DC better hurry up and become a state. It would put it in a better position to keep Trump from taking over.
I have been saying we should have a campaign against the government complaining about The Federal Government has too much Overreach and insist on Support for States Rights.
I also am going to say that someone should be working on a campaign to stop us from paying Federal taxes at all, and let us just pay state taxes and have our states fund everything. The goal would be to defund Trump.
All of the states can pay a fee for military support, as well as have their own militaries. Without a federal government that is collecting taxes we can get rid of the IRS. Each state has to have their own. However, it would then not be accessible by DOGE.
I am from Illinois, which has a population around the size of Belgium. California has a population around the size of Poland or Ukraine, and Wyoming has a population around the size of Montenegro. If states ran themselves, and they pooled resources for investment with states that they wanted to, that would give the Republicans what they want in terms of lowering taxes because it would be up to individual states. It might save the Blue States from going down with the ship. I see us setting up our states like independents nation-states, and they should have the right to make their own trade agreements with each other and with other countries.
"Individual nation states" is a horrible idea. You are talking about disbanding our nation altogether. The Founding Fathers recognized that unity via federal government was essential to defense and trade. We have FEMA because local and state budgets can't handle the cost of disaster recovery on their own. That's how interstate highways gets built, and how food and medicines are examined for safety, etc. we don't need to change our Constitution, we need to insist all branches of government uphold it and follow our laws.
Once again, the problem stems from the Congress and the Supreme Court not doing their jobs. By a vote of one or two votes in each house the Republicans gave Trump everything he wanted. There was no negotiation or compromise even though the Congress is almost even. The courts stopped Trump overreach of power but the Supreme Court reverses them 80% of the time. They are the ones who have ripped up the Constitution for him.
By the way, do you know how many times Kamala Harris put the boat to break a tie in the Senate 33 times. That’s what happens when hypocrites make a false case a one-sided double standard case. At two times she had a boat having to do with budget issues to break a tie. That’s the problem with so many people here they only hear out of the left ear, and only see out of her left eye
Was it a row boat or a power boat? I would suggest that basic literacy and the ability to edit one’s comments should be a criteria be being taken seriously. Your rants seriously challenge the standard.
Unfortunately there is no way to edit one’s comments once posted and I see a typo in my own which should of course read “a criteria to be taken seriously…”
I voice text everything because here’s the deal…CONTENT REIGNS OVER FORM ALL THE TIME. i’m not doing my college dissertation or my thesis, so take your spelling bee elsewhere. But I promise not to end the sentence with a preposition or have a dangling participle Would you please focus on what’s important ? BeCause I have to respond to so much pessimism, depression, anxiety, hoaxes, and fears of the future. I have a lot of work to do here. You don’t have to take me seriously, no problem. Just read the facts and take any of those seriously because many people only hear out of the left ear and only see out of their left eye because they’re being led down a gullible road by somebody who’s a left-wing political advocate/activist that used to be a WELL-Credentialed historian in my opinion.
Which part of the budget bill do you like best … the tax cuts on billionaires at the expense of the poorest Americans, or the trillions the debt load will be increased by?
Another loser with a BROKEN crystal ball. And don’t bother to take your Ouija board out of the closet either and go see a different fortuneteller.
People are really ignorant. You may be very intelligent, but you’re unbelievably ignorant. And I’m pretty sure you know the difference. You have no idea how much that the deficit will be increased by and neither does the CBO nor anyone else until it actually happens and it just so happens and it’s hard for me even to believe that for the THE TREASURY DEPT JUST RELEASED THE DATA FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE 2025…AND FOR THE FIRST MONTH IN 20 YEARS WE HAD A BUDGET SURPLUS!!! Ooooooops. By the way, just in case, you didn’t know, that’s the opposite of a deficit LMAO.
Do you have any idea how much of the income tax the billionaires pay this country?
And Ruth, I would love to hear you answer this question that’s all you have to do is just answer this question are we good for this discussion?
HERE IT IS…How do you give a tax cut to somebody who doesn’t pay tax in the first place?
Just give me an answer to that I’d love to hear what you think and then I will destroy your answer.
Go look up what percentage of income earners pay what percentage of the income tax in this country. It will help you with your lack of facts, and relieve some of your ignorance. Looking forward to your answer. In all fairness, I’ll give you a hint. Look up what percentage of the income tax is this country was paid by the bottom, 50% of income earners. Then, perhaps you’ll unravel the secret lying in my question. lol. Have a good night, and I honestly cannot wait to hear your response
LMAO, so when did the Supreme Court stop doing their job? They are doing their job you just don’t like the job they’re doing. You loved it when Roe v. Wade came out but now you don’t. And now, thanks to Donald Trump. The solution is up to the voters in each state not to a court.
So much for the Democrats believing in democracy. Sickening
This opposing point of view has some validity. Where I disagree most strongly is when the six members of this court totally disregard the Constitution or precedent. They protected Trump from ever going to trial for Jan 6th. Maybe he was innocent, but he was indicted. Then they went a step further and said he was mostly immune -- which is exactly the opposite of what is written in the Constitution. This court also finds ways to ALWAYS rule for profits over people. They totally disregard how their decisions cause suffering and death, but protect Christianity, business owners, gun manufacturers, and extreme Republican policies.
They are not just extremists, they are corrupt, arrogant, and isolated from the American people who they are supposed to protect.
I may not be totally technical, but my layman's point of view of trump's immunity is that if it is declared because national security (enemies within and without) or some arcane ruling in the late 1800's . EVERYTHING WILL be national related in some obfuscated way.
Every single Trump court case was a trumped up bullshit case that had no validity whatsoever and everybody but far lefties realize that and that’s why over 77 million people voted for a convicted felon because he was not a convicted felon the reality he was a convicted felon in the city of New York and the people of New York who came up with The only way to stop him because the hate was so strong. Their star witnesses was a convicted perjurer and a porn star. And everything else is gone now including the judge whose daughter was a political fundraiser for the Democrats and undervalued his property by over a quarter of $1 billion.
Right now 330 million people are being protected because they’re not being overrun by illegal criminals coming in our southern border on purpose. That’s right I said on purpose because they wanted to get them to vote in the sure enough they tried to do it.
There’s nobody causing more suffering and death than planned parenthood. Who killed 400,000 babies last year before they had a chance to breathe the air or go to school. Your Heather is bemoaning the 108 children that died and try to blame it on the political party. The most embarrassing post of her career in my opinion.
400,000 abortions, and we pay for them.
And here’s something that will scare the left, if they realized what they’re supporting in these abortions. Statistics demonstrate the blacks abort their children, a lot more frequently than whites or Hispanics and those same statistics indicate that if the blacks didn’t abort their children at the rate that they do that the black population of United States would now be 38% of the population versus 14%. Keep supporting the abortion while you’re supporting racism!
Why anyone thinks it’s worth the time and effort to respond to you is a mystery. I guess it makes them feel good because it is obviously a pointless exercise. I find your anti-choice “pro-life” argument particularly interesting in that the impact of Trump and DOGE’s actions in killing USAID, decimating NIH research and allowing RFK to run rampant, and the cuts to Medicaid will indisputably result in the deaths of millions of children abroad and the pain, suffering and death of thousands, if not millions of people in the U.S. I just always wonder why they don’t also deserve the right to life?
“Leaving it up to the states” to choose their own laws has created chaos, division among the different constituencies within each state, fiefdoms, ridiculously punitive measures, unequal access to health care which most every other first world country treats as a human right, and a damaging emphasis on inappropriate control. Why not “leave it up to the individual” to choose their own path in consultation with their doctor and their spiritual beliefs.
Well let me try to translate that for you. It’s called the voters …it’s called democracy. There is no chaos, and every law that comes out creates division. To some extent some people agree others don’t. In a democracy, the concept is majority rules. The administration could’ve easily said abortion is illegal… but he did the next best thing.
There is a lot of argument that supports that. Many people feel it’s not their job to pay for someone else’s abortion. They made a mistake and got pregnant by error rather than by rape or incest. Then they should pay for it themselves. This is not a job for the government to pay.
People who don’t believe in abortion don’t wanna fun planned parenthood as they kill 400,000 babies a year.
There are treatments that don’t qualify as basic medical care, not only this one.
People are not entitled to their own constitution. But it’s funny, because Democrats who are supposedly they’re the soothsayers of democracy. Don’t see it that way at all they like control. They like the 9 judges said it was OK to have an abortion and have the government pay for it..
The Democrats Feign , free choice and pro-choice, they are anything, but. !! They want to mandate, guns, healthcare, schools, smoking, except for cannabis of course, the kind of car you drive, plastic bags lightbulbs, type of stove to cook on and the list goes on….. so much for freedom of choice.
In California they had a law that said all combustion engine cars need to be off the roads by 2035. So working individual choice there. You didn’t wanna drive an electric vehicle if you had no choice or you left the state.
Good luck Even wants to regulate straws. The mayor of New York, even try to mandate the size of a soft drink people bought at 7-Eleven store.
Correct!!!! We are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
We have one political party whose members have not completely lost their "marbles" as well as their morals.
In prior years, we have had regular American men and women whose values and sacrifices and character have made this country great. They have had eyes and hearts and minds to see not only opportunities for investments but see the needs of our children and elderly and those born with mental or physical difficulties we can embrace and to whom we can provide love, encouragement and value through education, the arts, music, jobs, etc.
We as a nation through our elected leaders, have worked to constantly check our water supplies for safety as well as our food supplies that arrive at our grocery stores. We live by laws requiring safe structures are built, wells are dug properly, safe materials are used for water pipes, and countless other measures taken for our health and safety. We, the people, help one another to avoid disasters and /or to be there for one another during disasters...and to remain through recovery, not only with a hug and a kind work but helping to meet physical and emotional needs. This means PEOPLE who are PROFESSIONS...as well as friends and relatives.
We have been blessed by wonderful, brilliant, strong and kind military leaders whose love for country and surrender to service for the maintenance of FREEDOM FOR ALL! is beyond compare.
In order to maintain the character and vision that has made our country a beacon for all, we must seriously correct our compass because it is clear that our "leadership?" is taking us in the wrong direction!!!!!.....actually may be completely LOST!!!!
"We have one political party whose members have not completely lost their "marbles" as well as their morals”
Unfortunately they’ve become so immersed in relatively trivial differences and identity politics as to render them incapable of the kind of unity they desperately need just now. It remains to be seen if the Democrats can alter that in time for 2026.
Emily, I would add the thorny issue of who would have final control of our nuclear arms and system. Through my readings of some of the intelligent responses and debate, I don’t believe anyone has yet mentioned this major concern. Russia and Ukraine had a similar tete a tete concerning their navy on the Black Sea. When it comes to the raw and unrestrained power of the military, we have to tread carefully.
>>>final control of our nuclear arms and systems>>>
I know that Putin makes long term plans that do not change and that he is patient. I also know taking Ukraine and gaining power over all the countries of "Old Russia" is his goal. He is a very patient leader. He takes every opportunity when he sees a door open.
Mining the wealth of others is only one of many actions he is taking advantage of. Currently he has a large operation in Africa. He does not miss an opportunity.
He bows to no one! Trump is just a "toy" for him to juggle along with many others.
I am sure he has a large contingent of persons throughout the world working to achieve his goals. He is not one to stand still. He watches over all operations carefully.
No one tells Putin how he is supposed to spend his days....he tells his "people" what to do, how, when and where....and if they don't, if they betray him, they may end up dying in a fiery plane crash.
We must stay on guard with the best intelligence as well as the best trained, most loyal and most intelligent men and women to protect this country.
Our enemies do not sleep, they do not take vacations, they know how to manipulate and how to play mind games with us. They are doing this now in many areas deemed as profitable.
It terrifies me that Trump or one of his lackies with no training and less intelligence would have power to come near, much less use our nuclear weapons!!!!
Other than pleasing Netanyahu, I do not understand the reason for bombing Iran. Lots of countries have nuclear power.
Trump has sold out to these factions. His plan was developed by others and he lets them carry it out, while he and his family continue their grift empire. We are a Plutocracy. A government of the rich for the rich. That drives all decisions and fake Neoliberal economics with which they have brainwashed us.
Except Putin didn’t attack Ukraine when Trump was in office he attacked it when Obama was in office and Biden was an office so much for your deranged argument. And let me say it again for you ignorant folks here if not for Bill Clinton, we wouldn’t be dealing with this right now, and Bill Clinton was a great president, but he effed up in two cases he took the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine and convince them that we would protect him, and then he created NAFTA, which put China where it is right now sucking in control of this world and gaining power every day
I have been thinking of that, but think that one thing that would happen is that we would greatly defund our federal government and even if we pay a fee for the military as the EU countries do for their shared militaries, or contribute our militaries to a national military, we will still have to recon with the fact that Russia does not have nearly our military budget or might. Will China take over Red states economically and then through coercion? Don't know, but Trump is not above selling us all out to whomever. But a thoughtful discussion on this piece that you bring up Riad would be helpful.
Hi Linda. Please forgive the late response on your suggestion. There are days when I am very swamped as a lone caretaker for my wife that sometimes I don't even get to the keyboard. I was glancing over my emails and noticed your response on my list of emails. I appreciate your energy on this, or for that matter, any topic. I just couldn't get to it and discuss this as I would have liked. So many topics to discuss with so little time. That it now is July 25, the relevance and current interest has been long gone for a discussion. The issue, without doubt, is very important. Maybe it will come up again where the community and we may have an in-depth discussion. I wish you well.
Well, you can thank the Russia conflict to Bill Clinton. By the way, it was one of our best presidents other than a couple of major mistakes like this one Who won the mid-1990’s convince Ukraine to give up its nuclear missiles and war heads for money, and the promise of protection, which never arrived. Not during Obama, and not during Biden. We would not be in this conflict, headed not been for removing the nuclear warhead, which were the only deterrent to Russia at the time
May be completely lost? I'd say they are. They have no clue what they are doing, and unfortunately don't live in places that are subject to major climate disasters (except drumpf at Mar-A-Lago, and he'd just move to Bedminster).
Yeah, we have laws regarding safe structures that are built. What do you call the wall on the border that the Democrats refused to build and costs anywhere from 11 to 20,000,000 illegal entrance into this country with at least 400,000 criminals and at least 10,000 committed homicide rape in their own countries. Not to mention the economic cost California loans spent over $30 billion on housing food and medical care for illegals. That money was needed for the 185,000 homeless in California alone.
This is the first time in decades that the country is headed in the right direction.
Just administration keeps winning for the American people and it’s gone only gonna get better. Did you just say kind of military leaders? What do you think military leaders do? Too many military leaders were forced to get into a skirt incursions that we didn’t need to get into such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, iraq etc.
if you want to know, he’s completely lost, and I should come to TDS in the veins go no farther than your mirror.
If you are referring to the Democrats I would suggest that it is really 2 parties. In any case Donald Trump told us he hates us and would like to strip us of our citizenship. Count on SCOTUS to stop him at your own peril. I would like to cut that off at the pass, but changing the dynamics.
And you were a member of that party that’s lost its marbles
Your approval rating is now in the teens versus 66% a year ago April
You’re losing every battle all you can do is dance and chant like some teenagers in the 60s and unfortunately you’re chanting against correctness righteousness and caring about America.
I am not. I am saying that we need a different set up. FEMA is no longer going to be giving money to any Blue states for their disasters. Looking at this reality and that this government might go on for decades, I am trying to problem solve for the states like mine that are Blue states who will pay in and get nothing back.
I am looking ahead and imagining where things will go. I have read Project 2025. There are things still in existence right now in the US that will go, and I am planning ahead for it. If they do not happen then this does not need to happen. If they do, I at least have some idea of something to try.
You do realize that the call for ‘states rights’ was the historic call of racists for much of the existence of the nation but especially post Civil War. I like your enthusiasm but the irony is a bit much, Linda.
I never read the Pentagon Papers which I regret. And I haven’t read Project 25. I think I shall. It should be required reading by all high school students.
I do. And having read historian Jefferson Cowie's book "Freedom's Dominion" made me much more aware of the racist reasons for wanting the Federal government off their backs. Now the tables are turned and when the Federal government is more racist than your local government you have to turn the tables. I want to do this, before they figure out that it is no longer their idea.
Reading Historian Kathleen Belew's book "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America explains to me also how we got to this point and one of the ways that Paramilitary groups planned for this destruction of the Federal government. It is being destroyed anyway, so we should be thinking creatively of salvaging it.
I have always been a creative problem solver who is able to think outside of the box. I expected people to be upset with what I am saying when most people are thinking they can still save what we HAD, which is already GONE. Now we need to look ahead and plan.
Amen, Linda, to look ahead and plan, after determining what is still serving its purpose and what has been ruined.
We need unity on climate change. Within our country and with the rest of the world. So far we don’t have unity, unless we are unified in putting climate action near the bottom of our to-do list.
I totally agree with your comments. And your point about what’s GONE hurts my sole. Who was it that said NO NATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS LASTED MORE THAN 25O YEARS? We just celebrated our national birthday – Was thar 249 or 250?
Actually what should be required reading for all Americans is our Constitution.
State’s Rights was not a racist trope, but rather the result of our long colonial history. By the time of the Articles of Confederation, we had essentially become thirteen little nations, each so jealous of it prerogatives that even when threatened by the French and Indians, they refused to come together for their own mutual defense. (See the history of the Albany Plan of Union).
Our strength as a nation has always lain in our unity, however fragile it sometimes was.
You are filled with wisdom! "Actually what should be required reading for all Americans is our Constitution.".....Agreed!!!!
I would also add that it should be required reading for our Presidential candidates as well as ALL GOVERNMENT OFFICALS running for all government offices from minor to major!!!!
And, we have proven to have irreconcilable weaknesses that have been coopted by the dark forces. We can rethink this then. We currently have one branch of government. One demented branch. It does not work.
Our PERCEIVED strength. I do not buy into that. I can see the weaknesses of it. We can be united in some ways, and not in others. I am proposing that those of us who are not represented by this government not be taxed by it, but by our states which are representing us.
I found it interesting that during the debates among the Republican candidates for President the Senator from South Carolina, the State of John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond, came out against State's Rights with reference to abortion. He said that California should not be allowed to have liberal abortion laws.
Bill, don’t waste your time with project 25. They’re just trying to get you to relate one to Trump and one has nothing to do with Trump but they keep trying to tie together and it’s total BS. to try to do that. There are some basic premises and project 25 the Democrats and Republicans would agree with other than that no matter what the situation is including the floods in Texas all the Democrats are doing now is trying to point a finger because they have no traction of any time in any way other than protest hate, and violence
You are so wrong so wrong. My side has many faults I know. But this is a disaster for the nation and the world. Eventually you may see this. Or maybe not.
As I’ve said countless times, you are much too stupid to understand right from wrong; to realize what is good for humanity and what is really bad. You are misted up and confused. Why heck you are so stupid that I even convinced you to buy my book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums.” How more stupid can anyone be? Now I’m trying to get you smart to buy my new and improved version with up to date stories. Please buy my book. It will do you a whole lot of good. Trust me I wouldn’t lie to you.
FEMA is going to give money where it needs to get regardless of its political affiliations don’t make up nonsense and bullshit. And stop the delusions
Instead of reading project 25 why don’t you see what reality looks like. Joe Biden could’ve incorporated many of the precepts of Project 25 because they’re basic to American democracy. The nonsense and the distortion. And by the way, there are very few blue states left. Ooooops
He then said to Abbott that he would send help, blah blah blah. The magnitude of these worsening disasters will 'obliterate' most states' budgets, since he likes that word. Especially those red states with nada whose major support comes from blue states. djt has set us all against each other with his - well, I'll send help because this is a red state, but screw Californina and their wild fires - they need to sweep their forests - completely nonsensical take. The man is a liar and an idiot.
Interesting, but I wonder how real this is. Are they being polite in hopes that djt doesn't have a hissy fit and change his mind? The way he refers to Newsom would make me very much doubt that he will do anything more than the bare minimum for CA. He loves to send in his ICE gestapo, but I don't think he'll be so generous with engineers and science, since he doesn't understand either discipline. anyhow, tks for the article.
When the federal government actively attacks and invades Blue States and withholds federal assistance from those states do you think we’re supposed to just go along with the invasion and abuse? The system is irretrievably broken. The old ways cannot hold. We can’t just allow the boot to stamp on our faces to keep a rotting system intact.
The Articles of Confederation that preceded the Constitution was in adequate, and a federation of little “nation states” was nonfunctional. Not the way to go.
Janet, the founders never foresaw that an entire political party would turn traitor in service of a man who would be king. I believe the dissolution of the fifty states is inevitable, and I will welcome it. California, Oregon, Washington, and perhaps Hawaii all together would make a lovely little country.
Democrats and Republicans no longer have different values and principles; they inhabit different realities that are not compatible. Trump and his gang won't surrender power voluntarily, regardless of elections. Another civil war is not going to happen. I believe that in another ten years, more or less by mutual consent, the grand experiment known as the United States of America will end.
Patrick Henry did. They chose not to believe that could ever happen and so did not provide safeguards in the event it did. There is no longer honor in serving.
And the Democrats who live in Red States, and Republicans who live in Blue states—will they relocate by choice or be forced out? Purple states, Swing states?
They have the choice of relocating, or choosing to work to change their state leadership's agenda. It would change the dynamic of the government, because the power is with the purse and that would lie in the states. People would be much more aware of the details of their local governments.
I agree. But I advocate for withholding the tax revenues we send to the federal government until they stop giving it all away to ICE, the Pentagon, and the very wealthy. Which means, until Congress repeals the crummy bill they just passed.
Good luck with that. No matter what you want, we still live in a federally "superior" country, and acting out by refusing to pay your taxes (not exactly easy to do if you have a regular job where they deduct them anyway) can easily result in you being arrested and locked up for tax evasion. I would at least check with a lawyer before taking that kind of unilateral action. This administration certainly had limited checks on its powers at best so don't be surprised what they might decide to do to you if you went ahead.
I'm not saying it's right, just pointing out that it is the way things are right now. Be VERY careful about what you do in the face of this administration's outrageous expressions of power.
States are getting to be responsible for a lot of things: voting rules, abortion (which I think should not come under any government consideration), now subsidizing Medicaid, adding more state funds to education. How these states with no state or sale taxes going to exist?
They are going to have to rethink their funding structure. If we are not getting anything from the federal government that prioritizes 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
We should be paying our taxes to the states. That is what they do in Switzerland and the trains run on time there. They pay a minimal fee to the federal government. That is true of Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as well. They are always high on the happiness places list.
States with no sales or state tax will have to develop that. Right now, with the federal government shutting down health care, and education how are they paying for this now, or are all services privately provided.
Under this government the biggest amount of our money is going for an even larger military in peacetime, and a prison system which intends to lock up a large portion of the country.
DC’s chances of becoming are state are zero. It has been debated for decades, but always thwarted by Republicans. The district is heavily Democratic and about 45% African-American. The Republicans see it as their “plantation” where they test out controversial ideas by ramming legislation down the district’s throat. DC has only limited home rule and relies on the Congress to appropriate funds. The Trumpublican Congress cut $1 billion from this year’s appropriation, forcing the DC government to make deep cuts in programs.
Dave, I don't agree with zero chance. So, while I agree with your reasons for it being highly unlikely as things stand now, Trump is planning on moving some governmental departments out of DC. That could become a thing. Let us face it, nothing he is planning is really about more efficiency or saving money. So, if he were to say, move them to Florida, would DC still be the place it is? We shall see how things shake themselves out financially.
Right now the US has just gone further towards becoming a Christian Nationalist theocracy with the court basically removing any non-partisanship from churches by granting them tax exempt status no matter what. So, as these huge changes happen it might be wise to look at what they say they are supporting and turn it against them.
Too bad no one who is super wealthy cares at all about the US. In his book "Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism", George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson point out that under Neoliberalism democracy is supplanted by Plutocracy and that Oligarchs tend to have weak ties with any country.
In a chapter titled, "Citizens of Nowhere" they tell us that the politicians who talk about patriotism are always the first to sell their country down the river.
Media who goes on about patriotism is owned by billionaires who have tax havens overseas. US economic life and political life have been offshored by the media moguls. The authors claim that at the heart of neoliberalism is the fantasy of escape from social obligation, from democracy, to a starlit wonderland beyond policies and people." Does that sounds like colonizing Mars to you? It does to me.
These Oligarchs are in denial about how they are destroying the planet or they don't care. We need to salvage what we can as a fight for survival while they fantasize about colonizing Mars, cryogenic ways of living forever, and every sci-fi fanstasy about longevity and escaping the destruction of earth with their fossil fuels fantasies that it won't affect them. Old men making most of these decisions do not care about the world they are leaving their offspring, as long as it is good for them right now. DC will be better placed to survive if it is a state. People in that city should be fighting for that status. The rest of us who do not support the MAGA agenda which is destroying he planet as rapidly as possible. should support DC too. We want as many places in the US as possible to survive and regroup and rebuild post this regime.
Excellent contribution...nothing to add but "Thank you!"
We need to each find ways to support truth, decency, honest elections, care for our planet, our education system from infant to adult within ALL areas that truth is demanded and protection (as is humanly possible) from DISASTERS at the top of our lists.
My heart is broken over the deaths of those tiny young children as well as the adults with them and to those camping along the river.
Sorry to hurt professionals or government officials tender egos, BUT knowing the possibilities, there should have been more concerned professionals available OR because of the rain predicted and the history of the river, a warning should have been given as well as safety officials present to force people to evacuate in time to save lives, given to everyone who chose to camp at that time of heavy rain, near the river. This was not the first experience with flooding, nor death!!!! Because it happened so fast and at night, there was little chance of a safe evacuation.
One does not have to prove themselves "MACHO" to prefer caution over the possibility of death of our fellow human beings.
When there is such a heavy rain.....there should be rules about the closing of the area///Texas macho can take a step behind love of mankind and respect given to the reality of a mighty flooding river!!!! This was NOT a first time event.
Was saving money really more important than the lives lost????
