't conform exactly to a certain strain of opinion. (And I'm not talking about Rick Sender!!!) Perhaps this is how the US has become so divisive. Disagreement is a normal part of social interaction and how it is handled impacts communication. Maybe when we're not delivering our opinions in person, anonymity encourages rancor rather than a constructive response. Well, maybe I'm just being defensive.
The problem is that the US no longer teaches kids and adults how to develop their "own" judgment.
Teaching critical thinking requires so much more than blindly validating no matter what someone else thinks, as American education methods all too often do, and for decades already now.
It requires us to engage in real debates with those who disagree with us, and on a daily basis. It requires learning how to be okay with noticing that you were mistaken.
The installation of neofascism is the result of a long erosion of excellence in the US. It will take decades to rebuild it.
First step: raising awareness of the problem, because for now, the only ones thinking about reforming education methods ARE the neofascists, and obviously, what they propose will only make things even worse when it comes to preserving democracy.
"That’s why civic responsibility begins with refusing to surrender our judgment." Indeed true. But that comes with education. It appears too late to start educating voters now. The founding fathers never imagined that three branches of the government work together to benefit wealthy people at the expenses of uneducated voters.
Hiro, I believe it is never too late. People have the capacity to learn into old age and we should all be taking advantage of that ability. We can trust people to learn. Clearly, a bunch learned that Donald Trump would give them whatever they wanted through his words, but his actions taught them something quite different. Now we need to learn and spread the directions for how to break out of the prison that is Trumplandia, then pass it along to those imprisoned there.
To which and whose "reality" are you referring? "Reality" seems to have quite intriguing meanings to commenters here.
ICE imprisoned 10,000 of us last week.
20,000 Palestine children have been killed.
$30 million spent on their candidate by Schumer and AIPAC in Michigan
Americans know more about the World Cup than the data above. If there are some who know these things then ask why there aren't more. Americans has become too rich, too lazy and too cocky. Too many people are not feeling the effects of reality. It's not about propaganda. It is about being protected financially from what is happening. Or it is about so consumed with survival to care.
Civic responsibility died in the 1950's.
This foul man fleeces everything he touches. Why should his dim-witted followers be any exception? Join his “winning” team indeed and watch your investment lose 97% of its value! Who wouldn’t sign up for that?
Yesterday, our whining, howling, diapered baby-in-chief did what he’s done his whole too-long, wretched life — steal something of value not his to begin with and turn it into shit in a flash. He took what should have been a non-partisan birthday celebration and made it into a stupid, masturbatory carnival worthy of a debauched Roman emperor.
All he's ever done, ever will do, is try to grab everything by the you-know-what — women, history, the Constitution, human decency, then force it to gyrate to his grandiose, stolen gay anthems, with a self-pitying, whinybitchy beat and voice. However solemn the occasion, however neutral, he has to make it about him, 24/7/365. Not just the most corrupt, most indecent, most arrogant moron ever to soil the White House, but the most exhausting. A psychotic 2-year-old constantly shitting all over us, all the time, without letup.
And yet he continues to find enablers — those who fluff him on command, flatterers and stooges, sycophants and stage props who titter and giggle while he boasts he can do ‘whatever he wants.’ This I just don’t get. I never will. With some it's money, with others it's some sick, bizarre sense of belonging, a fear of being left out. But what does it gain you to curry favor like that, eating from the debauched pervert’s table, losing your own soul -- not to mention 97% of your investments -- in the process?
Perhaps there’s such a large pool of idiots to draw from here in the U.S. that was always under appreciated.
I don't get it either ICTT - prior to Trump I always thought that most Americans had a solid footing in common sense, whether they'd had a higher education or not. But not a shred to be found in his followers. The sense of belonging must be a very strong and primal need.
GREED
I think that his rhetoric feeds a part of their souls that is full of fear and hatred. That is about the only explanation I can come up with.
Shared grievances!
If a MAGA invested $2500 in Trump crypto, meme coins and the Trump phone, and Trump stock in Truth Social, they would now be able to cash in those investments for around $125 before brokers fees. I'm not quibbling with your 97% loss number, I'm just reporting what I heard from Thom Hartmann.
