At least 80 people are dead and more than 40 are still missing in Central Texas after almost a foot (30 centimeters) of rain caused flash floods overnight on Friday.
Thank you, Heather. Your letters get more challenging to read by the day. The magnitude of destructive impact, locally and globally, is catastrophic. Not sure where and when the turn-around will happen, but I hope it comes soon.
And he was considered to be farther to the left politically than to the center. The center you claim many here on HCR’s Substack are much too far away from as well.
Why do you even bother reading HCR’s Substack much less post comments among a bunch of people who are part of what you call “Group Think, in which the group as a whole stays together on all issues.”
I'm a socialist, but educated people listen to other opinions and assess them based on merit. You can't understand your opponent unless you listen to them.
Most of what HCR writes is history and it's parallels. Why shouldn't everyone want to listen to that regardless of political persuasion?
Because she should give the opinion and the reality from both sides, not lead people astray with half truths half information and slanted opinion. She supposed to be a historian.
You mean like Clinton or Kennedy or which one do you mean?
Or maybe you like El Franken better? Did you enjoy all those Harvey Weinstein movies? How about Lyndon Johnson? And others who had extramarital affairs. On both sides of the aisle roll not just one talk about group think. How about John Andrew Young a Texas Democrat allegedly forcing a female Staffer to have sex with him to keep her job his wife committed suicide a year later.. and let’s not forget. The cover story about Gary Hart and Donna Rice. Even Barney Frank was reprimanded by the house. There are plenty of Republicans as well, but it’s interesting that you have hazard lead just poke out one example. I actually thought there was a better story in the Gary Condit tale. Especially when Chandra Levy showed up dead a year later. John Edwards actually had a child I guess from an affair. It may have been consensual, but it probably had the same lack of morals, regardless a party. Like Matt Gaetz is alleged affair with a 17-year-old.
But the funniest one is not that it’s any worse than any others, but it is worse than one particular case that you had a Democrat congressman actually had an affair with a Chinese spy. Can I get any worse than that? Imagine what he told her
When they were unclothed lololol
Well, you scored a couple of losing points again their Monroe
Or maybe you prefer just exhibitionist like Anthony Weiner
And when it comes to TV personalities well, we got them too on both sides, but some of the most famous ones were obviously Matt Lauer and we had one guy who was a do it to yourself or while broadcasting pretty funny
Let's face it, nobody knows everything. So, is there a good reason not to think of ignorance as a "neutral" concept? I’ll be more specific. "Good" is ignorance constrained by the intent to avoid unnecessary suffering. Good intent reveals the gap between a good intent and a bad outcome and the imperative to close the gap. “Ugly” is unconstrained ignorance.
Does MAGA care about unnecessary suffering? Yes, but not close the gap and instead because unnecessary suffering is a useful tool.
And you are reading mine too. Good boy! I’ll more than happy to meet you face to face. We can “discuss your opinions”. But more likely than not you’re too much of a p**sy to meet. GFY. And have a nice day.
George T, you may be old enough to know better, but you're also immature enough for the need to be sat on a stool facing the corner with a dunce cap on your head until you learn the importance of understanding that every single small thought that enters the space where you brain is supposed to be is NOT the Gospel truth.
I live in the United States of America and TODAY, I am free to read what I prefer and you are free to read what you prefer.
Within my family are Republicans and Democrats. We love and respect one another. This SO FAR is a free country. We can marry who we want, we can vote for the persons we choose. We can choose where we want to work. Within our education system, we can choose to write in an honest way to express our opinion.
I am free…what about you? Have you been bought? Are you such a control freak that you cannot listen to other opinions.
I deeply respect Heather. She loves this country with her entire being. She is a protector of freedom. Her heart and mind are full of love and respect. She is fully open to you and for you to share your opinions.
I accept friends and family who have made opposing opinions regarding to their politics. Love and mutual respect cover disagreement.
Emily I couldn’t agree with you more. Except for one thing. I’ll fight anyone tooth and nail who to uses pejoratives to describe immigrants (and minorities). Anyone who accuses all immigrants as being as a class of people prone to deceit and illegal behavior for no other reason than that they are immigrants.
Yes there will always be a small, a very small/ minute minority of any group of people (white, black, brown, of any nationality/ heritage) that will seek to act contrary to the rules and laws. Seek to take advantage of “loop holes” in our system of government. But anyone lumping all into one and using pejoratives to describe that group, ya you’ll see me calling that person out.
Anyone who claims it’s someone else's fault (for not stopping those trying to skirt the system) and therefore justifies their use pejoratives needs to be confronted and called out as well. Someone using pejoratives to describe immigrants and minorities sound familiar? Does someone claiming it’s always somebody eles’s fault sound familiar as well? No I’m not speaking about the guy in the Whitehouse though he fits the bill.
Go back a few days ago and read Mr Katz’s comments in another of HCR’s newsletter and you’ll see he’s done/ said exactly these very same things. When confronted he claims those confronting him of being too far left politically. His pompous, know it all attitude is disgusting. His responses when confronted, his responses meant to demean those confronting him, are nothing more than him projecting his own shortcomings onto others. Seems Mr Katz and the guy in the Whitehouse have a few things in common.
Well, it’s no wonder that the Democrats called the Republicans a cult when that’s all that lives here in my opinion. Just look at the voting in the past from Democrats. They stick together like lemmings glued to each other.
Sorry Emily my comment was meant to be a direct reply to the person who made the original comment. Nothing to do with what you wrote. In fact I couldn’t agree more about what you wrote/ said about John Lewis.
I will be there! It seems that many Americans need to experience these disasters themselves before they will recognize their significance. Public outcry and these rallies might help them connect the disasters with the destruction of government programs and climate change.
David, some of them are so blind that they cannot accurately read the news or are on some wing nut site. Yesterday, one of my ex high school classmates posted a rant from a guy who rungs a weather blog. He was very upset with bullying and racist comments and will not tolerate that. Well, OK. But her comment above was to tell liberals to stop blaming the weather on the administration (regime) and to get a life. I did respond to tell her what has happened to NOAA and the NWS and that people were not accusing the regime of causing the weather, but were concerned with the response including using FEMA funds to build a concentration camp in the Everglades. I also noted that when I am nonpolitical threads, the bullying and racism comes from MAGA, not liberals. I ended with a note that climate change is real and the regime's policies will only make it worse. Three people liked it, so she has some sane friends. Another dopey ex classmate agreed with her.
I just wrote what you're saying, David. It appears that quite a few of us are coming to the conclusion that only very dire circumstances, and we're not there yet, will cause the public to realize how much damage having a lawless administration is causing.
Geez I don’t know Bill. Promoting a rally named after someone considered by many to be an extremist pursuing Civil Rights seems out of character for you. Contradicts your “So climb… off your high horse and crawl to the center” edict.
John Lewis was anything but in the political “center”. But hey hypocrisy abounds these days, even among “some” of those here on HCR’s Subtack. GFY!
If fighting for equal civil rights is considered “extremist” in your mind, I would suggest you read the Declaration and perhaps the New Testament of the Bible.
Linda I was echoing Mr. Katz’s view as declared in his previous comments in another of HCR’s Substack “Letters from an American”.
Based on those comments his view of fighting for civil rights is apparently too far to the left for his liking. Comments such as “climb….. off your high horse and crawl to the center”. My grandson is mixed race, including black, hispanic, and german. My step daughter is also mixed race. I have seen prejudices thrown in their faces. Derogatory comments deserving of a smack down. I have more than a few minority friends. Fighting for civil rights is not extremist in my view, not even close. But apparently fighting for civil rights is considered too far to the left for some. Including some here.
Or form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, or secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
Sentiments we all agree on. However, to listen to Michael Luttig, he is very pessimistic that the Supreme Court under Roberts will alter their positions on giving Trump more and more power. He says that what Roberts has done is shameful....
How about unconscionable, ignominous and even deplorable!! I'm sure Heather can name periods when the supreme court handed down other ignoble decisions....
True enough; but under the circumstances that we all face today? I think not. Ally's suggestion that Scott and Plessy rank up there is accurate; however, those days were still racist filled days with an attitude of "meh". We're in a different boat now and in rougher waters.
Ally, we did warm people in 2016 about the Supreme Court, but got the middle finger. I am amazed at some of their decisions this term. Can they read the 14th Amendment and do they really think it is a good idea to deport people to places like Sudan.
This is a white power supreme court along with Thomas' yassir, right away sir, attitude. They can read all right; the real question is: can they process?
Do you think a couple of them - Alito and Thomas come to mind - who were caught in an ethical morass - are turning their backs on decency and constitutional law as payback?
Isn't it good that Black people, other people of color, and women in general didn't think like that? We'd still be stuck in 1791 if they had -- and funny thing, that's exactly where the "originalists" wish we were today!
Susanna, I think pretty certainly that 'originalism' is another of those intentional distractions and nothing more. All of this extraneous 'noise' is just cover and distraction. I feel it's all just distraction, cover, rationale - to enable for the 'fire hose' of disinformation. The only consistent goals of this coalition remains the same; Power and money to self-serve power and money; all the while concealing true identities. To focus solely on "OiD" is a distraction too; It's the coalition. He (it's) just the getaway driver.
The Originalists don't even know what the true origin of the Constitution is. The original Constitution was without the 10 Amendments. Ever since the 10 Amendments were ratified, the Constitution ceased to be the original text. And yet, with every succeeding amendment, originalists and textualists speak of the Constitution as the "original" document. This is straight out of Superman's Bizarro's world where everything up is down and down is up - black is white and white is black - right is wrong and wrong is right.
Shameful. There’s going to be one case after another going down the autocratic takeover proving that point .
Whether there’s a point of no return. Whether there’s a point we the people sufficiently realize. Weather , an Act of God, may or may not be Climate Change/bad decisions/the downfall of The Great American Dream or whatever apparently hasn’t been decided yet ( maybe we’ll figure this out in TWO WEEKS?) the manipulation or debates all just floor me as the greatest mistake ever…and WE were not ever, ever, ever…. blindsided ..
It.Was.A.LIE.
The beauty of Heather and many of y’all’s great writers/commentators ( which I fondly spell ‘common taters’) ability ( especially Heather’s) to write the facts succinctly , debunk BS, elaborate details, and stay focused is art - many never actually see art ..as they’re consumed by needs of entertainment all the while held captive…slaves/hostage far more the accurate word…covering their plight.
Hmmm. "Common taters' has has a great "spuddy" resonance... but my sound mind also jumped to "comment haters".... not in the realm of multivalency or humor, but perhaps a 3rd skewing for the sake of philosophy....
Those opposed 'feel like' they are being the 'realists.' There's one of the 'rubs' for sure. Contemplate that for a moment, along with other statements I've made here often Ann.
The irony is that many of 'they' think that 'we' are brainwashed; Others among them are convinced that most of 'we' are comfortable, fat and happy - thus also insensitive to loss, pain, diminishments of others.
I echo your thoughts. I couldn't even give Heather a "like" tonight. The news is all so damned depressing. And the Texas disaster has been pressing on my heart all day. Those poor girls most of all, but also their devastated families, the dozens of other lives lost....I can't even attempt to put a political spin on this, tempting though it may be. It's all just too sad.
You can’t look away. You must keep looking. So must we all. Looking away is what these sick bastards want us to do, to say ‘I can’t bear it’ while they cough up another round of heartfelt ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Try to imagine you are your brother’s keeper enough not to lose your focus.
At least this is what I try to tell myself, though like you, I don’t always succeed.
Yes indeed. That is what our citizenship requires of us right now, and ongoing, so that this kind of government or lack of it in this case is never never allowed to hold us in thrall to an obviously lawless madman and the project 25 cold soul murderers who are using his incredible lack of caring and his performative shit show to wreck the country. People have to start allowing themselves to believe what they are seeing and not try to skew around it emotionally. It simply won't work. We must start trusting each other, as there are a majority of people of goodwill no matter the parties. We need new coalitions of caring serious citizens. Could check in on Indivisible.org and quite a few other groups organizing to get our government back. There are many ways to talk with each other and we can create once we need. Take heart.
Geez I don’t know Bill. Promoting a rally named after someone considered by many to be an extremist pursuing Civil Rights seems out of character for you. Contradicts your “So climb… off your high horse and crawl to the center” edict.
John Lewis was anything but in the political “center”. But hey hypocrisy abounds these days, even among “some” of those here on HCR’s Subtack. GFY!
How sweet of you! Got a few stacked up in my docs file as these last couple of months have been a bit overwhelming in my life. Just uncovered my writings from the early '60s on and it's really blown my mind reading my life as it was then (not hippy FYI) Looks like a book in there :-)) Oy vey.
How sweet of you! I have a bunch stacked up in my docs file from a couple of months of dealing with all sorts of other stuff in my life that's now starting to get at least sorted. Just unearthed several years of my writings from the early '60s on and kind of blown away by reading my life as it was then. Looks like a book in there :-))
It’s Come To This, I agree with your statement here today. Just yesterday I came across a book and a website I look forward to checking out, and others here may want to know about also: the book is “Atlas Hugged” by David Sloan Wilson. ( A title that made me smile) The book critiques Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which emphasizes individualism and self-interest…”. Wilson is an evolutionary biologist ( and son of writer Sloan Wilson) who steps out of his usual non-fiction writing to present a work of fiction to “illustrate how evolutionary principles can be applied to understand and promote cultural evolution towards greater cooperation and societal well-being.” That seems to embody the work I hope to understand more. The website I came across is “pro social.world”. Their Purpose: “We exist to consciously evolve a world that works for all”. Sounds revolutionary right now in America, no?
While peeking at the history of 1925, I came across some of what seems the unexpected consequences of the French and Belgian occupation of the German Ruhr industrialized area. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan
"...On 5 May 1921 the Allies delivered an ultimatum to Germany demanding that it accept the London Schedule within six days and threatening to occupy the heavily industrialized Ruhr district if it did not. The Reichstag voted to accept on 11 May, following which the government began to implement its fulfilment policy (Erfüllungspolitik), an effort to show the impossibility of meeting the payments by attempting to fulfill them.[2] Germany made its first payment of one billion gold marks in the summer of 1921 but after that paid little in cash and fell behind in its deliveries of materials such as coal and timber.[3] After Germany was declared in default in January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr. Germany responded with passive resistance to the occupation. The government printed money in order to pay the idled workers, which fueled the hyperinflation that all but wrecked the German economy..."
Earlier this year I was struck by finding out that for all his monstrosity, Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, insisted the Czech skilled workers forced to work for the Germans be paid the same wages as similarly skilled German workers since they needed the increased productivity over slave labor (reference needed, not found). Perhaps he learned to be a bit more nuanced in balancing some productivity with lighter treatment of those better rewarded and most beneficial to increasing productivity than slave labor.
"...Heydrich was so confident that his pacification program had succeeded that he flagrantly disregarded measures for his own security and traveled around Prague in an open vehicle. On May 27, 1942, as he traveled on a familiar route to the airport to fly to Hitler's headquarters, two Czech parachute agents succeeded in rolling a hand grenade under Heydrich's transport vehicle. Though not mortally wounded by the blast itself, the grenade splinters in his leg and lower back led to an infection that killed him on June 4, 1942..."
What I did find (new to me) was the "Night-and Fog decree" vs the more public displays of extreme arrests meant to scare more people into what now seems to be called "self-deporting." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich
"...By late 1940, German armies had invaded most of Western Europe. The following year, Heydrich's SD was given responsibility for carrying out the Nacht und Nebel (Night-and-Fog) decree.[86] According to the decree, "persons endangering German security" were to be arrested in a maximally discreet way: "under the cover of night and fog". People disappeared without a trace with no one told of their whereabouts or fate.[87] For each prisoner, the SD had to fill in a questionnaire that listed personal information, country of origin, and the details of their crimes against the Reich. This questionnaire was placed in an envelope inscribed with a seal reading "Nacht und Nebel" and submitted to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). In the WVHA "Central Inmate File", as in many camp files, these prisoners would be given a special "covert prisoner" code, as opposed to the code for POW, Felon, Jew, Gypsy, etc.[a] The decree remained in effect after Heydrich's death. The exact number of people who vanished under it has never been positively established, but it is estimated to be 7,000..."
James, it is sad, but will anything be done to correct the situation. Trump is a truly evil man, but yet he expects couples to joyfully bring white babies into this hellscape that ALL Republicans at all levels of government are responsible for.
There is no reason those girls should have died with the technology we have available. Trump actually authorized FEMA to help in TX, when he refused to send help to KY, MO and other places. As for the families of the dead and missing due to the flash floods, may they realize that Republicans don't give a shit about them any more than they do about the families of the children killed in the myriad school shootings. They are ALL heartless bastards that worship their orange daddy. And that ain't gonna change.
Just wait for the next big hurricane that hits any of the Fascist confederate states. The insurance companies aren't going to pick up the tab for all of the people that can't afford insurance. Like in FL, many more companies will pull out of all of the gulf coast states. And property values are dropping like a rock in TX and FL. But they still love the orange Julius.
Imagine being a citizen of FL right now! Not only do we have to deal with the insanity of the Faux King, but the Faux Would-be King: DeSantis. He refused to add to our new state budget Air Conditioning and free phone calls for prisoners. Imagine being thrown into a FL prison in the heat of a tropical summer without AC. And Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio are two of ours. And Rick Scott (think health care!) and Ashley Moody (who was our Attorney General and worked hard to see that the reproductive rights amemdment didn’t pass, even though it got almost the 60% it required. That was also thwarted when DeSantis rallied against it, using some questionable funds from his wife’s PAC.) And of course we’re all anxious about the next hurricane. Last year was terrifying. Without help from the NWS and FEMA, this year could be devastating.
Moreover, we control the State Department and now that Rubio is in charge of foreign policy, we are virtually at war with Colombia!
U.S., Colombia withdraw ambassadors amid accusations of coup plotting By Salome Beyer Velez and Jim Glade
July 4.
The United States and Colombia have recalled their respective ambassadors amid tensions surrounding an alleged plot to oust President Gustavo Petro in which two Florida congressmen were implicated.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he ordered the recall of John T. McNamara, the acting ambassador in Bogotá, on Thursday “following baseless and reprehensible statements from senior Colombian government officials.” The State Department also called Colombia an “essential strategic partner” but said it would pursue “other measures to make clear our deep concern over the current state of our bilateral relationship.”
No tourists. Our number 1 industry is tourism. When they eliminated DEI, most of the businesses my county are bilingual, if not trilingual, lose all government contracts. E.G.at least half the kids in our schools speak another language and all language funding is cut.
So short-sighted. Denial and no state tax just don't cut it. And Canadians are not going to be coming any more. Nevertheless, my brother and his wife are moving there this week because they got a "great deal" on a house.
Hi Jan, thank you for speaking my thoughts. Please don’t generalize, not all Floridians have voted for any of these people. Many Floridians are protesting, donating, and calling our, for the most part, useless representatives.
We are well aware of the upcoming hurricane season, perhaps that’s what it will take to wake up the rest of the state.
Abbot's press conference yesterday - at least the length of it I saw - made no mention of FEMA and -- if I heard it right -- he encouraged people to "help themselves" They talked about rescue and recovery efforts - and those officials were articulate, but there was a great big subject (FEMA) missing in either presence or mention.
Trump's answer verbatim: "Well FEMA is ... ah ...something we can talk about later. But, right now, they're busy working ...".