People have been fighting for DC statehood for decades, but they have little power, beyond the power of persuasion. DC is a unique entity. It is a federal enclave, largely controlled by Congress. DC has little Congressional representation. Elenor Holmes Norton is DC delegate. She can vote on bills, but only in committee. She has been advocating for statehood for all of her 34 years in the House. Statehood is a pipe dream given Republican control of both chambers. If anything, DC is in danger of being stripped of its limited home rule.
DC, Puerto Rico, etc. They're not states because the population is non-White. Not just my perspective. It is historical fact debated and stressed repeatedly in Congress.
When I lived in D.C., roughly 1969 to 1985, it was closer to 80% African American. That's why it was widely referred to as Chocolate City. <g> Now that it's much more gentrified and more white, I'm guessing it's more likely now than it was then.
And would some states be able to declare war on another state? Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? So much more to say on this thought, but let’s start with that question.
WE ARE IN A FULL BLOWN DISASTER. I do not know if states fighting each other differently than they are doing now, would make more of a disaster. It might certainly wake people up. Still, if States could run their own budgets, and we were not funding the federal government against our interests I do not think it makes us more likely to go to war than we are now. No more than countries within the EU or NATO would be able to declare war on another country within these unions.
I am hearing people discussing a potential Civil war happening. Do you think civil war is better? That seems potentially on the horizon. If war is going to happen, what if Trump starts using the military against people in certain states who are US citizens? Don't you want some leverage for these states? Blue states fund the government with more money than they get back in most cases Under Trump they are going to get much, much less back. Do you think people should just accept that?
Do you think the US is going to get rid of a fascist government just by voting, or time, or hoping that things will go back to the way they were before fascists took over? Wishing and marching are a part of making change, but not the whole picture. At this point they alone are unlikely to make a change in the trajectory the US is going. Remember Trump is doing Putin's work for him. One thing that this would accomplish was take some of those funds away.
I hope I am wrong, but the US appears to be in a crisis from which it will not return, and Americans need to spend more time thinking about how they want their country to be afterwards, and how to get to that point.
In this 2020 ranking of Democracy the US already was a deficient democracy.
The average American needs to become aware that we are already at war- or the precursor to it. Generally, geography means that the US huge landmass would be difficult to invade and control. However, the BBB enables invasion with ICE, and when they are in place throughout the country resistance will be difficult.
Trump is clearly being influenced by some adversary, and if we had competent intelligence or defense officials they could identify such. Meanwhile, SC is complicit; congress is cowed and lazy.
The magats are cowed. They are all complicit in not defending the constitution as they took an oath to do. The billionaires have bought and paid for every single Dem and magat rep, except for a small handful. Why else would anyone support more oil/gas/coal, especially after this past week? I am glad I am old and probably have only 15 years or so of this crap, but weep for my poor kids whose lives are going to really suffer from this admin for a long time.
As you well know, before the mid-1960s, the U.S. wasn't a democracy at all for most people of color, and that isn't just about voting rights. It's never been more than an aspiring democracy. To borrow an image from recovery circles, I think of the current crisis as the U.S. finally "hitting bottom." We've had plenty of warnings -- 249 years of them, in fact. White supremacists have been here all along. So has economic power: it helped warp the Constitution at its founding, it was a key player in the Civil War, and it's crashed the economy several times, from the late 19th century to 2007–2008, all the while touting the virtues of unregulated capitalism (which has, btw, seriously corrupted the free press).
The mega-rich and the corporations don't have the votes, but the white supremacists, the garden-variety racists, and the (mostly) white people who have no idea how government works do. From the mid/late 1960s on, they've formed an alliance. Despite a few setbacks it's been forging ahead ever since.
The size of the U.S. may indeed be a serious problem, but is it a deal-breaker? I don't think so. Consider: Of the world's major democracies, the U.S. is (IIRC) the only one with a two-party, as opposed to a parliamentary, system. It's the only one with no social democratic party, or even a strong social democratic tendency within the Democratic Party. It's the only one that fought a major war over slavery. Oh yeah, and -- not unrelated to slavery and racism in general -- it's the only one with a 2nd Amendment, which since 2008 has been interpreted to mean that any citizen can have all the guns they want.
Susanna, thank you for this post. I have often reminded people that we don't have a parliamentary system which makes certain kinds of progress more difficult. And yes, guns. All the wailing when there is a shooting and no mention of what needs to be done. The Oregon legislature did get some gun restrictions done this session. But they failed to get transportation done, so already 500 people are looking at losing their jobs while the population complains about traffic and the state of the roads. And why the failure....taxes.
Michele, it’s “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization” versus “Taxation is Theft!” It has been easy to convince Americans to resent taxes. Though we still are accustomed to paying for services and goods that we buy as individuals. Maybe we should experiment with toll roads everywhere, even the roads to our driveways. See how we like paying directly for every amenity we use, getting a bill for our share of police, firefighters, food inspectors. . .
The US was formed to protect white mens' assets. On the sin of slavery and the lie of equality and justice for all. We never fully dealt with the truth and are paying the price. The American dream is really a nightmare. Time for us to go down. Xi is loving it.
I would say, formed to protect rich White men's assets and dominion over others. As such other White men are just useful idiots to be used to vote for protecting the Plutocracy. Xi is loving it and Putin is too.
I recommend the book Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson (who is making a film of it). It discusses exactly how Plutocracies undermine democracy.
And Suzanna, I would contend that it was not after then either. In his book Freedom's Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie shows us how unless the Federal government intervened, people were not getting to register or to vote in counties at least in many southern states. This federal regime is not going to be protecting anyone's voting rights.
All I see with our federal dollars is that we are no longer getting them back in the states. They are going to fund 3 things:
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
I am better off just paying taxes to my state and helping them to provide the services or supports that Americans will no longer get from the Federal government.
I have been thinking along the same lines for awhile. California has the 4th largest economy in the world. I imagine they have their own trade deals. Arizona trades with Mexico. Obviously, there are some kinks that we have to work out. But, right now the regime is inflicting harm on its own people and there is no relief in sight. The mad king is running or ruining every agency.
And his idiotic cabinet is facilitating his every whim....
There is nothing laughable about this newsletter but if I were forced to find an absurdity to laugh at it has to be this:
"Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins rejected the idea that the government would find a way to protect undocumented agricultural workers. “There will be no amnesty,” she said. “The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which again WITH 34 MILLION PEOPLE, ABLE-BODIED ADULTS ON MEDICAID, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS FAIRLY QUICKLY."
Who do they think Medicaid supports? Who will they put to work? Elderly/nursing home residents? Children/orphans? Pregnant women? Psychiatric inpatients? People with Down Syndrome? People in wheelchairs? Can't you see them trying to pick cherries or strawberries? WTF is the matter with these politicians?
How will we transport all these Medicaid dependent able- bodied folks to the fields & factories? I guess there will be thousands of grand children left alone while their caretakers 'work'
Texas receives more in federal dollars than it pays. The state receives something like $2500 for every dollar. I wonder what Texas would do if they no longer received the ‘socialist handout?’
When our trusty ole Censes came knocking since I was singled out to be interviewed in a program, I expressed that I no longer had a legitimate government and that I refused to participate. They told me I could not extract myself from this data research. I responded that I will not cooperate and that it was better to not send reps on my property harassing me in the future although I’m not about to become irrational with any such personal. Another irony is I’ve worked for this agency almost every 10 years.
Yes. California has less than half the population of Germany, and yet it has a GDP close to it. California's is 4.1 trillion, Germany's is 4.5 trillion. California can afford to provide all the services for its people.
We are undergoing yet another of the endless testing periods endemic to democracies. And it is not the worst, at least not yet. We’ve not yet managed to kill over 700,000 thousand of our own as we did between 1861 and 1865.
Democracy is the longest political game in the world. Its testing never ends. There are always those within it who don’t like its essential messiness and inefficiency and wish for some strong leader to come along and streamline it all.
There are always those among us who think that national unity has to mean that we all see things pretty much the same way.
I’m not downplaying the danger of the moment. Half of us have finally managed to elect for the first time in our history a president who has no concern for our electoral process, our Constitution, or the rule of law. But half of us did not elect him, and well over half of us now disagree with most if not all of his policies.
Rome indeed was not built in a day, and no democracy was ever dismantled in one.
We’ve been as bitterly divided as we are now in at least four other times in our history - the last twenty years before the War of 1812, the last two decades before the Civil War, the last decades of the nineteenth century, and the famous (or infamous) late Sixties/early Seventies.
Each time we managed to right ourselves sufficiently to carry on with Novus Ordo Seclorum, but at the height of each, there were many who though we couldn’t and wouldn’t.
There are, of course, no guarantees. But if you want ‘close run things. wait for Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary on the American Revolution. Even those guys with the funny-looking suits and weird wigs who signed the Declaration had serious doubts about our chances. Washington himself sometimes despaired.
I’m just over 80, and I’ve lived through a series of polticcal, social, and economic storms of one kind or another for almost all of them. And I fully admit that sometimes of late, as I have lain awake seriously wondering about this nation whose uniform I once wore (during the last time it seems we might come apart at the seams) and whose history I taught for over 40 years. Yet now I feel a strange calmness, however unwarranted it may seem. Either we will come to our senses or we will not. That possibility is not before us for the first time, and yet here we are.
Linda, you are a truly a creative thinker. We need all the alternatives to this fascist power and money grafting gang now an unlawful police state. The corruption and lying are like the recent TX flood. Withholding taxes is a brave and very smart idea that many of my friends would do. Perhaps we could have a state savings account to deposit them in for the future? Something legal and secure….
That is certainly not any area of my expertise however!
I can show you how to dance, choreograph or perhaps write poetry, but legalize?
Then again just how legal is anything dump’s goons are doing….and I’m worrying about ‘legal’?
Thank you samani. ✌🏽 I am organzing some "creative gatherings" in a park in Bremen in support of democracy, where people are invited to share all of the forms that you mentioned and others as well.
There is no Fascism only in your head. Try getting it out of there take some medication dunk your head an ice water do something but get the pessimism and heat out of your head. It’s not doing you any good and certainly not doing your health any good
Did disaster that you speak of is in your head that’s the only place that exists go outside look up at the sky go to work collect your Social Security go to the grocery store go to the lake nothing has changed except in your head
Riad Mayayni, that thought occurred to me, as well. Also, the states who have large populations of stupid maga people would keep electing corrupt and incompetent government officials, and they would fail. What would happen to those states if they failed?
Those states are already failing and the Blue States are propping them up. Under Trump the Blue states will fail too, so we will just have more failed states, since all states will fail.
Please, may we open our eyes and ears and face the reality: books taken from schools, people of color taken, given no legal personal rights, treated like animals, actually, many animals treated better, sent off to other countries, placed in cages in "boxes" along Florida's hurricane ally.
Look at the strong, intelligent person who wants to improve lives of fellow Americans in New York, put down because of his faith??? We DO live in a country where we can legally worship as we choose!!! Obviously, they are fearful of the person he is...they also see his potential and they hate him because they have to look at their failings.
Take a look at many of the Republicans, if you are able, without "throwing up???? They are being given power to dismantle our Democracy.
I am glad some of them have stopped wearing their "fake" crosses ...symbols of their fake Christianity"...which they are using to entice the vulnerable who do not want to admit their own prejudices and greed and desire to control!!!! In the Bible Jesus said, " Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you." Some of you know how Jesus in the flesh was turned over to government officials by the religious leaders of the day because they were jealous of the huge groups who followed Him to find healing: spiritual as well as physical. Jesus did not come to be a physical king. He did live to show us how to love one another. Receiving Him as Savior was not forced...believers were not brainwashed. He sent His followers OUT INTO THE WORLD TO GIVE HOPE, LOVE, HEALING, ACCEPTANCE. Jesus suffered and died for OUR SINS!!! Also remember He did not remain in the tomb but ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND LIVES ETERNALLY.
As created beings, I believe we are physical and spiritual. No matter one another's skin color, or spiritual calling, or position in life, rich or poor, strong in body and mind or those of us who struggle in all areas, like me...we have value!!!!
Our government: state, local, our leaders in Washington are elected to care for the freedoms of each and all and to aid in building up our country's citizens by providing opportunities to make a decent living, for health care and to assist families with laws that aid our citizenry to be able to have a decent and safe, dwelling place and a "none prejudice" and excellent education for all!!!
We cannot build a great nation on the foundation of deceptions, brainwashing and lies. We cannot be a great nation when we do not follow laws that have existed since our conception to treat EVERYONE TO fair trials and decent treatment of persons WE IMPRISON illegally!!!! Our entire nation will suffer morally, financially as well as losing the respect earned over years, with our international partners. They can no longer trust us with anything!!!!
What is happening to them now. Think Texas and floods? What might happen is that people would defocus on the federal government and focus on their local and be more involved. And some people might move. If everything is privatized including child care and schooling, might get people to vote for someone who maintains the public education system.
Per some of the comments about each state becoming “independent “ like countries; I call bullshit. What we need is to remain United. Hasn’t history proven that war doesnt resolve much of anything. Killing so many innocent people-and we already struggle with the concept of abortion-how can we continue to endorse killing kids, because they are the ones whose lives were “saved” after taking away our rights. The reason our system is broken is because our politicians wont fix it.
Are we united? is this what we can remain? Do you have a plan for unifying the MAGA and the Democrats? If so, it will be welcome. Most people I know have given up on it after trying.
Riad, this idea reminds me of Germany and Italy which had many small states until they united in the 19th century and yes, they fought with each other. The Founders knew that they had to have a united country.
We are not a young nation we are a dying nation. An imploding nation. A nation led by someone whose mission it is to get rid of our nation. So, what did not work a few hundred years ago will be different now. Nothing remains the same, and we have other democracy examples in the world to examine.
Oh yeah, right. And just how would DC "hurry up and become a state"?
I've had my 'Taxation Without Representation' license plate for the better part of 20 years here on Capitol Hill, but yet to see a single Republican scream in panic and bolt in terror at the sight of it, let alone vote to bring another two Democratic Senators to sit across the aisle to glare at Kentucky Fried Voldemort....
Linda, what you're describing is basically the Articles of Confederation, which was the system before 1789's ratification of the US Constitution. It was a disaster. I understand why you're suggesting this, but I remain a federalist. Because those of us who live in enclaves within malign regime states would have even less ability to function as productive citizens if the state government ran everything. Not everyone whose politics align with the Left live in Left-leaning states.
I live in California that has a robust economy larger than most countries. CA helped adjacent states with its massive purchasing-power during Covid& will do so again & again
Linda, you might be more focused on state government if you knew that they were responsible for the financing of everything. However Trump is only funding 3 things:
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
I am suggesting ways to have more control over getting services that are other than those 2 things.
“It might save the Blue States from going down with the ship.”
Blue states have been subsidizing red states since forever. They’re not the ones that would be at risk of sinking. It’s the red states like WV and AL that would suffer under such a scheme. And stripping the federal government so that (supposedly) the states can take care of themselves is exactly what this regime claims as its goal.
The Red States, through their own choices and the voting patterns of the people choosing to live there are already going down. Look at Texas. It made choices not to be notified about the heights of the rising water to save money, and FEMA did not give them any either. Some Red states might get more responsible with their management if they were more directly responsible to their constituents and could not blame it on the federal government, or some past president. It would all be on them.
Should the Blue states go down with the red states, or should we salvage what we can? We are in a catastrophe. It is the regime's goal, so we turn it on them. They are decimating the federal government and still taking money we could be putting into our state government to give to billionaires. I am coming up with a creative solution to resist. I am pointing out that in Europe they have countries smaller than our smallest state population wise in the EU, and they manage to provide, schooling, health care, housing, old age pension and other basic things a society needs. Trump has destroyed the US as it was. I am coming up with a solution of a different direction, fitting with the times.
Within Tejas, Harris County is Dem. San Antonio, Austin, too. Within Florida, the cities are Dem.
3 Dem counties in South Florida have more "gross product" than the rest of the state combined, more than about 15 red rural states. Home to 23 billionaires. Thousands of millionaires. Our county mayor is a dem, but her hands were tied by our former mayor, who switched parties and now is a MAGAT, in the House.
Just this morning it turns out we have to comply with state law re turning over prisoners to ICE.
"Miami-Dade’s cooperation with ICE under President Donald Trump has been a divisive topic since 2017, when the county under then-{ex Dem] Mayor Carlos Gimenez changed policy to have the county’s jails begin accepting detention requests from federal immigration agents.
"That policy remained in effect after Levine Cava, a Democrat, succeeded Gimenez, who is now a Republican member of Congress.
"The Levine Cava administration said the 287(g) update would bring no substantive change to how Miami-Dade detains people for ICE — something that only takes place when someone is booked on local charges while also being sought for deportation. Under federal procedures, Miami-Dade jails will hold someone for an extra two business days if ICE has a detention request — known as a detainer — for them. The updated agreement with the transportation clearance is posted on an ICE website but wasn’t announced by the county. The last time Levine Cava made public an update to an ICE agreement, it sparked one of the most contentious moments of her five years in office."
It’s an interesting idea, I’ll give you that, but we are not like Europe in many ways. Historically, European countries came together on the basis of ethnicity and culture, whereas America was founded on an idea. I am holding out hope that we can persevere as a unified but disparate democratic republic.
I am pointing out that our states have the GDP of European countries that provide them with everything they need including health care and disaster relief that we are not going to be getting from this government. Instead it is concentrated on funding 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
It is a suggestion to get around that. Others might have suggestions as well. I am starting a conversation on getting around the obstacles.
Aslo hope is important but reality is too. Musk cannot colonize Mars, and we will not be having the USA that we had. We are falling lower and lower on the democratic scale.
DC has tried to become a state but not succeeded because of Republican opposition. We are largely Democrat. Only about 5 percent of those who voted here, voted for Trump. And we swarmed the Ellipse, all the way past the Washington Monument to the Potomac when Harris had her moving rally. And no crime. Lots of people. Very safe.
People should be suggesting that Trump move the seat of Federal government to Florida. I think he will like that idea. Then DC would need a new structure. Trump is already thinking of moving departments out of DC. We shall see. It is all a chaotic mess. I am just trying to problem solve. Think citizens of DC should make a case for Trump building a White House in Florida, or living in his hotel and claiming their city as their state.
I do not agree with making DC a state. The original concept of a seat of federal government that is independent of the concept of state politics still makes sense today. The only problem is that DC's population grew over the ensuing almost 250 years and now is very large. The solution is NOT to make DC a state but to merge the civilian population centers in DC into adjoining states (mostly Virginia and Maryland) and leave the central core of DC (mostly governmental offices) as DC. No new state but give most of the people who live their representation in their new states. A much saner idea without the complications of adding a new state and confusing the political boundaries of DC.
Sorry but you are living in an imaginary world in DC. If you look at actual crime rates they are VERY high, not the highest in the US but still very high.
Out of the top 100 cities in the US (by population) DC had the 19th highest murder rate, 25th overall for violent crime and 29th overall for property crime.
Certainly not the WORST but "no crime"? That's a joke, right? "Very safe"? Hardly.
Please get your facts straight before making such comments.
When the U.S.S.R. failed its territories broke up and more and less reverted back to their former identities. Many, most of our states don’t have those long histories to fall back on. I think, our best hope is to collectively recommit to our constitution. And that is not looking good. SCOTUS seems to be paving the way to dissolution if you ask me. Breaking up would be slow though—may not be possible—because so many states formed with the purpose of becoming part of the U.S.A. How many states ever had their own defensive forces? Texas? Which others ever did? How many U.S. citizens even remember to vote in their state elections? I myself have never felt a special loyalty to a state. I always feel I can move wherever I want in the U.S.A. It was nothing to move from IL to WI. No visa required. No work permit. We have been one. Poor California is getting overrun and can’t rely on their police (most are MAGA and thrilled I bet with the theatre being played in LA). California has little recourse. No way to throw the bums out. Scary stuff. Where does a state begin to defend itself? From what I can tell, MAGA Zombies have infected all the legislatures. How does a state define itself in the U.S.A. which has for so long (forever?) thought of itself as one nation first? Scary to contemplate all this.
Each state does define itself though. My state of Illinois is not take over by MAGA. We also have high state taxes. Our governor even tried to have graduated taxes like most well off countries do that helps to have a higher standard of living for all, but another billionaire who was originally a Floridian destroyed that and the governor has not tried it again.
I think we save ourselves by giving states much more power. The federal government is currently set to spend my tax dollars on 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military-but not supporting Ukraine, or trans, women or POC
3) ICE--who is "accidentally" picking up people.
How do we protect ourselves from a police state? People should give that some serious thought because they are getting all their ducks in order to do that, starting with taking all of our data. Scarier to contemplate letting it happen than thinking creatively around it. My plan is to defund it.
Mary Ellen, Trump is setting up a police state. I hope I am wrong, but if I am not, something has to be done quickly. I have not heard any ideas about it, so I am throwing out a suggestion.
Linda: Yes I see you are starting a discussion. I agree things are catastrophic. Actually one of the very first signs and harbinger of doom was the overturning of Roe because with it we returned to a form of slavery. Lest we not forget our country was borne and built on slavery—the exploitation of other humans. I don’t know how else to categorize U.S. women losing bodily autonomy but as a form of slavery. We are back to the founding paradigm— we never excised it.
Yes Mary Ellen. I do see slavery for many women right now in the US, as well as the world. Christian Nationalist like the infamous Duggers, have the women and children as slaves to make the fortune. They have to do as they are told and don't get any input. The man is allowed to beat them all--wives and children. They control voting if there is any, sex and reproduction. It is shocking. I agree that under Trump it began with R v W, but also see Reagan as beginning the loss of our democracy because of the implementation of the neoliberal economic philosophy that crashes our democracy. However, gerrymandering is a problem that we have never gotten rid of or other forms of disenfranchisement.
Do you not foresee terrible trouble going the route we are in right now? We are in a catastrophe. And just as the European Union is a union without all of the countries turning into one country, I am just saying a way to salvage ourselves is to go for State's rights. We are not supposed to be taxed by a government that does not represent us. I am taking that and for Blue States Trump has said he won't represent us. For democrats he has said the same thing.
The solution is not for the United States to become separate nation-states, but for the UNITED States to remove this criminal regime. By whatever means are available to us. By whatever means necessary.
There is only ONE valid and legal way to "remove" this "regime". The ballot box. Any other option is a lawless , no sorry MORE lawless than this regime itself. This regime, like it or not, was elected by a majority of the state electors AND maybe unbelievably but true by the majority of the people who voted.
We can all wring our hands about that tragic event but it doesn't make it untrue. We elected this monster and now we HAVE to deal with that and we can only deal with it legally. Any other option would be worse.
I do NOT want a coup to remove him.
I do NOT want another civil war.
We must grit our teeth and endure the horrific result that WE brought on ourselves.
I know that sounds awful (we are only 6 month into this nightmare and we have 42 more months to go) but there is no other choice. The other choices are worse than that. We will NEVER be a great democratic country again if we choose to walk away from democracy in order to try to save it.
James, there is not one right solution. There are solutions. I am suggestion one and wanted to engender discussion. You seem to have no idea of how to remove the regime. If you do, please elaborate.
Linda, I usually agree with your ideas, but this? This is the recommendation of someone who has completely given up on the American Experiment. It is unpatriotic. This is the suggestion of someone who has zero concern for the utter destruction of people's lives.
Were your suggestion executed, millions of people who cannot for myriad reasons relocate to a "nation-state" that suits their preferences would be condemned to live out their lives in profound misery. Apparently, you don't care.
No amount of argument will justify such a hare-brained idea. Just stop.
We need ideas for stopping an aspiring dictator, not accommodating him.
Dale, I do not want to be "agreed with." I would like to hear arguments against what I am proposing as I try to salvage people and lives and some democracy. I have not heard one.
I also feel that you are discounting what is actually going on. I am not going to wear my patriotism as blind following what has been done. I am a problem solver. I live in a Blue State. I am looking at the reality. The reality is that the Congress, President and SCOTUS are tearing down the US and what it stands for as rapidly as they can.
What I will point out is that millions are ALREADY drowning in misery and I am trying to lessen it. You are making a case for let us all be as miserable as the most miserable state. How is that helping. Why should everyone be dragged down. We need some places that are not dragged down, so that people can aim to go somewhere.
These people who cannot relocate to another state, unlike the immigrants who walked across the Americas with very little beyond the clothing on their backs, would not leave if they could. What keeps people staying is being unwilling to try something new or different. The US is drowning in people that don't like different.
I am thinking of ways to throw road blocks into the dictators plans. He is setting up a police state. Is there a police state that you can point to that you would like to live in? I am trying to come up with a solution. I have not heard anything better so far. When you are in a burning building you have to figure out the fastest way out. I don't find your arguments convincing. I just feel that you are unwilling to look at the potential worst case scenario and prepare for it.
Linda, this is my final response in this conversation. As you have the means and freedom to fly from Illinois to Germany and back at will, you are as out-of-touch with reality as Donald Trump or Elon Musk. It's all very simple for you. Not everyone has your advantages.
You claim that you haven't "heard" arguments against your suggestions, yet this has become a long thread of arguments against your suggestions. Which leads me to conclude that you're one of those engineers who simply refuses to accept the reality that your design won't work. Fortunately, nobody with any sense will try to build it.
Enjoy your comfy life in Germany. We'll figure it out without your "help."
Dale, I don't know if my design will work. I assume that because I have enough money to travel, or prioritize my money thusly, I am considered irrelevant. Well, Heather Cox Richardson is worth many millions but you are not saying that to her. I am not worth many millions, but I do get to step back and see how things are done elsewhere. This helps to expand my reality.
I can step back from the US and look at it from the outside and seeing other ways to do things. I have a global set of friends, who live in many different countries, and so I know things that can be different. I travel cheaply without much luggage, and have used my retirement money to fund this. I would rather put it into this, then let Trump take it all and give it to billionaires. I also do not have to pay for my daughter's college tuition because it is free here.