So parents, today you can apply for your $1000 Trump accounts or you could go to Six Flags or Disney World. Which do you think brings more value to you and your family?
Which begs the question, "What are these trump accounts going to be invested in?"
"Who wouldn’t sign up for that?"
They probably would have been better off investing with Bernie Madoff; Yet he went to jail.
We can always hope that someday DonOld will as well. Hopefully his cell mate will be a large athletic black guy with an MMA background that's looking for some action.
And some are not stupid. But I think greed is neurotoxicity
I quibble with your point that this shit shown is worthy of a Roman emperor. At least they had bread and circuses. (Yes I’m just being silly…if I don’t laugh, I cry at what he and his shit sycophants have done to this country.)
Masturbatory carnival for the win! Made my morning
Kudos for this rant! All to many try to cite various experts to explain or categorize the sub human creature called Trump’s words or policies! You have crafted phrases like “eating from the debauched pervert’s table” which emanate the from the bowels of your viscera! Bravo!
ICTT, decades ago I had a ‘conversation’ with a woman, a professional cartoonist, who claimed she was a communist. She was or seemed to be bright; at least she thought so as I could almost smell a superior attitude some people wear like perfume.
As the ‘conversation’ progressed or descended, it was increasingly apparent to me that she didn’t possess one creative thought. Everything was a party line.
At least I had the temerity to say that… and, worse for me, she was boring like our own brat in ‘the drowning pool’.
It's time for Trump to put his anti-communist rhetoric to practical use. Let him give Ukraine the weapons they need to fend off the Russian drone and other air attacks on Kyiv's civilian targets.
Russians appear to have traded one form of dictatorship for another. Terhe greatest legacy the nation's founders passed to us is the fact that they DID NOT go for a new boss, same as the old boss. Plenty of imperfections, but distinctly and structurally not an autocratic form of governance; if we can keep it.
Trump's phony anti-communist rhetoric is warmed-over Joe McCarthy demagoguery, courtesy of Roy Cohn.
JL, McCarthy only had Senate Committees to destroy lives. Trump has the DOJ. We have the Lower Courts. Unfortunately Trump has the Roberts Cabal
It reeks of desperation.
good point... we need to send that to all the repub senators...thanks
Exactly! But won’t happen! Just bs and lies from the sub human creatures mouth!
Dear Heather: You write so clearly and accurately about T! I can hardly stand to read about him. He is nauseating. And evil, and greedy, and so on. Bless you for being able to look this monster in the face and accurately describe what he's up to. Thank you!
My sentiments exactly, Peggy. Thanks for your post.
You're welcome, Lynell! What I wrote was my visceral first response to Heather's prose. I see that my post struck quite a nerve here. Frankly, I'm amazed. And gratified.
Especially considering she's a Republican Historian!
She is? Are you sure? She must be the rare Republican who has integrity and honesty.
She has self-described as a "Republican Historian" perhaps in reference to her books "The Greatest Nation On Earth," "The Death Of Reconstruction," "To Make Men Free," etc. I have no idea how she personally feels about the Republican Party these days. She is an historian after all.
Goodness he’s such a narcissistic/self absorbed person.
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress. Be LOUD! Trump/the administration is dangerous for our country 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly!
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
Our local Democratic chapter is meeting this week to organize writing letters to the editors or commentary to the various daily and weekly newspapers across our state.
If your local papers or other publications accept LTTE, write letters reminding people to vote Blue and what the consequences are when we elect Republicans.
Endorsements from labor groups, students, parents and celebrities can also help your candidates.
Stephen King endorsed Hannah Pingree for Governor and she won by a nose in RCV last month against three well qualified candidates.
Thanks again Megan as always.
Thanks, Megan!
Morning, Ally!! So good to catch up with you here. So, now my TV won't let me watch movies anymore. I discovered this while trying to view "1776," the musical from 1972 - which I had never seen before. I did see the musical play with my family some 60+ years ago, however, and have fond memories of how our story, told with a bit of literary license and humor, unfolded.
The good news is our other TV in another room had no trouble finding the internet; so, I was able to extend my 250 experience on Sunday, the day after.