Correct. FEMA is still in the "rescue" stage. 86 bodies found among the debris so far. But, there are unaccounted for RV travelers, summer campers & others.
Abbot did go on and on with praise about how quick trump provided help and pledged to help them with whatever they needed. It was a suck-up! If you’re a red-state you’ll get help. Let’s see how he responds to blue-states this hurricane season. He has already literally said he hates democrats!
Definitively a suck up by Abbot. I have a family member in TX who tries not to call attention to himself (brown & democrat). So, suppose Abbot thinks all families have front loaders, tall trucks, chainsaws & carry body bags. What a jerk! If he thinks orange man will 'always' be there to help, he is naive, to say the least.
I read Trump signed the emergency disaster declaration but I don’t think that means FEMA will provide any help. I also read FEMA is helping with migrant detainees. This administration is useless.
I watched the TV interviews with Noem and Abbott in Kerrville. They spent most of the time praising and extolling the virtues of our Fearless Leader. It was so disgusting, so nauseating, that I had to turn it off. My family had its 95th family reunion down stream from Kerrville the previous weekend, departing the area Sunday. It's difficult to imagine even being caught in such a natural disaster. The losses are devastating.
The transparency of the obsequiousness is so transparent as to be shocking. Trump obviously believes their BS. Definitely time to commence impeachment. In two years the votes may be there.
GL. You said it all! They the rethuglicans who don’t give a shit about anything but lining their damn bank accounts/pockets. Only if their daughters were in that flood , in the school shootings, their child born with a birth defect etc. would they somewhat care???
Only a small percentage of Republican voters are worried about their bank accounts, and those are the ones that have real money. The other 90%, the ones who live month to month, vote R because that is the party that promises to preserve their systemic advantages. So, greed motivates 10% of rethugs and racism the rest of them. How’s that for Christian?
The news isn't likeable but the messenger and getting a heads up is. Forewarned is forearmed. That's what we require from govt agencies that are being dismantled.
The agencies that have been dismantled will probably never return to being fully functioning until every last MAGA person is gone. I don’t see our democracy returning in my lifetime. My husband and I attend a protest every week plus all of the other national ones that have taken place. Our representative was one of the ones dancing and celebrating passing their hill that will destroy lives and kill people’s like what happened in Texas. And Americans will tolerate 47 blaming Biden forever. We have not given up hope but recognize fascism is alive and well in America and right now there’s no one stopping them.
You don't think the new Faith Office in the White House will make much difference? And it warmed my heart to read that Pete Hegseth led the Pentagon in prayer the other day. (I don't know if that was before or after they bombed Eye-Ran.) He must be trying to re-create the atmosphere at Fox.
Agreed. I don't treat the "like" thing as liking the message, rather appreciating that the message is an accurate assessment of current events. It's a bit like having a weather forecast that tells you what is most likely going to happen. It's best not ignored.
I think Project 2025 needs to be renamed to Project 1725. That appears to where things are heading. Unfortunately being blissfully unaware of reality, won't alter the reality. Sadly current case in point.
Is it possible this disaster in TX and incredible loss of lives will help people understand the necessity of the NWS?
I think some Americans think their government does nothing but take tax money (partly because they’ve been fed that line by Rs for decades) because when they do their jobs, nothing happens—or the damage is limited. Will a tragic event like this bring people to their senses? (Rhetorical.)
However, if they watch ‘faux news’ they might swallow the illusions rather than facing the much darker reality. Will the parents of their children’s death simply see it as an act of God? Plus, do they even know what dump has chopped away from weather warnings? The grim reality of where we are is I believe is mostly completely unknown to maga white Americans, but not to people of color or to so many other people in S. America, Europe Asia and Africa. I feel fortunate to read Heather’s pieces daily for their contemporary clarity and history, no fuzzy lines for my supposed comfort.
Appalled? Oh yes.
Frightened? Sometimes. But Determined to try to do something ongoing like so many here. Yes yes yes.
These people who elected Chip Roy to represent them in Congress, and voted down an alert system will never accept any responsibility for allowing this disaster to happen. They expect the “government” to provide services , but they cannot accept that they actually have to chip in to pay for those services. Wonder where the oligarchs are in providing relief? Surely all the tax breaks obligate them to render some help to the people who they took that money from.
Yeah, I already saw that they were offering the usual "tots and pears" rather than committing to a flood alert system. 🙄 I'm SO sick of that hypocrisy.
I'm thinking it may be easier to compare to 1925, with the Tri-State Tornado (deadliest in in US history), Benito Mussolini declaring himself dictator of Italy, publishing of Hitler's "Mein Kampf," and the Scopes Monkey Trial.
A small bit of relief can be that the police did not allow them to wear masks and had to show their faces (with just hats that looked like the tops of the normal hoods).
Now if we can just get the ICE thugs (and pardoned Jan 6 rioters) forced to march in a parade without masks.
"...This article from the magazine The Literary Digest, a popular weekly publication, tells the story of the August 1925 Ku Klux Klan march along Pennsylvania Avenue and the National Mall. Held August 8, 1925, an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Klansmen participated in the event. Many were worried about violence at the event, but a strong police presence as well as the stipulation that marchers could not wear masks helped to keep the march peaceful..."
I agree with every word you said here. I have had those very same thoughts about the years they must have spent going over the minutiae of every aspect of American life to make sure they take apart and destroy everything. The speed of it all happening is mind boggling. The amount of evil is astounding!
The Republican Party is waging war on America. It started with trickledown and continues with the wreckage of our education system. Stupid greed cannot sustain democracy.
Reagan started this, with his unchallenged "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" 'joke'. Enough people have been raised with that frame of mind since 1980 that they happily embrace leaders who promise to dismantle the evil government. They do this without even thinking about the benefits they gain from government programs.
Of course, this plays right into the hands of the people who stand to gain from smaller and impotent government, the wealthy and already-powerful.
When they say "starve the beast", their real intent is to starve the people, creating a poorer, more desperate, and therefore more compliant population. Greed is their main motivation, and less for us means more for them. And in their ideal world we'll be too busy fighting over the remaining scraps to miss the prime cuts that they put on their tables every night.
Reagan also deregulated the FCC which gave us Fox news...so a starved, misinformed, poorer, less educated, more desperate and therefore more compliant population.
I understand what you are feeling. Every time I read about what is happening I cringe and as I want to acknowledge that I read and appreciated Heather's letters, it is hard to just press that heart for a like. I do it to acknowledge Heather and her good work, but, man this is not getting easier. All the more reason that we stay engaged and active. Who will stop this insanity?
Can't rely or trust the Stacked Supreme Court because the heartless disgusting ones rubber-stamped trvmp's evilness and hatred towards humanity. Not just us, but globally. It is indeed the worst of times. Not what I was looking forward to in my twilight years.
Who will stop the insanity? There isn't anyone coming to save us. It's you and me and the millions of Americans who stood up at Hands Off rallies and No Kings day, and will come out on John Lewis day. We the people will boycott and strike and plan civil disobedience. There's more of us than there are of them--30,000 ICE thugs can't hold a candle to the massive anger and disbelief at what is occuring.
James, between the cuts to our National weather forecasting systems and the (apparently deliberate) indifferent public safety response, the loss of life in this event was exponentially worse than it should have been.
The sorry excuse of “the taxpayers won’t pay for it” is ridiculous. If the Republicans in office put up a budget, collected taxes and used them for their intended purpose the taxpayers would pay for it. They could get the money from all those tax cheats if they hadn’t shut down that wing of the IRS. Blaming it on innocent people is as low as you can go.
It's all of the moments that these families will not have- taking their children shopping for school supplies,meeting their new teacher whrn school starts, sleepovers, small, everyday moments no longer possible, families forever changed.
I have similar issues—even though I equate the heart with "love" not "like". I typically remind myself is that what it really means that I'm extremely grateful for her measured, informationally based analysis of these turbulent self-destructive times. Major players are bringing us face to face with the dystopian future. We are in it.
I hope that there are enough constituents who have a grasp of true info, that the cowardly GOP reps and senators get some vehement feedback during their summer break. Their lives should be made miserable.
Fox doesn't report any news that isn't favorable to Trump. My husband's friend who is a MAGA, watches Fox all day. But he had never heard about the Trump meme coin or the dinner at Mara Lago for the people who bought the most expensive ones! These people are completely uninformed. It really IS a cult.
Rich Logis started leavingmaga.org. He was recently interviewed by Adam Kinzinger. He said that very thing: when we ask “how could they not know?,” he answers the question.
I don't watch Fox. But then, I don't watch MSNBC, CNN, or any of those. However, I do see, on my newsfeeds, stuff from Fox that I keep so I know what they are spewing. And from places like Al Jazeera, the major networks, cable, AP, and multiple newspapers. If only Fox watchers would branch out.
Republicans have destroyed the roof that protects our house. As an old carpenter I can say that it's easier to destroy than to build but I know all of you knew this already.
Yes to all this but I would make a change to HCR’s superb reporting. It isn’t Trump and followers, at least in the WH. It’s Trump and his handlers. Because he is not driving the bus. The policies implemented are the brainchildren of Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. The Felon played golf all weekend. He was completely unaware of what was happening in Texas. His go-to, like his “2 weeks” nonsense, is to blame Biden when he is clueless. Secondly, I would point out that NPR runs the emergency broadcast system and by gutting NPR rural regions cannot use it. ‘Nuff said.
I remember the disaster preparedness functions of the Civil Defense and the warning sirens/horns that people without other means of communication relied upon to warn of tornadoes, fires, floods, etc. (I had my hearing damaged by actually hanging onto one when tricked into climbing a Radar tower it was mounted on, when it went off for the regular Friday noon test.)
I'd still want to see more of them, but matched with Emergency Radio Broadcasts and Emergency with additional volunteers like the HAM radio operators (using satellite communications since so many cell towers quit working in wild fires or really severe weather) o get the best info to the most people.
I suspect such area warning (for everyone in the area with no other communications), could have been useful in saving lives if the local officials could be notified quickly enough to activate them.
Lahaina Maui had them but didn't activate them fearing people would think it was for a tidal wave.
The harder problem might be the coming reality of far worse humid heat domes as described in "Weathered, When Will Extreme [Humid] Heat Become Unlivable?"
The video is short (Weathered, Season 6 Episode 10 | 11m 2s) and to the point.
That's a great idea there Jim. Perhaps obtaining what ever is needed to become a ham operator myself might help others and myself as I vainly search for meaning and purpose for myself, in my altered, disabled condition. Do you have any idea where to find out how I accomplish that ? Thanks again....
A couple decades ago I considered jobs in some of the better interconnected radio communications systems and other electronics services in LA County. They had a pretty good system for emergency radio and cell phone communications from what I remember, especially the 5 helicopters they could launch to serve as emergency cell towers for ones lost to fire or earthquakes. I don't remember too much, but did find interesting info at https://la-rics.org/about-us/la-rics-overview/
It was back shortly after Hurricane Katrina when the LA system seemed way better than what they had poorly managed to coordinate in Louisiana, though, it seemed they were losing a lot of the HAM radio skills along the way.
What really upset me was the media showed up with what seemed the most advanced communications capabilities available and seemed to think all local Emergency services would have been able to afford and manage similar capabilities.
An example of some problems I became too familiar with was interference with our new satellite tracking antenna at Hickam AFB in Hawaii. We asked a signals analysis unit for help tracking down the source (much like they did for enemy signal sources). They were too busy with higher priorities, but I managed to spot a microwave tower from the old Nike OA-63 Missile site past Makakilo about 3 months later. When I asked who used that microwave tower, they said it was just a little used one that linked the antenna that sent weather satellite data from Kaena Point Satellite Tracking Station to Hickam. It was the old link that was no longer needed once we got our own antenna on top of Hangar 2, our own satellite information being passed through that microwave tower was interfering with our antenna any time it was pointed near it to acquire the same data through our own antenna. So much for coordination.
That actually exists in many rural areas. I was part off one in Northern Wisconsin in the 90s. Those of us who didn't have radios called those who did. There was quite a net going.
It was scary to live along Guadalupe River, TX, yesterday even to survive or face weather conditions today, 7/7/2025.
Per the 'Accuweather' forecast now: "Partly sunny & humid with a heavy thunderstorm". Read that forecast again: " ... WITH a heavy thunderstorm." Guadalupe State Park , TX has radar, that's had radar yesterday & has radar today. Use that radar data now!
🎶 I'm a Lucky Man & can count on 2 hands the ones I love 🎶 I also have a Tech expert in my family who just yesterday afternoon set up a "LIFE360" app on my PIXEL 8 -- that's a tiny Google computer that others call a "cell phone". I will be checking out "LIFE 360's graphics starting today. Look 👀 Grandpa has a tracking image.
Adapt, digitally adapt & thrive not just suvrive. Adapt.
I was just wondering how long it takes for those waters to recede and even worse how far the bodies would be carried. It’s a horrible and gruesome thought but people need to know what happened to their families.
The turn-around? It’s not coming. 47 and republicans have taken over all aspects of government including the Supreme Court. Soon they won’t just be rounding up immigrants, if you read their plans, they will round up judges who disagree with them and I I shine soon they will start shooting protestors. Like Dr Richardson noted today, he and all of them believe they are above the law. There is no one left to stop them. Thanks to all of the MAGA people who have destroyed our country. I hate to sound room and gloom but this is our new reality.
I believe resistance is crucial and that things will get better, but in the next three plus years, anything is possible. The unthinkable is no longer so unthinkable.
With the massive expansion of ICE and Trump's declaration that he "wants to see camps in most states," things are getting chilling. He's talked about "going after the home growns," too. Those are coded words for rounding up large groups of people like his perceived enemies. Remember the enemies lists in his speeches?
Those poor girls in Texas died horrible, preventable deaths. Their blood is on the hands of trump, vance, vought and noem. Lock them up and end Maga! This is what happens when incompetents lead a shrunken, shut-down federal govt. Many more lives will be lost to trump and his selfish, uncaring incompetence. American deserves and needs real leadership and an adequately funded, adequately staffed federal govt, not trump's cannibalistic destruction. Bring back our federal workers. Shame on trump!
Turnaround? The threat to our democratic process is catastrophic. We are on the brink of losing it all. I think, fear and feel that its worse than we realize, with Trump forming his personal military force (ICE - paid for by the taxpayers) that can be used against us while the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have ceded dictatorial powers to Trump. Odds are that the next elections will be fixed.
Shouldn’t trigger the bot-in-charge of watching for stirrings of the citizenry attempting to garnish enough might to effectively TURN things around by pulling up the roots and rhizomes of these weeds that have infected our once great country.
Ruth, unfortunately the turn-around, if there is to be one, won't happen before election day in 2026. The country must recover its senses and vote enough Dems into the House and Senate to regain firm control of those bodies, enough to form veto-proof majorities to also control the dictator-in-chief. I hold hope without expectation that this will happen.
Not a chance unless the Dems start to state their positions other than "Resist" Trump. I have yet to see or hear any Dem positions or policies other than "Resist". It is difficult to win with 'Resist" Common Sense. I hope that you don't figure out positions or policies other than "Resist".
A really depressing summary of climate mitigation rejection and of American policy rejecting progressive thought. Welcome to chaos, degrowth and death, as some people return to the idea that the King is 'appointed by God' and can do no wrong, others just 'kick the can' and avoid making decisions on existing issues, and few people progress new thoughts.
The whole PBS "Weathered" series is so up to date yet brief in short (6 minutes for S1Ep6 Disaster Preparedness 101) to 55 minutes for S6 Ep4 Inside the LA Firestorm.
To me, the most current episode describes the hole we are digging into much tougher weather to compensate for, just regarding the predictable Humid Heat dome increases.
It reminds me of a coworker that tried to use an evaporative "Swamp" cooler like he had used in a California desert area, in Houston TX. They don't work in such a hot and humid environment and now risk more periods in areas of uncompensable weather, where sweating can't keep your core temperature from increasing dangerously.
"...Heat is the deadliest weather disaster in the U.S. in many parts of the world, and it's projected to get a lot deadlier.
During the 2003 European heatwave, up to 3,400 people died in Paris alone.
At two degrees Celsius, which is again only a couple decades away, scientists found that Paris will see deadly heat waves like this once every few years rather than once a century.
And though this heat wave in 2003 was among the deadliest in recent history, it didn't get close to the dangerous wet-bulb thresholds we've been discussing in this episode.
But the 2015 heat wave in Karachi did it passed the uncompensable wet-bulb threshold for older adults for something like eight to 10% of the time..."
Though not in a humid area, we were made painfully aware that air conditioning adds heat in addition to cooling by moving the existing heat outside, as we were walking next to a big SUV that had max AC being used to pre-cool, it while parked under the hotel covered parking in Phoenix. Try it yourself, you won't like it, though it does at least only contribute to a dry heat dome in Phoenix, not the deadlier humid heat dome.
Ruth, I really felt your words. The scale of harm unfolding is overwhelming, and I share that same ache and uncertainty. But I also think this deep discomfort many of us are feeling might be the start of something essential, like a collective pause before a shift. It will not be easy, but I believe that real change starts with exactly this kind of honesty and reflection. Thank you for not turning away. You are not alone in hoping for that turnaround and working in small, steady ways to help it come.
Ruth Barnes, I agree with you. There are almost no positive effects from the blind, ignorant, wholesale destruction of our critically important, democratically run, organized, modern administrative state by Trump and the Republican Party. It's challenging to witness it.
So, it's hard to see anything good about what's happening to us, but two possibly positive effects could be that,
1) because MAGA is so boastful, cruel, unashamed and open about their "Project," it became clear very quickly that the effects are disastrous.
2) HCR seems to be so appalled at what's happening she is taking pains to cover it and explain it to us.
For sure, #1) is a mixed blessing and I may be looking at the world through rose-colored glasses (though my wife will attest that, while I have many faults, that is not usually one of them). But, at least it has prompted many, many Americans to decide quickly to
RESIST! And that should improve our chances of success.
The Putin Effect is more obvious every day. This letter is only the beginning of the bad news. Add to that the “revelation” of climate change and the current news from Texas and we see Putin/Trump’s total war on America. Unless we get our act together fast, I don’t see much hope. January 6 is becoming our life.
“The Biden setup.” He doesn’t even have to pretend anymore that he knows what he’s blaming the previous administration for. He knows we should all hate Democrats, that’s enough I guess. I have still heard no reasonable explanation why people voted for this moron, but I am sure “I didn’t like her laugh,” is a good enough excuse for his fans to vote away the American government.
He doesn’t even know what means. Neither does anybody else. So sick of our legacy media pretending his word salad makes sense and playing along with the emperor’s-new, beautiful-gold-like-clothes, not-like-BIDEN’s-ugly-threadbare-rags shtick. It’s pathetic and sickening. If a small child spoke like that, you’d instantly recognize the signs of shallow narcissism at play. Why do reporters collaborate with this psychiatric malevolence?
Chump’s pathetic blathering, his ugly trailer-trash look and his Hollywood make up visage all combine to make a normal person heave. The cult is just mesmerized by carnival-barker blather, Fox and our MSM just sanewash the pretender. Reagan was a much better pretend president, but chump has a ready-made destruction derby and his mob-boss tactics are made to order.
Same. Looking back on Nixon, I can see some of the good things he did; China (if bringing China into our diplomatic circle is actually good in the long run), the EPA (not really his doing, but he didn't fight it) and....let me think, there was one more thing wasn't there?