Almost all the people I know who have family in another country travel 2-3 times a year to see them. No one has 2 cars. We have a car in the US, which we are selling, and we have bikes and a transportation pass in Germany. I am a US citizen and will be going back and forth so I still have to live with whatever happens. You can say my ideas are irrelevant. I am used to that. During Covid I was already crying the alarm in my school faculty meeting on January 12 of 2020. Everyone at the meeting just thought I was Xenophobic because I suggested that to be safe we should have our upcoming parent teacher conferences over Facetime. Look at it now. Zooming is a norm in our society. Things I was saying because of the reading I was doing were upsetting to everyone around me, but then came to pass. Even the timeline I suggested we would be dealing with. This has happened with a lot of things. I am just putting my ideas out there, and inviting people to come up with others as well. People should not be afraid of ideas that are not cruel in intention.
I don't know if my design will work. I often do thing that I have thought fairly through, but I tailor as I go along and unforeseen problems arise.Don't go along with this, argue it away, and please come up with some other ideas, because that is what we need right now.
Ben Franklin had three words:"join or die". These words are still relevant today. We need to focus on the principle causes , not the symptoms to solve problems.
Read "Invisible Doctrine....." as my bookclub is doing now. It explains the principle causes of how we have a Plutocracy, and how that does not go hand in hand with Democracy.
Red states like Texas, where I live, would go under. We do not have state income tax, just a rather high sales tax rate. Until the state wakes up and elects a decent government, we'd never make it under your plan. And I fear for the lives of immigrants coming across the southern border if someone like Gregg Abbott is governor - don't forget the razor wire in the Rio Grande, which has killed some people.
Red States will get from Trump, like in these Floods. He has said he is not giving money to Blue States so we are taxed without representation so to speak. I would hope it would wake Red States up.
I am not forgetting what a tool Abbott is to put it kindly. He is no Ann Richards.
But Abbott is in power and he is doing horrid things to immigrants, and the Blue States are dragged into this. It could be separate. The divisions will either be bridged or furthered. I am thinking ahead, and wanting to defund this federal government which is a very dangerous one to the planet. I am not saying I am right, I am having an idea which I want to think about how could this work, and discuss. I am not convinced yet by anyone that it is not an idea that could work.
I understand that you are putting out an idea. I'm thinking at this point divisions would be furthered, since a lot of the country seems to want to go that way. I have come to understand that one of the problems with Texas, is that areas like the Hill Country (Kerr County in particular) doesn't like taxes, and didn't want to have a siren system for warning, even though that's what works. I know this sounds heartless, but I think that they have gotten what they deserve. That said, I do feel bad for the families who have lost members, especially losing children.
Also, doesn't Texas have an active secessionist movement? At the same time it has a lot of really rich people who should have to pay. There might be more effort and energy spend on that sans federal taxes. Chase them off to other places in the world that are tax havens, and then make sure that the leadership is no longer Plutocratic, but for the people.
I think I may have heard about a secessionist movement, but not recently. My dream would be to have a government for the people for the entire state of Texas. We have had at least two really good gubernatorial candidates, who both lost - Wendy Davis, and Beto O'Rourke. I think they both lost to slime ball Abbott.
Well, half of Oregon has a secession movement. Linda, I’ve said this before tell me please what’s the top percent of income earners pay of the total percentage of income tax. Just so you know the bottom 50% of income earners pay 3% of the income tax paid. Look it up
If, as seems likely, Trump cancels the 2026 election, a breakup is very possible. And it could become very, very violent. Although the Blue States don't need the Red States, the Red States do need the Blue States.
Is there any more delusion possible from the left? But you should be worried because poop for the first time in American history a president who took over and controlled both houses of Congress always lost one or both of those houses in the upcoming midterm election but if you guys keep this up this could be the first time ever that they keep. Control of both houses What the hell are you talking about stopping an election you guys are out in Venus Pluto summer where the hell out in space Jesus it’s unbelievable.
The Red States are not self-supporting. And they get the leadership they voted for. Is there really much difference between Tuberville and George Wallace?
Actually I don't know. I learned about George Wallace from historian Jefferson Cowie in his book "Freedom's Dominion." He examines the country Wallace was from over time which includes Wallace's several campaigns and shifting political platforms. Wallace did not have convictions of his own, other than saying and doing what would get him elected. A true Populist.
.. and I would add that we/courts reinterpret the second amendment and get all these guns off the streets. A three year old died in DC) the other day when a stray bullet hit her while she was in a car. And this isn't the first stray bullet death. It is no leap of imagination to question why a civilized country permits "weapons of mass destruction" to be the first element of choice to settle arguments......
People love to suggest that. However, there's no practical way to get guns off the streets. That's even more true with 3D printing and "ghost guns." I'm willing to listen if anyone ever comes up with a workable idea. It's like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Not only having fewer guns, but most places have more restrictions on gun ownership, so that you have to get a license that requires some training. In Germany you have to have at least 1.1 million € of personal liability insurance for it.
Yes. The Atlantic reported a few years ago that we are awash in guns and they will never be removed. I may be just ms. ordinary citizen hoping unrealistically for a change in law. However, a friend of mine, Dr. Paul Finkelman, is a legal scholar and had written an article for the Chicago-Kent Law Review, refuting the Court's standing and citing historical precedent in his argument. So legal scholars are concerned too. People like Laurence Tribe and Fintan O'Toole, who write for the New York Review of Books, have written that public demand, cultural shifts do require reexaminations of some settled law. But, alas, as you say, good luck with that. But how many Americans (and then you add a court blinded by its own ideology) know the relevant facts as written by Dr. Finkelman, in order to make informed decisions....?
We have one branch of government on the federal level for all practical purposes and they do no support gun control. Unless we take back our states, they can continue to thwart common sense governance.
Other countries have done it, so there are practical ways, but not with our SCOTUS stepping in to stop it. Still violent crime is down. I don't think Trump can claim credit for that.
Yes. States would be able to decide their own abortion laws, and gun laws and trading partners. I am all about elevating the States rights, and diminishing the role of the Federal government right now, so you can see me embracing the typically conservative position. I have read historian Jefferson's Freedom's Dominion, and this struggle to get rid of the Federal government has been going on for centuries in the US. We have the opportunity to say, okay, you don't want the US Federal government to have say over things, so be it. Then, it is up to individual people to pick their states.
And what happens to those who live in a red state (fl) currently and are not in concurrence with that? So many questions-but a fantastical idea that would never get off the ground! Write a book-make a movie-but please dont make me move and uproot my life just so I can live in a red or blue state-I am a purple
I like the idea --- I live in a blue state and blue community with only very small areas of red. And yet the Supreme Court and other federal laws have imposed their will on us much to the consternation of our governor or local county executive. At the same time what to do with the states that wish to secede or merge with other states? Sounds like a huge administrative process.
Under our Constitution, states are free to experiment. It's a shame that federal preemption covers so much, but that's because the 14th Amendment is applied to the states. Due process. Equal protection.
But for the weather, progressive laws might convince us to move back to Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, New York or other locales where we have lived.
But to paraphrase Dylan, despite the Fascist Florida government, at this stage of life, we ain't goin' nowhere.
Like me and many people. But for those who want to stay in their states, you have a lot less to work on when you are focusing on your state government. Governors in Red States will not have it so easy. People who expect their services to come from the state need that. Of course our states can afford to provide services if we look at GDP. Right now we have one branch of federal government for all practical purposes. It is not a good regime. I am just saying states could take care of all of our needs financially. They have the GDP of countries that do.
Instead we are paying federal taxes which are largely going for 2 things:
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
I am proposing a way to get health care, poverty, infrastructure, disaster and other funds. I am open to other plans that would accomplish this as well. Mine is just a suggestion of what we could do.
Yes. When I am living in the US I am in a Blue State too, although the minority Red largely agricultural part of the state would like to secede. They might feel differently if they were much more dependent on the state for financial well being.
We have a huge administrative process now. It is not a good one. We have a federal government that is being decimated, and Trump is taxing us without giving us representation. He has pretty much said he is going to turn on democrats and Blue states with our own money no less.
Let states secede or merge. I don't know. We are in an enormously earth shaking shift, we should be working with it, because just fighting it might not get us where we need to go. If we don't pay federal taxes they cannot be used to fulfill this agenda of paying money for no government services except all the money is being spent on military and getting rid of immigrants in a country made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring.
The problem with having democratic states surrounded by fascist states is that the fascists hate having the democratic states exist because then their people get ideas. Since we would still be the United States people could move. So, some might move to where there were fewer taxes, but if they cannot afford to pay privately for everything they need, then they might move to a state with higher taxes and more services.
I used to track which states pay a state supplemnent for SSI when I was writing about SSA. States like California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont have their state supplements administered by Social Security, which means recipients in these states receive a combined payment from the federal and state levels.
The maximum monthly SSI payment for 2025 is $967 for an individual and $1,450 for a couple. But Illinois has an OSS, optional state supplementation program. Illinois also has a Supportive Living Program, which is a Medicaid waiver program offering service-enriched housing options for individuals who would otherwise need nursing facility care.
Florida generally does not supplement SSI payments.
The state with the highest average SSI payment is the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), where recipients receive an average of $637.52 per month. This amount includes both the federal SSI payment and any state supplemental payments.
Illinois has a far better safety net than say, Florida, which basically has none. Florida didn't extend Medicaid. Florida doesn't have public assistance per se. E.G. workers injured in IL do far better that those with the same injury in FL or TX.
So you'd think that the laws of economics would force injured Floridians to move....but they don't. The reverse is happening. People leave IL or NY to move here, regardless -- even if they lose benefits.
Yes. That is a personal choice for the Floridians, but at the same time people in states that do fund their services with a tax base are choosing too. I am saying that states have the GDP to provide all services just like countries do with similar GDPs or smaller do. Illinois is around the size of Belgium but has a larger GDP. It can afford this.
Also, states could pool resources for investing in programs like health care.
We are experiencing a huge administrative process right now. The SCOTUS just said Trump could fire all civil servants. We are paying for a federal government that we aren't getting. The money is mostly going for 3 things.
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
My state is better off taking care of things on its own. There is not going to be any more disaster relief. DOGE and Palentir have sucked up all our data, and Trump wants to strip all Democrats of their US citizenship. I am thinking of ways to salvage what we can, and still function like a nation that fits our wealth, not like third world Russia where a third of the people do not have indoor plumbing.
That would essentially mean the entire realignment of the United States not to mention one of the greatest and most dislocating transhumance movements in modern history, and almost certainly its dissolution. If that is what you want, you should simply come out and say it.
Reading Jefferson is something to be done with great care. He was the epitome of the contradiction that was and remains the United States. A slave owner who preached freedom and individual rights, who did not believe that blacks were equal to whites. A man who supported the French Revolution even after it had devolved into bloody chaos. A man who thought we should toss everything out and start all over again with some regularity. A man who said that ‘We are all Republicans, We are all Federalists', but didn’t believe that for a minute, thinking all Federalists were closet monarchies. A man who thought the country would best consist of 'yeomen farmers’ on their land without any consideration for what was actually happening in a world in which industry was growing by leaps and bounds. A man who, despite his stature, was perennially in debt because he couldn’t control his own spending habits or his love of fine things. A man who slept with a slave and then disregarded their combined offspring. A man who, though his media myrmidons accused Washington of losing his marbles in order to gain political power.
Like some other geniuses, he could reach for the heights of intellectual achievement and soaring political dreams, but had a very hard time with reality on the ground.
I agree that our Republic is and always has been an imperfect bargain. I think we probably came closest to fulfilling our promise in the 1950’s and 1960’s with Brown v Board and the Civil Rights and Voting Acts, which of course the Republicans have been trying to dismantle ever since.
But the essential promise of the Constitution, with all its flaws remains our best chance, for it was and remains the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted. It constantly presents us with the chance to see if ‘We the People’ could together find just enough of the courage, the honesty, the compassion, the understanding, the tolerance, the humility, the humor, the wisdom, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much justice and equity as is humanly possible.
If we fail, it will not be our structure that is at fault; it will be we ourselves. And then no structure can then be expected to succeed.
I agree. That is why I said states should have their own budgets, and they can enforce and fund their own laws, including gun control, abortion, whether or not they want immigrants, environmental laws etc.
The only way to improve on what you so eloquently stated is to say, "If Republicans are so damn worried about crime why in God's name did they elect a convicted felon with an insurrectionist history to the Presidency?"
Now this realistic observational comment [from Michael] is a “slam dunk”…it should register a “like” from each and every soul who reads it—unless the reader is a supporter of or one of them from the “dark side”!!!
Dave, your few words summarize exactly what our country has faced during the village idiot's reign of terror. You win the blue ribbon for today's comments!
Thank you for your kind words. I see rough times ahead, but we need to keep fighting for our democracy. The day after the election, I wrote a list of 50 predictions. Sadly, most have already come true or are in the works. Here’s a link, if you are interested and another to a piece I wrote a couple of days ago. Heads up, the second post is rather dark.
Dave, your first link was prescient, indeed. We can hope that most of what has already transpired can be reversed, but it will take gigantic effort and a wrenching rethinking of the Supreme Court's structure.
Your second link was dark, as you warned. In the past, I've argued with others about execution, but there is a frightening, dark rationale among many that makes me despair that any agreement can ever be reached among the opposing sides. This country has a long history with the bloodthirsty.
Supreme Court term limits are required, I believe. One 12-year term, perhaps two, should be sufficient. The idea that lifetime appointments insulate justices from political pressure is clearly mythical, now. As for the death penalty, I too struggled with the idea. Serial killers and mass murderers, for example, seem beyond rehabilitation. But I finally landed on opposition to execution by the state because there are just too many cases where people are exonerated (by new or recanted testimony or DNA evidence). I play baseball in an “old man’s” league. One season, one of my teammates was just such a person. He spent 30 years in prison for murdering a cop. He always denied he had done it. DNA evidence found him innocent.
Dave, we have witnessed what lifetime appointments encourage. I agree with the idea of 12-year terms. Roberts, Alito and Thomas are ample warnings about the potential danger of lifetime appointments.
Capital punishment is a magnet for abuse, racial and otherwise. If people like Ted Bundy are considered, they certainly aren't candidates for rehabilitation, but as you say, there are many instances of innocent people who have been sentenced to death but are eventually proved to be innocent.
“Who’s to blame?’” Texas governor Greg Abbott repeated back to a reporter. “That’s the word choice of losers.” Tell that to the parents of those little girls killed at camp, you low life. My blood boils with anger at the thought of my daughter being among them. I'll be lighting a candle tonight for those little darlings.
Professor Richardson has repeatedly posted & did so once again TODAY that since 1980 Republican politicians: "passed tax cuts that moved more than $50 Trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%".
Repeat the reality of that massive WEALTH TRANSFER as often as needed.
I've heard this statistic many times (in this newsletter and elsewhere), and I often do repeat it to people. To be honest, I rarely get the reaction it inspired in me, which is outrage and disgust. Most of the time I get a blank look, of befuddlement perhaps, or questioning if I'm making up the number. People seem disinclined to believe or process what this statistic means. It's very frustrating actually, since I agree this needs to be shouted from every street corner and posted on billboards until the public at large begins to internalize the enormity of this theft.
The sheer size is likely the barrier to people's understanding. $50,000,000,000,000 is simply too vast to wrap one's brain around. There needs to be a concerted effort to conceptualize and communicate what this loss means. In terms of housing availability, homelessness, community cohesion and resources, living wage jobs (or not), and the resulting hopelessness and despair that arise from lost opportunities. Getting this message through to a wider audience would be a large step toward repudiating the abominable conservative governing ideology that keeps blocking democratic initiatives.
Thank you Syd for that real-world Comment. I have often watched Judges explain their duties to a Jury. When the Judge is reading the Jury instruction on "deductive reasoning", I am sure she is scanning the jury's faces for that "blank look".
Then comes the good part that part I love to watch. The Judge reaches down into her Bag of Real World Metaphors for instant understanding in the gut as well as the brain & communicates.
I knew that undergraduate course in Physiological Psych would come in handy some sunny day.
Their greed, and lust for power has desensitised them to the actual lives being lost from 47’s rein of terror. And it will continue to be that way until it affects them personally. These jerks think they can buy themselves immunity from climate catastrophe? The Earth they are destroying thinks otherwise.
the Abbott press conferences have been disgraceful -- first one was all about ass-kissing Trump and this last one was scolding people looking for answers, by using trite and meaningless football metaphors. Honestly it was disgusting.
It's hard to accept that Texans are glad Abbott and Paxton are their leaders in times of crisis: storm floods, hurricanes, or winter freezes. Texas has proven that hobbling state (or Federal) government for the sake of tax cuts benefits only a few. Too bad Citizens United added rocket fuel to the politics of greed.
Nice for he & family getting to leave our country for pleasure. He should have been on the next plane (of which there were many) to get his ass home to TX. Shame- 2nd time he's pulled the disappearing act on his state. When is his term up?
In 1964, my sister and two of our cousins were attending a church camp in on the Big Blue River near Milford, NE. Flash flooding caused the Big Blue out of it's banks any there was no loss of life thanks to the emergency warning systems. This was over 60 years ago.
This is 100% Trump's fault for firing the national weather service and NOAA personnel in a totally haphazard way. They couldn't have done a worse job of reducing personnel if they had thrown darts at the names of personnel on a wall.
And while we're at it, I totally blame Trump for wasting over $700 million for his failed bombing of Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.
Trump is partly, the teflon man because he denies everything and blames it on someone else. And while, I rarely agree with Greg Abbott, (the governor so stupid he went running in a thunderstorm), "assessing blame is for losers." And Trump is the BIGGEST LOSER. Someone needs to restart the BIGGEST LOSER TV series and every episode highlights Trump stooges. Andy Horowitz and Alexander Petri would be great writers.
I have to jump in, GJ. The loss of forecasters and one key person: coordinator of emergency warnings. The guy who coordinates the issuance and delivery of the warnings was one of the DOGE casualties and is certainly a part of the ineffectiveness of the warnings that were issued. County politicians, however, are the ones who failed to install an appropriate EWS because they didn't want to raise taxes...
You're right Ally. Texans certainly don't give a damn about safety of others, only about $$$$. But Trump never accepts blame for anything he's messed up-- NEVER.
My heart rips apart for the girls lost at camp and their families. Camp is a place of joy and of challenges faced and of invaluable growth. That this happened when all was not in place to be ready for a potential disaster is a tragedy beyond measure.
Every single one of those families should file a wrongful death suit against Trump, Abbott, and all those responsible for making the disastrous, shameful decisions that led to this tragedy. Keep them all tied up in litigation for years and bleed them dry. It is no consolation, but it would hit them where it hurts the most, since they have no conscience or remorse.
A loser answer from a loser admin. Word salad. These vile ass kissers killed all these people with their kowtowing to the head clown madman. The pain of these people who lost loved ones is pushed to the side to cover for the crazy lunatics who haven’t an effing clue what the hell they are doing. God help us but more and more people will die at their hands. And they couldn’t care less. The ones who put taco in office are to blame.
I’m not sure I agree the TX side of this crew is in incompetent. They’re just arrogantly heartless. It’s a sad situation when politicians don’t give a sh!t for their own children and don’t even hide it.
Abbot continued: “That’s the word choice of losers.” “Every football team makes mistakes" “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, ‘Don’t worry about it, ma’am, we’ve got this.’”
But it is those who are watching (or not) the game in the stands that are drowning. This is NOT a game. These are real people not footballs.
If memory serves, don't those teams study game videos now, trying to root out where they made mistakes, and how better to correct them? Isn't looking back on what happened and how it happened, the way we prevent things from happening again?
If Abbott and his cohorts spent more time improving infrastructure and less time litigating what bathroom people use and what books people read, I dare say this tragedy would not have had quite as horrific consequences. Priorities.
As a mother and grandmother, I thought the same thing. If I’d lost a child and/or his/her friends in that tragedy, and he said that to me, I’d shortly be jailed for murder. These are the most soulless people ever.
They won't. That was the most disgusting display of cowardice that I have ever seen from the law enforcement community.
I was the daytime cop in a town with one each elementary, middle, and high school. I met with the admins of all three schools (spent a lot of extra time at the elementary school) and explained, in detail what our department policy and training was in school shooting responses (we are a smaller agency, with often between 3-8 road deputies on duty at any time in a county almost the size of Connecticut). I then shared with them my commitment: If I did not have a second deputy with me by the time I had arrived and was ready for deployment, I would go in alone. Period. There were two guys who lived in the town that I had on speed dial who would respond from home (both were SWAT guys). We had a pretty good plan that was "extra curricular" to the department policy.
A heavy veil of darkness and delusion is rapidly descending. Build your Light everyone. Shine through it. Illumine it and tell others to do the same. @Heather Cox Richardson keep shining. Your Light is Brilliant.
👍 Indeed. Along with Joyce Vance covering the fine details of the legal process that Trump seems intent on dismantling, the two of these very fine women, have the ability to shed light on the daily chaos that our nation faces every single day and I applaud their amazingly hard work and commitment to bringing us a truthfully honest and intelligent viewpoint
Bryan Tyler Cohen, Pod Save the World, The Bulwark, Lawrence O’Donell, Rachel, Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Dahlia Lithwick, Jen Taub . . . . .and my absolute favorite? Ketanji Brown Jackson!!!!!
Please include Robert Hubbell's "Today's Edition". Fact filled, dedicated to accuracy, legal education, suitable outrage....always followed with a "can do" attitude and suggestions for positive action. Robert is a master at analysis and positive leadership.
Yes, the essence of what is going on in this country on a day to day basis is well documented by Heather Cox Richardson and Joyce Vance. To me the rest are extrapolating and though informative I find myself avoiding that avenue out of mental health necessity. I wish them all the best through these perilous times.
I admit to sneaking a peek occasionally when I wake up in a sweat from dreaming about the necessities that need my attention to continue to live as a childless, long time divorced, single white old woman who just wants to remain healthy and safe from the possibility of being forced to live in an assisted living facility again after making my way through during my eight months of a traumatic health crisis. While I adored many of my co-residents and staff, I felt like I might be the only resident who was up for the challenge of being free to continue my fight for democracy once I was able to live independently again.
Agreed. I am "tuned in," but I have a finite capacity for news consumption. I have subscribed to Brian Tyler Cohen's YouTube channel, and I find myself losing interest in his efforts. His access to "big names" is expanding, and I applaud his success. But the titles of his videos are sensationalist and frequently promise content that is nowhere to be found within the video. In other cases, content is "recycled" under a different title.
I have concluded – or I suspect – that he may be trying to attract Fox Entertainment viewers by imitating the Fox engagement patterns. If so, more power to him, but the sensationalist, hair-on-fire approach is not for me.
Agree - I read just enough from those whose analysis I trust to keep suitably informed. I think the legacy news has become afraid and maybe even cowardly. If journalism doesn't have our back --- then who does?
And I hope they all have the stamina for the next 3 1/2 years to construct daily aggressive ways to combat incoherence, fake news, the ongoing epidemic of irrationality and villainous alternative realities the trump era enjoys unleashing on us.
So the 'grey cardinal' behind our throne isn't Richelieu or Wolsey, but PeeWee German instead. And on the gold-plated throne sits a demented toddler, who can't make up his mind if he's a criminal, an economist, a doctor, a lawyer or interior decorator because what passes for a mind now looks like a piece of rancid Stilton with holes. You can see it in his eyes. Why the hell don't more reporters NOTICE this? Dementia has physical symptoms, not just mental ones. Pam Bondi might go 'oooh, aaaah, shiny things!' when he wanders off into gold-leafed lala land, but the rest of us aren't being paid to lie like that.
Aside from fascism and dementia, the only discernible policy at the White House and Congress seems to be 'hate taxes.' For generations, the GOP has cultivated its know-nothing poison at the heart of questions to Texas's pathetic excuse for a governor about whether deep cuts to NOAA and the DOGE madness played a role in the flooding deaths. "Don't worry about it, ma'am," he said. It would have been more honest just to say: 'Slam, BAM! thank yew, ma'am.' For him, we're all just prostitutes and not entitled to ask questions of our johns.
In a speech made as far back as 1904, a later Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: "taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society...with them [we] buy civilization." For decades, Republicans attacked that, while quietly changing "pay" to "borrow." Too chickenshit to go on record as opposing civilization, they're more than willing to plunge all of us into deep debt -- at all the wrong times -- just to ensure this fake-populist scam keeps getting them elected to office.
Well never get back our civilization until we overcome the idiot precepts PeeWee German now uses as a non-existent checking account to send armed goons on "demonstrations" in Los Angeles just to showcase their lawlessness and small phalluses.
ICTT, yes. But I suggest that Miller and Vought find it convenient to have a puppet who is completely demented but who can stand as a figurehead for the idiots' delight members of Congress and the 35% or so of the electorate whose prejudices and self-absorbed whining are being reinforced by them. The Felon can be turned on (literally) when cameras are directed at him--which was evident in the hilarious photo session with the king and queen of The Netherlands a couple weeks ago (Queen Máxima can be seen mimicking the Felon's facial gestures quite gleefully)--and is moribund the rest of the time. And because he loves to (cos)play Don Corleone, the press gets all titillated by his threatening posture. I have consistently pointed out in the last year (also during the first administration) that if Miller gets cut out of the picture, the rest of the hydra heads will also die.
One day their demented puppet will wander into the White House briefing room with red tie and jacket on top, and nothing but adult diapers below, and THEN they'll have a real problem 'splaining that one to us...
Linda, I think he does dress himself. I've noticed that he uses a technique followed by men who are colorblind. All his suits are dark, black or navy, with the occasional royal blue when he wants to stand out. These are paired only with white shirts and neckties in bright primary colors, red, blue and yellow, with a preference for red. This is a "mistake-proof" system, like "Garanimals" for a grown man.
He might do his own makeup but the bright blue suit was (I think--all the Stepford Wives blend into one another) Laura Loomer's suggestion because it is "slimming." That came out when he appeared in it at the pope's funeral.
The sad part is I’ve been involved over the last 40 years and I’m just blown away at all of this. I thought it would hold, but it looks pretty frayed around the edges. No offense. We’ll get through this.
Trump is accountable for the Texas flood disaster as his mass firing of NOAA agents failed to give warnings in time. Indeeed, like any CEO of a private company, a president is accountable for national disasters.
One friend heard a pundit say that we should all start addressing Stephen Miller as “President Miller” so that Trump would become jealous, and there would be increased friction between them. Your thoughts?