I bring you up-to-date today with this small story. I can't remember how long ago it was since I last saw fireflies (lightning bugs!) "flooding the zone" every summer. I do know I was at least around nine or ten. Sitting in the dark on my porch this morning waiting for the dawn to break, I spied a small, greenish light flash near a tree leaf. I stayed fixed on that spot when soon it flashed again. Then, another flash right next to it!
As I stood up to walk away, one of them just beyond my reach flew past me as if to say, "Keep fighting for our return!" Will do, little one. Will do!"
The other night when I was walking the dog, the fireflies were out in force. It seems they are making a comeback here in rural ME where there is very little light pollution.
Has anyone else noticed the return of the birds? Robins, doves, gulls, cardinals and many other species have really made a comeback since the bird flu decimated their populations a couple of years ago.
I've been seeing fireflies in our backyard, especially around our overgrown garden. We must be doing something right (like not weeding regularly and never using "lawn products").
huh.. no wonder I have a few in the backyard.. deffo not mowing, weeding or using lawn products.
I think I have my new lawncare slogan. "Lighting bug protection area" ;-)
"Lawn products." Now THERE's a euphemism...
And the Supreme Court, along with all its other trashings, just gave Monsanto/Bayer a pass on Roundup.
Yes, I know. 😠
They definitely like the thicker landscaping. We've had several friends who have had Lyme disease and so we spray for ticks around the perimeter of our property which is woods. They say it is an all natural product but we wait until the bees have had a couple of months to flowering weeds, bushes, plants and trees.
My birds have made a good comeback. My fireflies not so much. I live in town and I guess the new LED streetlights are bad for them. I've seen a few in the backyard but nothing like we used to have.
I’ve drastically reduced my solar yard lights this year. I love them but cannot in good conscience display them and disrupt the “night fliers”.
GJ, over here south of Boston I notice the absence of flies. I can leave my screen doors open and allow my little pups easy access to the decks. I never would do this before.
I am hoping the nasty stinging green heads have also disappeared!
I hate those. I got bit by one last week when I was mowing. I hate those little boogers.
Lynell, yes, lightening bugs in a jar on the 4th of July…to be released as the fireworks dimmed their soft greenish yellow glimmer!
Also from those days living near the east coast as a child, I miss the tickle of sand crabs squirming under my feet as I raced across the hot sand to body surf the midsummer waves. I haven’t felt that tickle under my toes in many years!
Morning, Lynell!!!
I have never seen fireflies; we do not have them in Oregon west of the Cascades. I really hope to see them someday.
I never saw them when I lived in OR either Ally, you need to fly to Savannah or Charleston and then go out to one of the more remote outer islands while avoiding golf courses to see them in their millions. I know it’s a long ways to go to see a bug, so maybe in another lifetime, but if you were to find yourself over here, put the low country on your map.
We don't have the in California as far as I've seen in my decades of hiking and camping. I've only seen one when in July, when I was working in Eastern Utah. I initially thought it was a small light on the fender of a car, until it flew in a loop.
I see them in my yard near Atlanta, it’s pesticide free, mosquito treatment kills them, so I treat myself and allow them to live as intended by nature. They are magical to watch especially after a thunder storm, I have seen pictures of them in the low country where they were so numerous they formed a floating blanket through trees and over the marshes.
Lynell, when I moved out here to my new house in a patch of the wilderness 26 years ago, I elected not to have a dusk-to-dawn streetlight installed, as most other folks have in this neck of the woods. I did install shielded landscape lighting because it's pitch-black at night. I also chose to "tame" only a small patch of ground in front of the house and left the woods in its natural state on the other three sides of the house. The lightning bugs have thanked me.
I have concluded that lightning bugs must emerge in broods like cicadas. Some years, they emerge in late May, while in other years, I don't see them until mid-July. They also seem to have territories. One year, on the south side of the house, the next year to the west.
I especially enjoy the nightly "launches." About 8:45, a silent signal must go out as the ground suddenly lights up with millions of twinkling, greenish "diamonds." Then another silent signal goes out and the sparkling "blanket" rises, then dissipates as the fireflies begin their search of a "date" for the evening. Disney animators couldn't produce a better show.