But Reagan? Nope. My niece who is in her mid 40s remarked the other day that Reagan had blighted her childhood and that she was just starting to recover when trump was elected in 2016. And now he's in again and twice as bad, and she's never going to get ahead in life.
I feel like Reagan paved the way for trump and his ilk. The only good thing I can think of that came from the Reagan years was that some where in the middle of Reagan's first term, my dad finally realized the that GOP was no longer the party of his father and grandfather.
I understand. It's not really a missing. Just grasping for anything at all that isn't this nightmare. I am still waking every night in terror, grief and disbelief all this is happening
No kidding. The MSM has been cherry picking a couple of things in the bill that everyone supports like a little kid eating dessert and not touching the rest of the meal.
The legacy media has been in decline for years. As profits became the name of the game the oligarch owners began moving away from journalism to newsy stuff to outright propaganda. It tipped over the edge with coverage in the 2016 election. Seizing upon the car crash attention phenomena they gave him millions of dollars of free coverage in the 2016 election because it paid. H. Clinton was lambasted for the emails and her laugh when she did get any coverage. The oligarch owned media sane washed him then and continues to do so.
During the 2024 election it got worse. Coverage of Harris' massive rallies, the movement she created and her statements on actual issues were largely ignored. The media beat the "where are her policies? drum. She was talking about her policies so much I had them memorized. Her policies were in a 80-page document on her website. And again, in true misogyny form her laugh was criticized also.
The Democrats haven't been perfect. They have been hampered by a hostile media for decades. This is why we are in the process of developing our own megaphone. Look at the people leaving legacy media. It is astounding. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to create a new non-legacy massive network in this country. Already Meidas Touch is outperforming Rogan.
It is not just gerrymandering and voter suppression that have been electing Republicans. The media is complicit as hell. Now they are his prisoners.
We lost the media when family-owned businesses got absorbed into mega corporations. Good-bye, Katharine Graham and Bill Paley, replaced by Jeff Bezos and his ilk. The old guard want perfect but at least they were in the news business. To the new owners, media is just another advertising outlet to promote the businesses they own that actually make their money.
On top of that, we have the devaluation of expertise and truth that is embodied in social media. Good-bye, researchers, verification and facts; hello, influencers, likes and the unchallenged power of the loudest voice in the room.
It's good that we are developing an alternative media that once again values expertise and polite discussion. I just hope that it achieves its needed power and influence in time.
There's no question in my way of thinking that trvmp with the help of musk and various other connections voting machine software (Reddit thread: Bombshell report claims voting machines were tampered with before 2024 Security). The New York case, etc. The people (the orange circus barker) that shouts the loudest about rigged elections are those doing the rigging.
I don't have time to read Meidas Touch, sadly - I'm already reading about 5 Substacks, and I have a day job. Good to know about Prof. R! I knew her #'s were way up there, but over a million! Yay!
I think even if the press wanted to print the truth, if media insults trump or makes Kamala look good through an edited interview ( FOX NEVER edits trump's interviews), they get sued or banned ( Gulf of America not Mexico). You do anything against trump administration you are censored or fired. EPA just put 140 employees on suspension because they signed a public letter stating that the administration was ignoring science in the favor of polluters, undermining public health, dismantling the office of Research and Development, and promoting a culture of fear for forcing staff to chose between their livelihoods or well-being. I may have read this inn Heather's past articles and forgive me for repeating it BUT there is a culture of fear amongst normal people.
The simple, one-word answer is "access," "It's Come To This."
Slightly longer answer obliges us to remember that, to get along in the meritocracy, one first has to spend years learning that one, oneself, never gets to ask any real questions. For that, only "authorities" can -- only nameless, impersonal, corporate elites from far-off office towers (cubicles, cubicles, cubicles!) can array some sets of idiot, depersonalized Qs.
And all aspirants to the elite meritocracy learn they have one answer, one answer only to these batteries for years assigned to them. (In the U.S. it's called "education.") And the answer -- one only -- always comes only from choices A)-B)-C)-D) -- none other.
Okay. All prepared to prep for the kiss-ass of "access"?
This may be the beginning of the end for the orange fool, Angela.
Canada has just hours ago announced its alternatives to the near-total madness to which Trump has sunk the U.S. and its long-time, traditionally democratic allies.
Canada is just dropping the U.S. and the narcissist-in-chief's idiot tariffs. It has methodically instead formed new alliances at all strategic levels with the EU, Japan, South Korea, and China.
Other news -- at the same time today -- has shown the deep, deep hurt Wal-Mart is in due to those crazy, feckless tariffs. Wal-Mart, Amazon, all their storage facility partners, truckers, and everybody else in supply chain and pricing conundrums that are now just bonkers insane.
So many ways the mad criminal in the White House may now irreversibly be seeing the many layers of hurt he has been causing to so many, so widely.
I also read yesterday that Air Canada is suspending their flights from Toronto to Jacksonville and other locations in Florida for the winter season -- because of significantly dropped demand. The Florida economy depends on tourist dollars - especially snow-birds. We had a winter home there for a few years, but the right-wing atmosphere was not worth the good weather and we sold and came back full time to NY.
same. FL also depends on migrants flocking to FL for good paying jobs. When the restaurants start folding and the housing market tanks, things will get tough for the Republicans in FL. The worse it gets, the more they will blame the Democrats.
Hey, Disney and Universal are still expanding there to keep the tourists flowing in. They could open parks in many other, better states and quit supporting the fascist regime.
New York is the answer. I was born on the eastern most part of New York. I lived in three other (blue states) came back to NY in 1973. The most moderate weather in the whole US. I'm in western NY now, wide open spaces, woods, streams, the Great Lakes. All sorts of weather in moderation. High taxes (you get what you pay for) We are having the heat wave also with the breeze coming in from the Lakes.
Palm Springs, Palm Desert California is also suffering due to the policies of the GOP. 30% of houses in my parents community are now up for sale. Because Canadian snowbirds can no longer stay in the US for more than 3 months, owning a home there is no longer desirable. 😩
I have been waiting for something to end the felon's candidacy or reign of terror since 2015, far too long to believe anymore that there's anything that will turn his supporters away from him.
This leads me to believe that a third of this country is truly as cruel and awful as he is. The Republicans want a civil war, and have wanted a redux since the last one. They are gleefully putting their evil plans in motion.
Martha, a third of this country's voters are not just cruel but also stupid masochist since the pain are going to be felt mostly by them in thise red states depending on the safety net . Thanks for the great comment.
Martha, your conclusions are accurate. It seems that the fear and hatred of the “other” seems to be a psychological construct of “conservative” belief.
When Trump voters find out their Healthcare benefits have been cut or have been laid off from their jobs, all hell will break lose. In reality people are like animals when they can't pervide for their families. Innocent people will pay the price by a civil war. Why? Because of GREED and MONEY and HEALTHCARE taken away by a sick and twisted man who has destroyed this country by instigating hatred towards one another.
Walgreens just announced the closing of their Calais, ME store. It is across the border from St. Stephens, NB where there are at least 3 pharmacies. Walmart has a store in Calais with a pharmacy, but I'm sure Walmart has seen a large decline in revenues as have many other stores in Calais. I suspect stores in Houlton, ME will suffer a similar fate. Washington County, and Aristook County are very red and that will likely not change even after all of their hospitals and nursing homes are closed down.
The deal Trump has agreed with Vietnam (only the second deal his administration has secured) seems to be aimed at China and at 'transshipments' into Vietnam, which is economically bonkers.
Trump seems to envisage the future of America as an autarky, similarly bonkers.
Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent - who really should know better - claims that it's still possible that dozens of deals will be signed before Trump's moving target deadline for the imposition of tariffs expires. A free trade deal usually takes years to negotiate. NAFTA, for example, was over 1,700 pages long. This is far beyond the patience and competence of a Trump administration so ultimately very little of consequence will be achieved by these bullying tactics.
Thank you for sharing facts I never thought I would face as a citizen of the USA.
We have never been perfect nor always made the kindest choices but what is now before us is different.
All I can think about is protecting my family ....the future of my children and grandchildren who have done nothing to deserve this coming "hell" that is more and more evident ie most recently the death of those young children, camping near a river during a powerful flood. ( They were not the only ones who did not receive warning or help to evacuate.) We cannot turn away. This is the United States of America! We take care of our families as best as we are able BUT sometimes the storms and destruction are too big! We need one another but when our neighbor's homes are destroyed when so many young and tender lives endured such a frightening and hellish death that swallowed each one up in darkness...we cannot just sit around saying how sorry we are!
I cannot imagine the agony the parents of these children are enduring!
Another thoughtless act is to place persons of color who have been taken with no trials and placed in "cans" in Florida. This is an area often devastated by wind and rain during the hurricane season. Ron Desantes, did you think only your "cruel, savage friends saw you laughing as you "toured" the quickly created prison facility ...it was also your fellow Americans who were WATCHING, as you and "the gang" toured the new prison "containers" ..I did NOT think it was funny! Those men being imprisoned without trials are fathers, brothers, sons connected to a loved one somewhere.
I frequent my local Dollar Store & it now has whole sections of empty shelves! But do I worry l, no? Our "orange hero" will issue some new super hero NFTs & everything will be just fine!
Too little too late the evidence of remote tabulation manipulation in swing states and some others is growing. This DOJ and SCOTUS are complicit and will not defend the rule of law or the Constitution and guaranteed rights. But at a State level and district level it is imperative that the truth come out and soon. People are pretty insistent that their votes are counted and not changed or invalidated, even when they are ridiculously vague on habeas corpus and due process. What’s more, there is some evidence of manipulation at district levels (not by volunteers-by remote hacking) in 2020–but due to COVID there was a very heavy mail in tally. I’ll bet part of the Big Lie was a reaction to Trump’s assurance that he had suppressed enough and manipulated enough to win. Then the noise about Dominion systems (Trump accusations are Trump confessions) —which were subsequently breached in GA and CO among other places, and vulnerable for 2024. We must ensure that ‘26 is backed up and audited. Electiontruthalliance.org z(or in substack)
I checked the vote tapes posted at 4 different voting precincts after the 2024 election. All races had Republicans winning. It matched with what I saw while processing voters. Admittedly, I live in a Republican dominated area in GA. Usually Republicans vote 4 to one over democrats in primaries (the only time they have to state their preference), and some of those are democrats looking to affect the primary knowing that the Republican will likely win so we vote for the least MAGA. Doesn't seem to help much. But exit polls across the country do not support claims of election tampering. This really is on the brainwashed Republicans voters and apathetic non-voters.
PolitiFact rates the claim of Musk hacking that one precinct as false.
Setting aside the shaky logic of Musk hacking one precinct’s results in a blue state that Harris won by more than a million votes, it could seem jarring to see the Democratic candidate for president not win a single vote, even in a small precinct.
The screenshots showed accurate vote totals, but the results are not surprising or an example of hacking or fraud, experts told PolitiFact. They’re the result of a town with a large Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish population bloc voting in support of their rabbis.
"This is not uncommon," Republican Jewish Coalition spokesperson Sam Markstein said. "You can go back several years to presidential elections," and see similar results.
A closer look at Rockland County’s election results show precinct 35 in Ramapo was not an aberration. Trump won 55.4% of the Rockland County vote, besting Harris by 17,663 votes.
In Ramapo, Trump won 80 of 122 precincts. Aside from precinct 35, Harris earned zero votes in four other Rockland County precincts: precinct 45 (Trump 90-0), precinct 84 (Trump 558-0), precinct 97 (Trump 494-0) and precinct 122 (Trump 23-0).
In several other precincts, Harris received one or single digit votes, while Trump got hundreds. In precinct 55, for example, Trump outpaced Harris, 986 to 2.
The 2024 Ramapo results mirrored its 2020 presidential vote. That year, Trump bested former President Joe Biden 528-0 in precinct 35. In the 2022 midterm elections, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul lost to her Republican opponent, Lee Zeldin, 408 to 24 in that same precinct, which also overwhelmingly voted to reelect Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., over his Republican opponent, Joe Pinion, 266 to 113.
A screenshot shows certified 2020 presidential election results in Ramapo precinct 35. (Rockland County Board of Elections)
Benjamin Rosenblatt, a New York elections data expert, said precinct 35 is in the village of Kaser, which is composed almost entirely of Hasidic Jews of the Viznitz sect. The village is surrounded by the hamlet of Monsey, which also has a huge Orthodox Jewish community, he said.
Rosenblatt said in Kaser, and other Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities in Rockland County, such as New Square, "voters often vote as a bloc, to an extreme degree."
New Square has five voting precincts, including precinct 55, and across the five, voters chose Trump, 3,518 to 13.
The Jewish communities "will often vote nearly entirely for one candidate in each race, but may not vote for the same party in every race," Rosenblatt said in an email. "For example, they may vote as a bloc for a Republican for President, but for a Democrat for State Senate or other local races."
I would suggest you look at the sources provided here. ETA has scads of data on election data from swing state and others as well (not GA however) that show a statistically incredible pattern consistent with that of Putin’s vote for unlimited terms (the ‘Russian tail’). This would not be something local workers would have been aware of and the manipulation is at a tabulator level. With this admin, it’s unlikely it would be addressed nationally, but we can find out the truth and insist upon backup ballots, audits and veracity at local levels in ‘26. Americans want their votes counted! This presentation esp starting at 8:11 shares some good info and the web links are very good. I don’t usually follow this podcast and apologize for the ‘skip ads’. https://youtu.be/8ogVR-C6b64?feature=shared
"The Biden setup" was about the only coherent phrase in that word salad: "I’ll tell you, if you look at that water situation that all is and that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe and it’s just so horrible to watch.”
I can give you a reasonable explanation why people voted for this moron, it's called stupidity Angela, pure and simply. And since there's no cure for stupidity most of them still support him abd his regime.
If anything and everything is/was Biden's, then how is it that he agreed with the TS post that said Biden has been dead for years and was replaced by at least two body doubles while in office? I don't understand.
Firing N.O.A.A. weather forecasters has already brought scores of deaths in Texas flash flooding.
Illegal, unconstitutional killing of U.S. A.I.D. has seen tens of thousands more African deaths.
Trump’s alliance with indicted criminal Netanyahu has upped death in Gaza and the West Bank.
Killing all federal green energy guts hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, increases energy prices, and gifts China world-wide superiority.
Trump’s kiss-ass for Putin worsens Ukraine death and destruction. While his mad tariffs hurt long-time democratic allies.
MAGA cultism ramps up concentration camps, federalized national guard, Marines aiding ICE terror, and immigrants as enslaved labor.
Millions of Americans will lose health care. Kids and the elderly will lose food programs. Rural America will lose hospitals. The elderly lose nursing homes.
Growing tax breaks for millionaires, corporations, and billionaires grossly widen wealth inequality.
The Clarence MAGA court okays deportations to third-country torture sites (patently illegal under U.S. law). Next: expanding deportations to naturalized U.S. citizens (first target, NYC’s Zohran Mamdani).
Standardized testing keeps the few asking the questions; the masses sunk in A)-B)-C)-or-D).
Good to see you at the top of the batting order, Phil. 🤝🏻 Though your litany is depressing and the country is fatigued, people need to get the word out to poorer states to engage their citizenries in a political re-think. 🤔
Younger men and women from these states -- with a few elder states(wo)men -- need to have town halls across red states conveying two essential messages. 💡
1st, why the red states are suffering at the hands of the G.O.P. 🤬
2nd, what these voters can do together (i.e., return to the moderate or progressive fold) to redress these Trump-imposed set-backs.💪🏾
So much evil, Ned, done by this reckless, cruel, arrogant bastard.
Notice, too -- I'd left out the massive hit to the U.S. national debt which the White House criminal has occasioned.
The rest of the world (the free trade, democratic world) may be coming to its senses now, however. And allying with each other just for pure protection against the insanity too many Americans just accept as normal when "educated" as so many are.
Last year, a team of students from our county won the world wide robotics competition. A friend of mine, whose dad was a high school math teacher for over 30 years said, "Good students make good teachers." Our little county of around 50,000 souls has some amazing schools, that don't give a damn about the national test scores or where the school ranks. The parents that care about their kids educations know and many parents choose to home school when they aren't happy with their local school.
Many parents who want to avoid the strictures of public schools want to “home school” their children too. Saw more of that than those who actually did educate their children.
JD, the concept of “home schooling” really sticks in my craw; that said, I am well aware of the issues with inadequately funded public education and the decline of true education while “teaching for test results” becomes the norm. What infuriates me is using public money to fund religion based schools, home or otherwise.
My grandson was home schooled in Texas for several years. The first started in 4th grade because they refused to put him in the gifted children’s program since he wasn’t disruptive. He excelled, Texas actually shipped all materials, including pencils, rulers and textbooks. In 7th grade he got into a science school and did well right up until he was bullied for being gay so went back to homeschooling. He moved to Tempe, Arizona in 10th & 11th and after his mom passed with us in California for 12th and college. No one bullied him here. He’s finally well adjusted and past the trauma created by the schools and abusive step-father. He’s brilliant and can do math in his head from the time he was 2 that amazes me and I won competitions. His college major was theater because that’s where he fits in. I think his home schooling was the best thing for him, it certainly prepared him for Covid learning. He is an avid Lerner on his own terms and had lots of help with home schooling from his mom and me.
That is EXACTLY why home school should be an option.
My front row seat to home schooling was when I worked days as the contract deputy in a small town (population 5K). I would see kids running amok during the school day; at least a dozen were home schooled because of “disagreements” with the school district and the schooling was delivered by untrained parents or devoted to “independent study”. The other were, frankly, religious nuts (both the Catholics and the bizzsro General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn) sent their kids to the public schools, while some fringe groups had a Christian group that met half days for “study”.
I only saw the problems so I have a dim view and I am apoplectic about tax money going to religious schools. Parents who did it right were definitely the minority but this was 20 years ago
My wife home schooled our daughter for 5th and 6th grade. My wife was a chemical engineer and excels at math and science whereas my daughter doesn't. They weren't great together for home schooling.
My daughter is homeschooling, too. She's a college professor and uses a secular educational package. Her son's go to a private school for things like lab work that can't be done at home. They perform well above grade level for their ages. Not everyone can do that, though.
We used to do crazy science experiments with him. His other grandfather worked with chemicals and taught him stuff and my husband is very engineer oriented. I was a nurse so teach him about medical stuff that will come in handy as well as computer science, business management and housekeeping. It’s the little stuff that messes him up. Also, he could be slightly on the spectrum so we go with the flow.
Glad to hear a positive story, maybe I only dealt with the negative ones since most coming back to public school were way behind academically and socially
The one thing I discovered when I told my college graduate to address his thank you cards was that he doesn’t know how to properly address an envelope. Funny the little things that get by. I reminded him it was a little space so not to write too big and he started at the top of the envelope. I even told him to look at the envelopes he had as an example. I’m sure the post office will know what to do.
When I saw this, Ned, its title was "Freedom Writers' Diary."
That is, in the original, teacher Erin's Gruwell's emphasis was on the writing. Personal. Personal. Personal.
(And that other great film you mention, "October Sky," centered on what kids in a small, West Virginia coal-mining town could see in the heavens one October night, 1957.)
In both cases, vitality in schools depended on teachers. That's what the nation of Finland decided when it said goodbye to mediocrity and instead welcomed excellence in its schools. Began hiring only the best graduates of its colleges and universities. First step, kick out the standardized testers.
From there, everything kid-centered, everyone thrived.