President Miller! Wonderful. Then we could call Trump a loser (since he is one) because he hates that most of all. Must have been what his father called him aa a boy since he couldn't measure up to his brother. Donald the Loser. New hats, anyone???
I have a very small, non-fact-based theory that all of his adherents were outcasts, bullied, unloved, ignored individuals who are celebrating, with felon47, their retribution tour to feed their cold, unloved and unloving, cruel, sick, and twisted little hearts. I cannot imagine, aside from obvious psychopathy, a person growing up with love could turn out as inwardly hideous as these people.
Jeannette, I’ve longed for a red hat with a very large “L” with smaller letters following… “oser”. Or perhaps the image on the front of the cap of a hand making the mocking “L” shape with an extended forefinger and thumb. Or maybe “45 dumb/47 dumber”. Oh, the delicious “cap”tions we could come up with!!!
I was recently on a Zoom call mainly of Canadians, but the two American participants wore red hats saying "We hate him too". They were very welcome at the meeting.
A protester I met Tuesday, said she and her husband returned from Canada recently, and (I believe), mentioned Canadian friends that tried to enter the US as they normally do but were refused entry after being asked if they supported President Trump. They said they did not in no uncertain words. They tried again later at a different crossing, without saying anything critical of him but they were apparently listed as rejected once so they can't cross anywhere else either.
I'd suggest just telling them it isn't any of their business.
This is damn scary….police/autocratic state. Allegiance to THIS guy….really, you choose THIS guy to betray the Constitution for???? Sadly the USA has become a joke of a disaster of a comedic tragedy of a spoof of the worst Twilight Zone episode EVER.
Lawlesness. Fickle tariff chaos. Despotic ICE and other masked Gestapo terrorism.
How did Americans get so ready for “normalizing” so much White House fumbling, incompetence, and criminality? – that gerund a gift to us from the most recent, new Substack of Sarah Kendzior.
If we’ve sharp minds, we know “Let’s be careful out there,” from the daily morning parting words of the old Hill Street Blues dispatch sergeant. We know the more to sharpen us we may anticipate life’s complications. We may invite them all the better if we whet our debts to how others handle the human, from that old TV series, from Sarah Kendzior’s good books prior to her Substack, and from the books and videos others of Heather’s commenters here often volunteer.
It's called being literate.
Ain’t none of that in the White House. Not in the Quisling Republican Congress. Not on the majority corrupt Clarence court. Nor in the press corps ever trundling after those many mediocrities.
Hello Phil... There is a new Book Released called "2024" that discusses some of Promises made by DJT to his MegaDonors... Disgusting.... Shame On All... "2024" is written by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf. The political news website Axios published excerpts of the book on Tuesday.... Have You Noticed That There Are No MAGA Hats Among The Kerr County Rescuers?...
I put 2024, and the names Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf in my search engine.
And thanks, Apache -- up came an interview video of all three with Sam Stein.
Seems like a fine accounting.
Kerr County. I've been to that part of Texas (more than once), and only met decent folks.
I think MAGA hats across the U.S. will be disappearing, as even those fellow Americans register the massive betrayal on them by their orange cheerleader for the cynical rich.
We need to splash the face and story of that young USCG Petty Officer (whose name sadly escapes me) who saved so many during the floods all over the media as a shining example of a true American. Drown of the haters with the actions of people showing the best we are capable of.
Hello Phil... Netanyahu was in DC the past two days... At a Whitehouse Dinner, Netanyahu presented a Letter to DJT that stated that Netanyahu is Nominating DJT for the Nobel Peace Prize... Netanyahu Who in February 2025 broke the Gaza Ceasefire... Netanyahu Who Unilaterally started Bombing Iran... All this for Netanyahu's Political Survival?.... It seems that at this Point, Netanyahu needs DJT...
Netanyahu's delivery of that letter is the most blatant ass-kissing gesture of the last week - and there were so many of them to choose from. One violent thug nominating another violent thug for a peace prize. It if weren't so appalling, it would be comical. Bizarro-world.
At least it will GUARANTEE that the Nobel Prize Committee won't be awarding Baby Trumpy with any plaques, honors, cups, flowers, or tributes calling him "Daddy." Not that there was much chance of that before, but....
Dear Lord. Could Netanyahu’s ability to flatter DJT’s ego get any better from this very same man who has used his devious charm to get want he needs in order to continue with his goal take over Palestine while destroying the lives of millions of innocent people in Gaza?
How does the Nobel Prize committee select the winners? For the Peace Prize, what peace has trump accomplished? I don’t get why anyone thinks that person deserves that Nobel!
Hi Phil, in terms of the preparation for "normalizing" the acceptance of the current situation, I've been reading Andy Borowitz's "Profiles in Ignorance". His essay breaks it down into three phases "Ridicule", "Acceptance" and finally the current phase "Celebration" of Ignorance.
You've probably read it, but to me it very clearly lays out the iterative dumbing down of leaders, and at the same time preparation of the voter base for what currently exists. It's very insightful and very well done.
Illiteracy is rampant among the MAGA masses and in many of the sycophants in the hand picked ultra loyalists in the Trump Administration, Phil. But there are also highly educated people in powerful government positions, people who might be called intellectuals, who nonetheless allow their religious/political beliefs and self-interests to shape their decisions and actions. Think John Roberts, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, there are many of them. Many years ago, I used to think of Liz Cheney as dangerous for this reason, but she turned out to have a moral center. I wonder if any of the others will turn, or whether they are in this too deeply.
They will turn like irrigation water but we must set the dam first. Their history of Trump hatred turned darling affection shows a sycophantic gene is awry. They remind me of the snarling of jackals circling the kill site looking to share in the booty of the lions kill. As to highly educated, well ok, but I prefer to consider them as maybe exposed to education. You are spot on to separate these extreme predators for sure. I think Cheney should get mention for her profiles in courage. She is still a woman who sets dams.
You're right to call it what it is, lawlessness wrapped in theater, hollowed out of meaning. We’re watching an entire government morph into a performance for power, not service. ICE raids staged like military ops, courts hijacked by ideologues, media numbed into routine. The real danger is not just the corruption, it is how quickly people adjust to it. That is what Kendzior warns: normalization is the final stage of collapse.
Your invocation of literacy hits hard. This is not just about reading books. It is about reading the moment, seeing the arc, naming what is unfolding before it swallows us. The “Clarence court,” the “Quisling Congress,” the parade of cowards and cronies, none of it happens in isolation. It happens because we have let cynicism replace citizenship.
We still have choices. But they are shrinking. And as you said, sharpening the mind is no longer a luxury. It is the only way to survive what is coming.
When Trump was a young adult, he wanted to be an actor. Of course his tyrannical father would not have that. So he’s turned his political “career,” if not the rest of his endeavors, into a giant performance, changing roles as necessary.
Emily, I think his abuse of language is a reflection of his learning disability exacerbated by his family's refusal to help him overcome it. Instead, Fred Trump just bought Donald's so-called "education" when Donald's cheating was unsuccessful.
Likewise, Donald's abuse of power is a reflection of the Trump patriarchy's habit of skirting and outright breaking the law. Roy Cohn taught him how to exploit our permissive legal system to ignore ethics and break laws, then stymie the courts from holding him accountable.
You're spot on, but it's the Roberts Court. I know, Clarence was there first, but he IS the Chief Justice. He benignly watches while all that he wishes comes true.
Jen, thank you. I know that Thomas and Alito are the "movers", but John Roberts is CJ, and it is "his" court. I also thank you for knowing there is no apostrophe his name.
Andy Borowitz ran a several-week series on his Substack earlier this year to nominate and select the Quisling of the year among the members of the administration. It was a hard fought contest ... I can't remember who 'won', and it hardly matters, there are so many credible contestants.
TRUMP, BY GUTTING FEMA AND WEATHER PROFESSIONALS, IS KILLING CLIMATE CHANGE VICTIMS
Trump doesn’t give a s++t about the American people. As candidate he excoriated FEMA and President Biden when North Carolina suffered massive storm damage. Ditto with the horrendous fires in California, when Trump was tremendously critical of the governor and every aspect of this natural disaster.
As #47, I am unaware that he has taken any public initiative when there have been climate disasters. I recall recently in Missouri that over 100 people were killed in tornados. There have been other disasters in southern MAGA states.
Meanwhile, FEMA has been decimated both my Chainsaw Musk’s DOGE and by Trump’s sycophant administrators who have gutted FEMA. Similarly, by DOGE and cabinet-level action, many federal weather professionals related to ‘climate change’ have been significantly reduced.
When over 200 human beings have died in the river flooding in Texas, Trump has ‘suddenly’ recognized that ‘climate change’ kills and that the federal government has some tangential responsibility in such disasters. BUT he and his young White House press secretary, as well as Governor Abbott, are publicly appalled by criticism that Trump’s and Abbott’s failure to prepare for such disasters are their responsibilty.
Might I remind them: ‘what is fit for the goose is fit for the gander.’
Trump’s FEMA disaster reflects his absolute disinterest in the lives of the great majority of the American people. Tax cuts (principally for wealthy individuals and corporations) with massive and surging federal debt I find unconscionable. Seeking to partially offset this by cutting Medicaid (dropping over 10,000,000 individuals from health insurance) and other massive slashing of federal social services including SNAP (20% of the American people receive federal food supplements) I consider criminal.
I repeat myself: TRUMP DOESN’T GIVE A S++T ABOUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Meanwhile, in his current presidency he has, in less than six months, added $1-2,000,000,000 (according to the New York Times and Washington Post) to his personal wealth through his Oval Office machinations.
Good to hear from you, Keith! I thought it was sad/funny/stupid that ‘Rump momentarily tried to “blame” Biden for the tragedy in TX….until he waffled and kinda walked it back, no doubt realizing the statement of blame made NO sense and he’d be roasted if he persisted. I still have to splash cold water on my face from time to time to “come to” and realize he really IS the president, or as I call him the “Pretendident”. I keep hoping I’ll wake up from this nightmare. You’ve seen/experienced much in your long career, and I wonder in your considered opinion where you would place Trump in the pantheon of Presidents, and why? [Not meaning to give a homework assignment, it’s just you’ve seen & been privy to so much in gov’t service that I value your perspective.]☮️
As a NH native, I will be forever grateful (NOT) to Trump for supplanting Franklin Pierce as our nation's WORST president - or as you so aptly put it "pretendident" :)
Barbara We went to Long Island for a family Fourth. The wi fi didn’t work, so we were Internetless for five days. Now I know what an alcoholic must feel going ‘cold turkey.’
Our Pretendident is a krazy king. I recall what happened to Charles I, and he didn’t deliberately screw up his country.
Steve Pierce had some excuse for being a dreadful president because of the loss of his son. Thankfully Buchanan was gay and had no issue. With King Donald, #47 is worse than #45, which makes him the two worst presidents in American history.
Thanks, Keith! I thought the other day, as Prez’s go, #45 was bad…..and #47 is worse. Ta-bum-tsssss! Will have to read up on Pierce and Buchanan, as only have vague knowledge of their time in office. Re going wireless…I was explaining to a youngin’ (to me at least) about having to go, gasp!, to the library to research things….now in the comfort of home we just log into the ‘net to have a vast array of data at hand. I still, however, try to always vet the info/source of the info I seek and am skeptical of much out there with a “yeah? prove it” state of mind. Hope being ‘net free was, um, freeing after all…like taking walks or actually talking with each other!!!! Sounds kinda nice actually!
Yes, Dale, I enjoy Jeff’s posts very much, as I do Jay Kuo’s Saturday Substack “For Skeets and Giggles”…a compendium of skewer’s, puns, vids, etc. of all things political and fun animal vids at the end for a “psyche cleanse” for the week. We sure do need our laughs to balance out the grief/outrage!
Barbara, thanks for the referral. Haven't heard of Jay Kuo before, but I'll check him out. The occasional laugh helps me avoid doing something that could land me in prison!
Yes, the corruption is breath-taking, and probably just getting started. Soon we will have weapons systems, food AID, and coal/oil subsidies that get turned magically into yachts, etc.
I have a friend who works for FEMA. He kept his job because he is a trainer, but now has no one to train. Under Biden he spent about half his time deployed to places like TX, FL and LA, because of personnel shortages. Now, as far as I know, he has not been deployed to TX, even with the even more acute lack of trained people.
As we saw during '45, Trump and his people are very good and manufacturing and then 'solving' crises. Solving actual crises, however, seems to elude them. The difference now being they have doubled down on the "we got this" messages, to the point where they actually believe them themselves. This is where mental illness and incompetence (not just Trump's) and policy intersect. The wizard is just a tired, crazy old man. His flying monkeys are children with guns.
Somewhere, I read the statement of a knowledgable man that the $20 million cost of building the Everglades detention facility* is suspicious. For what is there, even a "rapid-build" operation should have cost about $5 million, suggesting that $15 million of taxpayer dollars went somewhere other than the building of that facility.
The $450 million annual operating budget is equally suspicious. Someone is pocketing a shitload of cash from this deportation scam.
*I refuse to call it by the cute brand offered by the Trump regime and repeated by the press.
Dale Hemingway did pretty well with his stream of conscience style of writing. Indeed, that’s what I do when I riff of Heather’s posts at 3:30 am, when I’ve just awakened because of a painful back.
I am generally pleased with the substance, though a middle of the night proofreader would be appreciated.
Project 2025 wants to abolish FEMA, partly because it is a successful federal program that helps overcome states' inability to deal with a cross-border or super expensive disaster on their own, but also because its existence and activities tend to be evidence that climate change is real. Project 2025 is among many other evil things a prop to the oil and gas industry so has to believe that climate change is a hoax.
Well, if it's any consolation, it appears that the AMOC is reversing, a climate changing event we've been anticipating for a few decades. It's now happening, according to a paper published last week.
Why be happy?
Because it's going to happen fast, and change things fast. And the southern
Atlantic coast of North America is going see it hardest and fastest. Buh bye, mar a lago.
The dysfunction is mind boggling. What I fail to understand about all the sycophants surrounding andsupporting Trump especially those who have post Trump political ambitions, is how could they not have paid attention to those whose careers and reputations were ruined during Trump’s first term as president. Everything Trump has ever touched in his life has failed. Trump’s failures this time around will impact the country so badly that not only will careers be destroyed but we will be decades cleaning up the mess he is making.
I'm not convinced these are "failures." Any of them. They are part of his life practice to strip anything of value from any asset he can get his hands on, and damn the consequences for anyone else. He's the kid who pokes a hole on the ball, who kicks over the sand castle, who pulls chairs out from under people as they sit down, who laughs and jeers and points fingers at anyone who is hurt, who prides himself on his vapidity, on his ability to hurt others, on his immunity from pushback. He's fat and fatuous and mean as the day is long. And the crowd around him, his sycophants and fellow travelers are just as bad. Just as mean. Just as miserly of spirit or heart.
Mean as a spitting cobra and smelly as a skunk. What he can't just wreck he tries to claim credit for. 'It was I, all along, Mighty Mouse, who saved you, even though it was all Joe Biden's ideas and doing.'
Part of the package of a psychopath who boasts than when you're famous, you can grab things that don't belong to you because the Supreme Court lets you do it.
" it wouldn't be hard for us to do it" In reference to taking over NY city, and DC. About as hard as ending the Russia Ukraine war in one day Donny VonShitzinpants?? Every day is closer to a full police state. How long before real journalists are imprisoned, and protest is made illegal? Scary times.
Every single reporter, news reader, interviewer needs to pause after each "story", look up and say "bullshit". That is the language and brevity that appears republicans can handle. We are living under a dictatorship that is blatantly taking down the country. The level of incompetence is astounding even for a so-called republican "administration".
Every.Single.Day is a nightmare for democracy, the environment, global and domestic economic well being, civility and sanity. Never-the-less people are traveling and vacationing like there is nothing happening which works individually to maintain joy and balance but it shows the difficulty of fighting all of this on a massive physical scale.
So many of us haven't been able to breathe since trump appeared on the national scene but with the heat index again settled in over 100 degrees in Massachusetts, it's physically impossible. And, speaking of breathing, one of my closest friends is planning to visit her daughter in Altadena, CA (house survived but still uninhabitable) where the cleanup for residents is another disaster- the contamination remains epic. Not seeing that on the "news" anymore.
Indeed. Everything this maladministration is doing is absolute BULLSHIT!
And yes, breathing in MA is getting to be like breathing in FL. I do my little bit of "farming" from 6 to 8 AM and have to quit. Go home, change out drenched clothing, hide inside.
30 years ago I didn't have an air conditioner. Just a few days of serious heat.
25 years ago, we operated inns in Maine. AC was not needed. Open the windows at night.
20 years ago AC became an essential amenity if you wanted guests in your B&B.
Now? We have become inside creatures. Hiding from the hot wet blanket called weather.
It's like that in SW MO now, too. If I don't get out early to do chores and walk the dog, then I don't get out at all. It feels like Miami here in the morning. I can't take the heat anymore and I spent a career working outdoors in the weather.
The South today Bill. From the mid 70’s until the early 90’s I didn’t have AC in my craftsman home here in Atlanta. I had shade from hundred year old oaks
Then a hurricane passing west of us on its way north pushed one of those oaks over, and the city killed the other one removing the stump, presto no shade. Now I’m like you doing most of my gardening early in the day before I shower with the AC set to the upper 70’s. I love the long days of summer, but not the intense heat.
The Trump dictatorship grows by the day as Stephen Miller’s power and hate for democracy becomes more obvious.
Your sources support your letter as well as indicate that the rapidly rising corruption and incompetence of the Trump Administration is becoming more blatant.
The Supreme Court’s Republican majority do not have the courage to stand up to Trump and Miller’s growing authoritarianism either.
Not sure it has anything to do with courage. Six members of SCOTUS are in fact part of the scheme. They are tools of and an integral part of the plot to install a plutocracy.
We didn't get here by accident or just by the clever con campaign of $trump. There is big oligarch money behind this power grab. And they are colluding with angry disenfranchised Bible Thumping MAGA Haters.
I can imagine Stephen Miller as Maximilien Robespierre. "Eliminates" his enemies until he has gone too far. Our very own "Terror" has just begun. Robespierre was very popular among his supporters and then not so much...
Mary Kay, I agree with Bill Alstrom that courage, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the Extreme Court.
I have often referred to Clarence Thomas as a "one-man sleeper cell," installed as a token Black placeholder to discourage the nomination of any other Black judges who would more likely be of a liberal mindset. Recall that for 30 years, he sat like a silent bump on the bench, never asking a question during oral arguments nor writing significant opinions. With the sudden addition of Leonard Leo's protégés, corrupt Clarence has found his voice, and it's an ugly one, in full-throated support of removing others' rights and cheering Trump's foray into dictatorship.
SCOTUS has been redirected from its co-equal power as a check on the executive and legislative branches to an enabler of "centralized executive authority," aka dictatorship.
I would like to see a poll showing Trump's support dropping amongst his MAGA supporters. Ah... here we go (link below) ... a report dated July 3rd.
But the larger problem I see is Trump probably doesn't care about polls at this point, because he is in total revenge and purification mode. He's determined to mold America into his white supremacist image of what should be. And there's enough time - and money for ICE now - that I expect Trump to go forward with his "We will run Los Angeles" threat (and maybe NYC as well) by declaring a national emergency. And Steven Miller will spearhead all of these plans, from an operation management perspective. Just thinking out loud here.
Thanks, Steve. As I am a long term optimist (getting harder every day) I do believe that ultimately, a president gets blamed for everything. Now that the traditional "honeymoon" is over, he will own everything. I still hear people laughing as they say "It's Obama's fault!"
What will move $trump's polling to a point of complete "no confidence"? Perhaps a combination of this list in no particular order of impact power:
Reduction in Veterans Care - many are part of Trump's base, friends and relatives
Closing of regional hospitals - lack of care, deaths, loss of jobs!
International incompetence - getting more involved in the Middle East, Ukraine chaos
FEMA - not being there for Americans as we have come to expect
NOAA and NWS - cutting staff, too few weather balloons - disasters, insufficient warnings
Immigration Deportation Overreach - loss of friends, coworkers. loss of key workers leading to shortages of food and other essentials, rising prices...
Tariffs - business uncertainty, businesses refrain from hiring or investing for lack of stable policies, unemployment grows, trading partners seek other nations to partner with, and rising prices...
Ultimately, a combination of bad policies hitting home. The pendulum will swing. I hope.
The pendulum will swing. But it's still on it's arc to worse occurrences: the pile of bodies in Texas will be repeated in other states as the hurricane season progresses, and a gutted NOAA fails us again. The ICE budget will remove even more from FEMA, and continue the expansion of concentration camps and kidnappings. The summer's only started.
I think his enablers are getting to indulge their most white supremacist, vengeful fantasies, and keeping Trump rambling about the possibility of gold leaf in the corners of the White House suits them fine.
The myth of King Midas tells the story of a greedy king who receives a wish from the god Dionysus, granting him the power to turn everything he touches into gold. Initially delighted, Midas soon discovers the curse of his wish when his food and even his daughter turn to gold. He learns a valuable lesson about the dangers of greed and the importance of appreciating what truly matters in life.
There was an OpEd in the WSJ (that progressive bastion) two days ago telling its readers to blame Cruel Nature for the Texas flood, not DOGE’s cuts.
Hard to reach for a greater absurdity. Nature is the Great Mechanic that gave us the Earth and all that therein is; the Himalayas and the Rockies, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and all the other places of unimaginable beauty not remotely achievable by human beings. Not content with the original, it is constantly at work reshaping, refreshing, remolding, revitalizing. Most often that work is so slow that a man might not see more than a bit of it in a lifetime. But at times, yes, it is rapid and can be violent. But it is all of a piece, and calling it ‘cruel' is as pointless as blaming the sun for shining or the ocean for its tides. In truth, we in our hubris pose a far greater threat to Nature than it does to us.
But regardless of what DOGE’s actions may or may not have had in this particular instance, mindlessly gutting the very agencies that teach us about Nature’s activities, do their best to warn us when it is about to make a violent change, and help us to recover afterwards is both pointlessly cruel and unutterable stupid.
We have the go fortune to be sentient beings on an endlessly beautiful and nourishing planet, and yeah, a fairly hazardous one. We also have the capacity to anticipate, blunt, avoid, or transform some of those hazards, and to share a pretty satisfying life for most of us most of the time, IF we play our cards right; but childish ego seems to get in the way.
A sad waste of a species conscious of the world/universe (tho’ we really don’t know much about other sentient beings we share our home with…some are just starting to explore this)…but if we continue to lay waste to our home, Gaia, she can shrug or flick us off as one might a mosquito trying to suck blood. Evolution would continue, but perhaps not come up with another “mind” quite like humans—tho perchance some small group might survive and live more in balance on this planet—no towering spires, feats of technology or space travel, just life and being. I wonder…. As I have oft said, the only reason I want to live forever is find out how it all turns out.
You know very well that it turns out bad. Very bad. Random bad. The greatest gift is finding the beauty within our boundaries. The Barbara Keatings and Heather Coxs’. The professor Wheelocks, the JD Texans, the Marlene Bigleys, those who nurture with care and dignity. This list is strictly random good. If your name is not here I read you. Trust me you are here as well. As I have said we all lay down together and Rex added the importance of the circumstance is not lost. It turns out just as you imagine.
If we were truly a "sentient" species, EVERY news outlet would put Climate Concerns, and solutions thereof, at the top of the fold, front page, first item spoken...EVERY DAY as THE most important subject in the history and future of civilization.
The impact of humans on our planet is so enormous, so beyond the worst Sci Fi novel that we should be thinking about it as if a LARGE asteroid was headed directly at the Earth.
Polar ice is melting. Polar ice has been containing magma - preventing volcanoes from erupting. (Yes! Volcanoes under the ice!) The pressure is beyond measurement. One large eruption away from dystopia. Picture an enormous volcano spewing lava over a polar ice cap, sending clouds of ash and toxic gases into our atmosphere. A temporary cooling followed by more heating as carbon dioxide is added. Seas rising...
A small example is Iceland where the ice is disappearing and eruptions are increasing.
But we are fiddling around, most of us oblivious...and we wonder why aliens have not officially visited us.
There are so many MAGA doctors in the US that love Trump and the Republicans. They hate to be forced to pay taxes on the $250,000 plus salaries while underpaying their staffs.
If Trump wants to reduce crime in DC he should leave and take the rest of his lawless cabinet with him.
We all wish for that. The sooner the better.
DC better hurry up and become a state. It would put it in a better position to keep Trump from taking over.
I have been saying we should have a campaign against the government complaining about The Federal Government has too much Overreach and insist on Support for States Rights.
I also am going to say that someone should be working on a campaign to stop us from paying Federal taxes at all, and let us just pay state taxes and have our states fund everything. The goal would be to defund Trump.
All of the states can pay a fee for military support, as well as have their own militaries. Without a federal government that is collecting taxes we can get rid of the IRS. Each state has to have their own. However, it would then not be accessible by DOGE.
I am from Illinois, which has a population around the size of Belgium. California has a population around the size of Poland or Ukraine, and Wyoming has a population around the size of Montenegro. If states ran themselves, and they pooled resources for investment with states that they wanted to, that would give the Republicans what they want in terms of lowering taxes because it would be up to individual states. It might save the Blue States from going down with the ship. I see us setting up our states like independents nation-states, and they should have the right to make their own trade agreements with each other and with other countries.
"Individual nation states" is a horrible idea. You are talking about disbanding our nation altogether. The Founding Fathers recognized that unity via federal government was essential to defense and trade. We have FEMA because local and state budgets can't handle the cost of disaster recovery on their own. That's how interstate highways gets built, and how food and medicines are examined for safety, etc. we don't need to change our Constitution, we need to insist all branches of government uphold it and follow our laws.
Once again, the problem stems from the Congress and the Supreme Court not doing their jobs. By a vote of one or two votes in each house the Republicans gave Trump everything he wanted. There was no negotiation or compromise even though the Congress is almost even. The courts stopped Trump overreach of power but the Supreme Court reverses them 80% of the time. They are the ones who have ripped up the Constitution for him.