I used to think he was a mere narcissist and pathological liar. Now I think he is truly a psychopath.
Megan Rothery Rocks!!!
She do, she do!
She does indeed.
Thank you Megan!
Power bends truth; reality straightens it.
So, Trump drumpfs the big day for America. Anyone really surprised? 🖕
"There has never been anything like us anywhere on earth." --Trump on 04jul26.🤢
Tell that to the Vietnamese.😥
Tell that to the Iranians.😳
Tell that to descendants of African slaves.💔
Tell that to our allies.🤫
Tell that people banished to prisons in remote, dangerous places.😯
And Native People's of this land.
Victims of genocide; BIG overlook by me. Thank you for the correction.
He is right, though. Never before in history has there been a man who pulled SUCH a shit show that literally the whole world suffered for it.
This is not what I had in mind for the old saying, "If one is going to go down, (s)he might as well go down in flames."
Oof.
Trump is using the "royal we" for effect. He really means to say that absolutely no one is as especially special as he.
And, thank G-D, no one is or we are really screwed.
It's a bit of a brain twister, I think. We are each an individual, with unique DNA ('cept for twins, etc.) and unique thoughts and experiences, AND we are profoundly social creatures with shared characteristics and needs, sharing most of our DNA with other primates, and even some with plants. That's why the Constitution addresses both individual rights and the common good. It's doublethink to suppose they are separable. Neglect justice for one and destroy it for the other. All for one, one for all.
E Pluribus Unum
Reminds me of Blaise Pascal's thought: man is neither angel nor brute. (S)He who tries to be the one ends up being the other.⚖️
Or, per a contemporary Jewish ethicist: "Being humble does not mean nobody, it just means being no more of a somebody than you ought to be."💡
Plenty of needed realty in historical context right here on LFAA & within this community gathering.
words of wisdom.
Not as long as the sniveling, spineless, pedophile protecting republicans are in charge.
Their reality is what big baby says it is.
And as long as the imbecilic MAGAs keep voting in these worms, there is no reality.
Professor Richardson -- Thank you for jumping back in the saddle after the long holiday to make sense of the flood of news events from the weekend. From my vantage point in Japan, I am mortified when my Japanese neighbors ask me how so much overt corruption continues to go unchecked in the United States. They simply cannot comprehend how our president, his family, and his cronies can act so egregiously. Many have said that they used to admire the ideals America represents, but now, they say, our country resembles the common perception of Russian society. As a proud, taxpaying American citizen living abroad, I am ashamed of my country.
Elon Musk spent over $200 million to get Trump elected. To almost all of us, $200 million is more than we will make in a lifetime. He has parlayed this $200 million into hundreds of billions in less than 2 years and almost bankrupted Tesla in the process of firing tens of thousands of hard working Federal employees.
Imagine, investing $200 and having it be worth $200,000 or more in less than two years.
And he's not the only billionaire who has increased their wealth several fold.
And Trump has rewarded all his billionaire allies in his pay-to-play schemes.
Thanks for putting this in perspective! The figures are staggering, but $200 million is quite literally pocket change for Elon Musk at this point. We must regain control and nullify Citizens United, among many other initiatives.
Elon's $200 million would have been wasted, were it not for the Electoral College. My suggested priorities:
1. Abolish the Electoral College.
2. Overturn Citizens United.
I would add: switch the responsibility of confirming judges to a representative body or just dissolve the Senate.
Believe me, Brian, my list of needed reforms is long. And reforming SCOTUS and the judicial branch are on the list. But everything else pales in comparison to the importance of the two priorities I listed.
If only the founding fathers had set up a parliamentary system. Too close to England's I guess, but without the Monarchy, until now.
" There are people who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success! " says drump.
Here's drump's way of life:
- Cheat yourself 5x out of military service in Vietnam.
- Bankrupt your own casino's.
- Cheat all of your wives.
- Pay hush money to porn stars.
- Settle for running a fake university.
- Cheat everytime you go out to play a round of golf.
- Lie everytime you open your mouth.
- Have a crowd of rightwing idiots storm the Capitol because you cannot stand losing an election.