So do I. Nevertheless, I think we have all to assume responsibility for this awful outcome. We may have gotten here divided but we can only hope to re-emerge as a free people by banding together.
.....targeting a really great candidate , Zohran Mamdani, someone who is actually a person of character does not fit into their plans.
Have we been covered with "pixie dust"? Can we not see a picture forming in our country? Good solid accomplished candidates are opposed in exchange for career criminals.
First,of course, Trump is lying. It was HIS cuts to the NES and FEMA begun by executive orders this year that debilitated both warning and response to the floods. Second, I know something about the area having attended a boys camp near Mountain Home Texas for a number of years beginning exactly 70 years ago. We were on the river but the cabins were on a high plain at a wide point along the river bed well above the river itself. There were floods even then. But no threat to the buildings or persons in them. The Marianist order which ran the camp had installed upstream a system of bells to warn of high and spreading waters during a rain. Primitive yet effective. We would sometimes lose canoes and kayaks. But not staff or campers.
Shortsightedness at both the local and national level set up this disaster. But the crowning touch is the ignorance, penny-pinching arrogance and mendacity of Trump and his DOGE cronies. He crippled a technologically effective early weather warning system. NO ONE ELSE DID THAT!
Trump has never had any interest in governing. He simply seeks power, adulation, wealth, and to remain unaccountable for his numerous crimes. His criminal cabal also known as his Cabinet are a group of inexperienced, incompetent, corrupt, alcoholic, TV show sociopaths who have one objective --destroy the agency they are charged with "leading". The entire Executive Branch has zero interest in governing. They are too busy seeking revenge against law firms, universities, Federal judges, political opponents, media outlets, and anyone who has been "mean" to the criminal elect.
The former political party, now a criminal organization, has zero interest in governing. They exist to aid and abet the criminal elect, exacerbate wealth inequality, and therefore perpetuate power and control over government for generations.
The extreme climate catastrophe in Texas is just the beginning. As evidenced in the LFAA, public health is at risk. Public travel infrastructure such as air travel is at risk. Food safety and the spread of E-coli and Salmonella will soon be displacing stories about Texas floods, extreme hurricanes, and massive wildfires.
The DOJ has been subverted to pursue political opponents and people of color. Government watchdogs formerly charged with investigating corruption are marginalized. Millions of families will lose access to healthcare -not immediately, because voters will forget the "Big Beautiful Tax Fraud" that is piling debt on top of debt.
The Judicial System now has Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Aileen Cannon as case studies in corruption, incompetence, and betrayal of fundamental responsibility to justice.
The United States as a global partner in trade, defense, and climate are no longer. We are now as much of a pariah as Putin's Russia, Netanyahu's Israel, and Hamas' Gaza.
No, the plane crashes, the Texas floods, wildfires, concentration camps, State-sponsored kidnappings and trafficking, the deployment of lethal military forces to U.S. cities are simply the very beginning of what is to come.
But it's not all bad news. At least Musk, Bezos, and Thiel have their tax cuts.
Tax cuts on top of tax cuts on top of tax cuts. Severing lifelines to heap riches on the richest. Hard to believe that any self-respecting denizen of Main Street would vote for that.
The joke is some don't pay taxes in the first place. Tesla paid no income tax in 2024. My wife and I are middle class and in most years paid more than Trump. That's what pisses me off the most. Trillions in uncollected taxes.
Here’s the funny part, about once a week I see an article about that $5,000 rebate check that was promised. Do people really think they’re going to get one?
Not to Worry George…America’s savior Muck, did I spell that wrong?? Just unveiled a new Political Party to replace the one (you know…the Crime Cabal one) he got thrown out of. Can it not get any better??
The coup is complete. Freedom and the rule of law are effectively over on the United States. Widespread state-sponsored terror against the US population, sickness, poverty and death appear inevitable.
It is far, far gone but not yet impervious to resistance; there is still info available—for now. If we don’t resist with all we have now, it’s not likely to get any easier. We have to protect 2026 with all we have and insist on back up local paper ballots and routine audits in the face of tabulator manipulation evidence. I hope the GOP finds a special Hell awaits them over their month long break, from the constituents they betrayed and refused to meet with for town halls.
I agree we must continue to fight for democracy, but what recourse do we have if/when MAGA Trumpublican candidates challenge the results of the mid-terms, claiming their elections were “rigged.” The courts could take months to resolve the disputes. With no final vote count agreed upon, Trump would/will declare an “emergency” and extend the terms of the seated Congress. Neither he nor they will willingly give up power.
Republicans and Russian operatives are working to erode Americans’ confidence in elections, so we best not feed into it. It’s a form of obeying in advance.
The "Republicans" in Congress have already given up their power (all but 2 or 3) by always doing what tRump tells them to do. They don't seem to know what they've lost, just as the millions who voted for them and their leader don't know (yet) what they've lost.
We will see. The hubris is breathtaking. Yes, it's a coup, but not so well thought out. Apart from the billionaires, it is biting many of the hands that feed it.
Not well thought out? That's precisely what the 900 page Projects 2025 is all about: subverting the Constitution and implementing a Christofascist regime
There is a lot of plotting, but from an evil-minded standpoint, Trump is impulsive. I recall reading just after the 9/11 attack that GWB was briefly the most popular president in history, or something like that. He took a big hit with his "hell of a job" response to hurricane Katrina. The Big Bad Bill is such an obvious ripoff, and not just of the scapegoat group. His regime is brutal and lies shamelessly on cue, yet reeks of incompetence. War top secret planning via social media? Amateur Hour.
Trump is, without exception, the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in the world, if not in history. He continually fails up and he continues to fool some (way too many) of the people all of the time. Aside from all the ignominy that has justifiably followed him all his days, the fact is that he's a profoundly shallow person with the attention span of a gnat. He's Dunning-Kruger on steroids. Somehow he's managed to get himself elected to the most elevated political post in the world not once but twice and yet it's not enough. The whole thing is astonishingly gobsmacking.
With all due respect, I disagree. I’m simply pointing out that Trump’s GOP allies will follow his lead and claim election fraud, and even when they lose it court, will STILL claim they won. It’s a pattern.
What happens if they say we will not accept the election results? Trump can declare it was all rigged and void the outcome. The Supreme Court will not deny him his throne. Trump has the Supreme Court, all three branches of the government, and the military. The only way I see to reclaim the country will be through civil disobedience. Trump would love to turn the military on its citizens. Remember, he said, we only have to come down hard, really hard on a few, and the rest will obey. I hope I am wrong, but too much power is in his hands.
I hope we get a full accounting of what all went wrong. Clearly this was a very extreme weather events. That does not mean there’s nothing we can learn from and improve upon. As a concerned Texan, it feels that the current people in power believe the state has no role in these “unusual event.” 2021 ice storm power outage that killed hundreds? We should buy generators. Uvalde school,shooting? We need more guns in the hands of teachers and citizens.
We rush to thoughts and prayers rather than try to create a government that works.
Caring about Americans or humanity in general is not part of Trump's 2025 agenda. Diverting FEMA funds from disaster assistance to building concentration camps in the Everglades is.
It is looking more and more like the USA is lost. We will become a dictatorship under Trump until he dies, and then who knows who the successor will be? If we somehow get through it and get a Democractic congress and/or presidency again, I hope they will learn their lesson and NOT be too timid to save democracy just as Trump has not been to destroy it. Day one: increase the size of the Supreme Court by any means necessary, prosecute EVERYONE who violated the law and constitution who isn't Trump (given a pass by the SC) even if it means ignoring pardons. Ignore the SC until it has been increased in size. Impeach the members of the SC who have blatantly been corrupted. Democrats need to fight just as hard for democracy as the Republicans have to destroy it. Democrats need to see this as an all out war for the country like the Republicans do and do whatever it takes to protect it.
Dems are still treating it as politics as usual. It stopped being a game decades ago. James Baker signing on to the W/Dickie debacle made my blood run cold back in the day. When Teddy K signed on to W’s “No child left behind” disaster, Repubs knew that the fix was in and the flim flam raced ahead.
I am surprised Trump hasn’t blamed god for the flash floods. But I guess that would open the door to conservative Christians concluding that god sent floods to show his displeasure with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill?
Well…maybe the country should start investing in ark building to combat the loss of NOAA advance notice. Sniveling Mikey Johnson could make sure all the CINOs get the word ahead of time. All would be well then.
It was a perfect storm. No, not the isobars and fronts, but the lack of a sane, proper response to things everybody knew come regularly.
The MAGAzoid war against FEMA, the violence of DOGE (an unrecognized agency never authorized by Congress whose employees took no oaths to defend the Constitution), the warnings in May about slashing budgets to the National Weather Center just as tornado and hurricane season descended — amid a decades-long Republican siege against taxes that fund maintenance, replacement, innovation and provide for the general welfare.
Hunan Stupidity exacerbating Mother Nature, not resisting it. Acts of Willful Idiocy are just as dangerous as Acts of God. No accident that Chip Roy, one of the dumbest, most loathsome, Republican wretches in Congress, represents that district in Texas.
A century ago, Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes wrote that “taxes are the price we pay to live in civilized society” — words etched into the stone of the IRS building in Washington.
What do you call people who steal goods and services they refuse to pay for out of “principle”? Short-sighted? Morons? Thieves? Deadbeats? And what do you call those same clods who then show up to the scenes of disaster (or just tweet about it), full of tears, gushing ‘heartfelt’ “thoughts and prayers” that somehow make God responsible for their own warped intellectual and moral systems?
47’s statement a couple days ago that he “hates Democrats” because he thinks “they hate our country” is projection. It’s also stochastic calculus, like telling the proud boys in 2020 to “Stand down and stand by.” 47 is waging war on USA on behalf of Putin. The archipelago of Democratic states & counties need to stop sending tax revenue to DC & prepare to defend citizens from illegal martial law enforcement by 47’s goon squads. The USA already is a failed democracy and now is a fascist mafia state oligopoly, mostly resuting from unprecedented SCOTUS decisions and long-term psycho-social conditioning by consolidated mainstream media, owned by six $billionaires. We’re in the process of dissolution, as the USSR officially did in 1991. 77.3 million Americans hate what the USA has stood for so much that they voted for this death cult last November.
The twisted Thiel under which all our DOGE pilfered data is to be concentrated for a surveillance society is a big Yarvin follower (along with his Protege JD Vance ) and ‘humane genocide’ for ‘non-productive people’ has been parroted by Trump only in deportation terms. They also are heavy into eugenics. So the faster the sick, elderly, disabled and POC her and abroad are disposed of, the better. The goal of the techies is managed Network States (see HCR’s talk in this) and the Heritage Heretics are rallying around End of Days craziness—take your pick, both reduce the population to the elite few and the worker bees. https://youtu.be/S0vb92zoVyI?feature=shared
Nailed it. Is this Nazis on steroids. At least they will keep enough peasants to be servants. But they don’t actually work like the common man, so who will make the money that they siphon up. As we learned with Covid, the heroes are the chumps who put in the hours and make the wheels turn. These fools are destroyers, period. At least the Nazis were efficient.
Good summation. Thanks for your ability to do that and for putting it out here where it can be amplified. I agree whole heartedly. It’s not just the techies. They’ve latched onto 47 for his mafia extortionist juice. Vance is their trained protege. When it’s right for their purposes 47 will be put out to pasture somewhre in the middle east or eat a not so good hamburger and leave the stage.
The biggest danger is that they off him in a way that Lays blame on Dems or Immigrants, fueling MAGA rage against the ‘other’ AND keeping Trump alive as a martyr. Goodness knows there are enough with God-Trump confusion to feed right into this. It’s worked at other times and places effectively. And in my opinion, the ‘assassination attempt’ last summer was quite the experiment by the MAGA right.
Good God! Those poor people. To have friends and family taken so quickly and violently. The anxious hours waiting on some good news, then, as time goes on, for any news. Then to have to try to grasp that the only thing left is to hope for a miracle, all the while knowing that it has gone beyond that. Let us wish for them that they at least have recovered what remains of their loved ones so they can give them a proper funeral service, and let the mourning begin. The thought that they have been swept away beyond recovery - perhaps to be found months, years later - is too hard to contemplate now.
Closure? There is no closure for something like this. You patch it all back together as best you can over the rest of your life so you can get on with it, but there is no way to make this whole again.
And what of the survivors, after the initial numbing shock fades? The young camper, say, who made it out alive while her friend didn't, who maybe she had just dined with and chattered and giggled as young girls are known to do, before the rush of water came. "Why her? Why not me?" That kind of trauma will haunt you, deep inside, for the rest of your life.
National security;Ha! Trump did not want to alienate those who used Tik Tok. For that, he thinks it is OK to nullify a law passed by Congress. Trump is not only an authoritarian. He is a sometimes comic authoritarian worthy of Springtime for Hitler.
Thank you, Heather. Your letters get more challenging to read by the day. The magnitude of destructive impact, locally and globally, is catastrophic. Not sure where and when the turn-around will happen, but I hope it comes soon.
These are my same sentiments. Thank you for this real-time analysis of the devastating impacts on our country’s ability to govern.
July 17 — John Lewis national rally. Be there.
Bill Katz,
What a great American....what a brilliant yet humble patriot. John Lewis gave himself to the most honorable callings.
And he was considered to be farther to the left politically than to the center. The center you claim many here on HCR’s Substack are much too far away from as well.
Why do you even bother reading HCR’s Substack much less post comments among a bunch of people who are part of what you call “Group Think, in which the group as a whole stays together on all issues.”
I'm a socialist, but educated people listen to other opinions and assess them based on merit. You can't understand your opponent unless you listen to them.
Most of what HCR writes is history and it's parallels. Why shouldn't everyone want to listen to that regardless of political persuasion?
Perfectly stated - thank you!
Because she should give the opinion and the reality from both sides, not lead people astray with half truths half information and slanted opinion. She supposed to be a historian.
Group Think
That would be a very accurate description of all those REAL CHRISTIANS who voted for a guy who bragged about grabbing women's genitals.
You mean like Clinton or Kennedy or which one do you mean?
Or maybe you like El Franken better? Did you enjoy all those Harvey Weinstein movies? How about Lyndon Johnson? And others who had extramarital affairs. On both sides of the aisle roll not just one talk about group think. How about John Andrew Young a Texas Democrat allegedly forcing a female Staffer to have sex with him to keep her job his wife committed suicide a year later.. and let’s not forget. The cover story about Gary Hart and Donna Rice. Even Barney Frank was reprimanded by the house. There are plenty of Republicans as well, but it’s interesting that you have hazard lead just poke out one example. I actually thought there was a better story in the Gary Condit tale. Especially when Chandra Levy showed up dead a year later. John Edwards actually had a child I guess from an affair. It may have been consensual, but it probably had the same lack of morals, regardless a party. Like Matt Gaetz is alleged affair with a 17-year-old.
But the funniest one is not that it’s any worse than any others, but it is worse than one particular case that you had a Democrat congressman actually had an affair with a Chinese spy. Can I get any worse than that? Imagine what he told her
When they were unclothed lololol
Well, you scored a couple of losing points again their Monroe
Or maybe you prefer just exhibitionist like Anthony Weiner
And when it comes to TV personalities well, we got them too on both sides, but some of the most famous ones were obviously Matt Lauer and we had one guy who was a do it to yourself or while broadcasting pretty funny
Hope you enjoyed the ride down history Lane
The Neutral, the Good, and the Ugly:
Let's face it, nobody knows everything. So, is there a good reason not to think of ignorance as a "neutral" concept? I’ll be more specific. "Good" is ignorance constrained by the intent to avoid unnecessary suffering. Good intent reveals the gap between a good intent and a bad outcome and the imperative to close the gap. “Ugly” is unconstrained ignorance.
Does MAGA care about unnecessary suffering? Yes, but not close the gap and instead because unnecessary suffering is a useful tool.
You unfairly accuse Emily oh my. On to your question. Most people are part of group think. But I see you are reading my comments. Good boy.
And you are reading mine too. Good boy! I’ll more than happy to meet you face to face. We can “discuss your opinions”. But more likely than not you’re too much of a p**sy to meet. GFY. And have a nice day.
George T, you may be old enough to know better, but you're also immature enough for the need to be sat on a stool facing the corner with a dunce cap on your head until you learn the importance of understanding that every single small thought that enters the space where you brain is supposed to be is NOT the Gospel truth.
LOL 😂
George T,
I live in the United States of America and TODAY, I am free to read what I prefer and you are free to read what you prefer.
Within my family are Republicans and Democrats. We love and respect one another. This SO FAR is a free country. We can marry who we want, we can vote for the persons we choose. We can choose where we want to work. Within our education system, we can choose to write in an honest way to express our opinion.
I am free…what about you? Have you been bought? Are you such a control freak that you cannot listen to other opinions.
I deeply respect Heather. She loves this country with her entire being. She is a protector of freedom. Her heart and mind are full of love and respect. She is fully open to you and for you to share your opinions.
I accept friends and family who have made opposing opinions regarding to their politics. Love and mutual respect cover disagreement.
“Peace out!”
Emily I couldn’t agree with you more. Except for one thing. I’ll fight anyone tooth and nail who to uses pejoratives to describe immigrants (and minorities). Anyone who accuses all immigrants as being as a class of people prone to deceit and illegal behavior for no other reason than that they are immigrants.
Yes there will always be a small, a very small/ minute minority of any group of people (white, black, brown, of any nationality/ heritage) that will seek to act contrary to the rules and laws. Seek to take advantage of “loop holes” in our system of government. But anyone lumping all into one and using pejoratives to describe that group, ya you’ll see me calling that person out.
Anyone who claims it’s someone else's fault (for not stopping those trying to skirt the system) and therefore justifies their use pejoratives needs to be confronted and called out as well. Someone using pejoratives to describe immigrants and minorities sound familiar? Does someone claiming it’s always somebody eles’s fault sound familiar as well? No I’m not speaking about the guy in the Whitehouse though he fits the bill.
Go back a few days ago and read Mr Katz’s comments in another of HCR’s newsletter and you’ll see he’s done/ said exactly these very same things. When confronted he claims those confronting him of being too far left politically. His pompous, know it all attitude is disgusting. His responses when confronted, his responses meant to demean those confronting him, are nothing more than him projecting his own shortcomings onto others. Seems Mr Katz and the guy in the Whitehouse have a few things in common.
Well, it’s no wonder that the Democrats called the Republicans a cult when that’s all that lives here in my opinion. Just look at the voting in the past from Democrats. They stick together like lemmings glued to each other.
Sorry Emily my comment was meant to be a direct reply to the person who made the original comment. Nothing to do with what you wrote. In fact I couldn’t agree more about what you wrote/ said about John Lewis.
Shudup and write 100 times “I must not eat my buggers.”
YES!!!! BE THERE!!! BE LOUD (AND PEACEFUL!)
Be Proud🇺🇸
I will be there! It seems that many Americans need to experience these disasters themselves before they will recognize their significance. Public outcry and these rallies might help them connect the disasters with the destruction of government programs and climate change.
David, some of them are so blind that they cannot accurately read the news or are on some wing nut site. Yesterday, one of my ex high school classmates posted a rant from a guy who rungs a weather blog. He was very upset with bullying and racist comments and will not tolerate that. Well, OK. But her comment above was to tell liberals to stop blaming the weather on the administration (regime) and to get a life. I did respond to tell her what has happened to NOAA and the NWS and that people were not accusing the regime of causing the weather, but were concerned with the response including using FEMA funds to build a concentration camp in the Everglades. I also noted that when I am nonpolitical threads, the bullying and racism comes from MAGA, not liberals. I ended with a note that climate change is real and the regime's policies will only make it worse. Three people liked it, so she has some sane friends. Another dopey ex classmate agreed with her.