By the way, do you know how many times Kamala Harris put the boat to break a tie in the Senate 33 times. That’s what happens when hypocrites make a false case a one-sided double standard case. At two times she had a boat having to do with budget issues to break a tie. That’s the problem with so many people here they only hear out of the left ear, and only see out of her left eye
Was it a row boat or a power boat? I would suggest that basic literacy and the ability to edit one’s comments should be a criteria be being taken seriously. Your rants seriously challenge the standard.
Unfortunately there is no way to edit one’s comments once posted and I see a typo in my own which should of course read “a criteria to be taken seriously…”
I voice text everything because here’s the deal…CONTENT REIGNS OVER FORM ALL THE TIME. i’m not doing my college dissertation or my thesis, so take your spelling bee elsewhere. But I promise not to end the sentence with a preposition or have a dangling participle Would you please focus on what’s important ? BeCause I have to respond to so much pessimism, depression, anxiety, hoaxes, and fears of the future. I have a lot of work to do here. You don’t have to take me seriously, no problem. Just read the facts and take any of those seriously because many people only hear out of the left ear and only see out of their left eye because they’re being led down a gullible road by somebody who’s a left-wing political advocate/activist that used to be a WELL-Credentialed historian in my opinion.
Which part of the budget bill do you like best … the tax cuts on billionaires at the expense of the poorest Americans, or the trillions the debt load will be increased by?
Another loser with a BROKEN crystal ball. And don’t bother to take your Ouija board out of the closet either and go see a different fortuneteller.
People are really ignorant. You may be very intelligent, but you’re unbelievably ignorant. And I’m pretty sure you know the difference. You have no idea how much that the deficit will be increased by and neither does the CBO nor anyone else until it actually happens and it just so happens and it’s hard for me even to believe that for the THE TREASURY DEPT JUST RELEASED THE DATA FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE 2025…AND FOR THE FIRST MONTH IN 20 YEARS WE HAD A BUDGET SURPLUS!!! Ooooooops. By the way, just in case, you didn’t know, that’s the opposite of a deficit LMAO.
Do you have any idea how much of the income tax the billionaires pay this country?
And Ruth, I would love to hear you answer this question that’s all you have to do is just answer this question are we good for this discussion?
HERE IT IS…How do you give a tax cut to somebody who doesn’t pay tax in the first place?
Just give me an answer to that I’d love to hear what you think and then I will destroy your answer.
Go look up what percentage of income earners pay what percentage of the income tax in this country. It will help you with your lack of facts, and relieve some of your ignorance. Looking forward to your answer. In all fairness, I’ll give you a hint. Look up what percentage of the income tax is this country was paid by the bottom, 50% of income earners. Then, perhaps you’ll unravel the secret lying in my question. lol. Have a good night, and I honestly cannot wait to hear your response
LMAO, so when did the Supreme Court stop doing their job? They are doing their job you just don’t like the job they’re doing. You loved it when Roe v. Wade came out but now you don’t. And now, thanks to Donald Trump. The solution is up to the voters in each state not to a court.
So much for the Democrats believing in democracy. Sickening
This opposing point of view has some validity. Where I disagree most strongly is when the six members of this court totally disregard the Constitution or precedent. They protected Trump from ever going to trial for Jan 6th. Maybe he was innocent, but he was indicted. Then they went a step further and said he was mostly immune -- which is exactly the opposite of what is written in the Constitution. This court also finds ways to ALWAYS rule for profits over people. They totally disregard how their decisions cause suffering and death, but protect Christianity, business owners, gun manufacturers, and extreme Republican policies.
They are not just extremists, they are corrupt, arrogant, and isolated from the American people who they are supposed to protect.
I may not be totally technical, but my layman's point of view of trump's immunity is that if it is declared because national security (enemies within and without) or some arcane ruling in the late 1800's . EVERYTHING WILL be national related in some obfuscated way.
Every single Trump court case was a trumped up bullshit case that had no validity whatsoever and everybody but far lefties realize that and that’s why over 77 million people voted for a convicted felon because he was not a convicted felon the reality he was a convicted felon in the city of New York and the people of New York who came up with The only way to stop him because the hate was so strong. Their star witnesses was a convicted perjurer and a porn star. And everything else is gone now including the judge whose daughter was a political fundraiser for the Democrats and undervalued his property by over a quarter of $1 billion.
Right now 330 million people are being protected because they’re not being overrun by illegal criminals coming in our southern border on purpose. That’s right I said on purpose because they wanted to get them to vote in the sure enough they tried to do it.
There’s nobody causing more suffering and death than planned parenthood. Who killed 400,000 babies last year before they had a chance to breathe the air or go to school. Your Heather is bemoaning the 108 children that died and try to blame it on the political party. The most embarrassing post of her career in my opinion.
400,000 abortions, and we pay for them.
And here’s something that will scare the left, if they realized what they’re supporting in these abortions. Statistics demonstrate the blacks abort their children, a lot more frequently than whites or Hispanics and those same statistics indicate that if the blacks didn’t abort their children at the rate that they do that the black population of United States would now be 38% of the population versus 14%. Keep supporting the abortion while you’re supporting racism!
Why anyone thinks it’s worth the time and effort to respond to you is a mystery. I guess it makes them feel good because it is obviously a pointless exercise. I find your anti-choice “pro-life” argument particularly interesting in that the impact of Trump and DOGE’s actions in killing USAID, decimating NIH research and allowing RFK to run rampant, and the cuts to Medicaid will indisputably result in the deaths of millions of children abroad and the pain, suffering and death of thousands, if not millions of people in the U.S. I just always wonder why they don’t also deserve the right to life?
They will not answer why abortion should be left up to the States, but not cooperation or non-cooperation with ICE.
“Leaving it up to the states” to choose their own laws has created chaos, division among the different constituencies within each state, fiefdoms, ridiculously punitive measures, unequal access to health care which most every other first world country treats as a human right, and a damaging emphasis on inappropriate control. Why not “leave it up to the individual” to choose their own path in consultation with their doctor and their spiritual beliefs.
Well let me try to translate that for you. It’s called the voters …it’s called democracy. There is no chaos, and every law that comes out creates division. To some extent some people agree others don’t. In a democracy, the concept is majority rules. The administration could’ve easily said abortion is illegal… but he did the next best thing.
There is a lot of argument that supports that. Many people feel it’s not their job to pay for someone else’s abortion. They made a mistake and got pregnant by error rather than by rape or incest. Then they should pay for it themselves. This is not a job for the government to pay.
People who don’t believe in abortion don’t wanna fun planned parenthood as they kill 400,000 babies a year.
There are treatments that don’t qualify as basic medical care, not only this one.
People are not entitled to their own constitution. But it’s funny, because Democrats who are supposedly they’re the soothsayers of democracy. Don’t see it that way at all they like control. They like the 9 judges said it was OK to have an abortion and have the government pay for it..
The Democrats Feign , free choice and pro-choice, they are anything, but. !! They want to mandate, guns, healthcare, schools, smoking, except for cannabis of course, the kind of car you drive, plastic bags lightbulbs, type of stove to cook on and the list goes on….. so much for freedom of choice.
In California they had a law that said all combustion engine cars need to be off the roads by 2035. So working individual choice there. You didn’t wanna drive an electric vehicle if you had no choice or you left the state.
Good luck Even wants to regulate straws. The mayor of New York, even try to mandate the size of a soft drink people bought at 7-Eleven store.
So much for individual. rights by the Democrats
Janet Machak,
Correct!!!! We are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
We have one political party whose members have not completely lost their "marbles" as well as their morals.
In prior years, we have had regular American men and women whose values and sacrifices and character have made this country great. They have had eyes and hearts and minds to see not only opportunities for investments but see the needs of our children and elderly and those born with mental or physical difficulties we can embrace and to whom we can provide love, encouragement and value through education, the arts, music, jobs, etc.
We as a nation through our elected leaders, have worked to constantly check our water supplies for safety as well as our food supplies that arrive at our grocery stores. We live by laws requiring safe structures are built, wells are dug properly, safe materials are used for water pipes, and countless other measures taken for our health and safety. We, the people, help one another to avoid disasters and /or to be there for one another during disasters...and to remain through recovery, not only with a hug and a kind work but helping to meet physical and emotional needs. This means PEOPLE who are PROFESSIONS...as well as friends and relatives.
We have been blessed by wonderful, brilliant, strong and kind military leaders whose love for country and surrender to service for the maintenance of FREEDOM FOR ALL! is beyond compare.
In order to maintain the character and vision that has made our country a beacon for all, we must seriously correct our compass because it is clear that our "leadership?" is taking us in the wrong direction!!!!!.....actually may be completely LOST!!!!
"We have one political party whose members have not completely lost their "marbles" as well as their morals”
Unfortunately they’ve become so immersed in relatively trivial differences and identity politics as to render them incapable of the kind of unity they desperately need just now. It remains to be seen if the Democrats can alter that in time for 2026.
Emily, I would add the thorny issue of who would have final control of our nuclear arms and system. Through my readings of some of the intelligent responses and debate, I don’t believe anyone has yet mentioned this major concern. Russia and Ukraine had a similar tete a tete concerning their navy on the Black Sea. When it comes to the raw and unrestrained power of the military, we have to tread carefully.
Riad Mahayni,
>>>final control of our nuclear arms and systems>>>
I know that Putin makes long term plans that do not change and that he is patient. I also know taking Ukraine and gaining power over all the countries of "Old Russia" is his goal. He is a very patient leader. He takes every opportunity when he sees a door open.
Mining the wealth of others is only one of many actions he is taking advantage of. Currently he has a large operation in Africa. He does not miss an opportunity.
He bows to no one! Trump is just a "toy" for him to juggle along with many others.
I am sure he has a large contingent of persons throughout the world working to achieve his goals. He is not one to stand still. He watches over all operations carefully.
No one tells Putin how he is supposed to spend his days....he tells his "people" what to do, how, when and where....and if they don't, if they betray him, they may end up dying in a fiery plane crash.
We must stay on guard with the best intelligence as well as the best trained, most loyal and most intelligent men and women to protect this country.
Our enemies do not sleep, they do not take vacations, they know how to manipulate and how to play mind games with us. They are doing this now in many areas deemed as profitable.
It terrifies me that Trump or one of his lackies with no training and less intelligence would have power to come near, much less use our nuclear weapons!!!!
Other than pleasing Netanyahu, I do not understand the reason for bombing Iran. Lots of countries have nuclear power.
Trump has sold out to these factions. His plan was developed by others and he lets them carry it out, while he and his family continue their grift empire. We are a Plutocracy. A government of the rich for the rich. That drives all decisions and fake Neoliberal economics with which they have brainwashed us.
Except Putin didn’t attack Ukraine when Trump was in office he attacked it when Obama was in office and Biden was an office so much for your deranged argument. And let me say it again for you ignorant folks here if not for Bill Clinton, we wouldn’t be dealing with this right now, and Bill Clinton was a great president, but he effed up in two cases he took the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine and convince them that we would protect him, and then he created NAFTA, which put China where it is right now sucking in control of this world and gaining power every day
And now he regrets it
I have been thinking of that, but think that one thing that would happen is that we would greatly defund our federal government and even if we pay a fee for the military as the EU countries do for their shared militaries, or contribute our militaries to a national military, we will still have to recon with the fact that Russia does not have nearly our military budget or might. Will China take over Red states economically and then through coercion? Don't know, but Trump is not above selling us all out to whomever. But a thoughtful discussion on this piece that you bring up Riad would be helpful.
Hi Linda. Please forgive the late response on your suggestion. There are days when I am very swamped as a lone caretaker for my wife that sometimes I don't even get to the keyboard. I was glancing over my emails and noticed your response on my list of emails. I appreciate your energy on this, or for that matter, any topic. I just couldn't get to it and discuss this as I would have liked. So many topics to discuss with so little time. That it now is July 25, the relevance and current interest has been long gone for a discussion. The issue, without doubt, is very important. Maybe it will come up again where the community and we may have an in-depth discussion. I wish you well.
Well, you can thank the Russia conflict to Bill Clinton. By the way, it was one of our best presidents other than a couple of major mistakes like this one Who won the mid-1990’s convince Ukraine to give up its nuclear missiles and war heads for money, and the promise of protection, which never arrived. Not during Obama, and not during Biden. We would not be in this conflict, headed not been for removing the nuclear warhead, which were the only deterrent to Russia at the time
Put the blame clearly on Putin please. If he hadn’t greedily and indiscriminately invaded there would be no war.
May be completely lost? I'd say they are. They have no clue what they are doing, and unfortunately don't live in places that are subject to major climate disasters (except drumpf at Mar-A-Lago, and he'd just move to Bedminster).
Yeah, we have laws regarding safe structures that are built. What do you call the wall on the border that the Democrats refused to build and costs anywhere from 11 to 20,000,000 illegal entrance into this country with at least 400,000 criminals and at least 10,000 committed homicide rape in their own countries. Not to mention the economic cost California loans spent over $30 billion on housing food and medical care for illegals. That money was needed for the 185,000 homeless in California alone.
This is the first time in decades that the country is headed in the right direction.
Just administration keeps winning for the American people and it’s gone only gonna get better. Did you just say kind of military leaders? What do you think military leaders do? Too many military leaders were forced to get into a skirt incursions that we didn’t need to get into such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, iraq etc.
if you want to know, he’s completely lost, and I should come to TDS in the veins go no farther than your mirror.
If you are referring to the Democrats I would suggest that it is really 2 parties. In any case Donald Trump told us he hates us and would like to strip us of our citizenship. Count on SCOTUS to stop him at your own peril. I would like to cut that off at the pass, but changing the dynamics.
And you were a member of that party that’s lost its marbles
Your approval rating is now in the teens versus 66% a year ago April
You’re losing every battle all you can do is dance and chant like some teenagers in the 60s and unfortunately you’re chanting against correctness righteousness and caring about America.
Rick, do you read what HCR writes? because you never address it in your comments. According to research I saw presented, that makes you bot-like.
I am not. I am saying that we need a different set up. FEMA is no longer going to be giving money to any Blue states for their disasters. Looking at this reality and that this government might go on for decades, I am trying to problem solve for the states like mine that are Blue states who will pay in and get nothing back.
I am looking ahead and imagining where things will go. I have read Project 2025. There are things still in existence right now in the US that will go, and I am planning ahead for it. If they do not happen then this does not need to happen. If they do, I at least have some idea of something to try.
You do realize that the call for ‘states rights’ was the historic call of racists for much of the existence of the nation but especially post Civil War. I like your enthusiasm but the irony is a bit much, Linda.
I never read the Pentagon Papers which I regret. And I haven’t read Project 25. I think I shall. It should be required reading by all high school students.
I do. And having read historian Jefferson Cowie's book "Freedom's Dominion" made me much more aware of the racist reasons for wanting the Federal government off their backs. Now the tables are turned and when the Federal government is more racist than your local government you have to turn the tables. I want to do this, before they figure out that it is no longer their idea.
Reading Historian Kathleen Belew's book "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America explains to me also how we got to this point and one of the ways that Paramilitary groups planned for this destruction of the Federal government. It is being destroyed anyway, so we should be thinking creatively of salvaging it.
I have always been a creative problem solver who is able to think outside of the box. I expected people to be upset with what I am saying when most people are thinking they can still save what we HAD, which is already GONE. Now we need to look ahead and plan.
Amen, Linda, to look ahead and plan, after determining what is still serving its purpose and what has been ruined.
We need unity on climate change. Within our country and with the rest of the world. So far we don’t have unity, unless we are unified in putting climate action near the bottom of our to-do list.
I too believe in thinking outside the box.
I totally agree with your comments. And your point about what’s GONE hurts my sole. Who was it that said NO NATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS LASTED MORE THAN 25O YEARS? We just celebrated our national birthday – Was thar 249 or 250?
I think you are putting the cart before the horse here.
Actually what should be required reading for all Americans is our Constitution.
State’s Rights was not a racist trope, but rather the result of our long colonial history. By the time of the Articles of Confederation, we had essentially become thirteen little nations, each so jealous of it prerogatives that even when threatened by the French and Indians, they refused to come together for their own mutual defense. (See the history of the Albany Plan of Union).
Our strength as a nation has always lain in our unity, however fragile it sometimes was.
James Quinn,
You are filled with wisdom! "Actually what should be required reading for all Americans is our Constitution.".....Agreed!!!!
I would also add that it should be required reading for our Presidential candidates as well as ALL GOVERNMENT OFFICALS running for all government offices from minor to major!!!!
True. I amend my point to say state's rights became a calling post civil war and during Jim Crow period.
And, we have proven to have irreconcilable weaknesses that have been coopted by the dark forces. We can rethink this then. We currently have one branch of government. One demented branch. It does not work.
Our PERCEIVED strength. I do not buy into that. I can see the weaknesses of it. We can be united in some ways, and not in others. I am proposing that those of us who are not represented by this government not be taxed by it, but by our states which are representing us.
Bill,
I found it interesting that during the debates among the Republican candidates for President the Senator from South Carolina, the State of John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond, came out against State's Rights with reference to abortion. He said that California should not be allowed to have liberal abortion laws.
Bill, don’t waste your time with project 25. They’re just trying to get you to relate one to Trump and one has nothing to do with Trump but they keep trying to tie together and it’s total BS. to try to do that. There are some basic premises and project 25 the Democrats and Republicans would agree with other than that no matter what the situation is including the floods in Texas all the Democrats are doing now is trying to point a finger because they have no traction of any time in any way other than protest hate, and violence
You are so wrong so wrong. My side has many faults I know. But this is a disaster for the nation and the world. Eventually you may see this. Or maybe not.
As I’ve said countless times, you are much too stupid to understand right from wrong; to realize what is good for humanity and what is really bad. You are misted up and confused. Why heck you are so stupid that I even convinced you to buy my book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums.” How more stupid can anyone be? Now I’m trying to get you smart to buy my new and improved version with up to date stories. Please buy my book. It will do you a whole lot of good. Trust me I wouldn’t lie to you.
FEMA is going to give money where it needs to get regardless of its political affiliations don’t make up nonsense and bullshit. And stop the delusions
Instead of reading project 25 why don’t you see what reality looks like. Joe Biden could’ve incorporated many of the precepts of Project 25 because they’re basic to American democracy. The nonsense and the distortion. And by the way, there are very few blue states left. Ooooops
Trump is ending FEMA saying states can take care of themselves.
He then said to Abbott that he would send help, blah blah blah. The magnitude of these worsening disasters will 'obliterate' most states' budgets, since he likes that word. Especially those red states with nada whose major support comes from blue states. djt has set us all against each other with his - well, I'll send help because this is a red state, but screw Californina and their wild fires - they need to sweep their forests - completely nonsensical take. The man is a liar and an idiot.
Joseph Cambo,
Agreed! Trump is no leader...never has been!
https://abc7.com/post/mayor-karen-bass-supervisor-kathryn-barger-say-trump-administration-has-been-helpful-fire-aid-far-uncertainty-remains/16289349/
Interesting, but I wonder how real this is. Are they being polite in hopes that djt doesn't have a hissy fit and change his mind? The way he refers to Newsom would make me very much doubt that he will do anything more than the bare minimum for CA. He loves to send in his ICE gestapo, but I don't think he'll be so generous with engineers and science, since he doesn't understand either discipline. anyhow, tks for the article.
When the federal government actively attacks and invades Blue States and withholds federal assistance from those states do you think we’re supposed to just go along with the invasion and abuse? The system is irretrievably broken. The old ways cannot hold. We can’t just allow the boot to stamp on our faces to keep a rotting system intact.
Agreed, if anything besides WH needs disbanding it is the current SC!
The Articles of Confederation that preceded the Constitution was in adequate, and a federation of little “nation states” was nonfunctional. Not the way to go.
Janet, the founders never foresaw that an entire political party would turn traitor in service of a man who would be king. I believe the dissolution of the fifty states is inevitable, and I will welcome it. California, Oregon, Washington, and perhaps Hawaii all together would make a lovely little country.
Democrats and Republicans no longer have different values and principles; they inhabit different realities that are not compatible. Trump and his gang won't surrender power voluntarily, regardless of elections. Another civil war is not going to happen. I believe that in another ten years, more or less by mutual consent, the grand experiment known as the United States of America will end.
Patrick Henry did. They chose not to believe that could ever happen and so did not provide safeguards in the event it did. There is no longer honor in serving.
And the Democrats who live in Red States, and Republicans who live in Blue states—will they relocate by choice or be forced out? Purple states, Swing states?
Haven't the foggiest. Time will tell.
I guess fences could be put up to separate Dems & Reps.
The fences are metaphorical now, but very real.
They have the choice of relocating, or choosing to work to change their state leadership's agenda. It would change the dynamic of the government, because the power is with the purse and that would lie in the states. People would be much more aware of the details of their local governments.
I agree. But I advocate for withholding the tax revenues we send to the federal government until they stop giving it all away to ICE, the Pentagon, and the very wealthy. Which means, until Congress repeals the crummy bill they just passed.
Good luck with that. No matter what you want, we still live in a federally "superior" country, and acting out by refusing to pay your taxes (not exactly easy to do if you have a regular job where they deduct them anyway) can easily result in you being arrested and locked up for tax evasion. I would at least check with a lawyer before taking that kind of unilateral action. This administration certainly had limited checks on its powers at best so don't be surprised what they might decide to do to you if you went ahead.
I'm not saying it's right, just pointing out that it is the way things are right now. Be VERY careful about what you do in the face of this administration's outrageous expressions of power.
States are getting to be responsible for a lot of things: voting rules, abortion (which I think should not come under any government consideration), now subsidizing Medicaid, adding more state funds to education. How these states with no state or sale taxes going to exist?
They are going to have to rethink their funding structure. If we are not getting anything from the federal government that prioritizes 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
We should be paying our taxes to the states. That is what they do in Switzerland and the trains run on time there. They pay a minimal fee to the federal government. That is true of Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as well. They are always high on the happiness places list.
States with no sales or state tax will have to develop that. Right now, with the federal government shutting down health care, and education how are they paying for this now, or are all services privately provided.
Under this government the biggest amount of our money is going for an even larger military in peacetime, and a prison system which intends to lock up a large portion of the country.
Hear hear!!
DC’s chances of becoming are state are zero. It has been debated for decades, but always thwarted by Republicans. The district is heavily Democratic and about 45% African-American. The Republicans see it as their “plantation” where they test out controversial ideas by ramming legislation down the district’s throat. DC has only limited home rule and relies on the Congress to appropriate funds. The Trumpublican Congress cut $1 billion from this year’s appropriation, forcing the DC government to make deep cuts in programs.
Dave, I don't agree with zero chance. So, while I agree with your reasons for it being highly unlikely as things stand now, Trump is planning on moving some governmental departments out of DC. That could become a thing. Let us face it, nothing he is planning is really about more efficiency or saving money. So, if he were to say, move them to Florida, would DC still be the place it is? We shall see how things shake themselves out financially.
Right now the US has just gone further towards becoming a Christian Nationalist theocracy with the court basically removing any non-partisanship from churches by granting them tax exempt status no matter what. So, as these huge changes happen it might be wise to look at what they say they are supporting and turn it against them.
Too bad no one who is super wealthy cares at all about the US. In his book "Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism", George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson point out that under Neoliberalism democracy is supplanted by Plutocracy and that Oligarchs tend to have weak ties with any country.
In a chapter titled, "Citizens of Nowhere" they tell us that the politicians who talk about patriotism are always the first to sell their country down the river.
Media who goes on about patriotism is owned by billionaires who have tax havens overseas. US economic life and political life have been offshored by the media moguls. The authors claim that at the heart of neoliberalism is the fantasy of escape from social obligation, from democracy, to a starlit wonderland beyond policies and people." Does that sounds like colonizing Mars to you? It does to me.
These Oligarchs are in denial about how they are destroying the planet or they don't care. We need to salvage what we can as a fight for survival while they fantasize about colonizing Mars, cryogenic ways of living forever, and every sci-fi fanstasy about longevity and escaping the destruction of earth with their fossil fuels fantasies that it won't affect them. Old men making most of these decisions do not care about the world they are leaving their offspring, as long as it is good for them right now. DC will be better placed to survive if it is a state. People in that city should be fighting for that status. The rest of us who do not support the MAGA agenda which is destroying he planet as rapidly as possible. should support DC too. We want as many places in the US as possible to survive and regroup and rebuild post this regime.
Linda Weide,
Excellent contribution...nothing to add but "Thank you!"
We need to each find ways to support truth, decency, honest elections, care for our planet, our education system from infant to adult within ALL areas that truth is demanded and protection (as is humanly possible) from DISASTERS at the top of our lists.
My heart is broken over the deaths of those tiny young children as well as the adults with them and to those camping along the river.
Sorry to hurt professionals or government officials tender egos, BUT knowing the possibilities, there should have been more concerned professionals available OR because of the rain predicted and the history of the river, a warning should have been given as well as safety officials present to force people to evacuate in time to save lives, given to everyone who chose to camp at that time of heavy rain, near the river. This was not the first experience with flooding, nor death!!!! Because it happened so fast and at night, there was little chance of a safe evacuation.
One does not have to prove themselves "MACHO" to prefer caution over the possibility of death of our fellow human beings.
When there is such a heavy rain.....there should be rules about the closing of the area///Texas macho can take a step behind love of mankind and respect given to the reality of a mighty flooding river!!!! This was NOT a first time event.
Was saving money really more important than the lives lost????
When it was theoretical, yes. When it is biting you in the.... behind.... no.
People have been fighting for DC statehood for decades, but they have little power, beyond the power of persuasion. DC is a unique entity. It is a federal enclave, largely controlled by Congress. DC has little Congressional representation. Elenor Holmes Norton is DC delegate. She can vote on bills, but only in committee. She has been advocating for statehood for all of her 34 years in the House. Statehood is a pipe dream given Republican control of both chambers. If anything, DC is in danger of being stripped of its limited home rule.
DC, Puerto Rico, etc. They're not states because the population is non-White. Not just my perspective. It is historical fact debated and stressed repeatedly in Congress.
WE should all be fighting to change this. Never say never.