- Fleece your supporters by selling them worthless Chinese junk or fake crypto money.
- Never read a book but claim to know everything about all things.
Excellent list, Marc. May I add a few more?
- Wage an ineffective and illegal war, disrupting the global economy, raising prices
- Murdering people at sea, no attempt to apprehend or provide evidence of smuggling
- Aiding and abetting our enemy named Putin
- Abandoning our allies since WWII
- Holding hands with Bibi the war monger
- Shutting down USAID, sentencing millions to die (780,000 already)
"47" will be known as the president with the most chaotic, incompetent and treasonous foreign "policy" (what policy, actually?) in the history of our nation.
Great list -- can I add "Claim to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, when you've started unnecessary wars"
Great list, Marc! Straight forward, we have reality laid out for us! We must not be silent, but we must be tactful to break through the fog of the MAGA mind.
If only Marc's list was even close to being complete. But, I agree Jane, it's a good list.
It is impossible to be complete concerning that fellow.
I can't argue with you there. When your entire strategy is "attack, attack, attack", "deny, deny, deny" and it works, no reason to change it up and become a benevolent dictator.
Dr. COX Richardson quoted the orange helium balloon 's 4th of July speach:
“They don’t want good. They don’t love God and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion and they don’t want religion and they won’t have it.… They have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or your God-given rights. It’s an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder…. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”
Interesting how he attributed to his perceived "enemies", those of us who are leaning left, Social Democrats, or Democrats in general, all the things that HE IS GUILTY OF:
mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder…. And called us communists. It is called PROJECTION. HE IS THE BIGGEST CON ARTIST IN THE HISTORY OF OUR GREAT NATION.
Side point:
We ALL know that trump cheats at golf. All the time. The secret service stationed along the fairway moves his ball up and into the fairway, and the opponents' balls back and into the rough. Seriously, and not a controversial narrative.
Now, with help from infantino ('peace prize' bootlicker), trump is cheating at the World Cup. Not a surprise, from trump or Infantino. It is unacceptable, and a disgrace. The US coach, Mauricio Pochettino, who I admire, is beside himself to have this naked cheating foisted on his very successful team. It is now THE story of the tournament, no matter what else happens, and a severe demerit on whatever the USMNT accomplishes in the rest of the tournament.
No one besides trump, infantino and the bloviating, bootlicking alexi lalas, wants this 'post-truth' World Cup. For the 4 billion supporters who love association football, it ruins the biggest event in the sport.
Balogun could take himself out of the game. Pochettino could choose not to play him.
Yes they could do so. But they won't do so. I was hoping for the US team to have a successful tournament, but not like this. It will be a relief when Belgium or Spain end the US run in this event.
Let’s see. This is a test of sportsmanship and courage.
First, Kash ruined the Olympics and now this. What a shitshow.
That is so unfair to the US team who had no part in this and to Balogun himself who handled a very controversial call with grace. I have prayed all along that Trump would not show up and ruin this team's chance, but he had to find a way to make it about himself. The World Cup and fans from all over have made this an exciting and positive moment , one that contrasts with what MAGA is trying to do to our country. This team has shown themselves so well, and now whatever they do could be tainted. There have been other suspensions in this World Cup for a number of reasons that have allowed members to play, but Trump had to say he "made a phone call" - the kiss of death. And you will be relieved if our team goes down?
What trump and fifa did is disgraceful and totally unacceptable. 3.99 BILLION global football supporters including most in the US are disgusted by this action (listen to the reaction of Charlie Stillitano, 'Mr USA Soccer').
KARMA is now warming up on the Belgian sideline.
The LAST thing I want is trump taking public credit -- and he will do so -- for a USMNT victory. Same comment about that bloviating dipshit, Alexi lalas. Better if trump curses USMNT, as he cursed the Knicks by attending Game 3 of the Finals.
Nazi Republicans Spitting On The Constitution: White Power Politics
July 4th on the 250th anniversary marked the continued racist division. This time however instead of a physical Civil War, it’s a battle in the collective mind of the nation about who belongs and who doesn’t. Now it’s the CNPP(Christian Nationalist Ped Party) who says that not all men are created equal and that the country needs to go back to pre Civil war years where slavery was ok.