I just wrote what you're saying, David. It appears that quite a few of us are coming to the conclusion that only very dire circumstances, and we're not there yet, will cause the public to realize how much damage having a lawless administration is causing.
Geez I don’t know Bill. Promoting a rally named after someone considered by many to be an extremist pursuing Civil Rights seems out of character for you. Contradicts your “So climb… off your high horse and crawl to the center” edict.
John Lewis was anything but in the political “center”. But hey hypocrisy abounds these days, even among “some” of those here on HCR’s Subtack. GFY!
If fighting for equal civil rights is considered “extremist” in your mind, I would suggest you read the Declaration and perhaps the New Testament of the Bible.
Linda I was echoing Mr. Katz’s view as declared in his previous comments in another of HCR’s Substack “Letters from an American”.
Based on those comments his view of fighting for civil rights is apparently too far to the left for his liking. Comments such as “climb….. off your high horse and crawl to the center”. My grandson is mixed race, including black, hispanic, and german. My step daughter is also mixed race. I have seen prejudices thrown in their faces. Derogatory comments deserving of a smack down. I have more than a few minority friends. Fighting for civil rights is not extremist in my view, not even close. But apparently fighting for civil rights is considered too far to the left for some. Including some here.
Got it. Did not see Katz’ post.
You get a lollipop for your efforts. Hope you’re not diabetic. Any more quips today?
You’re reading my comments. Good for you.
You write “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums and More”. Hmmm looking in the mirror now aren’t you.
Or form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, or secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
Sentiments we all agree on. However, to listen to Michael Luttig, he is very pessimistic that the Supreme Court under Roberts will alter their positions on giving Trump more and more power. He says that what Roberts has done is shameful....
Stephanie, shameful doesn’t come close to describing the destruction of our government that Roberts is engineering.
How about unconscionable, ignominous and even deplorable!! I'm sure Heather can name periods when the supreme court handed down other ignoble decisions....
Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson come to mind. There are others.
True enough; but under the circumstances that we all face today? I think not. Ally's suggestion that Scott and Plessy rank up there is accurate; however, those days were still racist filled days with an attitude of "meh". We're in a different boat now and in rougher waters.
Ally, we did warm people in 2016 about the Supreme Court, but got the middle finger. I am amazed at some of their decisions this term. Can they read the 14th Amendment and do they really think it is a good idea to deport people to places like Sudan.
That was what I told everyone about that election. It wasn’t about who on the election as it was about what could happen to the Supreme Court.
This is a white power supreme court along with Thomas' yassir, right away sir, attitude. They can read all right; the real question is: can they process?
Do you think a couple of them - Alito and Thomas come to mind - who were caught in an ethical morass - are turning their backs on decency and constitutional law as payback?
Amen!
Roberts is the store employee who leaves the store’s back door unlocked so that his friends can steal TVs.
That's mildly apt Craig.
And the hell of it is, he pays them to come back and do it again.
And the goose is not just cooked; it's burned beyond recognition.
Isn't it good that Black people, other people of color, and women in general didn't think like that? We'd still be stuck in 1791 if they had -- and funny thing, that's exactly where the "originalists" wish we were today!
Susanna, I think pretty certainly that 'originalism' is another of those intentional distractions and nothing more. All of this extraneous 'noise' is just cover and distraction. I feel it's all just distraction, cover, rationale - to enable for the 'fire hose' of disinformation. The only consistent goals of this coalition remains the same; Power and money to self-serve power and money; all the while concealing true identities. To focus solely on "OiD" is a distraction too; It's the coalition. He (it's) just the getaway driver.
The Originalists don't even know what the true origin of the Constitution is. The original Constitution was without the 10 Amendments. Ever since the 10 Amendments were ratified, the Constitution ceased to be the original text. And yet, with every succeeding amendment, originalists and textualists speak of the Constitution as the "original" document. This is straight out of Superman's Bizarro's world where everything up is down and down is up - black is white and white is black - right is wrong and wrong is right.
Shameful. There’s going to be one case after another going down the autocratic takeover proving that point .
Whether there’s a point of no return. Whether there’s a point we the people sufficiently realize. Weather , an Act of God, may or may not be Climate Change/bad decisions/the downfall of The Great American Dream or whatever apparently hasn’t been decided yet ( maybe we’ll figure this out in TWO WEEKS?) the manipulation or debates all just floor me as the greatest mistake ever…and WE were not ever, ever, ever…. blindsided ..
It.Was.A.LIE.
The beauty of Heather and many of y’all’s great writers/commentators ( which I fondly spell ‘common taters’) ability ( especially Heather’s) to write the facts succinctly , debunk BS, elaborate details, and stay focused is art - many never actually see art ..as they’re consumed by needs of entertainment all the while held captive…slaves/hostage far more the accurate word…covering their plight.
It’s a trip!
Hmmm. "Common taters' has has a great "spuddy" resonance... but my sound mind also jumped to "comment haters".... not in the realm of multivalency or humor, but perhaps a 3rd skewing for the sake of philosophy....
We do have some of those... 'Comment haters' don't we. Multiple I.D.'s, etc.
D4N,
They are reading our comments!!!
We can always hope reason and truth will triumph!!!!
, I do love to look at all sides a couple of times , give it thought. Thanks
Patricia Davis,
I looked at all sides and changed parties. No longer a Republican. The party has fallen off the cliff!!!
They became "gangsters" following their mob boss.
May "the eyes of their hearts" be opened to reality!!!!
Agents of the underground.
Sounds like a really nice place to live.
Those opposed 'feel like' they are being the 'realists.' There's one of the 'rubs' for sure. Contemplate that for a moment, along with other statements I've made here often Ann.
D4N,
..And people don't believe in "brainwashing" or "mind control"????
The irony is that many of 'they' think that 'we' are brainwashed; Others among them are convinced that most of 'we' are comfortable, fat and happy - thus also insensitive to loss, pain, diminishments of others.
There you have it.
"Make America a Democracy Again" Stand and speak out!
“Make America a Democracy Again” = MADA. MADAs hell! 😁
MAGA = MA(fi)A
Bring back the rule of LAW instead!
There it is LB; Exactly what is being destroyed. They prefer the rule of personal whim.
I echo your thoughts. I couldn't even give Heather a "like" tonight. The news is all so damned depressing. And the Texas disaster has been pressing on my heart all day. Those poor girls most of all, but also their devastated families, the dozens of other lives lost....I can't even attempt to put a political spin on this, tempting though it may be. It's all just too sad.
You can’t look away. You must keep looking. So must we all. Looking away is what these sick bastards want us to do, to say ‘I can’t bear it’ while they cough up another round of heartfelt ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Try to imagine you are your brother’s keeper enough not to lose your focus.
At least this is what I try to tell myself, though like you, I don’t always succeed.
Yes indeed. That is what our citizenship requires of us right now, and ongoing, so that this kind of government or lack of it in this case is never never allowed to hold us in thrall to an obviously lawless madman and the project 25 cold soul murderers who are using his incredible lack of caring and his performative shit show to wreck the country. People have to start allowing themselves to believe what they are seeing and not try to skew around it emotionally. It simply won't work. We must start trusting each other, as there are a majority of people of goodwill no matter the parties. We need new coalitions of caring serious citizens. Could check in on Indivisible.org and quite a few other groups organizing to get our government back. There are many ways to talk with each other and we can create once we need. Take heart.
July 17 — John Lewis national rallies. Be there.
Geez I don’t know Bill. Promoting a rally named after someone considered by many to be an extremist pursuing Civil Rights seems out of character for you. Contradicts your “So climb… off your high horse and crawl to the center” edict.
John Lewis was anything but in the political “center”. But hey hypocrisy abounds these days, even among “some” of those here on HCR’s Subtack. GFY!
Hi Robin ! I have missed your commentary.
How sweet of you! Got a few stacked up in my docs file as these last couple of months have been a bit overwhelming in my life. Just uncovered my writings from the early '60s on and it's really blown my mind reading my life as it was then (not hippy FYI) Looks like a book in there :-)) Oy vey.
How sweet of you! I have a bunch stacked up in my docs file from a couple of months of dealing with all sorts of other stuff in my life that's now starting to get at least sorted. Just unearthed several years of my writings from the early '60s on and kind of blown away by reading my life as it was then. Looks like a book in there :-))
Oy vey.
I do not know where this came from,but it has become my mantra:
“We are no longer accepting things that we cannot change.
It is now time to change things that we cannot accept”.
It’s Come To This, I agree with your statement here today. Just yesterday I came across a book and a website I look forward to checking out, and others here may want to know about also: the book is “Atlas Hugged” by David Sloan Wilson. ( A title that made me smile) The book critiques Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which emphasizes individualism and self-interest…”. Wilson is an evolutionary biologist ( and son of writer Sloan Wilson) who steps out of his usual non-fiction writing to present a work of fiction to “illustrate how evolutionary principles can be applied to understand and promote cultural evolution towards greater cooperation and societal well-being.” That seems to embody the work I hope to understand more. The website I came across is “pro social.world”. Their Purpose: “We exist to consciously evolve a world that works for all”. Sounds revolutionary right now in America, no?
While peeking at the history of 1925, I came across some of what seems the unexpected consequences of the French and Belgian occupation of the German Ruhr industrialized area. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan
"...On 5 May 1921 the Allies delivered an ultimatum to Germany demanding that it accept the London Schedule within six days and threatening to occupy the heavily industrialized Ruhr district if it did not. The Reichstag voted to accept on 11 May, following which the government began to implement its fulfilment policy (Erfüllungspolitik), an effort to show the impossibility of meeting the payments by attempting to fulfill them.[2] Germany made its first payment of one billion gold marks in the summer of 1921 but after that paid little in cash and fell behind in its deliveries of materials such as coal and timber.[3] After Germany was declared in default in January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr. Germany responded with passive resistance to the occupation. The government printed money in order to pay the idled workers, which fueled the hyperinflation that all but wrecked the German economy..."
Earlier this year I was struck by finding out that for all his monstrosity, Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, insisted the Czech skilled workers forced to work for the Germans be paid the same wages as similarly skilled German workers since they needed the increased productivity over slave labor (reference needed, not found). Perhaps he learned to be a bit more nuanced in balancing some productivity with lighter treatment of those better rewarded and most beneficial to increasing productivity than slave labor.
It seemed part of his "pacification" plan briefly described (after a litany of his worst atrocities), at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/reinhard-heydrich-in-depth
"...Heydrich was so confident that his pacification program had succeeded that he flagrantly disregarded measures for his own security and traveled around Prague in an open vehicle. On May 27, 1942, as he traveled on a familiar route to the airport to fly to Hitler's headquarters, two Czech parachute agents succeeded in rolling a hand grenade under Heydrich's transport vehicle. Though not mortally wounded by the blast itself, the grenade splinters in his leg and lower back led to an infection that killed him on June 4, 1942..."
What I did find (new to me) was the "Night-and Fog decree" vs the more public displays of extreme arrests meant to scare more people into what now seems to be called "self-deporting." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich
"...By late 1940, German armies had invaded most of Western Europe. The following year, Heydrich's SD was given responsibility for carrying out the Nacht und Nebel (Night-and-Fog) decree.[86] According to the decree, "persons endangering German security" were to be arrested in a maximally discreet way: "under the cover of night and fog". People disappeared without a trace with no one told of their whereabouts or fate.[87] For each prisoner, the SD had to fill in a questionnaire that listed personal information, country of origin, and the details of their crimes against the Reich. This questionnaire was placed in an envelope inscribed with a seal reading "Nacht und Nebel" and submitted to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). In the WVHA "Central Inmate File", as in many camp files, these prisoners would be given a special "covert prisoner" code, as opposed to the code for POW, Felon, Jew, Gypsy, etc.[a] The decree remained in effect after Heydrich's death. The exact number of people who vanished under it has never been positively established, but it is estimated to be 7,000..."
Once again Jim, you have provided all of us with an educational chance. There is always more to learn.
Thank you Jim.
It is so much like someone said: history may not exactly repeat itself but it sure does an awful lot of rhyming.
Thank you for the deep dive into A preview of what’s taking shape in trump’s nightmare for merica.
James, it is sad, but will anything be done to correct the situation. Trump is a truly evil man, but yet he expects couples to joyfully bring white babies into this hellscape that ALL Republicans at all levels of government are responsible for.
There is no reason those girls should have died with the technology we have available. Trump actually authorized FEMA to help in TX, when he refused to send help to KY, MO and other places. As for the families of the dead and missing due to the flash floods, may they realize that Republicans don't give a shit about them any more than they do about the families of the children killed in the myriad school shootings. They are ALL heartless bastards that worship their orange daddy. And that ain't gonna change.
He refused to help NC as well
Just wait for the next big hurricane that hits any of the Fascist confederate states. The insurance companies aren't going to pick up the tab for all of the people that can't afford insurance. Like in FL, many more companies will pull out of all of the gulf coast states. And property values are dropping like a rock in TX and FL. But they still love the orange Julius.
He won't actually be an Orange Julius until someone grinds him up with the appropriate ingredients, but even then he'd be undrinkable.
Imagine being a citizen of FL right now! Not only do we have to deal with the insanity of the Faux King, but the Faux Would-be King: DeSantis. He refused to add to our new state budget Air Conditioning and free phone calls for prisoners. Imagine being thrown into a FL prison in the heat of a tropical summer without AC. And Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio are two of ours. And Rick Scott (think health care!) and Ashley Moody (who was our Attorney General and worked hard to see that the reproductive rights amemdment didn’t pass, even though it got almost the 60% it required. That was also thwarted when DeSantis rallied against it, using some questionable funds from his wife’s PAC.) And of course we’re all anxious about the next hurricane. Last year was terrifying. Without help from the NWS and FEMA, this year could be devastating.
Moreover, we control the State Department and now that Rubio is in charge of foreign policy, we are virtually at war with Colombia!
U.S., Colombia withdraw ambassadors amid accusations of coup plotting By Salome Beyer Velez and Jim Glade
July 4.
The United States and Colombia have recalled their respective ambassadors amid tensions surrounding an alleged plot to oust President Gustavo Petro in which two Florida congressmen were implicated.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he ordered the recall of John T. McNamara, the acting ambassador in Bogotá, on Thursday “following baseless and reprehensible statements from senior Colombian government officials.” The State Department also called Colombia an “essential strategic partner” but said it would pursue “other measures to make clear our deep concern over the current state of our bilateral relationship.”
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/colombia/article310009550.html#storylink=cpy
.
No tourists. Our number 1 industry is tourism. When they eliminated DEI, most of the businesses my county are bilingual, if not trilingual, lose all government contracts. E.G.at least half the kids in our schools speak another language and all language funding is cut.
So short-sighted. Denial and no state tax just don't cut it. And Canadians are not going to be coming any more. Nevertheless, my brother and his wife are moving there this week because they got a "great deal" on a house.
Aside: how did DeSantis get elected in the first place?
Willful ignorance.
Salud, MLM.
🗽
I think people thought he was cute! Couldn't have been his brains.
Hi Jan, thank you for speaking my thoughts. Please don’t generalize, not all Floridians have voted for any of these people. Many Floridians are protesting, donating, and calling our, for the most part, useless representatives.
We are well aware of the upcoming hurricane season, perhaps that’s what it will take to wake up the rest of the state.
Abbot's press conference yesterday - at least the length of it I saw - made no mention of FEMA and -- if I heard it right -- he encouraged people to "help themselves" They talked about rescue and recovery efforts - and those officials were articulate, but there was a great big subject (FEMA) missing in either presence or mention.
DC Reporter to Trump yesterday:
"Are you still planning to phase out FEMA?"
Trump's answer verbatim: "Well FEMA is ... ah ...something we can talk about later. But, right now, they're busy working ...".
Correct. FEMA is still in the "rescue" stage. 86 bodies found among the debris so far. But, there are unaccounted for RV travelers, summer campers & others.
But Kristi Noam blathered about the orange god…
Of course! And Mike Johnson is all about praying - because "it's the only thing we can do". smh.
Is there a line item for "praying" in the big bullshit bill?
The only thing cowards can do, especially those with no humanity
Abbot did go on and on with praise about how quick trump provided help and pledged to help them with whatever they needed. It was a suck-up! If you’re a red-state you’ll get help. Let’s see how he responds to blue-states this hurricane season. He has already literally said he hates democrats!
Definitively a suck up by Abbot. I have a family member in TX who tries not to call attention to himself (brown & democrat). So, suppose Abbot thinks all families have front loaders, tall trucks, chainsaws & carry body bags. What a jerk! If he thinks orange man will 'always' be there to help, he is naive, to say the least.
"Help themselves"?? Riiiight. 😠
I've already read different accounts. Was FEMA and/or Federal assistance provided or not?
I read Trump signed the emergency disaster declaration but I don’t think that means FEMA will provide any help. I also read FEMA is helping with migrant detainees. This administration is useless.
I watched the TV interviews with Noem and Abbott in Kerrville. They spent most of the time praising and extolling the virtues of our Fearless Leader. It was so disgusting, so nauseating, that I had to turn it off. My family had its 95th family reunion down stream from Kerrville the previous weekend, departing the area Sunday. It's difficult to imagine even being caught in such a natural disaster. The losses are devastating.
Grovel, grovel. They must wear knee pads!
The transparency of the obsequiousness is so transparent as to be shocking. Trump obviously believes their BS. Definitely time to commence impeachment. In two years the votes may be there.
He can authorized the help, but there is no one there. His private cronies will be given contracts to do the help costing tax payers even more.
So, where's Elon? He's the right-hand man eliminating FEMA, while he's busy blowing up rockets and Tesla in Texas. Another Trumpist coward.
Musk is just watching T circle the drain...
He’s busy starting a new political party.
GL. You said it all! They the rethuglicans who don’t give a shit about anything but lining their damn bank accounts/pockets. Only if their daughters were in that flood , in the school shootings, their child born with a birth defect etc. would they somewhat care???
Only a small percentage of Republican voters are worried about their bank accounts, and those are the ones that have real money. The other 90%, the ones who live month to month, vote R because that is the party that promises to preserve their systemic advantages. So, greed motivates 10% of rethugs and racism the rest of them. How’s that for Christian?
You're absolutely right. But we the people of this country have the power to vote in the midterm elections to make a difference in this country.
It's the 'coalition' Gary. Don't lose sight of that... please.
The news isn't likeable but the messenger and getting a heads up is. Forewarned is forearmed. That's what we require from govt agencies that are being dismantled.
The agencies that have been dismantled will probably never return to being fully functioning until every last MAGA person is gone. I don’t see our democracy returning in my lifetime. My husband and I attend a protest every week plus all of the other national ones that have taken place. Our representative was one of the ones dancing and celebrating passing their hill that will destroy lives and kill people’s like what happened in Texas. And Americans will tolerate 47 blaming Biden forever. We have not given up hope but recognize fascism is alive and well in America and right now there’s no one stopping them.
You don't think the new Faith Office in the White House will make much difference? And it warmed my heart to read that Pete Hegseth led the Pentagon in prayer the other day. (I don't know if that was before or after they bombed Eye-Ran.) He must be trying to re-create the atmosphere at Fox.
Anne-Louise, my phone is dripping with sarcasm.