When I lived in D.C., roughly 1969 to 1985, it was closer to 80% African American. That's why it was widely referred to as Chocolate City. <g> Now that it's much more gentrified and more white, I'm guessing it's more likely now than it was then.
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
And would some states be able to declare war on another state? Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? So much more to say on this thought, but let’s start with that question.
WE ARE IN A FULL BLOWN DISASTER. I do not know if states fighting each other differently than they are doing now, would make more of a disaster. It might certainly wake people up. Still, if States could run their own budgets, and we were not funding the federal government against our interests I do not think it makes us more likely to go to war than we are now. No more than countries within the EU or NATO would be able to declare war on another country within these unions.
I am hearing people discussing a potential Civil war happening. Do you think civil war is better? That seems potentially on the horizon. If war is going to happen, what if Trump starts using the military against people in certain states who are US citizens? Don't you want some leverage for these states? Blue states fund the government with more money than they get back in most cases Under Trump they are going to get much, much less back. Do you think people should just accept that?
Do you think the US is going to get rid of a fascist government just by voting, or time, or hoping that things will go back to the way they were before fascists took over? Wishing and marching are a part of making change, but not the whole picture. At this point they alone are unlikely to make a change in the trajectory the US is going. Remember Trump is doing Putin's work for him. One thing that this would accomplish was take some of those funds away.
I hope I am wrong, but the US appears to be in a crisis from which it will not return, and Americans need to spend more time thinking about how they want their country to be afterwards, and how to get to that point.
In this 2020 ranking of Democracy the US already was a deficient democracy.
https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking
All of the countries ranked as full democracies were much smaller.
This is still true in March 2025. The US is still a flawed democracy.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-state-of-democracy-around-the-world/
I wonder at which point we will no longer be ranked a democracy.
There is a huge rift between people in the US, and I am not seeing any other country this large embracing democracy.
If bridge building does not work, we need another plan.
The average American needs to become aware that we are already at war- or the precursor to it. Generally, geography means that the US huge landmass would be difficult to invade and control. However, the BBB enables invasion with ICE, and when they are in place throughout the country resistance will be difficult.
Trump is clearly being influenced by some adversary, and if we had competent intelligence or defense officials they could identify such. Meanwhile, SC is complicit; congress is cowed and lazy.
The magats are cowed. They are all complicit in not defending the constitution as they took an oath to do. The billionaires have bought and paid for every single Dem and magat rep, except for a small handful. Why else would anyone support more oil/gas/coal, especially after this past week? I am glad I am old and probably have only 15 years or so of this crap, but weep for my poor kids whose lives are going to really suffer from this admin for a long time.
Exactly Tonya.
As you well know, before the mid-1960s, the U.S. wasn't a democracy at all for most people of color, and that isn't just about voting rights. It's never been more than an aspiring democracy. To borrow an image from recovery circles, I think of the current crisis as the U.S. finally "hitting bottom." We've had plenty of warnings -- 249 years of them, in fact. White supremacists have been here all along. So has economic power: it helped warp the Constitution at its founding, it was a key player in the Civil War, and it's crashed the economy several times, from the late 19th century to 2007–2008, all the while touting the virtues of unregulated capitalism (which has, btw, seriously corrupted the free press).
The mega-rich and the corporations don't have the votes, but the white supremacists, the garden-variety racists, and the (mostly) white people who have no idea how government works do. From the mid/late 1960s on, they've formed an alliance. Despite a few setbacks it's been forging ahead ever since.
The size of the U.S. may indeed be a serious problem, but is it a deal-breaker? I don't think so. Consider: Of the world's major democracies, the U.S. is (IIRC) the only one with a two-party, as opposed to a parliamentary, system. It's the only one with no social democratic party, or even a strong social democratic tendency within the Democratic Party. It's the only one that fought a major war over slavery. Oh yeah, and -- not unrelated to slavery and racism in general -- it's the only one with a 2nd Amendment, which since 2008 has been interpreted to mean that any citizen can have all the guns they want.
Susanna, thank you for this post. I have often reminded people that we don't have a parliamentary system which makes certain kinds of progress more difficult. And yes, guns. All the wailing when there is a shooting and no mention of what needs to be done. The Oregon legislature did get some gun restrictions done this session. But they failed to get transportation done, so already 500 people are looking at losing their jobs while the population complains about traffic and the state of the roads. And why the failure....taxes.
Michele, it’s “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization” versus “Taxation is Theft!” It has been easy to convince Americans to resent taxes. Though we still are accustomed to paying for services and goods that we buy as individuals. Maybe we should experiment with toll roads everywhere, even the roads to our driveways. See how we like paying directly for every amenity we use, getting a bill for our share of police, firefighters, food inspectors. . .
The US was formed to protect white mens' assets. On the sin of slavery and the lie of equality and justice for all. We never fully dealt with the truth and are paying the price. The American dream is really a nightmare. Time for us to go down. Xi is loving it.
I would say, formed to protect rich White men's assets and dominion over others. As such other White men are just useful idiots to be used to vote for protecting the Plutocracy. Xi is loving it and Putin is too.
I recommend the book Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson (who is making a film of it). It discusses exactly how Plutocracies undermine democracy.
And Suzanna, I would contend that it was not after then either. In his book Freedom's Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie shows us how unless the Federal government intervened, people were not getting to register or to vote in counties at least in many southern states. This federal regime is not going to be protecting anyone's voting rights.
All I see with our federal dollars is that we are no longer getting them back in the states. They are going to fund 3 things:
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
I am better off just paying taxes to my state and helping them to provide the services or supports that Americans will no longer get from the Federal government.
Here are the five states getting the most tax dollars
Per capita.
California ($162.9 billion)
New York ($110.2 billion)
Texas ($105.8 billion)
Florida ($58.8 billion)
Pennsylvania ($57.1 billion)
I have been thinking along the same lines for awhile. California has the 4th largest economy in the world. I imagine they have their own trade deals. Arizona trades with Mexico. Obviously, there are some kinks that we have to work out. But, right now the regime is inflicting harm on its own people and there is no relief in sight. The mad king is running or ruining every agency.
And his idiotic cabinet is facilitating his every whim....
There is nothing laughable about this newsletter but if I were forced to find an absurdity to laugh at it has to be this:
"Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins rejected the idea that the government would find a way to protect undocumented agricultural workers. “There will be no amnesty,” she said. “The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which again WITH 34 MILLION PEOPLE, ABLE-BODIED ADULTS ON MEDICAID, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS FAIRLY QUICKLY."
Who do they think Medicaid supports? Who will they put to work? Elderly/nursing home residents? Children/orphans? Pregnant women? Psychiatric inpatients? People with Down Syndrome? People in wheelchairs? Can't you see them trying to pick cherries or strawberries? WTF is the matter with these politicians?
Neo-chattel slavery is what maga(t) means. I knew this was the direction they were headed in the 1st time I heard-saw the acronym.
How will we transport all these Medicaid dependent able- bodied folks to the fields & factories? I guess there will be thousands of grand children left alone while their caretakers 'work'
As I have been saying, our federal taxes are now supporting 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
My state will have to provide me with all the rest, so I would like to give them a chance to do that.
Agreed Patricia. We are not supposed to have taxation without representation. My state represents me, this government does not.
Texas receives more in federal dollars than it pays. The state receives something like $2500 for every dollar. I wonder what Texas would do if they no longer received the ‘socialist handout?’
When our trusty ole Censes came knocking since I was singled out to be interviewed in a program, I expressed that I no longer had a legitimate government and that I refused to participate. They told me I could not extract myself from this data research. I responded that I will not cooperate and that it was better to not send reps on my property harassing me in the future although I’m not about to become irrational with any such personal. Another irony is I’ve worked for this agency almost every 10 years.
Yes. California has less than half the population of Germany, and yet it has a GDP close to it. California's is 4.1 trillion, Germany's is 4.5 trillion. California can afford to provide all the services for its people.
We are undergoing yet another of the endless testing periods endemic to democracies. And it is not the worst, at least not yet. We’ve not yet managed to kill over 700,000 thousand of our own as we did between 1861 and 1865.
Democracy is the longest political game in the world. Its testing never ends. There are always those within it who don’t like its essential messiness and inefficiency and wish for some strong leader to come along and streamline it all.
There are always those among us who think that national unity has to mean that we all see things pretty much the same way.
I’m not downplaying the danger of the moment. Half of us have finally managed to elect for the first time in our history a president who has no concern for our electoral process, our Constitution, or the rule of law. But half of us did not elect him, and well over half of us now disagree with most if not all of his policies.
Rome indeed was not built in a day, and no democracy was ever dismantled in one.
We’ve been as bitterly divided as we are now in at least four other times in our history - the last twenty years before the War of 1812, the last two decades before the Civil War, the last decades of the nineteenth century, and the famous (or infamous) late Sixties/early Seventies.
Each time we managed to right ourselves sufficiently to carry on with Novus Ordo Seclorum, but at the height of each, there were many who though we couldn’t and wouldn’t.
There are, of course, no guarantees. But if you want ‘close run things. wait for Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary on the American Revolution. Even those guys with the funny-looking suits and weird wigs who signed the Declaration had serious doubts about our chances. Washington himself sometimes despaired.
I’m just over 80, and I’ve lived through a series of polticcal, social, and economic storms of one kind or another for almost all of them. And I fully admit that sometimes of late, as I have lain awake seriously wondering about this nation whose uniform I once wore (during the last time it seems we might come apart at the seams) and whose history I taught for over 40 years. Yet now I feel a strange calmness, however unwarranted it may seem. Either we will come to our senses or we will not. That possibility is not before us for the first time, and yet here we are.
I hope you are right that it won't be dismantled so quickly. It is already gone too far for me.
Linda, you are a truly a creative thinker. We need all the alternatives to this fascist power and money grafting gang now an unlawful police state. The corruption and lying are like the recent TX flood. Withholding taxes is a brave and very smart idea that many of my friends would do. Perhaps we could have a state savings account to deposit them in for the future? Something legal and secure….
That is certainly not any area of my expertise however!
I can show you how to dance, choreograph or perhaps write poetry, but legalize?
Then again just how legal is anything dump’s goons are doing….and I’m worrying about ‘legal’?
Thank you samani. ✌🏽 I am organzing some "creative gatherings" in a park in Bremen in support of democracy, where people are invited to share all of the forms that you mentioned and others as well.
There is no Fascism only in your head. Try getting it out of there take some medication dunk your head an ice water do something but get the pessimism and heat out of your head. It’s not doing you any good and certainly not doing your health any good
Did disaster that you speak of is in your head that’s the only place that exists go outside look up at the sky go to work collect your Social Security go to the grocery store go to the lake nothing has changed except in your head
Riad Mayayni, that thought occurred to me, as well. Also, the states who have large populations of stupid maga people would keep electing corrupt and incompetent government officials, and they would fail. What would happen to those states if they failed?
Those states are already failing and the Blue States are propping them up. Under Trump the Blue states will fail too, so we will just have more failed states, since all states will fail.
Agreed. And it’s the purported goal of the Trump regime to let the states fend for themselves. Let’s not play into their hands.
Catherine Manley,
Please, may we open our eyes and ears and face the reality: books taken from schools, people of color taken, given no legal personal rights, treated like animals, actually, many animals treated better, sent off to other countries, placed in cages in "boxes" along Florida's hurricane ally.
Look at the strong, intelligent person who wants to improve lives of fellow Americans in New York, put down because of his faith??? We DO live in a country where we can legally worship as we choose!!! Obviously, they are fearful of the person he is...they also see his potential and they hate him because they have to look at their failings.
Take a look at many of the Republicans, if you are able, without "throwing up???? They are being given power to dismantle our Democracy.
I am glad some of them have stopped wearing their "fake" crosses ...symbols of their fake Christianity"...which they are using to entice the vulnerable who do not want to admit their own prejudices and greed and desire to control!!!! In the Bible Jesus said, " Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you." Some of you know how Jesus in the flesh was turned over to government officials by the religious leaders of the day because they were jealous of the huge groups who followed Him to find healing: spiritual as well as physical. Jesus did not come to be a physical king. He did live to show us how to love one another. Receiving Him as Savior was not forced...believers were not brainwashed. He sent His followers OUT INTO THE WORLD TO GIVE HOPE, LOVE, HEALING, ACCEPTANCE. Jesus suffered and died for OUR SINS!!! Also remember He did not remain in the tomb but ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND LIVES ETERNALLY.
As created beings, I believe we are physical and spiritual. No matter one another's skin color, or spiritual calling, or position in life, rich or poor, strong in body and mind or those of us who struggle in all areas, like me...we have value!!!!
Our government: state, local, our leaders in Washington are elected to care for the freedoms of each and all and to aid in building up our country's citizens by providing opportunities to make a decent living, for health care and to assist families with laws that aid our citizenry to be able to have a decent and safe, dwelling place and a "none prejudice" and excellent education for all!!!
We cannot build a great nation on the foundation of deceptions, brainwashing and lies. We cannot be a great nation when we do not follow laws that have existed since our conception to treat EVERYONE TO fair trials and decent treatment of persons WE IMPRISON illegally!!!! Our entire nation will suffer morally, financially as well as losing the respect earned over years, with our international partners. They can no longer trust us with anything!!!!
It is my honest hope that Sanity arrives at your door one of these days
What is happening to them now. Think Texas and floods? What might happen is that people would defocus on the federal government and focus on their local and be more involved. And some people might move. If everything is privatized including child care and schooling, might get people to vote for someone who maintains the public education system.
Stupid Maga people, huh? 77 million of them
Per some of the comments about each state becoming “independent “ like countries; I call bullshit. What we need is to remain United. Hasn’t history proven that war doesnt resolve much of anything. Killing so many innocent people-and we already struggle with the concept of abortion-how can we continue to endorse killing kids, because they are the ones whose lives were “saved” after taking away our rights. The reason our system is broken is because our politicians wont fix it.
The nation is imploding. I am trying to problem solve.
Yes you certainly are, Linda. Keep it up. 👍
And would I like to meet you someday?
Definitely.
Thanks samani! ✌🏽
Are we united? is this what we can remain? Do you have a plan for unifying the MAGA and the Democrats? If so, it will be welcome. Most people I know have given up on it after trying.
Riad, this idea reminds me of Germany and Italy which had many small states until they united in the 19th century and yes, they fought with each other. The Founders knew that they had to have a united country.
It’s not a united country anymore although we like to think it is. No illusions. I’m letting go of that idea although it makes me gasp.
What you are describing sounds similar to the Articles of Confederation. We tried that as a young “nation” but it didn’t work.
I agree, Dave. That thought also crossed my mind as I wrote my opening piece.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
We are not a young nation we are a dying nation. An imploding nation. A nation led by someone whose mission it is to get rid of our nation. So, what did not work a few hundred years ago will be different now. Nothing remains the same, and we have other democracy examples in the world to examine.
Oh yeah, right. And just how would DC "hurry up and become a state"?
I've had my 'Taxation Without Representation' license plate for the better part of 20 years here on Capitol Hill, but yet to see a single Republican scream in panic and bolt in terror at the sight of it, let alone vote to bring another two Democratic Senators to sit across the aisle to glare at Kentucky Fried Voldemort....
It's....my first smile of the am...."Kentucky Fried Voldemort"....going to have to remember that one.
Same here, Michele
Linda, what you're describing is basically the Articles of Confederation, which was the system before 1789's ratification of the US Constitution. It was a disaster. I understand why you're suggesting this, but I remain a federalist. Because those of us who live in enclaves within malign regime states would have even less ability to function as productive citizens if the state government ran everything. Not everyone whose politics align with the Left live in Left-leaning states.
On target Professor Emeritus. 🎯
I live in California that has a robust economy larger than most countries. CA helped adjacent states with its massive purchasing-power during Covid& will do so again & again
We are one though many.
Linda, you might be more focused on state government if you knew that they were responsible for the financing of everything. However Trump is only funding 3 things:
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
I am suggesting ways to have more control over getting services that are other than those 2 things.
“It might save the Blue States from going down with the ship.”
Blue states have been subsidizing red states since forever. They’re not the ones that would be at risk of sinking. It’s the red states like WV and AL that would suffer under such a scheme. And stripping the federal government so that (supposedly) the states can take care of themselves is exactly what this regime claims as its goal.
The Red States, through their own choices and the voting patterns of the people choosing to live there are already going down. Look at Texas. It made choices not to be notified about the heights of the rising water to save money, and FEMA did not give them any either. Some Red states might get more responsible with their management if they were more directly responsible to their constituents and could not blame it on the federal government, or some past president. It would all be on them.
Should the Blue states go down with the red states, or should we salvage what we can? We are in a catastrophe. It is the regime's goal, so we turn it on them. They are decimating the federal government and still taking money we could be putting into our state government to give to billionaires. I am coming up with a creative solution to resist. I am pointing out that in Europe they have countries smaller than our smallest state population wise in the EU, and they manage to provide, schooling, health care, housing, old age pension and other basic things a society needs. Trump has destroyed the US as it was. I am coming up with a solution of a different direction, fitting with the times.
One union, indivisible?
Within Tejas, Harris County is Dem. San Antonio, Austin, too. Within Florida, the cities are Dem.
3 Dem counties in South Florida have more "gross product" than the rest of the state combined, more than about 15 red rural states. Home to 23 billionaires. Thousands of millionaires. Our county mayor is a dem, but her hands were tied by our former mayor, who switched parties and now is a MAGAT, in the House.
Just this morning it turns out we have to comply with state law re turning over prisoners to ICE.
"Miami-Dade’s cooperation with ICE under President Donald Trump has been a divisive topic since 2017, when the county under then-{ex Dem] Mayor Carlos Gimenez changed policy to have the county’s jails begin accepting detention requests from federal immigration agents.
"That policy remained in effect after Levine Cava, a Democrat, succeeded Gimenez, who is now a Republican member of Congress.
"The Levine Cava administration said the 287(g) update would bring no substantive change to how Miami-Dade detains people for ICE — something that only takes place when someone is booked on local charges while also being sought for deportation. Under federal procedures, Miami-Dade jails will hold someone for an extra two business days if ICE has a detention request — known as a detainer — for them. The updated agreement with the transportation clearance is posted on an ICE website but wasn’t announced by the county. The last time Levine Cava made public an update to an ICE agreement, it sparked one of the most contentious moments of her five years in office."
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article310259560.html#storylink=cpy
It’s an interesting idea, I’ll give you that, but we are not like Europe in many ways. Historically, European countries came together on the basis of ethnicity and culture, whereas America was founded on an idea. I am holding out hope that we can persevere as a unified but disparate democratic republic.
I am pointing out that our states have the GDP of European countries that provide them with everything they need including health care and disaster relief that we are not going to be getting from this government. Instead it is concentrated on funding 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
It is a suggestion to get around that. Others might have suggestions as well. I am starting a conversation on getting around the obstacles.
Aslo hope is important but reality is too. Musk cannot colonize Mars, and we will not be having the USA that we had. We are falling lower and lower on the democratic scale.
That much is obvious. But the pendulum, having reached the limit of its arc, inexorably swings back in the other direction. This I know.
DC has tried to become a state but not succeeded because of Republican opposition. We are largely Democrat. Only about 5 percent of those who voted here, voted for Trump. And we swarmed the Ellipse, all the way past the Washington Monument to the Potomac when Harris had her moving rally. And no crime. Lots of people. Very safe.
People should be suggesting that Trump move the seat of Federal government to Florida. I think he will like that idea. Then DC would need a new structure. Trump is already thinking of moving departments out of DC. We shall see. It is all a chaotic mess. I am just trying to problem solve. Think citizens of DC should make a case for Trump building a White House in Florida, or living in his hotel and claiming their city as their state.
Yup, good idea Linda. Or make FL it's own country & refuse admittance to the US.
I do not agree with making DC a state. The original concept of a seat of federal government that is independent of the concept of state politics still makes sense today. The only problem is that DC's population grew over the ensuing almost 250 years and now is very large. The solution is NOT to make DC a state but to merge the civilian population centers in DC into adjoining states (mostly Virginia and Maryland) and leave the central core of DC (mostly governmental offices) as DC. No new state but give most of the people who live their representation in their new states. A much saner idea without the complications of adding a new state and confusing the political boundaries of DC.
Sorry but you are living in an imaginary world in DC. If you look at actual crime rates they are VERY high, not the highest in the US but still very high.
Out of the top 100 cities in the US (by population) DC had the 19th highest murder rate, 25th overall for violent crime and 29th overall for property crime.
Certainly not the WORST but "no crime"? That's a joke, right? "Very safe"? Hardly.
Please get your facts straight before making such comments.
OFF TOPIC:
Linda Weide:
I read your 7/3/25 piece, "Losing Your Citizenship" concerning the "stateless" risk of the around "25 million naturalized U.S. citizens".
More later but, much is fully understood about "stateless" risks but, much more is needed to be disseminated about practical & legal remedies.
Carry on, go DAG.
There’s also the pesky problem of who would control the nuclear weapons scattered in various states.
When the U.S.S.R. failed its territories broke up and more and less reverted back to their former identities. Many, most of our states don’t have those long histories to fall back on. I think, our best hope is to collectively recommit to our constitution. And that is not looking good. SCOTUS seems to be paving the way to dissolution if you ask me. Breaking up would be slow though—may not be possible—because so many states formed with the purpose of becoming part of the U.S.A. How many states ever had their own defensive forces? Texas? Which others ever did? How many U.S. citizens even remember to vote in their state elections? I myself have never felt a special loyalty to a state. I always feel I can move wherever I want in the U.S.A. It was nothing to move from IL to WI. No visa required. No work permit. We have been one. Poor California is getting overrun and can’t rely on their police (most are MAGA and thrilled I bet with the theatre being played in LA). California has little recourse. No way to throw the bums out. Scary stuff. Where does a state begin to defend itself? From what I can tell, MAGA Zombies have infected all the legislatures. How does a state define itself in the U.S.A. which has for so long (forever?) thought of itself as one nation first? Scary to contemplate all this.
MA cannot have ME back!
Each state does define itself though. My state of Illinois is not take over by MAGA. We also have high state taxes. Our governor even tried to have graduated taxes like most well off countries do that helps to have a higher standard of living for all, but another billionaire who was originally a Floridian destroyed that and the governor has not tried it again.
I think we save ourselves by giving states much more power. The federal government is currently set to spend my tax dollars on 3 things:
1) billionaires
2) the military-but not supporting Ukraine, or trans, women or POC
3) ICE--who is "accidentally" picking up people.
How do we protect ourselves from a police state? People should give that some serious thought because they are getting all their ducks in order to do that, starting with taking all of our data. Scarier to contemplate letting it happen than thinking creatively around it. My plan is to defund it.
Mary Ellen, Trump is setting up a police state. I hope I am wrong, but if I am not, something has to be done quickly. I have not heard any ideas about it, so I am throwing out a suggestion.
Linda: Yes I see you are starting a discussion. I agree things are catastrophic. Actually one of the very first signs and harbinger of doom was the overturning of Roe because with it we returned to a form of slavery. Lest we not forget our country was borne and built on slavery—the exploitation of other humans. I don’t know how else to categorize U.S. women losing bodily autonomy but as a form of slavery. We are back to the founding paradigm— we never excised it.
Yes Mary Ellen. I do see slavery for many women right now in the US, as well as the world. Christian Nationalist like the infamous Duggers, have the women and children as slaves to make the fortune. They have to do as they are told and don't get any input. The man is allowed to beat them all--wives and children. They control voting if there is any, sex and reproduction. It is shocking. I agree that under Trump it began with R v W, but also see Reagan as beginning the loss of our democracy because of the implementation of the neoliberal economic philosophy that crashes our democracy. However, gerrymandering is a problem that we have never gotten rid of or other forms of disenfranchisement.
Under this thought-We would no longer be United States of America. I foresee terrible trouble going that route.
Do you not foresee terrible trouble going the route we are in right now? We are in a catastrophe. And just as the European Union is a union without all of the countries turning into one country, I am just saying a way to salvage ourselves is to go for State's rights. We are not supposed to be taxed by a government that does not represent us. I am taking that and for Blue States Trump has said he won't represent us. For democrats he has said the same thing.
The solution is not for the United States to become separate nation-states, but for the UNITED States to remove this criminal regime. By whatever means are available to us. By whatever means necessary.
There is only ONE valid and legal way to "remove" this "regime". The ballot box. Any other option is a lawless , no sorry MORE lawless than this regime itself. This regime, like it or not, was elected by a majority of the state electors AND maybe unbelievably but true by the majority of the people who voted.
We can all wring our hands about that tragic event but it doesn't make it untrue. We elected this monster and now we HAVE to deal with that and we can only deal with it legally. Any other option would be worse.
I do NOT want a coup to remove him.
I do NOT want another civil war.
We must grit our teeth and endure the horrific result that WE brought on ourselves.
I know that sounds awful (we are only 6 month into this nightmare and we have 42 more months to go) but there is no other choice. The other choices are worse than that. We will NEVER be a great democratic country again if we choose to walk away from democracy in order to try to save it.
Following the law always works. I did not bring this horrific result upon myself, in fact I worked hard not to have this result.
James, there is not one right solution. There are solutions. I am suggestion one and wanted to engender discussion. You seem to have no idea of how to remove the regime. If you do, please elaborate.
Linda, I usually agree with your ideas, but this? This is the recommendation of someone who has completely given up on the American Experiment. It is unpatriotic. This is the suggestion of someone who has zero concern for the utter destruction of people's lives.
Were your suggestion executed, millions of people who cannot for myriad reasons relocate to a "nation-state" that suits their preferences would be condemned to live out their lives in profound misery. Apparently, you don't care.
No amount of argument will justify such a hare-brained idea. Just stop.
We need ideas for stopping an aspiring dictator, not accommodating him.
Dale, I do not want to be "agreed with." I would like to hear arguments against what I am proposing as I try to salvage people and lives and some democracy. I have not heard one.
I also feel that you are discounting what is actually going on. I am not going to wear my patriotism as blind following what has been done. I am a problem solver. I live in a Blue State. I am looking at the reality. The reality is that the Congress, President and SCOTUS are tearing down the US and what it stands for as rapidly as they can.