Our country is based on the rule of law. WE the People demand that our government uphold the rule of law and the foundational principle that all men are created equal. Executive orders to get rid of DEI and to abolish integration by government contractors done in the first weeks of the Nazi Republican occupation tell the story of a developing Confederacy and the eugenics philosophy that there are humans that are superior and deserve power.
Nazi Republican Congressional legislators turn a blind eye to this racist lawless conduct by a traitorous hateful racist misogynistic president supported by the partisan black robbed hacks that are called jurists on the Supreme Court. Regardless no one should give these Nazi Republicans any leeway because they are ALL complicit in the lawlessness and racist behavior. They took oaths to the Constitution but they’re spitting on that oath.
WE the People’s DNA demand WE fight tyrants. The Declaration of Independence was actually an indictment of a tyrant, at the time King George III. Now the tyrants of today, like those in WWII, are the Nazi Republicans. WE lose every fight WE don’t fight. So get angry and get ready to fight for all men are equal.
Heather mentioned the Reflecting Pool, and so posting this video again which explains the paperwork uncovered by the Drey Dossier who revealed her suspicions about Trumps obsession the East Wing construction and the construction being covered up regarding the Reflecting Pool -> she found connecting documents being tied to water infrastructure into a data center bunker under the East Wing.
⛔️ Trump is lying about the Reflecting Pool - Drey Dossier (7/3/26) *watch video*
https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/trump-is-lying-about-the-reflecting?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios .
This video, JaKsaa, just more frightening evidence of the tyranny being built.
For those interested, the woman in the video presents her research as to criminal Donald building a data center under the former East Wing, for biometrics he intends to have control over regarding every single American.
He's modeling his data center on one Netanyahu has in Israel.
The reflecting pool? Coolant, she's guessing, needed for the data center.
Congress? Totally out of the loop.
Phil, it amazes me the Drey’s researching skills. She’s connected a National Design Studio that is a government server - check this out:
Trump built a new passport.gov website (6/10/26) #DreyDossier
https://youtu.be/J1yRurGLbH8?is=ajOGhuHY21UVDUTK
.
“…, for biometrics he intends to have control over regarding every single American.”
“Andra explains that Project 2025’s “state-sanctioned moral values” mirror China’s social credit system, but are rooted in Christian Nationalist biblical law rather than Communist Party loyalty. Meanwhile, Palantir’s surveillance tools would enable enforcement of this theocratic code across every aspect of American life.
The result would be a technocratic theocracy that punishes “immorality” through both visible and invisible means — from jail time to digital blacklisting. In other words, we could see a Christian Nationalist legal framework that bans or restricts abortion, birth control, IVF, and even miscarriage care; criminalizes trans identity, LGBTQ+ life, premarital sex, and cohabitation; outlaws pornography, adultery, divorce, and certain speech — and more.”
https://lincolnsquare.substack.com/p/when-project-2025-collides-with-doges?
Damn, and I thought the first term was unbearable. It’s evil on steroids and voluntary, it seems
Thanks for this re-posting, JK. It bears repeating, IMO.
Indeed!
Earlier in the day on the 250th Anniversary of America’s Independence 🇺🇸, President Donald Trump and Russia’s Communist Vladimir Putin had a 90 minute conversation, supposedly very business like. But it was on the 250th Anniversary of our Independence.
President Donald Trump later gave a speech (the second over the weekend) accusing others of being Godless Communists.
President Donald Trump had just spent 90 minutes on the phone with a Godless Communist - so President Trump - what is it???
To be completely fair, Putin has converted himself very successfully into a capitalist gangster, much like Trump really, so there are reasons for their elective affinity.
Parallel realities, Kay.
Criminal Donald loves his Putin.
Also constantly needs new labels by which to attack all Americans not worshipping him as their orange god.
How long will so many people continue to not see what’s going on- and to choose to do nothing to stop it?
Reality isn't just reasserting itself, as Heather concludes. Its corruption is crushing us.
Many media outlets have reported -- as Heather superbly does here today, too -- on the criminal Donald wealth grab.