(Laughter). Careful how you dry it - the settings may be disturbed.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
🤣
Lightening strike anyone?
Agreed. I don't treat the "like" thing as liking the message, rather appreciating that the message is an accurate assessment of current events. It's a bit like having a weather forecast that tells you what is most likely going to happen. It's best not ignored.
I think Project 2025 needs to be renamed to Project 1725. That appears to where things are heading. Unfortunately being blissfully unaware of reality, won't alter the reality. Sadly current case in point.
Is it possible this disaster in TX and incredible loss of lives will help people understand the necessity of the NWS?
I think some Americans think their government does nothing but take tax money (partly because they’ve been fed that line by Rs for decades) because when they do their jobs, nothing happens—or the damage is limited. Will a tragic event like this bring people to their senses? (Rhetorical.)
MLMinET, that would be my hope.
However, if they watch ‘faux news’ they might swallow the illusions rather than facing the much darker reality. Will the parents of their children’s death simply see it as an act of God? Plus, do they even know what dump has chopped away from weather warnings? The grim reality of where we are is I believe is mostly completely unknown to maga white Americans, but not to people of color or to so many other people in S. America, Europe Asia and Africa. I feel fortunate to read Heather’s pieces daily for their contemporary clarity and history, no fuzzy lines for my supposed comfort.
Appalled? Oh yes.
Frightened? Sometimes. But Determined to try to do something ongoing like so many here. Yes yes yes.
These people who elected Chip Roy to represent them in Congress, and voted down an alert system will never accept any responsibility for allowing this disaster to happen. They expect the “government” to provide services , but they cannot accept that they actually have to chip in to pay for those services. Wonder where the oligarchs are in providing relief? Surely all the tax breaks obligate them to render some help to the people who they took that money from.
Yeah, I already saw that they were offering the usual "tots and pears" rather than committing to a flood alert system. 🙄 I'm SO sick of that hypocrisy.
Oh but this was Biden’s fault. If they blame everything on Biden for the next 4 years they’re basically admitting to be worthless and ineffective.
I'm thinking it may be easier to compare to 1925, with the Tri-State Tornado (deadliest in in US history), Benito Mussolini declaring himself dictator of Italy, publishing of Hitler's "Mein Kampf," and the Scopes Monkey Trial.
See https://www.history.com/a-year-in-history/1925
Not to mention the klan rally in Washington dc in 1925. I looked up pictures. Appalling.
A small bit of relief can be that the police did not allow them to wear masks and had to show their faces (with just hats that looked like the tops of the normal hoods).
Now if we can just get the ICE thugs (and pardoned Jan 6 rioters) forced to march in a parade without masks.
See https://mallhistory.org/items/show/232
"...This article from the magazine The Literary Digest, a popular weekly publication, tells the story of the August 1925 Ku Klux Klan march along Pennsylvania Avenue and the National Mall. Held August 8, 1925, an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Klansmen participated in the event. Many were worried about violence at the event, but a strong police presence as well as the stipulation that marchers could not wear masks helped to keep the march peaceful..."
Great read. On that basis; Project 1925 it is.
Thanks Jim! Another history reminder. Those things should be posted on the front page of every newspaper!
You are correct- intersecting waves of sadness, and anger, and frustration--
and frank amazement at the contumacious evil of PLANNING and CONSPIRING
for YEARS to do exactly this- to identify and destroy those useful and necessary
activities and people necessary to protect and to serve-- Whelming, indeed!
I agree with every word you said here. I have had those very same thoughts about the years they must have spent going over the minutiae of every aspect of American life to make sure they take apart and destroy everything. The speed of it all happening is mind boggling. The amount of evil is astounding!
And now they have all our information from social security, the IRS, heatlh records, etc. We're living in an AI nightmare on top of it all.
And fear.
The Republican Party is waging war on America. It started with trickledown and continues with the wreckage of our education system. Stupid greed cannot sustain democracy.
Reagan started this, with his unchallenged "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" 'joke'. Enough people have been raised with that frame of mind since 1980 that they happily embrace leaders who promise to dismantle the evil government. They do this without even thinking about the benefits they gain from government programs.
Of course, this plays right into the hands of the people who stand to gain from smaller and impotent government, the wealthy and already-powerful.
When they say "starve the beast", their real intent is to starve the people, creating a poorer, more desperate, and therefore more compliant population. Greed is their main motivation, and less for us means more for them. And in their ideal world we'll be too busy fighting over the remaining scraps to miss the prime cuts that they put on their tables every night.
Reagan also deregulated the FCC which gave us Fox news...so a starved, misinformed, poorer, less educated, more desperate and therefore more compliant population.
And got rid of the "Fairness Doctrine."
Better than war for population control; And you get to 'target.'
I understand what you are feeling. Every time I read about what is happening I cringe and as I want to acknowledge that I read and appreciated Heather's letters, it is hard to just press that heart for a like. I do it to acknowledge Heather and her good work, but, man this is not getting easier. All the more reason that we stay engaged and active. Who will stop this insanity?
Can't rely or trust the Stacked Supreme Court because the heartless disgusting ones rubber-stamped trvmp's evilness and hatred towards humanity. Not just us, but globally. It is indeed the worst of times. Not what I was looking forward to in my twilight years.
Who will stop the insanity? There isn't anyone coming to save us. It's you and me and the millions of Americans who stood up at Hands Off rallies and No Kings day, and will come out on John Lewis day. We the people will boycott and strike and plan civil disobedience. There's more of us than there are of them--30,000 ICE thugs can't hold a candle to the massive anger and disbelief at what is occuring.
James, between the cuts to our National weather forecasting systems and the (apparently deliberate) indifferent public safety response, the loss of life in this event was exponentially worse than it should have been.
Better than war for population control; And you get to 'target.' "Really 'smart' bombing."
The sorry excuse of “the taxpayers won’t pay for it” is ridiculous. If the Republicans in office put up a budget, collected taxes and used them for their intended purpose the taxpayers would pay for it. They could get the money from all those tax cheats if they hadn’t shut down that wing of the IRS. Blaming it on innocent people is as low as you can go.
It's all of the moments that these families will not have- taking their children shopping for school supplies,meeting their new teacher whrn school starts, sleepovers, small, everyday moments no longer possible, families forever changed.
James 😢😢😢
I have similar issues—even though I equate the heart with "love" not "like". I typically remind myself is that what it really means that I'm extremely grateful for her measured, informationally based analysis of these turbulent self-destructive times. Major players are bringing us face to face with the dystopian future. We are in it.
I hope that there are enough constituents who have a grasp of true info, that the cowardly GOP reps and senators get some vehement feedback during their summer break. Their lives should be made miserable.
Fox will never blame a Republican for anything. Joe is still the scapegoat
Fox doesn't report any news that isn't favorable to Trump. My husband's friend who is a MAGA, watches Fox all day. But he had never heard about the Trump meme coin or the dinner at Mara Lago for the people who bought the most expensive ones! These people are completely uninformed. It really IS a cult.
Rich Logis started leavingmaga.org. He was recently interviewed by Adam Kinzinger. He said that very thing: when we ask “how could they not know?,” he answers the question.
I don't watch Fox. But then, I don't watch MSNBC, CNN, or any of those. However, I do see, on my newsfeeds, stuff from Fox that I keep so I know what they are spewing. And from places like Al Jazeera, the major networks, cable, AP, and multiple newspapers. If only Fox watchers would branch out.
Some how they have their viewers trained!
I know a few! They look at you with blank eyes!
They love the ostrich approach to bad news,
My bro even said just that
They will get a rude awakening when their Healthcare benefits are cut.
Republicans have destroyed the roof that protects our house. As an old carpenter I can say that it's easier to destroy than to build but I know all of you knew this already.
"A jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one." ~ Sam Rayburn, 43rd Speaker of the House;
Said during filmed conversation with reporters (c. 1953); reported in "Speak, Mister Speaker" (1978), p. 138.
..
Yes to all this but I would make a change to HCR’s superb reporting. It isn’t Trump and followers, at least in the WH. It’s Trump and his handlers. Because he is not driving the bus. The policies implemented are the brainchildren of Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. The Felon played golf all weekend. He was completely unaware of what was happening in Texas. His go-to, like his “2 weeks” nonsense, is to blame Biden when he is clueless. Secondly, I would point out that NPR runs the emergency broadcast system and by gutting NPR rural regions cannot use it. ‘Nuff said.
I remember the disaster preparedness functions of the Civil Defense and the warning sirens/horns that people without other means of communication relied upon to warn of tornadoes, fires, floods, etc. (I had my hearing damaged by actually hanging onto one when tricked into climbing a Radar tower it was mounted on, when it went off for the regular Friday noon test.)
I'd still want to see more of them, but matched with Emergency Radio Broadcasts and Emergency with additional volunteers like the HAM radio operators (using satellite communications since so many cell towers quit working in wild fires or really severe weather) o get the best info to the most people.
I suspect such area warning (for everyone in the area with no other communications), could have been useful in saving lives if the local officials could be notified quickly enough to activate them.
Lahaina Maui had them but didn't activate them fearing people would think it was for a tidal wave.
The harder problem might be the coming reality of far worse humid heat domes as described in "Weathered, When Will Extreme [Humid] Heat Become Unlivable?"
The video is short (Weathered, Season 6 Episode 10 | 11m 2s) and to the point.
See it at: https://www.pbs.org/video/when-will-extreme-heat-become-unlivable-crd0jh/
That's a great idea there Jim. Perhaps obtaining what ever is needed to become a ham operator myself might help others and myself as I vainly search for meaning and purpose for myself, in my altered, disabled condition. Do you have any idea where to find out how I accomplish that ? Thanks again....
A couple decades ago I considered jobs in some of the better interconnected radio communications systems and other electronics services in LA County. They had a pretty good system for emergency radio and cell phone communications from what I remember, especially the 5 helicopters they could launch to serve as emergency cell towers for ones lost to fire or earthquakes. I don't remember too much, but did find interesting info at https://la-rics.org/about-us/la-rics-overview/
It was back shortly after Hurricane Katrina when the LA system seemed way better than what they had poorly managed to coordinate in Louisiana, though, it seemed they were losing a lot of the HAM radio skills along the way.
What really upset me was the media showed up with what seemed the most advanced communications capabilities available and seemed to think all local Emergency services would have been able to afford and manage similar capabilities.
An example of some problems I became too familiar with was interference with our new satellite tracking antenna at Hickam AFB in Hawaii. We asked a signals analysis unit for help tracking down the source (much like they did for enemy signal sources). They were too busy with higher priorities, but I managed to spot a microwave tower from the old Nike OA-63 Missile site past Makakilo about 3 months later. When I asked who used that microwave tower, they said it was just a little used one that linked the antenna that sent weather satellite data from Kaena Point Satellite Tracking Station to Hickam. It was the old link that was no longer needed once we got our own antenna on top of Hangar 2, our own satellite information being passed through that microwave tower was interfering with our antenna any time it was pointed near it to acquire the same data through our own antenna. So much for coordination.
That actually exists in many rural areas. I was part off one in Northern Wisconsin in the 90s. Those of us who didn't have radios called those who did. There was quite a net going.
Don’t forget Putin with whom Trump apparently speaks regularly and believes more than any of his “appointees.”
It's the coalition Linda. I hope how soon they start infighting.
It was scary to live along Guadalupe River, TX, yesterday even to survive or face weather conditions today, 7/7/2025.
Per the 'Accuweather' forecast now: "Partly sunny & humid with a heavy thunderstorm". Read that forecast again: " ... WITH a heavy thunderstorm." Guadalupe State Park , TX has radar, that's had radar yesterday & has radar today. Use that radar data now!
🎶 I'm a Lucky Man & can count on 2 hands the ones I love 🎶 I also have a Tech expert in my family who just yesterday afternoon set up a "LIFE360" app on my PIXEL 8 -- that's a tiny Google computer that others call a "cell phone". I will be checking out "LIFE 360's graphics starting today. Look 👀 Grandpa has a tracking image.
Adapt, digitally adapt & thrive not just suvrive. Adapt.
Stay Safe All 🙏
I was just wondering how long it takes for those waters to recede and even worse how far the bodies would be carried. It’s a horrible and gruesome thought but people need to know what happened to their families.
What fun!!!
Sheriff: I am seeking your approval by changing my Substack platform name from "Bryan's Substack" to "Adapt & Thrive" ... ?
I heartily endorse that!
Workin' on it.
The turn-around? It’s not coming. 47 and republicans have taken over all aspects of government including the Supreme Court. Soon they won’t just be rounding up immigrants, if you read their plans, they will round up judges who disagree with them and I I shine soon they will start shooting protestors. Like Dr Richardson noted today, he and all of them believe they are above the law. There is no one left to stop them. Thanks to all of the MAGA people who have destroyed our country. I hate to sound room and gloom but this is our new reality.
We are living under the same governance as Russia. Americans voted for this and continue to cheer the MAGA party. The Republican Party is dead.
There is competent resistance at many levels. Adapt & thrive.
Resist and persist!
I believe resistance is crucial and that things will get better, but in the next three plus years, anything is possible. The unthinkable is no longer so unthinkable.
https://davea.substack.com/p/execution-fascination
With the massive expansion of ICE and Trump's declaration that he "wants to see camps in most states," things are getting chilling. He's talked about "going after the home growns," too. Those are coded words for rounding up large groups of people like his perceived enemies. Remember the enemies lists in his speeches?
Those poor girls in Texas died horrible, preventable deaths. Their blood is on the hands of trump, vance, vought and noem. Lock them up and end Maga! This is what happens when incompetents lead a shrunken, shut-down federal govt. Many more lives will be lost to trump and his selfish, uncaring incompetence. American deserves and needs real leadership and an adequately funded, adequately staffed federal govt, not trump's cannibalistic destruction. Bring back our federal workers. Shame on trump!
Vance will call this minutia and the will of God.
Turnaround? The threat to our democratic process is catastrophic. We are on the brink of losing it all. I think, fear and feel that its worse than we realize, with Trump forming his personal military force (ICE - paid for by the taxpayers) that can be used against us while the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have ceded dictatorial powers to Trump. Odds are that the next elections will be fixed.
I like that ; “the turn-around”!!
Shouldn’t trigger the bot-in-charge of watching for stirrings of the citizenry attempting to garnish enough might to effectively TURN things around by pulling up the roots and rhizomes of these weeds that have infected our once great country.
And comes in time.
Ruth, unfortunately the turn-around, if there is to be one, won't happen before election day in 2026. The country must recover its senses and vote enough Dems into the House and Senate to regain firm control of those bodies, enough to form veto-proof majorities to also control the dictator-in-chief. I hold hope without expectation that this will happen.
Not a chance unless the Dems start to state their positions other than "Resist" Trump. I have yet to see or hear any Dem positions or policies other than "Resist". It is difficult to win with 'Resist" Common Sense. I hope that you don't figure out positions or policies other than "Resist".
A really depressing summary of climate mitigation rejection and of American policy rejecting progressive thought. Welcome to chaos, degrowth and death, as some people return to the idea that the King is 'appointed by God' and can do no wrong, others just 'kick the can' and avoid making decisions on existing issues, and few people progress new thoughts.
The whole PBS "Weathered" series is so up to date yet brief in short (6 minutes for S1Ep6 Disaster Preparedness 101) to 55 minutes for S6 Ep4 Inside the LA Firestorm.
The latest (11minutes) is at https://www.pbs.org/video/when-will-extreme-heat-become-unlivable-crd0jh/
To me, the most current episode describes the hole we are digging into much tougher weather to compensate for, just regarding the predictable Humid Heat dome increases.
It reminds me of a coworker that tried to use an evaporative "Swamp" cooler like he had used in a California desert area, in Houston TX. They don't work in such a hot and humid environment and now risk more periods in areas of uncompensable weather, where sweating can't keep your core temperature from increasing dangerously.
"...Heat is the deadliest weather disaster in the U.S. in many parts of the world, and it's projected to get a lot deadlier.
During the 2003 European heatwave, up to 3,400 people died in Paris alone.
At two degrees Celsius, which is again only a couple decades away, scientists found that Paris will see deadly heat waves like this once every few years rather than once a century.
And though this heat wave in 2003 was among the deadliest in recent history, it didn't get close to the dangerous wet-bulb thresholds we've been discussing in this episode.
But the 2015 heat wave in Karachi did it passed the uncompensable wet-bulb threshold for older adults for something like eight to 10% of the time..."
Though not in a humid area, we were made painfully aware that air conditioning adds heat in addition to cooling by moving the existing heat outside, as we were walking next to a big SUV that had max AC being used to pre-cool, it while parked under the hotel covered parking in Phoenix. Try it yourself, you won't like it, though it does at least only contribute to a dry heat dome in Phoenix, not the deadlier humid heat dome.
Ruth, I really felt your words. The scale of harm unfolding is overwhelming, and I share that same ache and uncertainty. But I also think this deep discomfort many of us are feeling might be the start of something essential, like a collective pause before a shift. It will not be easy, but I believe that real change starts with exactly this kind of honesty and reflection. Thank you for not turning away. You are not alone in hoping for that turnaround and working in small, steady ways to help it come.
Ruth Barnes, I agree with you. There are almost no positive effects from the blind, ignorant, wholesale destruction of our critically important, democratically run, organized, modern administrative state by Trump and the Republican Party. It's challenging to witness it.
So, it's hard to see anything good about what's happening to us, but two possibly positive effects could be that,
1) because MAGA is so boastful, cruel, unashamed and open about their "Project," it became clear very quickly that the effects are disastrous.
2) HCR seems to be so appalled at what's happening she is taking pains to cover it and explain it to us.
For sure, #1) is a mixed blessing and I may be looking at the world through rose-colored glasses (though my wife will attest that, while I have many faults, that is not usually one of them). But, at least it has prompted many, many Americans to decide quickly to
RESIST! And that should improve our chances of success.
The Putin Effect is more obvious every day. This letter is only the beginning of the bad news. Add to that the “revelation” of climate change and the current news from Texas and we see Putin/Trump’s total war on America. Unless we get our act together fast, I don’t see much hope. January 6 is becoming our life.
“The Biden setup.” He doesn’t even have to pretend anymore that he knows what he’s blaming the previous administration for. He knows we should all hate Democrats, that’s enough I guess. I have still heard no reasonable explanation why people voted for this moron, but I am sure “I didn’t like her laugh,” is a good enough excuse for his fans to vote away the American government.
He doesn’t even know what means. Neither does anybody else. So sick of our legacy media pretending his word salad makes sense and playing along with the emperor’s-new, beautiful-gold-like-clothes, not-like-BIDEN’s-ugly-threadbare-rags shtick. It’s pathetic and sickening. If a small child spoke like that, you’d instantly recognize the signs of shallow narcissism at play. Why do reporters collaborate with this psychiatric malevolence?
Chump’s pathetic blathering, his ugly trailer-trash look and his Hollywood make up visage all combine to make a normal person heave. The cult is just mesmerized by carnival-barker blather, Fox and our MSM just sanewash the pretender. Reagan was a much better pretend president, but chump has a ready-made destruction derby and his mob-boss tactics are made to order.
I never thought I would miss Richard Nixon.
Thank you for this. I laughed out loud.
Heck. I even miss Reagan.
I’m not quite there yet, Barbara.
Same. Looking back on Nixon, I can see some of the good things he did; China (if bringing China into our diplomatic circle is actually good in the long run), the EPA (not really his doing, but he didn't fight it) and....let me think, there was one more thing wasn't there?