What I will point out is that millions are ALREADY drowning in misery and I am trying to lessen it. You are making a case for let us all be as miserable as the most miserable state. How is that helping. Why should everyone be dragged down. We need some places that are not dragged down, so that people can aim to go somewhere.
These people who cannot relocate to another state, unlike the immigrants who walked across the Americas with very little beyond the clothing on their backs, would not leave if they could. What keeps people staying is being unwilling to try something new or different. The US is drowning in people that don't like different.
I am thinking of ways to throw road blocks into the dictators plans. He is setting up a police state. Is there a police state that you can point to that you would like to live in? I am trying to come up with a solution. I have not heard anything better so far. When you are in a burning building you have to figure out the fastest way out. I don't find your arguments convincing. I just feel that you are unwilling to look at the potential worst case scenario and prepare for it.
Linda, this is my final response in this conversation. As you have the means and freedom to fly from Illinois to Germany and back at will, you are as out-of-touch with reality as Donald Trump or Elon Musk. It's all very simple for you. Not everyone has your advantages.
You claim that you haven't "heard" arguments against your suggestions, yet this has become a long thread of arguments against your suggestions. Which leads me to conclude that you're one of those engineers who simply refuses to accept the reality that your design won't work. Fortunately, nobody with any sense will try to build it.
Enjoy your comfy life in Germany. We'll figure it out without your "help."
Dale, I don't know if my design will work. I assume that because I have enough money to travel, or prioritize my money thusly, I am considered irrelevant. Well, Heather Cox Richardson is worth many millions but you are not saying that to her. I am not worth many millions, but I do get to step back and see how things are done elsewhere. This helps to expand my reality.
I can step back from the US and look at it from the outside and seeing other ways to do things. I have a global set of friends, who live in many different countries, and so I know things that can be different. I travel cheaply without much luggage, and have used my retirement money to fund this. I would rather put it into this, then let Trump take it all and give it to billionaires. I also do not have to pay for my daughter's college tuition because it is free here.
Almost all the people I know who have family in another country travel 2-3 times a year to see them. No one has 2 cars. We have a car in the US, which we are selling, and we have bikes and a transportation pass in Germany. I am a US citizen and will be going back and forth so I still have to live with whatever happens. You can say my ideas are irrelevant. I am used to that. During Covid I was already crying the alarm in my school faculty meeting on January 12 of 2020. Everyone at the meeting just thought I was Xenophobic because I suggested that to be safe we should have our upcoming parent teacher conferences over Facetime. Look at it now. Zooming is a norm in our society. Things I was saying because of the reading I was doing were upsetting to everyone around me, but then came to pass. Even the timeline I suggested we would be dealing with. This has happened with a lot of things. I am just putting my ideas out there, and inviting people to come up with others as well. People should not be afraid of ideas that are not cruel in intention.
I don't know if my design will work. I often do thing that I have thought fairly through, but I tailor as I go along and unforeseen problems arise.Don't go along with this, argue it away, and please come up with some other ideas, because that is what we need right now.
Ben Franklin had three words:"join or die". These words are still relevant today. We need to focus on the principle causes , not the symptoms to solve problems.
Read "Invisible Doctrine....." as my bookclub is doing now. It explains the principle causes of how we have a Plutocracy, and how that does not go hand in hand with Democracy.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/748745/invisible-doctrine-by-george-monbiot-and-peter-hutchison/
Red states like Texas, where I live, would go under. We do not have state income tax, just a rather high sales tax rate. Until the state wakes up and elects a decent government, we'd never make it under your plan. And I fear for the lives of immigrants coming across the southern border if someone like Gregg Abbott is governor - don't forget the razor wire in the Rio Grande, which has killed some people.
Red States will get from Trump, like in these Floods. He has said he is not giving money to Blue States so we are taxed without representation so to speak. I would hope it would wake Red States up.
I am not forgetting what a tool Abbott is to put it kindly. He is no Ann Richards.
But Abbott is in power and he is doing horrid things to immigrants, and the Blue States are dragged into this. It could be separate. The divisions will either be bridged or furthered. I am thinking ahead, and wanting to defund this federal government which is a very dangerous one to the planet. I am not saying I am right, I am having an idea which I want to think about how could this work, and discuss. I am not convinced yet by anyone that it is not an idea that could work.
I understand that you are putting out an idea. I'm thinking at this point divisions would be furthered, since a lot of the country seems to want to go that way. I have come to understand that one of the problems with Texas, is that areas like the Hill Country (Kerr County in particular) doesn't like taxes, and didn't want to have a siren system for warning, even though that's what works. I know this sounds heartless, but I think that they have gotten what they deserve. That said, I do feel bad for the families who have lost members, especially losing children.
Also, doesn't Texas have an active secessionist movement? At the same time it has a lot of really rich people who should have to pay. There might be more effort and energy spend on that sans federal taxes. Chase them off to other places in the world that are tax havens, and then make sure that the leadership is no longer Plutocratic, but for the people.
I think I may have heard about a secessionist movement, but not recently. My dream would be to have a government for the people for the entire state of Texas. We have had at least two really good gubernatorial candidates, who both lost - Wendy Davis, and Beto O'Rourke. I think they both lost to slime ball Abbott.
Well, half of Oregon has a secession movement. Linda, I’ve said this before tell me please what’s the top percent of income earners pay of the total percentage of income tax. Just so you know the bottom 50% of income earners pay 3% of the income tax paid. Look it up
If, as seems likely, Trump cancels the 2026 election, a breakup is very possible. And it could become very, very violent. Although the Blue States don't need the Red States, the Red States do need the Blue States.
Is there any more delusion possible from the left? But you should be worried because poop for the first time in American history a president who took over and controlled both houses of Congress always lost one or both of those houses in the upcoming midterm election but if you guys keep this up this could be the first time ever that they keep. Control of both houses What the hell are you talking about stopping an election you guys are out in Venus Pluto summer where the hell out in space Jesus it’s unbelievable.
I feel like the Red States do not need the Blue States as much as they need better leadership.
The Red States are not self-supporting. And they get the leadership they voted for. Is there really much difference between Tuberville and George Wallace?
Actually I don't know. I learned about George Wallace from historian Jefferson Cowie in his book "Freedom's Dominion." He examines the country Wallace was from over time which includes Wallace's several campaigns and shifting political platforms. Wallace did not have convictions of his own, other than saying and doing what would get him elected. A true Populist.
.. and I would add that we/courts reinterpret the second amendment and get all these guns off the streets. A three year old died in DC) the other day when a stray bullet hit her while she was in a car. And this isn't the first stray bullet death. It is no leap of imagination to question why a civilized country permits "weapons of mass destruction" to be the first element of choice to settle arguments......
Another stray bullet killed a Republican intern working for Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS) the other day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/07/03/dc-congressional-intern-killed/
😕
I don’t subscribe to Washington Post so I can’t read the article. Could you gift it to us so we can read it? Much appreciated.
I'd forgotten that. I hope this link works: https://wapo.st/3IzgQ7H
It works! Thank you.
Truly?
People love to suggest that. However, there's no practical way to get guns off the streets. That's even more true with 3D printing and "ghost guns." I'm willing to listen if anyone ever comes up with a workable idea. It's like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
How do we manage to keep guns off the streets in Canada??? Not totally but it is not an epidemic like it is in the USA…
Not only having fewer guns, but most places have more restrictions on gun ownership, so that you have to get a license that requires some training. In Germany you have to have at least 1.1 million € of personal liability insurance for it.
Yes. The Atlantic reported a few years ago that we are awash in guns and they will never be removed. I may be just ms. ordinary citizen hoping unrealistically for a change in law. However, a friend of mine, Dr. Paul Finkelman, is a legal scholar and had written an article for the Chicago-Kent Law Review, refuting the Court's standing and citing historical precedent in his argument. So legal scholars are concerned too. People like Laurence Tribe and Fintan O'Toole, who write for the New York Review of Books, have written that public demand, cultural shifts do require reexaminations of some settled law. But, alas, as you say, good luck with that. But how many Americans (and then you add a court blinded by its own ideology) know the relevant facts as written by Dr. Finkelman, in order to make informed decisions....?
We have one branch of government on the federal level for all practical purposes and they do no support gun control. Unless we take back our states, they can continue to thwart common sense governance.
Other countries have done it, so there are practical ways, but not with our SCOTUS stepping in to stop it. Still violent crime is down. I don't think Trump can claim credit for that.
Yes. States would be able to decide their own abortion laws, and gun laws and trading partners. I am all about elevating the States rights, and diminishing the role of the Federal government right now, so you can see me embracing the typically conservative position. I have read historian Jefferson's Freedom's Dominion, and this struggle to get rid of the Federal government has been going on for centuries in the US. We have the opportunity to say, okay, you don't want the US Federal government to have say over things, so be it. Then, it is up to individual people to pick their states.
And what happens to those who live in a red state (fl) currently and are not in concurrence with that? So many questions-but a fantastical idea that would never get off the ground! Write a book-make a movie-but please dont make me move and uproot my life just so I can live in a red or blue state-I am a purple
I like the idea --- I live in a blue state and blue community with only very small areas of red. And yet the Supreme Court and other federal laws have imposed their will on us much to the consternation of our governor or local county executive. At the same time what to do with the states that wish to secede or merge with other states? Sounds like a huge administrative process.
We could, like Linda, just move to Deutschland.
Under our Constitution, states are free to experiment. It's a shame that federal preemption covers so much, but that's because the 14th Amendment is applied to the states. Due process. Equal protection.
But for the weather, progressive laws might convince us to move back to Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, New York or other locales where we have lived.
But to paraphrase Dylan, despite the Fascist Florida government, at this stage of life, we ain't goin' nowhere.
Like me and many people. But for those who want to stay in their states, you have a lot less to work on when you are focusing on your state government. Governors in Red States will not have it so easy. People who expect their services to come from the state need that. Of course our states can afford to provide services if we look at GDP. Right now we have one branch of federal government for all practical purposes. It is not a good regime. I am just saying states could take care of all of our needs financially. They have the GDP of countries that do.
Instead we are paying federal taxes which are largely going for 2 things:
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
I am proposing a way to get health care, poverty, infrastructure, disaster and other funds. I am open to other plans that would accomplish this as well. Mine is just a suggestion of what we could do.
Yes. When I am living in the US I am in a Blue State too, although the minority Red largely agricultural part of the state would like to secede. They might feel differently if they were much more dependent on the state for financial well being.
We have a huge administrative process now. It is not a good one. We have a federal government that is being decimated, and Trump is taxing us without giving us representation. He has pretty much said he is going to turn on democrats and Blue states with our own money no less.
Let states secede or merge. I don't know. We are in an enormously earth shaking shift, we should be working with it, because just fighting it might not get us where we need to go. If we don't pay federal taxes they cannot be used to fulfill this agenda of paying money for no government services except all the money is being spent on military and getting rid of immigrants in a country made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring.
The problem with having democratic states surrounded by fascist states is that the fascists hate having the democratic states exist because then their people get ideas. Since we would still be the United States people could move. So, some might move to where there were fewer taxes, but if they cannot afford to pay privately for everything they need, then they might move to a state with higher taxes and more services.
I used to track which states pay a state supplemnent for SSI when I was writing about SSA. States like California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont have their state supplements administered by Social Security, which means recipients in these states receive a combined payment from the federal and state levels.
The maximum monthly SSI payment for 2025 is $967 for an individual and $1,450 for a couple. But Illinois has an OSS, optional state supplementation program. Illinois also has a Supportive Living Program, which is a Medicaid waiver program offering service-enriched housing options for individuals who would otherwise need nursing facility care.
Florida generally does not supplement SSI payments.
The state with the highest average SSI payment is the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), where recipients receive an average of $637.52 per month. This amount includes both the federal SSI payment and any state supplemental payments.
Illinois has a far better safety net than say, Florida, which basically has none. Florida didn't extend Medicaid. Florida doesn't have public assistance per se. E.G. workers injured in IL do far better that those with the same injury in FL or TX.
So you'd think that the laws of economics would force injured Floridians to move....but they don't. The reverse is happening. People leave IL or NY to move here, regardless -- even if they lose benefits.
Yeah, lol who the hell wants to live in IL especially in the winter? I'd take FL any day.
Well, any day expect Sunday... or Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or Saturday...
I guess I will just stay here in California :-)
(Sorry I hate making jokes about this but seriously we still need a LITTLE humor!)
Yes. That is a personal choice for the Floridians, but at the same time people in states that do fund their services with a tax base are choosing too. I am saying that states have the GDP to provide all services just like countries do with similar GDPs or smaller do. Illinois is around the size of Belgium but has a larger GDP. It can afford this.
Also, states could pool resources for investing in programs like health care.
We are experiencing a huge administrative process right now. The SCOTUS just said Trump could fire all civil servants. We are paying for a federal government that we aren't getting. The money is mostly going for 3 things.
1) Billionaires
2) the military
3) ICE
My state is better off taking care of things on its own. There is not going to be any more disaster relief. DOGE and Palentir have sucked up all our data, and Trump wants to strip all Democrats of their US citizenship. I am thinking of ways to salvage what we can, and still function like a nation that fits our wealth, not like third world Russia where a third of the people do not have indoor plumbing.
That would essentially mean the entire realignment of the United States not to mention one of the greatest and most dislocating transhumance movements in modern history, and almost certainly its dissolution. If that is what you want, you should simply come out and say it.
Reading Jefferson is something to be done with great care. He was the epitome of the contradiction that was and remains the United States. A slave owner who preached freedom and individual rights, who did not believe that blacks were equal to whites. A man who supported the French Revolution even after it had devolved into bloody chaos. A man who thought we should toss everything out and start all over again with some regularity. A man who said that ‘We are all Republicans, We are all Federalists', but didn’t believe that for a minute, thinking all Federalists were closet monarchies. A man who thought the country would best consist of 'yeomen farmers’ on their land without any consideration for what was actually happening in a world in which industry was growing by leaps and bounds. A man who, despite his stature, was perennially in debt because he couldn’t control his own spending habits or his love of fine things. A man who slept with a slave and then disregarded their combined offspring. A man who, though his media myrmidons accused Washington of losing his marbles in order to gain political power.
Like some other geniuses, he could reach for the heights of intellectual achievement and soaring political dreams, but had a very hard time with reality on the ground.
I agree that our Republic is and always has been an imperfect bargain. I think we probably came closest to fulfilling our promise in the 1950’s and 1960’s with Brown v Board and the Civil Rights and Voting Acts, which of course the Republicans have been trying to dismantle ever since.
But the essential promise of the Constitution, with all its flaws remains our best chance, for it was and remains the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted. It constantly presents us with the chance to see if ‘We the People’ could together find just enough of the courage, the honesty, the compassion, the understanding, the tolerance, the humility, the humor, the wisdom, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves from the bottom up with as much justice and equity as is humanly possible.
If we fail, it will not be our structure that is at fault; it will be we ourselves. And then no structure can then be expected to succeed.
And when states start invading each other? You'll just end up with multiple regional wars.
Ah yes! Bring on Oregon! We'll finish 'em off in 7 days!
😃
I agree. That is why I said states should have their own budgets, and they can enforce and fund their own laws, including gun control, abortion, whether or not they want immigrants, environmental laws etc.
I sometimes think "what if they all spontaneously combusted?" It happened to a character in a Dickens novel, and the idea stayed with me!
and if you can persuade them that it's part of the Rapture, they will be happy to set themselves on fire.
I've had the same daydream! I thought I was the only one!
Dale😂🤣
And all his cohort, especially the Nazi in chief, miller.
Good lord doesn't Miller realize that Jews don't make good Nazis?
Well as long as you don't include Netanyahu...
Hmmm....
And hitler - he was half Jewish.
The only way to improve on what you so eloquently stated is to say, "If Republicans are so damn worried about crime why in God's name did they elect a convicted felon with an insurrectionist history to the Presidency?"
Don't forget the SCOTUS!!!!! It's not just him and the cabinet....
Dave A, so sadly and perfectly on point. Common thugs, one and all.
What they want to do is run those cities into the ground, just like they're doing to everything else they run.
And how embarrassing that the president of our country has the grammar skills of a second grader. If that.
Now this realistic observational comment [from Michael] is a “slam dunk”…it should register a “like” from each and every soul who reads it—unless the reader is a supporter of or one of them from the “dark side”!!!
DC may need a new rat control chief or dog catcher.
I am vying for being Trump's lead cheer-leader in the press office.😉
Give me a "T" . . . ¡ t ! 🙄
Give me an "R" . . . ¡ r ! 🤔
Give me a "U" . . . ¡ u ! 😳
Give me an "M" . . . ¡ m ! 🫣
Give me a "P" . . . ¡ p ! 😱
¿What's spell? ¡TREASON! 🤭
¿What's spell? ¡TREASON! 🙂
¿What's spell? ¡TREASON! 🥳
¿What's it mean? ¡Bull-shit! 🤢
Amen! Have him take them all to FL,
Dave, your few words summarize exactly what our country has faced during the village idiot's reign of terror. You win the blue ribbon for today's comments!
Thank you for your kind words. I see rough times ahead, but we need to keep fighting for our democracy. The day after the election, I wrote a list of 50 predictions. Sadly, most have already come true or are in the works. Here’s a link, if you are interested and another to a piece I wrote a couple of days ago. Heads up, the second post is rather dark.
https://davea.substack.com/p/november-6-2024-predictions
https://davea.substack.com/p/execution-fascination
Dave, your first link was prescient, indeed. We can hope that most of what has already transpired can be reversed, but it will take gigantic effort and a wrenching rethinking of the Supreme Court's structure.
Your second link was dark, as you warned. In the past, I've argued with others about execution, but there is a frightening, dark rationale among many that makes me despair that any agreement can ever be reached among the opposing sides. This country has a long history with the bloodthirsty.
Supreme Court term limits are required, I believe. One 12-year term, perhaps two, should be sufficient. The idea that lifetime appointments insulate justices from political pressure is clearly mythical, now. As for the death penalty, I too struggled with the idea. Serial killers and mass murderers, for example, seem beyond rehabilitation. But I finally landed on opposition to execution by the state because there are just too many cases where people are exonerated (by new or recanted testimony or DNA evidence). I play baseball in an “old man’s” league. One season, one of my teammates was just such a person. He spent 30 years in prison for murdering a cop. He always denied he had done it. DNA evidence found him innocent.
Dave, we have witnessed what lifetime appointments encourage. I agree with the idea of 12-year terms. Roberts, Alito and Thomas are ample warnings about the potential danger of lifetime appointments.
Capital punishment is a magnet for abuse, racial and otherwise. If people like Ted Bundy are considered, they certainly aren't candidates for rehabilitation, but as you say, there are many instances of innocent people who have been sentenced to death but are eventually proved to be innocent.
Reduce crime or engage in any functional behavior. Incompetent since January 20, 2025!
🙌🏼
Lord God Almighty, we’re in a real mess.
“Who’s to blame?’” Texas governor Greg Abbott repeated back to a reporter. “That’s the word choice of losers.” Tell that to the parents of those little girls killed at camp, you low life. My blood boils with anger at the thought of my daughter being among them. I'll be lighting a candle tonight for those little darlings.
Abbott is a disgusting pig. Maybe if he had done his job some of those people would not have died.
Texas, once again, has shown that it is being run by incompetents.
Cruel, self-serving incompetents.
Professor Richardson has repeatedly posted & did so once again TODAY that since 1980 Republican politicians: "passed tax cuts that moved more than $50 Trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%".
Repeat the reality of that massive WEALTH TRANSFER as often as needed.
I've heard this statistic many times (in this newsletter and elsewhere), and I often do repeat it to people. To be honest, I rarely get the reaction it inspired in me, which is outrage and disgust. Most of the time I get a blank look, of befuddlement perhaps, or questioning if I'm making up the number. People seem disinclined to believe or process what this statistic means. It's very frustrating actually, since I agree this needs to be shouted from every street corner and posted on billboards until the public at large begins to internalize the enormity of this theft.
The sheer size is likely the barrier to people's understanding. $50,000,000,000,000 is simply too vast to wrap one's brain around. There needs to be a concerted effort to conceptualize and communicate what this loss means. In terms of housing availability, homelessness, community cohesion and resources, living wage jobs (or not), and the resulting hopelessness and despair that arise from lost opportunities. Getting this message through to a wider audience would be a large step toward repudiating the abominable conservative governing ideology that keeps blocking democratic initiatives.
Thank you Syd for that real-world Comment. I have often watched Judges explain their duties to a Jury. When the Judge is reading the Jury instruction on "deductive reasoning", I am sure she is scanning the jury's faces for that "blank look".
Then comes the good part that part I love to watch. The Judge reaches down into her Bag of Real World Metaphors for instant understanding in the gut as well as the brain & communicates.
I knew that undergraduate course in Physiological Psych would come in handy some sunny day.
:---)
Their greed, and lust for power has desensitised them to the actual lives being lost from 47’s rein of terror. And it will continue to be that way until it affects them personally. These jerks think they can buy themselves immunity from climate catastrophe? The Earth they are destroying thinks otherwise.
Please don’t malign pigs—he’s a sewer rat.
Please don't malign sewer rats either.
He's more like a malignant tumor.
the Abbott press conferences have been disgraceful -- first one was all about ass-kissing Trump and this last one was scolding people looking for answers, by using trite and meaningless football metaphors. Honestly it was disgusting.
It's hard to accept that Texans are glad Abbott and Paxton are their leaders in times of crisis: storm floods, hurricanes, or winter freezes. Texas has proven that hobbling state (or Federal) government for the sake of tax cuts benefits only a few. Too bad Citizens United added rocket fuel to the politics of greed.
You're forgetting about sCruz.
Oh, right, he was missing in action once again.
Nice for he & family getting to leave our country for pleasure. He should have been on the next plane (of which there were many) to get his ass home to TX. Shame- 2nd time he's pulled the disappearing act on his state. When is his term up?
Unfortunately a LONG time. He was just re- elected last November running against Colin Allred who did pretty well but not good enough.
I'm afraid we have Ted Cruz to kick around for another 5-1/2 years. Personally I'd be glad to not kick him around if he would just leave.
But he won't. Sigh.
Remember his initial appearance at Uvalde??
Meaningless?
Meaningless you say?
Have you never been to Texas on a Friday night? How DARE you call those rituals meaningless!
😃
He’s too busy redrawing his districts to care about flood victims
In 1964, my sister and two of our cousins were attending a church camp in on the Big Blue River near Milford, NE. Flash flooding caused the Big Blue out of it's banks any there was no loss of life thanks to the emergency warning systems. This was over 60 years ago.
This is 100% Trump's fault for firing the national weather service and NOAA personnel in a totally haphazard way. They couldn't have done a worse job of reducing personnel if they had thrown darts at the names of personnel on a wall.
And while we're at it, I totally blame Trump for wasting over $700 million for his failed bombing of Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.
Trump is partly, the teflon man because he denies everything and blames it on someone else. And while, I rarely agree with Greg Abbott, (the governor so stupid he went running in a thunderstorm), "assessing blame is for losers." And Trump is the BIGGEST LOSER. Someone needs to restart the BIGGEST LOSER TV series and every episode highlights Trump stooges. Andy Horowitz and Alexander Petri would be great writers.
Also wasting millions of taxpayer dollars by golfing most weekends at his own properties!
Totally agree
I have to jump in, GJ. The loss of forecasters and one key person: coordinator of emergency warnings. The guy who coordinates the issuance and delivery of the warnings was one of the DOGE casualties and is certainly a part of the ineffectiveness of the warnings that were issued. County politicians, however, are the ones who failed to install an appropriate EWS because they didn't want to raise taxes...
You're right Ally. Texans certainly don't give a damn about safety of others, only about $$$$. But Trump never accepts blame for anything he's messed up-- NEVER.
How about asking Muskox for Disaster $. ;-)
Someone needs to restart the BIGGEST LOSER TV series and every episode highlights Trump stooges. - Great Idea!
I'd watch it!
I had to go back and read the thread to understand the context of your comment. 😀
My heart rips apart for the girls lost at camp and their families. Camp is a place of joy and of challenges faced and of invaluable growth. That this happened when all was not in place to be ready for a potential disaster is a tragedy beyond measure.
Every single one of those families should file a wrongful death suit against Trump, Abbott, and all those responsible for making the disastrous, shameful decisions that led to this tragedy. Keep them all tied up in litigation for years and bleed them dry. It is no consolation, but it would hit them where it hurts the most, since they have no conscience or remorse.
And we haven't even hit hurricane season!
A loser answer from a loser admin. Word salad. These vile ass kissers killed all these people with their kowtowing to the head clown madman. The pain of these people who lost loved ones is pushed to the side to cover for the crazy lunatics who haven’t an effing clue what the hell they are doing. God help us but more and more people will die at their hands. And they couldn’t care less. The ones who put taco in office are to blame.
I’m not sure I agree the TX side of this crew is in incompetent. They’re just arrogantly heartless. It’s a sad situation when politicians don’t give a sh!t for their own children and don’t even hide it.
That is a key component, MLM.
Abbot continued: “That’s the word choice of losers.” “Every football team makes mistakes" “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, ‘Don’t worry about it, ma’am, we’ve got this.’”
But it is those who are watching (or not) the game in the stands that are drowning. This is NOT a game. These are real people not footballs.
If memory serves, don't those teams study game videos now, trying to root out where they made mistakes, and how better to correct them? Isn't looking back on what happened and how it happened, the way we prevent things from happening again?
Yes!
Sports metaphors from the mentally incompetent ! Very comforting to the bereaved. This guy is a governor ????
If Abbott and his cohorts spent more time improving infrastructure and less time litigating what bathroom people use and what books people read, I dare say this tragedy would not have had quite as horrific consequences. Priorities.
As a mother and grandmother, I thought the same thing. If I’d lost a child and/or his/her friends in that tragedy, and he said that to me, I’d shortly be jailed for murder. These are the most soulless people ever.
AMEN!
He clearly sees himself as on the championship team even as the death toll in central Texas continues to climb.
The Uvalde families still haven’t gotten answers from Abott/Texas govt either
They won't. That was the most disgusting display of cowardice that I have ever seen from the law enforcement community.