But it’s all much worse than the obvious corruption he’s now flaunting – because it all comes combined with the latest rulings by what we used to call the Supreme Court for total dismantling of any limits on how billionaires may now openly buy politicians as well as court justices.
Morality? Ethics? These things are as quaint anymore as the notion that students in schools ever again read any whole books.
Let testing rip. Turn all to ciphers. Numericize, monetize all “life.” Let computers grade all the tests as billionaire social media algorithms provide all the slogans for all the hatreds.
The Maine Monitor reported that Susan Collins reelection campaign has received almost $10 million from 97 billionaires (so far).
Graham Platner has received less than $25,000 from 5 billionaires (so far).
Maine has no resident billionaires so all of this is from out of state.
Using these (mostly) dark money funds from PACs the RNC is sending out weekly mailings to the voters in ME touting the money Collins has brought into Maine.
We need to shout it from the roof tops that we won't allow billionaires to buy our politicians, especially ones who don't live here.
AIPAC is spending $30million dollars to attack the progressive candidate Abdul El Sayed (in the primary) because they want the establishment Democrat to be in the general instead. These PACs are anti-democratic and the party needs to call it out. The Democratic Party must read the room—they need to reject PAC money and call for election finance reform. HCR reported on a poll just last week, that if I remember correctly showed almost 80% of Americans want finance reform.. and only the progressives are running on this.
Thank you HCR for explicitly explaining that “progressive” candidates are actually equivalent to republicans during FDR’s era. Look how the Overton window has shifted!
"Maine has no resident billionaires so all of this is from out of state."
This is not technically correct. Susan Alfond lives in Scarborough. But I've never heard of the Alfonds trying to purchase politicians. Mostly they promote projects for kids and healthcare.
I didn't realize Alfond was a billionaire - worth an estimated $3.4 billion. And she is a trustifarian, having inherited 1/3 of her parent's wealth. Growing up in Omaha, we would drive by his house occasionally. Once in a while he was out in the yard, doing yard work stuff.
The reason I mention him is that years ago, Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway bought Alfond's Dexter Shoes and kept most of the stock which has appreciated dramatically.
Many of the large philanthropic projects in Omaha, were built with Berkshire Hathaway money. The doctor that delivered me in 1954 donated an entire wing in the University of Nebraska Medical Center with the money he made for BRK stock.
So, I'm glad to see it go to good use here in Maine.
Pretty much every hospital and branch of the university in the State has an Alfond building. And I think the big Boys and Girls club in Waterville was an Alfond grant. Now of course.. lots of that stuff was her parents. But I understand that the kids have been keeping up the tradition.
Excellent!
Corruption sucks.
Sucks especially when its tentacles entwine as widely, deeply as in the U.S. now, J L.
Schools? Bastions of integrity? Founts of morals, ethics, humanity? Defenders of highest standards of literacy?
And destroys.
Sadly true, believe what you see
And worry, JD, about what we cannot see -- all that dark money.
Isn't it a stretch to say Trump's followers were fleeced when they purchased Trump's memecoin? Surely they knew they were simply giving money to Trump when they bought any of them. Did anyone expect to profit from that transaction? He could have blown them a kiss and they would have given him money for that.
"I can stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and get away with it..." No truer words by a master carnival-barker drunk on his own con.
$COTUS gave Trump a license to kill. He is literally killing people with no authorization or due process.
If what you say is true, that Trump’s boast is true of being able to shoot someone publicly and get away with it, then Trump is not drunk on his own con, but well aware of his power.
Of course MAGA expected to profit. I'm not talking about the Saudi princes or Eastern European royalty... but Mom and Pop MAGA? Yes. They ARE that stupid.
They continue to believe that Trump is a great financial wizard and that money given to him will return to them 10 fold. I know a woman who's son convinced her it was an easy way to finance her retirement. Emptied her 401K to put into one of these Trump coin scams. Her hard earned (very hard earned as a hairdresser) savings is now worth about $5. And her son had the nerve to ask her how 'she' could have 'f#$@ed it up so bad'... They are still drinking the koolaid though. They are sure it's a mistake and that eventually she will be a millionaire.
So sad.