But Reagan? Nope. My niece who is in her mid 40s remarked the other day that Reagan had blighted her childhood and that she was just starting to recover when trump was elected in 2016. And now he's in again and twice as bad, and she's never going to get ahead in life.
I feel like Reagan paved the way for trump and his ilk. The only good thing I can think of that came from the Reagan years was that some where in the middle of Reagan's first term, my dad finally realized the that GOP was no longer the party of his father and grandfather.
I understand. It's not really a missing. Just grasping for anything at all that isn't this nightmare. I am still waking every night in terror, grief and disbelief all this is happening
Some of us even miss Millard Fillmore.
Not that desperate but i have a wall of shame for a few
No kidding. The MSM has been cherry picking a couple of things in the bill that everyone supports like a little kid eating dessert and not touching the rest of the meal.
The legacy media has been in decline for years. As profits became the name of the game the oligarch owners began moving away from journalism to newsy stuff to outright propaganda. It tipped over the edge with coverage in the 2016 election. Seizing upon the car crash attention phenomena they gave him millions of dollars of free coverage in the 2016 election because it paid. H. Clinton was lambasted for the emails and her laugh when she did get any coverage. The oligarch owned media sane washed him then and continues to do so.
During the 2024 election it got worse. Coverage of Harris' massive rallies, the movement she created and her statements on actual issues were largely ignored. The media beat the "where are her policies? drum. She was talking about her policies so much I had them memorized. Her policies were in a 80-page document on her website. And again, in true misogyny form her laugh was criticized also.
The Democrats haven't been perfect. They have been hampered by a hostile media for decades. This is why we are in the process of developing our own megaphone. Look at the people leaving legacy media. It is astounding. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to create a new non-legacy massive network in this country. Already Meidas Touch is outperforming Rogan.
It is not just gerrymandering and voter suppression that have been electing Republicans. The media is complicit as hell. Now they are his prisoners.
We lost the media when family-owned businesses got absorbed into mega corporations. Good-bye, Katharine Graham and Bill Paley, replaced by Jeff Bezos and his ilk. The old guard want perfect but at least they were in the news business. To the new owners, media is just another advertising outlet to promote the businesses they own that actually make their money.
On top of that, we have the devaluation of expertise and truth that is embodied in social media. Good-bye, researchers, verification and facts; hello, influencers, likes and the unchallenged power of the loudest voice in the room.
It's good that we are developing an alternative media that once again values expertise and polite discussion. I just hope that it achieves its needed power and influence in time.
Do we know the numbers? How many readers does Prof. Richardson have, Robert Hubbell, Meidas Touch, etc., as compared to Rogan, for instance?
I do know Dr. Richardson has over 1 million subscribers. The rest I don't. Meidas Touch publishes their numbers.
Many people feel in their gut the numbers were off. I believe he stole this election.
There's no question in my way of thinking that trvmp with the help of musk and various other connections voting machine software (Reddit thread: Bombshell report claims voting machines were tampered with before 2024 Security). The New York case, etc. The people (the orange circus barker) that shouts the loudest about rigged elections are those doing the rigging.
I don't have time to read Meidas Touch, sadly - I'm already reading about 5 Substacks, and I have a day job. Good to know about Prof. R! I knew her #'s were way up there, but over a million! Yay!
I could not believe that the NYT ran a story about Bezos new wife’ s small waist on the front page! In the midst of all that was going on last week.
I think even if the press wanted to print the truth, if media insults trump or makes Kamala look good through an edited interview ( FOX NEVER edits trump's interviews), they get sued or banned ( Gulf of America not Mexico). You do anything against trump administration you are censored or fired. EPA just put 140 employees on suspension because they signed a public letter stating that the administration was ignoring science in the favor of polluters, undermining public health, dismantling the office of Research and Development, and promoting a culture of fear for forcing staff to chose between their livelihoods or well-being. I may have read this inn Heather's past articles and forgive me for repeating it BUT there is a culture of fear amongst normal people.
Great post. Does anyone know what the heck " The Biden Setup" means? Trump's word salad gets worse & worse.
The real question is: is Fox still blaming every Trump mishap on Biden? And are people stupid enough to believe them?
Yes. And yes. Or Harris.
Well, there's this article from Fox. It's semi-ok-ish.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-spending-cuts-his-approach-to-climate-change-attacked-as-catalyst-of-catastrophic-texas-flooding/ar-AA1I4nve?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Miracle
"Access."
The simple, one-word answer is "access," "It's Come To This."
Slightly longer answer obliges us to remember that, to get along in the meritocracy, one first has to spend years learning that one, oneself, never gets to ask any real questions. For that, only "authorities" can -- only nameless, impersonal, corporate elites from far-off office towers (cubicles, cubicles, cubicles!) can array some sets of idiot, depersonalized Qs.
And all aspirants to the elite meritocracy learn they have one answer, one answer only to these batteries for years assigned to them. (In the U.S. it's called "education.") And the answer -- one only -- always comes only from choices A)-B)-C)-D) -- none other.
Okay. All prepared to prep for the kiss-ass of "access"?
Click bait combined with fear?
This may be the beginning of the end for the orange fool, Angela.
Canada has just hours ago announced its alternatives to the near-total madness to which Trump has sunk the U.S. and its long-time, traditionally democratic allies.
Canada is just dropping the U.S. and the narcissist-in-chief's idiot tariffs. It has methodically instead formed new alliances at all strategic levels with the EU, Japan, South Korea, and China.
Other news -- at the same time today -- has shown the deep, deep hurt Wal-Mart is in due to those crazy, feckless tariffs. Wal-Mart, Amazon, all their storage facility partners, truckers, and everybody else in supply chain and pricing conundrums that are now just bonkers insane.
So many ways the mad criminal in the White House may now irreversibly be seeing the many layers of hurt he has been causing to so many, so widely.
I also read yesterday that Air Canada is suspending their flights from Toronto to Jacksonville and other locations in Florida for the winter season -- because of significantly dropped demand. The Florida economy depends on tourist dollars - especially snow-birds. We had a winter home there for a few years, but the right-wing atmosphere was not worth the good weather and we sold and came back full time to NY.
same. FL also depends on migrants flocking to FL for good paying jobs. When the restaurants start folding and the housing market tanks, things will get tough for the Republicans in FL. The worse it gets, the more they will blame the Democrats.
Hey, Disney and Universal are still expanding there to keep the tourists flowing in. They could open parks in many other, better states and quit supporting the fascist regime.
New York is the answer. I was born on the eastern most part of New York. I lived in three other (blue states) came back to NY in 1973. The most moderate weather in the whole US. I'm in western NY now, wide open spaces, woods, streams, the Great Lakes. All sorts of weather in moderation. High taxes (you get what you pay for) We are having the heat wave also with the breeze coming in from the Lakes.
Palm Springs, Palm Desert California is also suffering due to the policies of the GOP. 30% of houses in my parents community are now up for sale. Because Canadian snowbirds can no longer stay in the US for more than 3 months, owning a home there is no longer desirable. 😩
I have been waiting for something to end the felon's candidacy or reign of terror since 2015, far too long to believe anymore that there's anything that will turn his supporters away from him.
This leads me to believe that a third of this country is truly as cruel and awful as he is. The Republicans want a civil war, and have wanted a redux since the last one. They are gleefully putting their evil plans in motion.
Martha, a third of this country's voters are not just cruel but also stupid masochist since the pain are going to be felt mostly by them in thise red states depending on the safety net . Thanks for the great comment.
Schadenfreude is an addictive substance
Martha, your conclusions are accurate. It seems that the fear and hatred of the “other” seems to be a psychological construct of “conservative” belief.
Yes , you're absolutely right.
When Trump voters find out their Healthcare benefits have been cut or have been laid off from their jobs, all hell will break lose. In reality people are like animals when they can't pervide for their families. Innocent people will pay the price by a civil war. Why? Because of GREED and MONEY and HEALTHCARE taken away by a sick and twisted man who has destroyed this country by instigating hatred towards one another.
Walgreens just announced the closing of their Calais, ME store. It is across the border from St. Stephens, NB where there are at least 3 pharmacies. Walmart has a store in Calais with a pharmacy, but I'm sure Walmart has seen a large decline in revenues as have many other stores in Calais. I suspect stores in Houlton, ME will suffer a similar fate. Washington County, and Aristook County are very red and that will likely not change even after all of their hospitals and nursing homes are closed down.
Cults don’t deprogram themselves. The death of the core evil or Ike likely required.
Rite aid closing here in Mt Shasta CA. No store open to fill prescriptions for people discharged from the hospital on weekends…
And medicaid cuts just ready to kick in….
As a Mainer, it’s Aroostook County, no “I”.
The deal Trump has agreed with Vietnam (only the second deal his administration has secured) seems to be aimed at China and at 'transshipments' into Vietnam, which is economically bonkers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/vietnam-trump-tariff-deal
Trump seems to envisage the future of America as an autarky, similarly bonkers.
Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent - who really should know better - claims that it's still possible that dozens of deals will be signed before Trump's moving target deadline for the imposition of tariffs expires. A free trade deal usually takes years to negotiate. NAFTA, for example, was over 1,700 pages long. This is far beyond the patience and competence of a Trump administration so ultimately very little of consequence will be achieved by these bullying tactics.
https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/NAFTA-timeline-how-USMCA-happened/538663/
Oh there will be consequences, just not what he expects!
Phil Balla,
Thank you for sharing facts I never thought I would face as a citizen of the USA.
We have never been perfect nor always made the kindest choices but what is now before us is different.
All I can think about is protecting my family ....the future of my children and grandchildren who have done nothing to deserve this coming "hell" that is more and more evident ie most recently the death of those young children, camping near a river during a powerful flood. ( They were not the only ones who did not receive warning or help to evacuate.) We cannot turn away. This is the United States of America! We take care of our families as best as we are able BUT sometimes the storms and destruction are too big! We need one another but when our neighbor's homes are destroyed when so many young and tender lives endured such a frightening and hellish death that swallowed each one up in darkness...we cannot just sit around saying how sorry we are!
I cannot imagine the agony the parents of these children are enduring!
Another thoughtless act is to place persons of color who have been taken with no trials and placed in "cans" in Florida. This is an area often devastated by wind and rain during the hurricane season. Ron Desantes, did you think only your "cruel, savage friends saw you laughing as you "toured" the quickly created prison facility ...it was also your fellow Americans who were WATCHING, as you and "the gang" toured the new prison "containers" ..I did NOT think it was funny! Those men being imprisoned without trials are fathers, brothers, sons connected to a loved one somewhere.
Our Democracy is broken!
I frequent my local Dollar Store & it now has whole sections of empty shelves! But do I worry l, no? Our "orange hero" will issue some new super hero NFTs & everything will be just fine!
How optimistic you are…. If only our MSM would take a truth serum.
I hope of those layers of hurt, are going to be in full display before the next midterm term election. Thanks for your comment Phil.
Too little too late the evidence of remote tabulation manipulation in swing states and some others is growing. This DOJ and SCOTUS are complicit and will not defend the rule of law or the Constitution and guaranteed rights. But at a State level and district level it is imperative that the truth come out and soon. People are pretty insistent that their votes are counted and not changed or invalidated, even when they are ridiculously vague on habeas corpus and due process. What’s more, there is some evidence of manipulation at district levels (not by volunteers-by remote hacking) in 2020–but due to COVID there was a very heavy mail in tally. I’ll bet part of the Big Lie was a reaction to Trump’s assurance that he had suppressed enough and manipulated enough to win. Then the noise about Dominion systems (Trump accusations are Trump confessions) —which were subsequently breached in GA and CO among other places, and vulnerable for 2024. We must ensure that ‘26 is backed up and audited. Electiontruthalliance.org z(or in substack)
Between the Russian and other hackers abroad and
? Musks Starlink, I'm wondering if those election frauds can somehow be discovered.
Did Trump admit that Musk stole Pennsylvania?
He came close
I have been sincerely praying this movement about the election truth grows.
I checked the vote tapes posted at 4 different voting precincts after the 2024 election. All races had Republicans winning. It matched with what I saw while processing voters. Admittedly, I live in a Republican dominated area in GA. Usually Republicans vote 4 to one over democrats in primaries (the only time they have to state their preference), and some of those are democrats looking to affect the primary knowing that the Republican will likely win so we vote for the least MAGA. Doesn't seem to help much. But exit polls across the country do not support claims of election tampering. This really is on the brainwashed Republicans voters and apathetic non-voters.
There was a blue county in blue New York that registered 0 (zero) votes for Harris.
So EVERY SINGLE VOTER obeyed or was Hasidic? Highly improbable.
It is a Hassidic community whose rabbi said don’t vote for Kamala.
PolitiFact | Why did Kamala Harris get zero votes in this NY precinct? It’s not because of Elon Musk https://share.google/Wi2UlIwrsYIo0AtwT
PolitiFact rates the claim of Musk hacking that one precinct as false.
Setting aside the shaky logic of Musk hacking one precinct’s results in a blue state that Harris won by more than a million votes, it could seem jarring to see the Democratic candidate for president not win a single vote, even in a small precinct.
The screenshots showed accurate vote totals, but the results are not surprising or an example of hacking or fraud, experts told PolitiFact. They’re the result of a town with a large Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish population bloc voting in support of their rabbis.
"This is not uncommon," Republican Jewish Coalition spokesperson Sam Markstein said. "You can go back several years to presidential elections," and see similar results.
A closer look at Rockland County’s election results show precinct 35 in Ramapo was not an aberration. Trump won 55.4% of the Rockland County vote, besting Harris by 17,663 votes.
In Ramapo, Trump won 80 of 122 precincts. Aside from precinct 35, Harris earned zero votes in four other Rockland County precincts: precinct 45 (Trump 90-0), precinct 84 (Trump 558-0), precinct 97 (Trump 494-0) and precinct 122 (Trump 23-0).
In several other precincts, Harris received one or single digit votes, while Trump got hundreds. In precinct 55, for example, Trump outpaced Harris, 986 to 2.
The 2024 Ramapo results mirrored its 2020 presidential vote. That year, Trump bested former President Joe Biden 528-0 in precinct 35. In the 2022 midterm elections, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul lost to her Republican opponent, Lee Zeldin, 408 to 24 in that same precinct, which also overwhelmingly voted to reelect Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., over his Republican opponent, Joe Pinion, 266 to 113.
A screenshot shows certified 2020 presidential election results in Ramapo precinct 35. (Rockland County Board of Elections)
Benjamin Rosenblatt, a New York elections data expert, said precinct 35 is in the village of Kaser, which is composed almost entirely of Hasidic Jews of the Viznitz sect. The village is surrounded by the hamlet of Monsey, which also has a huge Orthodox Jewish community, he said.
Rosenblatt said in Kaser, and other Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities in Rockland County, such as New Square, "voters often vote as a bloc, to an extreme degree."
New Square has five voting precincts, including precinct 55, and across the five, voters chose Trump, 3,518 to 13.
The Jewish communities "will often vote nearly entirely for one candidate in each race, but may not vote for the same party in every race," Rosenblatt said in an email. "For example, they may vote as a bloc for a Republican for President, but for a Democrat for State Senate or other local races."
I would suggest you look at the sources provided here. ETA has scads of data on election data from swing state and others as well (not GA however) that show a statistically incredible pattern consistent with that of Putin’s vote for unlimited terms (the ‘Russian tail’). This would not be something local workers would have been aware of and the manipulation is at a tabulator level. With this admin, it’s unlikely it would be addressed nationally, but we can find out the truth and insist upon backup ballots, audits and veracity at local levels in ‘26. Americans want their votes counted! This presentation esp starting at 8:11 shares some good info and the web links are very good. I don’t usually follow this podcast and apologize for the ‘skip ads’. https://youtu.be/8ogVR-C6b64?feature=shared
"The Biden setup" was about the only coherent phrase in that word salad: "I’ll tell you, if you look at that water situation that all is and that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe and it’s just so horrible to watch.”
Perhaps you can explain to me what " The Biden setup" means, because I haven't the slightest idea. To me It's just more of Trump's verbal diarrrhea.
KMD, you're not meant to understand it - but his supporters do. Anything bad is "The Biden setup."
Picture floodwaters pouring out of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Destroying innocent Americans with a blue torrent of death…
Sorry if inappropriate 🫢
Gibberish, it’s all that ever comes out of his mouth, and the maggots love every word of it.
I can give you a reasonable explanation why people voted for this moron, it's called stupidity Angela, pure and simply. And since there's no cure for stupidity most of them still support him abd his regime.
Ricardo, I think it is also exactly what they want: white Christian nationalism. None of this “equality” garbage, white guys only.
Psy ops.
Brain transplant maybe 🤔
If anything and everything is/was Biden's, then how is it that he agreed with the TS post that said Biden has been dead for years and was replaced by at least two body doubles while in office? I don't understand.
We knew it was one of those fast countdowns to the rightwingers blaming Democrats for the disaster of their own making. It is what they do.
Firing N.O.A.A. weather forecasters has already brought scores of deaths in Texas flash flooding.
Illegal, unconstitutional killing of U.S. A.I.D. has seen tens of thousands more African deaths.
Trump’s alliance with indicted criminal Netanyahu has upped death in Gaza and the West Bank.
Killing all federal green energy guts hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, increases energy prices, and gifts China world-wide superiority.
Trump’s kiss-ass for Putin worsens Ukraine death and destruction. While his mad tariffs hurt long-time democratic allies.
MAGA cultism ramps up concentration camps, federalized national guard, Marines aiding ICE terror, and immigrants as enslaved labor.
Millions of Americans will lose health care. Kids and the elderly will lose food programs. Rural America will lose hospitals. The elderly lose nursing homes.
Growing tax breaks for millionaires, corporations, and billionaires grossly widen wealth inequality.
The Clarence MAGA court okays deportations to third-country torture sites (patently illegal under U.S. law). Next: expanding deportations to naturalized U.S. citizens (first target, NYC’s Zohran Mamdani).
Standardized testing keeps the few asking the questions; the masses sunk in A)-B)-C)-or-D).
Good to see you at the top of the batting order, Phil. 🤝🏻 Though your litany is depressing and the country is fatigued, people need to get the word out to poorer states to engage their citizenries in a political re-think. 🤔
Younger men and women from these states -- with a few elder states(wo)men -- need to have town halls across red states conveying two essential messages. 💡
1st, why the red states are suffering at the hands of the G.O.P. 🤬
2nd, what these voters can do together (i.e., return to the moderate or progressive fold) to redress these Trump-imposed set-backs.💪🏾
So much evil, Ned, done by this reckless, cruel, arrogant bastard.
Notice, too -- I'd left out the massive hit to the U.S. national debt which the White House criminal has occasioned.
The rest of the world (the free trade, democratic world) may be coming to its senses now, however. And allying with each other just for pure protection against the insanity too many Americans just accept as normal when "educated" as so many are.
Notice that it only becomes debt when handed to a Democratic President.
Who then lowers it, reduces the mess left by spend-spend-spend, tax-cut-for-the-rich, tax-cut-for-the-rich Republicans.
Last year, a team of students from our county won the world wide robotics competition. A friend of mine, whose dad was a high school math teacher for over 30 years said, "Good students make good teachers." Our little county of around 50,000 souls has some amazing schools, that don't give a damn about the national test scores or where the school ranks. The parents that care about their kids educations know and many parents choose to home school when they aren't happy with their local school.
Many parents who want to avoid the strictures of public schools want to “home school” their children too. Saw more of that than those who actually did educate their children.
JD, the concept of “home schooling” really sticks in my craw; that said, I am well aware of the issues with inadequately funded public education and the decline of true education while “teaching for test results” becomes the norm. What infuriates me is using public money to fund religion based schools, home or otherwise.
My grandson was home schooled in Texas for several years. The first started in 4th grade because they refused to put him in the gifted children’s program since he wasn’t disruptive. He excelled, Texas actually shipped all materials, including pencils, rulers and textbooks. In 7th grade he got into a science school and did well right up until he was bullied for being gay so went back to homeschooling. He moved to Tempe, Arizona in 10th & 11th and after his mom passed with us in California for 12th and college. No one bullied him here. He’s finally well adjusted and past the trauma created by the schools and abusive step-father. He’s brilliant and can do math in his head from the time he was 2 that amazes me and I won competitions. His college major was theater because that’s where he fits in. I think his home schooling was the best thing for him, it certainly prepared him for Covid learning. He is an avid Lerner on his own terms and had lots of help with home schooling from his mom and me.
That is EXACTLY why home school should be an option.
My front row seat to home schooling was when I worked days as the contract deputy in a small town (population 5K). I would see kids running amok during the school day; at least a dozen were home schooled because of “disagreements” with the school district and the schooling was delivered by untrained parents or devoted to “independent study”. The other were, frankly, religious nuts (both the Catholics and the bizzsro General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn) sent their kids to the public schools, while some fringe groups had a Christian group that met half days for “study”.
I only saw the problems so I have a dim view and I am apoplectic about tax money going to religious schools. Parents who did it right were definitely the minority but this was 20 years ago
My wife home schooled our daughter for 5th and 6th grade. My wife was a chemical engineer and excels at math and science whereas my daughter doesn't. They weren't great together for home schooling.
My daughter is homeschooling, too. She's a college professor and uses a secular educational package. Her son's go to a private school for things like lab work that can't be done at home. They perform well above grade level for their ages. Not everyone can do that, though.
We used to do crazy science experiments with him. His other grandfather worked with chemicals and taught him stuff and my husband is very engineer oriented. I was a nurse so teach him about medical stuff that will come in handy as well as computer science, business management and housekeeping. It’s the little stuff that messes him up. Also, he could be slightly on the spectrum so we go with the flow.
Glad to hear a positive story, maybe I only dealt with the negative ones since most coming back to public school were way behind academically and socially
The one thing I discovered when I told my college graduate to address his thank you cards was that he doesn’t know how to properly address an envelope. Funny the little things that get by. I reminded him it was a little space so not to write too big and he started at the top of the envelope. I even told him to look at the envelopes he had as an example. I’m sure the post office will know what to do.
Sounds like a great story for an inspiring film like 'October Shy' or 'Freedom Writers'!
https://youtu.be/zxJQgYPXjN4 // https://youtu.be/miz1V13QWsU
When I saw this, Ned, its title was "Freedom Writers' Diary."
That is, in the original, teacher Erin's Gruwell's emphasis was on the writing. Personal. Personal. Personal.
(And that other great film you mention, "October Sky," centered on what kids in a small, West Virginia coal-mining town could see in the heavens one October night, 1957.)
In both cases, vitality in schools depended on teachers. That's what the nation of Finland decided when it said goodbye to mediocrity and instead welcomed excellence in its schools. Began hiring only the best graduates of its colleges and universities. First step, kick out the standardized testers.
From there, everything kid-centered, everyone thrived.
Really encouraging news about Finland, Phil. Thank you!
Yup and I have family who voted for the Odious Orange One
One is unemployed and the “evil government “ program called unemployment benefits are gone but it is Biden’s fault
So do I. Nevertheless, I think we have all to assume responsibility for this awful outcome. We may have gotten here divided but we can only hope to re-emerge as a free people by banding together.
I did not know that unemployment benefits were eliminated?
Phil Balla,
.....targeting a really great candidate , Zohran Mamdani, someone who is actually a person of character does not fit into their plans.
Have we been covered with "pixie dust"? Can we not see a picture forming in our country? Good solid accomplished candidates are opposed in exchange for career criminals.
Well said. What a litany of disaster.
First,of course, Trump is lying. It was HIS cuts to the NES and FEMA begun by executive orders this year that debilitated both warning and response to the floods. Second, I know something about the area having attended a boys camp near Mountain Home Texas for a number of years beginning exactly 70 years ago. We were on the river but the cabins were on a high plain at a wide point along the river bed well above the river itself. There were floods even then. But no threat to the buildings or persons in them. The Marianist order which ran the camp had installed upstream a system of bells to warn of high and spreading waters during a rain. Primitive yet effective. We would sometimes lose canoes and kayaks. But not staff or campers.
Shortsightedness at both the local and national level set up this disaster. But the crowning touch is the ignorance, penny-pinching arrogance and mendacity of Trump and his DOGE cronies. He crippled a technologically effective early weather warning system. NO ONE ELSE DID THAT!
No one else did that. Repeat ad nauseam
Thank you Professor Richardson.
Trump has never had any interest in governing. He simply seeks power, adulation, wealth, and to remain unaccountable for his numerous crimes. His criminal cabal also known as his Cabinet are a group of inexperienced, incompetent, corrupt, alcoholic, TV show sociopaths who have one objective --destroy the agency they are charged with "leading". The entire Executive Branch has zero interest in governing. They are too busy seeking revenge against law firms, universities, Federal judges, political opponents, media outlets, and anyone who has been "mean" to the criminal elect.
The former political party, now a criminal organization, has zero interest in governing. They exist to aid and abet the criminal elect, exacerbate wealth inequality, and therefore perpetuate power and control over government for generations.
The extreme climate catastrophe in Texas is just the beginning. As evidenced in the LFAA, public health is at risk. Public travel infrastructure such as air travel is at risk. Food safety and the spread of E-coli and Salmonella will soon be displacing stories about Texas floods, extreme hurricanes, and massive wildfires.
The DOJ has been subverted to pursue political opponents and people of color. Government watchdogs formerly charged with investigating corruption are marginalized. Millions of families will lose access to healthcare -not immediately, because voters will forget the "Big Beautiful Tax Fraud" that is piling debt on top of debt.
The Judicial System now has Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Aileen Cannon as case studies in corruption, incompetence, and betrayal of fundamental responsibility to justice.
The United States as a global partner in trade, defense, and climate are no longer. We are now as much of a pariah as Putin's Russia, Netanyahu's Israel, and Hamas' Gaza.
No, the plane crashes, the Texas floods, wildfires, concentration camps, State-sponsored kidnappings and trafficking, the deployment of lethal military forces to U.S. cities are simply the very beginning of what is to come.
But it's not all bad news. At least Musk, Bezos, and Thiel have their tax cuts.
Tax cuts on top of tax cuts on top of tax cuts. Severing lifelines to heap riches on the richest. Hard to believe that any self-respecting denizen of Main Street would vote for that.
Bezos "I don't give a shit as long as I get more money" attitude was on full display at his garish and gaudy wedding.
The joke is some don't pay taxes in the first place. Tesla paid no income tax in 2024. My wife and I are middle class and in most years paid more than Trump. That's what pisses me off the most. Trillions in uncollected taxes.
I cover it in my last substack. Free.
But this is who the media cares about, top 10% earners not feeling rich enough.
https://stocks.apple.com/AoOcd41siTkaaPItHt3brQQ
Top 1% is roughly $800 K/year. But very rich people may not take salaries, "borrow" from themselves, offshore their money, etc. to avoid income taxes.
You have their priority right. Tax cuts that idiots think they will get a share of.
Liberal tears and trickle down. Red meat for the willfully ignorant.
It’s the motivation for 99% of their evil
Here’s the funny part, about once a week I see an article about that $5,000 rebate check that was promised. Do people really think they’re going to get one?
It’s all blood money 😕
Very true. They don't care where it flows from, as long as it flows.
Not to Worry George…America’s savior Muck, did I spell that wrong?? Just unveiled a new Political Party to replace the one (you know…the Crime Cabal one) he got thrown out of. Can it not get any better??
Thanks Bob. There isn’t enough prozac. Or scotch.
Musk will just startup AfD in the US and attempt to out-fascist the fascists, because empathy is so “non-player character”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/elon-musk-congratulates-afd-alice-weidel-germany-election
The coup is complete. Freedom and the rule of law are effectively over on the United States. Widespread state-sponsored terror against the US population, sickness, poverty and death appear inevitable.
It is far, far gone but not yet impervious to resistance; there is still info available—for now. If we don’t resist with all we have now, it’s not likely to get any easier. We have to protect 2026 with all we have and insist on back up local paper ballots and routine audits in the face of tabulator manipulation evidence. I hope the GOP finds a special Hell awaits them over their month long break, from the constituents they betrayed and refused to meet with for town halls.
I agree we must continue to fight for democracy, but what recourse do we have if/when MAGA Trumpublican candidates challenge the results of the mid-terms, claiming their elections were “rigged.” The courts could take months to resolve the disputes. With no final vote count agreed upon, Trump would/will declare an “emergency” and extend the terms of the seated Congress. Neither he nor they will willingly give up power.
Republicans and Russian operatives are working to erode Americans’ confidence in elections, so we best not feed into it. It’s a form of obeying in advance.
https://www.google.com/search?q=on+tyranny+pdf&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#ebo=2
They have plan B, plan c, all the way to z. We are still struggling with A.
The "Republicans" in Congress have already given up their power (all but 2 or 3) by always doing what tRump tells them to do. They don't seem to know what they've lost, just as the millions who voted for them and their leader don't know (yet) what they've lost.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1A7BuAV4Pk/
Activist Hour Resources: Most excellent list, except for Musk’s new party.
In the meantime, give 'em hell.
We will see. The hubris is breathtaking. Yes, it's a coup, but not so well thought out. Apart from the billionaires, it is biting many of the hands that feed it.
Not well thought out? That's precisely what the 900 page Projects 2025 is all about: subverting the Constitution and implementing a Christofascist regime
There is a lot of plotting, but from an evil-minded standpoint, Trump is impulsive. I recall reading just after the 9/11 attack that GWB was briefly the most popular president in history, or something like that. He took a big hit with his "hell of a job" response to hurricane Katrina. The Big Bad Bill is such an obvious ripoff, and not just of the scapegoat group. His regime is brutal and lies shamelessly on cue, yet reeks of incompetence. War top secret planning via social media? Amateur Hour.
Trump is, without exception, the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in the world, if not in history. He continually fails up and he continues to fool some (way too many) of the people all of the time. Aside from all the ignominy that has justifiably followed him all his days, the fact is that he's a profoundly shallow person with the attention span of a gnat. He's Dunning-Kruger on steroids. Somehow he's managed to get himself elected to the most elevated political post in the world not once but twice and yet it's not enough. The whole thing is astonishingly gobsmacking.
How to not make a self-fulfilling prophesy:
https://open.substack.com/pub/roberthubbell/p/stay-on-task-overwhelm-the-opposition?r=6pp8t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
With all due respect, I disagree. I’m simply pointing out that Trump’s GOP allies will follow his lead and claim election fraud, and even when they lose it court, will STILL claim they won. It’s a pattern.
What happens if they say we will not accept the election results? Trump can declare it was all rigged and void the outcome. The Supreme Court will not deny him his throne. Trump has the Supreme Court, all three branches of the government, and the military. The only way I see to reclaim the country will be through civil disobedience. Trump would love to turn the military on its citizens. Remember, he said, we only have to come down hard, really hard on a few, and the rest will obey. I hope I am wrong, but too much power is in his hands.
A well-worn one. You have paid attention.
Thanks. We do need to hear this!
I hope we get a full accounting of what all went wrong. Clearly this was a very extreme weather events. That does not mean there’s nothing we can learn from and improve upon. As a concerned Texan, it feels that the current people in power believe the state has no role in these “unusual event.” 2021 ice storm power outage that killed hundreds? We should buy generators. Uvalde school,shooting? We need more guns in the hands of teachers and citizens.
We rush to thoughts and prayers rather than try to create a government that works.
And there will continue to be extreme weather events, and school shootings because the GOP has done NOTHING to address any of it.
Caring about Americans or humanity in general is not part of Trump's 2025 agenda. Diverting FEMA funds from disaster assistance to building concentration camps in the Everglades is.
Trump's big selling points are hubris and hate.
#priorities
It is looking more and more like the USA is lost. We will become a dictatorship under Trump until he dies, and then who knows who the successor will be? If we somehow get through it and get a Democractic congress and/or presidency again, I hope they will learn their lesson and NOT be too timid to save democracy just as Trump has not been to destroy it. Day one: increase the size of the Supreme Court by any means necessary, prosecute EVERYONE who violated the law and constitution who isn't Trump (given a pass by the SC) even if it means ignoring pardons. Ignore the SC until it has been increased in size. Impeach the members of the SC who have blatantly been corrupted. Democrats need to fight just as hard for democracy as the Republicans have to destroy it. Democrats need to see this as an all out war for the country like the Republicans do and do whatever it takes to protect it.
Dems are still treating it as politics as usual. It stopped being a game decades ago. James Baker signing on to the W/Dickie debacle made my blood run cold back in the day. When Teddy K signed on to W’s “No child left behind” disaster, Repubs knew that the fix was in and the flim flam raced ahead.
I am surprised Trump hasn’t blamed god for the flash floods. But I guess that would open the door to conservative Christians concluding that god sent floods to show his displeasure with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill?
If it had been a camp in the Northeast for trans kids you can bet they would have been pointing to "God's wrath"!
Oh the times they did that in Florida after a hurricane….
Only if it had been Democrats behind it.
If someone posted the Beatitudes on a liberal site, MAGAs would call it "communism".
Or at best label it "woke" propaganda.
Well…maybe the country should start investing in ark building to combat the loss of NOAA advance notice. Sniveling Mikey Johnson could make sure all the CINOs get the word ahead of time. All would be well then.
It was a perfect storm. No, not the isobars and fronts, but the lack of a sane, proper response to things everybody knew come regularly.
The MAGAzoid war against FEMA, the violence of DOGE (an unrecognized agency never authorized by Congress whose employees took no oaths to defend the Constitution), the warnings in May about slashing budgets to the National Weather Center just as tornado and hurricane season descended — amid a decades-long Republican siege against taxes that fund maintenance, replacement, innovation and provide for the general welfare.
Hunan Stupidity exacerbating Mother Nature, not resisting it. Acts of Willful Idiocy are just as dangerous as Acts of God. No accident that Chip Roy, one of the dumbest, most loathsome, Republican wretches in Congress, represents that district in Texas.
A century ago, Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes wrote that “taxes are the price we pay to live in civilized society” — words etched into the stone of the IRS building in Washington.
What do you call people who steal goods and services they refuse to pay for out of “principle”? Short-sighted? Morons? Thieves? Deadbeats? And what do you call those same clods who then show up to the scenes of disaster (or just tweet about it), full of tears, gushing ‘heartfelt’ “thoughts and prayers” that somehow make God responsible for their own warped intellectual and moral systems?
“Greedy amoral bastards” does it for me.
47’s statement a couple days ago that he “hates Democrats” because he thinks “they hate our country” is projection. It’s also stochastic calculus, like telling the proud boys in 2020 to “Stand down and stand by.” 47 is waging war on USA on behalf of Putin. The archipelago of Democratic states & counties need to stop sending tax revenue to DC & prepare to defend citizens from illegal martial law enforcement by 47’s goon squads. The USA already is a failed democracy and now is a fascist mafia state oligopoly, mostly resuting from unprecedented SCOTUS decisions and long-term psycho-social conditioning by consolidated mainstream media, owned by six $billionaires. We’re in the process of dissolution, as the USSR officially did in 1991. 77.3 million Americans hate what the USA has stood for so much that they voted for this death cult last November.
Exactly, it’s that “all men are created equal” that chafes their hide, chump especially. And his MAGAts as well. I know and love a few of them.
Same here: I understand their background + their emotional attachment to the lies used by 47 & his mercenaiy propagandists.
The twisted Thiel under which all our DOGE pilfered data is to be concentrated for a surveillance society is a big Yarvin follower (along with his Protege JD Vance ) and ‘humane genocide’ for ‘non-productive people’ has been parroted by Trump only in deportation terms. They also are heavy into eugenics. So the faster the sick, elderly, disabled and POC her and abroad are disposed of, the better. The goal of the techies is managed Network States (see HCR’s talk in this) and the Heritage Heretics are rallying around End of Days craziness—take your pick, both reduce the population to the elite few and the worker bees. https://youtu.be/S0vb92zoVyI?feature=shared
Nailed it. Is this Nazis on steroids. At least they will keep enough peasants to be servants. But they don’t actually work like the common man, so who will make the money that they siphon up. As we learned with Covid, the heroes are the chumps who put in the hours and make the wheels turn. These fools are destroyers, period. At least the Nazis were efficient.
Won’t the poor red state maga who voted for this Creton be surprised to find that they are on the list of “disposables”?
I suspect they will. I bet we’ll hear “I didn’t think you meant me!!!” while they’re being terminated in whatever manner is chosen.
Good summation. Thanks for your ability to do that and for putting it out here where it can be amplified. I agree whole heartedly. It’s not just the techies. They’ve latched onto 47 for his mafia extortionist juice. Vance is their trained protege. When it’s right for their purposes 47 will be put out to pasture somewhre in the middle east or eat a not so good hamburger and leave the stage.
The biggest danger is that they off him in a way that Lays blame on Dems or Immigrants, fueling MAGA rage against the ‘other’ AND keeping Trump alive as a martyr. Goodness knows there are enough with God-Trump confusion to feed right into this. It’s worked at other times and places effectively. And in my opinion, the ‘assassination attempt’ last summer was quite the experiment by the MAGA right.
“God Trump confusion” *****
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnrich/p/recovering-democracy-in-the-age-of?r=41pd0&utm_medium=ios
Thank you—excellent. I will share with our very active local Indivisible.
The solution is simple: blame it on Biden.
Don’t forget Obama.
Or George Washington. What was all the fuss about kings for???
Hahahaha . . . .
and Hilary - "oh, but her emails"
Good God! Those poor people. To have friends and family taken so quickly and violently. The anxious hours waiting on some good news, then, as time goes on, for any news. Then to have to try to grasp that the only thing left is to hope for a miracle, all the while knowing that it has gone beyond that. Let us wish for them that they at least have recovered what remains of their loved ones so they can give them a proper funeral service, and let the mourning begin. The thought that they have been swept away beyond recovery - perhaps to be found months, years later - is too hard to contemplate now.
Closure? There is no closure for something like this. You patch it all back together as best you can over the rest of your life so you can get on with it, but there is no way to make this whole again.
And what of the survivors, after the initial numbing shock fades? The young camper, say, who made it out alive while her friend didn't, who maybe she had just dined with and chattered and giggled as young girls are known to do, before the rush of water came. "Why her? Why not me?" That kind of trauma will haunt you, deep inside, for the rest of your life.
Should haunt every MAGAt, but won’t
As you have pointed out the devastating trauma will be life long for so many. Heartbreaking.
National security;Ha! Trump did not want to alienate those who used Tik Tok. For that, he thinks it is OK to nullify a law passed by Congress. Trump is not only an authoritarian. He is a sometimes comic authoritarian worthy of Springtime for Hitler.