I was the daytime cop in a town with one each elementary, middle, and high school. I met with the admins of all three schools (spent a lot of extra time at the elementary school) and explained, in detail what our department policy and training was in school shooting responses (we are a smaller agency, with often between 3-8 road deputies on duty at any time in a county almost the size of Connecticut). I then shared with them my commitment: If I did not have a second deputy with me by the time I had arrived and was ready for deployment, I would go in alone. Period. There were two guys who lived in the town that I had on speed dial who would respond from home (both were SWAT guys). We had a pretty good plan that was "extra curricular" to the department policy.
They must have some enormous rugs to sweep things under in Texas...
I just posted the same before I read your comment. How about we drop him in a room with those parents and let him say that to their faces?
Mine, too.
A heavy veil of darkness and delusion is rapidly descending. Build your Light everyone. Shine through it. Illumine it and tell others to do the same. @Heather Cox Richardson keep shining. Your Light is Brilliant.
👍 Indeed. Along with Joyce Vance covering the fine details of the legal process that Trump seems intent on dismantling, the two of these very fine women, have the ability to shed light on the daily chaos that our nation faces every single day and I applaud their amazingly hard work and commitment to bringing us a truthfully honest and intelligent viewpoint
"It takes a village."
Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, David Packman, Thom Hartmann, the Daily Show, the Meides Network, Jimmy Kimmel, etc. etc. etc.
There is so much anti-Trump and anti-Republican material every day that it's a full time job to sort through it all.
But, no question, HCR is the best in my opinion.
Bryan Tyler Cohen, Pod Save the World, The Bulwark, Lawrence O’Donell, Rachel, Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Dahlia Lithwick, Jen Taub . . . . .and my absolute favorite? Ketanji Brown Jackson!!!!!
Please include Robert Hubbell's "Today's Edition". Fact filled, dedicated to accuracy, legal education, suitable outrage....always followed with a "can do" attitude and suggestions for positive action. Robert is a master at analysis and positive leadership.
👍 Yes. There are so many great writers on Substack that my list of posts to subscribe and follow grows every day!
Yes, the essence of what is going on in this country on a day to day basis is well documented by Heather Cox Richardson and Joyce Vance. To me the rest are extrapolating and though informative I find myself avoiding that avenue out of mental health necessity. I wish them all the best through these perilous times.
My two first-thing-in-the morning reads. (If I read them at night, I wouldn’t be able to sleep!)
I admit to sneaking a peek occasionally when I wake up in a sweat from dreaming about the necessities that need my attention to continue to live as a childless, long time divorced, single white old woman who just wants to remain healthy and safe from the possibility of being forced to live in an assisted living facility again after making my way through during my eight months of a traumatic health crisis. While I adored many of my co-residents and staff, I felt like I might be the only resident who was up for the challenge of being free to continue my fight for democracy once I was able to live independently again.
I'm glad you're here!
Agreed. I am "tuned in," but I have a finite capacity for news consumption. I have subscribed to Brian Tyler Cohen's YouTube channel, and I find myself losing interest in his efforts. His access to "big names" is expanding, and I applaud his success. But the titles of his videos are sensationalist and frequently promise content that is nowhere to be found within the video. In other cases, content is "recycled" under a different title.
I have concluded – or I suspect – that he may be trying to attract Fox Entertainment viewers by imitating the Fox engagement patterns. If so, more power to him, but the sensationalist, hair-on-fire approach is not for me.
Agree - I read just enough from those whose analysis I trust to keep suitably informed. I think the legacy news has become afraid and maybe even cowardly. If journalism doesn't have our back --- then who does?
And I hope they all have the stamina for the next 3 1/2 years to construct daily aggressive ways to combat incoherence, fake news, the ongoing epidemic of irrationality and villainous alternative realities the trump era enjoys unleashing on us.
Totally agree, i don’t start my day without them.
Amen Judith. The light needs to shine through this regime. Reject greed,corruption and cruelty.
Let the values of our democracy shine through by how we treat the world around us.
So the 'grey cardinal' behind our throne isn't Richelieu or Wolsey, but PeeWee German instead. And on the gold-plated throne sits a demented toddler, who can't make up his mind if he's a criminal, an economist, a doctor, a lawyer or interior decorator because what passes for a mind now looks like a piece of rancid Stilton with holes. You can see it in his eyes. Why the hell don't more reporters NOTICE this? Dementia has physical symptoms, not just mental ones. Pam Bondi might go 'oooh, aaaah, shiny things!' when he wanders off into gold-leafed lala land, but the rest of us aren't being paid to lie like that.
Aside from fascism and dementia, the only discernible policy at the White House and Congress seems to be 'hate taxes.' For generations, the GOP has cultivated its know-nothing poison at the heart of questions to Texas's pathetic excuse for a governor about whether deep cuts to NOAA and the DOGE madness played a role in the flooding deaths. "Don't worry about it, ma'am," he said. It would have been more honest just to say: 'Slam, BAM! thank yew, ma'am.' For him, we're all just prostitutes and not entitled to ask questions of our johns.
In a speech made as far back as 1904, a later Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: "taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society...with them [we] buy civilization." For decades, Republicans attacked that, while quietly changing "pay" to "borrow." Too chickenshit to go on record as opposing civilization, they're more than willing to plunge all of us into deep debt -- at all the wrong times -- just to ensure this fake-populist scam keeps getting them elected to office.
Well never get back our civilization until we overcome the idiot precepts PeeWee German now uses as a non-existent checking account to send armed goons on "demonstrations" in Los Angeles just to showcase their lawlessness and small phalluses.
ICTT, yes. But I suggest that Miller and Vought find it convenient to have a puppet who is completely demented but who can stand as a figurehead for the idiots' delight members of Congress and the 35% or so of the electorate whose prejudices and self-absorbed whining are being reinforced by them. The Felon can be turned on (literally) when cameras are directed at him--which was evident in the hilarious photo session with the king and queen of The Netherlands a couple weeks ago (Queen Máxima can be seen mimicking the Felon's facial gestures quite gleefully)--and is moribund the rest of the time. And because he loves to (cos)play Don Corleone, the press gets all titillated by his threatening posture. I have consistently pointed out in the last year (also during the first administration) that if Miller gets cut out of the picture, the rest of the hydra heads will also die.
One day their demented puppet will wander into the White House briefing room with red tie and jacket on top, and nothing but adult diapers below, and THEN they'll have a real problem 'splaining that one to us...
You think he actually dresses HIMSELF? I doubt it.
Linda, I think he does dress himself. I've noticed that he uses a technique followed by men who are colorblind. All his suits are dark, black or navy, with the occasional royal blue when he wants to stand out. These are paired only with white shirts and neckties in bright primary colors, red, blue and yellow, with a preference for red. This is a "mistake-proof" system, like "Garanimals" for a grown man.
He also does his own makeup because "no one touches the Trump face." If you're a Vanity Fair subscriber, you can read behind the paywall. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/02/trump-does-his-own-makeup
He might do his own makeup but the bright blue suit was (I think--all the Stepford Wives blend into one another) Laura Loomer's suggestion because it is "slimming." That came out when he appeared in it at the pope's funeral.
And please don’t forget nazi miller’s buddy Vought and their frontmen Vance/thiel. Their corruption and sickness are undeniable.
LOL — understatement
Uh... you just noticed this?
Where have you been for the last 40 or so years?
😃 (sorry just a little humor... no offense seriously intended!)
The sad part is I’ve been involved over the last 40 years and I’m just blown away at all of this. I thought it would hold, but it looks pretty frayed around the edges. No offense. We’ll get through this.
Trump is accountable for the Texas flood disaster as his mass firing of NOAA agents failed to give warnings in time. Indeeed, like any CEO of a private company, a president is accountable for national disasters.
Totally agree!!!!!
One friend heard a pundit say that we should all start addressing Stephen Miller as “President Miller” so that Trump would become jealous, and there would be increased friction between them. Your thoughts?
President Miller! Wonderful. Then we could call Trump a loser (since he is one) because he hates that most of all. Must have been what his father called him aa a boy since he couldn't measure up to his brother. Donald the Loser. New hats, anyone???
Have you noticed how many in Trump's circle look like crypt-dwellers? Miller / Bove / Homan / Bongino?
I have a very small, non-fact-based theory that all of his adherents were outcasts, bullied, unloved, ignored individuals who are celebrating, with felon47, their retribution tour to feed their cold, unloved and unloving, cruel, sick, and twisted little hearts. I cannot imagine, aside from obvious psychopathy, a person growing up with love could turn out as inwardly hideous as these people.
Absolutely. Because they are all soulless ghouls.
That is just hilarious. Yes as children we would come across booklets entitled TALES OF THE CRIPT. THESE PEOPLE ARE STRAIGHT FROM THE ILLUSTRATIONS.
Jeannette, I’ve longed for a red hat with a very large “L” with smaller letters following… “oser”. Or perhaps the image on the front of the cap of a hand making the mocking “L” shape with an extended forefinger and thumb. Or maybe “45 dumb/47 dumber”. Oh, the delicious “cap”tions we could come up with!!!
I was recently on a Zoom call mainly of Canadians, but the two American participants wore red hats saying "We hate him too". They were very welcome at the meeting.
A protester I met Tuesday, said she and her husband returned from Canada recently, and (I believe), mentioned Canadian friends that tried to enter the US as they normally do but were refused entry after being asked if they supported President Trump. They said they did not in no uncertain words. They tried again later at a different crossing, without saying anything critical of him but they were apparently listed as rejected once so they can't cross anywhere else either.
I'd suggest just telling them it isn't any of their business.
This is damn scary….police/autocratic state. Allegiance to THIS guy….really, you choose THIS guy to betray the Constitution for???? Sadly the USA has become a joke of a disaster of a comedic tragedy of a spoof of the worst Twilight Zone episode EVER.
👍🤣
How about Make America Neat Again?
We sure could use some MANA spirit to heal us right about now!
Already have a new red hat. It says, "Is he dead yet?"
President Satan Miller
… and his underling Anti-Christ Noem
Might be a good idea!!! It would be lovely to see them turn on each other!
Maybe, Lynne, Rat Face suits him better.
It's worth a try. It worked with Musk
That's what I was going to type.
Oh my! That would probably do it
Lawlesness. Fickle tariff chaos. Despotic ICE and other masked Gestapo terrorism.
How did Americans get so ready for “normalizing” so much White House fumbling, incompetence, and criminality? – that gerund a gift to us from the most recent, new Substack of Sarah Kendzior.
If we’ve sharp minds, we know “Let’s be careful out there,” from the daily morning parting words of the old Hill Street Blues dispatch sergeant. We know the more to sharpen us we may anticipate life’s complications. We may invite them all the better if we whet our debts to how others handle the human, from that old TV series, from Sarah Kendzior’s good books prior to her Substack, and from the books and videos others of Heather’s commenters here often volunteer.
It's called being literate.
Ain’t none of that in the White House. Not in the Quisling Republican Congress. Not on the majority corrupt Clarence court. Nor in the press corps ever trundling after those many mediocrities.
Hello Phil... There is a new Book Released called "2024" that discusses some of Promises made by DJT to his MegaDonors... Disgusting.... Shame On All... "2024" is written by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf. The political news website Axios published excerpts of the book on Tuesday.... Have You Noticed That There Are No MAGA Hats Among The Kerr County Rescuers?...
But there IS a team from Mexico! Yes, Mexico.
Ciudad Acuna :)
I put 2024, and the names Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf in my search engine.
And thanks, Apache -- up came an interview video of all three with Sam Stein.
Seems like a fine accounting.
Kerr County. I've been to that part of Texas (more than once), and only met decent folks.
I think MAGA hats across the U.S. will be disappearing, as even those fellow Americans register the massive betrayal on them by their orange cheerleader for the cynical rich.
I sure hope so. If and when the fever passes, current Republican leadership is really disgusting. Sacred honor? Not a trace.
I hope you are right, but “right is wrong” around here. Kerr County elected Chip Roy, enough said
And Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project had the three of them on for a half hour on one of his podcasts yesterday.
The Mexicans, Canadians, and other countries know that MAGA doesn't speak for millions of Americans.
We need to splash the face and story of that young USCG Petty Officer (whose name sadly escapes me) who saved so many during the floods all over the media as a shining example of a true American. Drown of the haters with the actions of people showing the best we are capable of.
Scott Ruskan.
https://resistthemainstream.com/young-hero-completes-unimaginable-feat-after-deadly-texas-flash-floods/
Incredible. First mission. Speaks VOLUMES about the necessity of training.
Telling, isn't it?
I don't know that that's true, Apache. I really hope there actually are.
Hello Phil... Netanyahu was in DC the past two days... At a Whitehouse Dinner, Netanyahu presented a Letter to DJT that stated that Netanyahu is Nominating DJT for the Nobel Peace Prize... Netanyahu Who in February 2025 broke the Gaza Ceasefire... Netanyahu Who Unilaterally started Bombing Iran... All this for Netanyahu's Political Survival?.... It seems that at this Point, Netanyahu needs DJT...
Netanyahu's delivery of that letter is the most blatant ass-kissing gesture of the last week - and there were so many of them to choose from. One violent thug nominating another violent thug for a peace prize. It if weren't so appalling, it would be comical. Bizarro-world.
At least it will GUARANTEE that the Nobel Prize Committee won't be awarding Baby Trumpy with any plaques, honors, cups, flowers, or tributes calling him "Daddy." Not that there was much chance of that before, but....
Fellow thieves, murderers, liars, braggarts, and con men, Apache, will protect each other.
Trump will backstab with the slightest provocation.
It seems like a tasteless joke.
A$$kissing at its finest. Or at least most obsequiously oblivious.
Dear Lord. Could Netanyahu’s ability to flatter DJT’s ego get any better from this very same man who has used his devious charm to get want he needs in order to continue with his goal take over Palestine while destroying the lives of millions of innocent people in Gaza?
And hysterical laughter broke out all over Oslo.
He lives on flattery, and Netanyahu lives on thuggery. They love each other like brothers.
How does the Nobel Prize committee select the winners? For the Peace Prize, what peace has trump accomplished? I don’t get why anyone thinks that person deserves that Nobel!
Hi Phil, in terms of the preparation for "normalizing" the acceptance of the current situation, I've been reading Andy Borowitz's "Profiles in Ignorance". His essay breaks it down into three phases "Ridicule", "Acceptance" and finally the current phase "Celebration" of Ignorance.
You've probably read it, but to me it very clearly lays out the iterative dumbing down of leaders, and at the same time preparation of the voter base for what currently exists. It's very insightful and very well done.
Illiteracy is rampant among the MAGA masses and in many of the sycophants in the hand picked ultra loyalists in the Trump Administration, Phil. But there are also highly educated people in powerful government positions, people who might be called intellectuals, who nonetheless allow their religious/political beliefs and self-interests to shape their decisions and actions. Think John Roberts, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, there are many of them. Many years ago, I used to think of Liz Cheney as dangerous for this reason, but she turned out to have a moral center. I wonder if any of the others will turn, or whether they are in this too deeply.
They will turn like irrigation water but we must set the dam first. Their history of Trump hatred turned darling affection shows a sycophantic gene is awry. They remind me of the snarling of jackals circling the kill site looking to share in the booty of the lions kill. As to highly educated, well ok, but I prefer to consider them as maybe exposed to education. You are spot on to separate these extreme predators for sure. I think Cheney should get mention for her profiles in courage. She is still a woman who sets dams.
"Exposed to education " - Perfect.
You're right to call it what it is, lawlessness wrapped in theater, hollowed out of meaning. We’re watching an entire government morph into a performance for power, not service. ICE raids staged like military ops, courts hijacked by ideologues, media numbed into routine. The real danger is not just the corruption, it is how quickly people adjust to it. That is what Kendzior warns: normalization is the final stage of collapse.
Your invocation of literacy hits hard. This is not just about reading books. It is about reading the moment, seeing the arc, naming what is unfolding before it swallows us. The “Clarence court,” the “Quisling Congress,” the parade of cowards and cronies, none of it happens in isolation. It happens because we have let cynicism replace citizenship.
We still have choices. But they are shrinking. And as you said, sharpening the mind is no longer a luxury. It is the only way to survive what is coming.
When Trump was a young adult, he wanted to be an actor. Of course his tyrannical father would not have that. So he’s turned his political “career,” if not the rest of his endeavors, into a giant performance, changing roles as necessary.
Yeah, they all run it good. Trump’s abuse of language reflects his abuse of power.
Emily, I think his abuse of language is a reflection of his learning disability exacerbated by his family's refusal to help him overcome it. Instead, Fred Trump just bought Donald's so-called "education" when Donald's cheating was unsuccessful.
Likewise, Donald's abuse of power is a reflection of the Trump patriarchy's habit of skirting and outright breaking the law. Roy Cohn taught him how to exploit our permissive legal system to ignore ethics and break laws, then stymie the courts from holding him accountable.
You're spot on, but it's the Roberts Court. I know, Clarence was there first, but he IS the Chief Justice. He benignly watches while all that he wishes comes true.
Jen, thank you. I know that Thomas and Alito are the "movers", but John Roberts is CJ, and it is "his" court. I also thank you for knowing there is no apostrophe his name.
so nice to know someone else knows the name and actions of ' Quisling"
Andy Borowitz ran a several-week series on his Substack earlier this year to nominate and select the Quisling of the year among the members of the administration. It was a hard fought contest ... I can't remember who 'won', and it hardly matters, there are so many credible contestants.
Mitch, I think. 🤔
Thanks Capt. Furillo!
TRUMP, BY GUTTING FEMA AND WEATHER PROFESSIONALS, IS KILLING CLIMATE CHANGE VICTIMS
Trump doesn’t give a s++t about the American people. As candidate he excoriated FEMA and President Biden when North Carolina suffered massive storm damage. Ditto with the horrendous fires in California, when Trump was tremendously critical of the governor and every aspect of this natural disaster.
As #47, I am unaware that he has taken any public initiative when there have been climate disasters. I recall recently in Missouri that over 100 people were killed in tornados. There have been other disasters in southern MAGA states.
Meanwhile, FEMA has been decimated both my Chainsaw Musk’s DOGE and by Trump’s sycophant administrators who have gutted FEMA. Similarly, by DOGE and cabinet-level action, many federal weather professionals related to ‘climate change’ have been significantly reduced.
When over 200 human beings have died in the river flooding in Texas, Trump has ‘suddenly’ recognized that ‘climate change’ kills and that the federal government has some tangential responsibility in such disasters. BUT he and his young White House press secretary, as well as Governor Abbott, are publicly appalled by criticism that Trump’s and Abbott’s failure to prepare for such disasters are their responsibilty.
Might I remind them: ‘what is fit for the goose is fit for the gander.’
Trump’s FEMA disaster reflects his absolute disinterest in the lives of the great majority of the American people. Tax cuts (principally for wealthy individuals and corporations) with massive and surging federal debt I find unconscionable. Seeking to partially offset this by cutting Medicaid (dropping over 10,000,000 individuals from health insurance) and other massive slashing of federal social services including SNAP (20% of the American people receive federal food supplements) I consider criminal.
I repeat myself: TRUMP DOESN’T GIVE A S++T ABOUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Meanwhile, in his current presidency he has, in less than six months, added $1-2,000,000,000 (according to the New York Times and Washington Post) to his personal wealth through his Oval Office machinations.
Good to hear from you, Keith! I thought it was sad/funny/stupid that ‘Rump momentarily tried to “blame” Biden for the tragedy in TX….until he waffled and kinda walked it back, no doubt realizing the statement of blame made NO sense and he’d be roasted if he persisted. I still have to splash cold water on my face from time to time to “come to” and realize he really IS the president, or as I call him the “Pretendident”. I keep hoping I’ll wake up from this nightmare. You’ve seen/experienced much in your long career, and I wonder in your considered opinion where you would place Trump in the pantheon of Presidents, and why? [Not meaning to give a homework assignment, it’s just you’ve seen & been privy to so much in gov’t service that I value your perspective.]☮️
As a NH native, I will be forever grateful (NOT) to Trump for supplanting Franklin Pierce as our nation's WORST president - or as you so aptly put it "pretendident" :)
Barbara We went to Long Island for a family Fourth. The wi fi didn’t work, so we were Internetless for five days. Now I know what an alcoholic must feel going ‘cold turkey.’
Our Pretendident is a krazy king. I recall what happened to Charles I, and he didn’t deliberately screw up his country.
Steve Pierce had some excuse for being a dreadful president because of the loss of his son. Thankfully Buchanan was gay and had no issue. With King Donald, #47 is worse than #45, which makes him the two worst presidents in American history.
Thanks, Keith! I thought the other day, as Prez’s go, #45 was bad…..and #47 is worse. Ta-bum-tsssss! Will have to read up on Pierce and Buchanan, as only have vague knowledge of their time in office. Re going wireless…I was explaining to a youngin’ (to me at least) about having to go, gasp!, to the library to research things….now in the comfort of home we just log into the ‘net to have a vast array of data at hand. I still, however, try to always vet the info/source of the info I seek and am skeptical of much out there with a “yeah? prove it” state of mind. Hope being ‘net free was, um, freeing after all…like taking walks or actually talking with each other!!!! Sounds kinda nice actually!
I like Jeff Tiedrich's iteration: Preznit Trump.
Yes, Dale, I enjoy Jeff’s posts very much, as I do Jay Kuo’s Saturday Substack “For Skeets and Giggles”…a compendium of skewer’s, puns, vids, etc. of all things political and fun animal vids at the end for a “psyche cleanse” for the week. We sure do need our laughs to balance out the grief/outrage!
Barbara, thanks for the referral. Haven't heard of Jay Kuo before, but I'll check him out. The occasional laugh helps me avoid doing something that could land me in prison!
Dale, here is the one from last Saturday 7/5/25: https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/just-for-skeets-and-giggles-7525?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=283462&post_id=167582074&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6wq7j&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
One more, Dale….his regular Substack (Saturday’s are *special* editions!) is great too. Here is today’s…called the “Status Kuo”: https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/alligator-atrocity?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=6wq7j&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I call him prezdint. Easier for him to say
Yes, the corruption is breath-taking, and probably just getting started. Soon we will have weapons systems, food AID, and coal/oil subsidies that get turned magically into yachts, etc.
I have a friend who works for FEMA. He kept his job because he is a trainer, but now has no one to train. Under Biden he spent about half his time deployed to places like TX, FL and LA, because of personnel shortages. Now, as far as I know, he has not been deployed to TX, even with the even more acute lack of trained people.
As we saw during '45, Trump and his people are very good and manufacturing and then 'solving' crises. Solving actual crises, however, seems to elude them. The difference now being they have doubled down on the "we got this" messages, to the point where they actually believe them themselves. This is where mental illness and incompetence (not just Trump's) and policy intersect. The wizard is just a tired, crazy old man. His flying monkeys are children with guns.
Somewhere, I read the statement of a knowledgable man that the $20 million cost of building the Everglades detention facility* is suspicious. For what is there, even a "rapid-build" operation should have cost about $5 million, suggesting that $15 million of taxpayer dollars went somewhere other than the building of that facility.
The $450 million annual operating budget is equally suspicious. Someone is pocketing a shitload of cash from this deportation scam.
*I refuse to call it by the cute brand offered by the Trump regime and repeated by the press.
Call it what it is: a concentration camp. And it takes a lot of money to create a hell on earth.
When I'm writing off the cuff, sometimes my mind won't cough up better words, so I just go with what I've got.
Dale Hemingway did pretty well with his stream of conscience style of writing. Indeed, that’s what I do when I riff of Heather’s posts at 3:30 am, when I’ve just awakened because of a painful back.
I am generally pleased with the substance, though a middle of the night proofreader would be appreciated.
Project 2025 wants to abolish FEMA, partly because it is a successful federal program that helps overcome states' inability to deal with a cross-border or super expensive disaster on their own, but also because its existence and activities tend to be evidence that climate change is real. Project 2025 is among many other evil things a prop to the oil and gas industry so has to believe that climate change is a hoax.
Blame is the name of the game. As he said, find somebody else to blame…. And he does, every time.
Thanks, Keith. As always, I appreciate your analysis and assessment. Your last two lines are pure gold.
Well, if it's any consolation, it appears that the AMOC is reversing, a climate changing event we've been anticipating for a few decades. It's now happening, according to a paper published last week.
Why be happy?
Because it's going to happen fast, and change things fast. And the southern
Atlantic coast of North America is going see it hardest and fastest. Buh bye, mar a lago.
Jen Let FEMAless Florida handle Mar a Lago under Trump’s great buddy, Governor DeSantis.
The dysfunction is mind boggling. What I fail to understand about all the sycophants surrounding andsupporting Trump especially those who have post Trump political ambitions, is how could they not have paid attention to those whose careers and reputations were ruined during Trump’s first term as president. Everything Trump has ever touched in his life has failed. Trump’s failures this time around will impact the country so badly that not only will careers be destroyed but we will be decades cleaning up the mess he is making.
I'm not convinced these are "failures." Any of them. They are part of his life practice to strip anything of value from any asset he can get his hands on, and damn the consequences for anyone else. He's the kid who pokes a hole on the ball, who kicks over the sand castle, who pulls chairs out from under people as they sit down, who laughs and jeers and points fingers at anyone who is hurt, who prides himself on his vapidity, on his ability to hurt others, on his immunity from pushback. He's fat and fatuous and mean as the day is long. And the crowd around him, his sycophants and fellow travelers are just as bad. Just as mean. Just as miserly of spirit or heart.
The big bloviating bully and his Bastion of Bullies.
The best loser money can buy!
Ain’t that the truth!!!
Mean as a spitting cobra and smelly as a skunk. What he can't just wreck he tries to claim credit for. 'It was I, all along, Mighty Mouse, who saved you, even though it was all Joe Biden's ideas and doing.'
Part of the package of a psychopath who boasts than when you're famous, you can grab things that don't belong to you because the Supreme Court lets you do it.
He is the dog who heists his leg.
Agree. Their pain is his point.
On the climate front, it could be centuries.
" it wouldn't be hard for us to do it" In reference to taking over NY city, and DC. About as hard as ending the Russia Ukraine war in one day Donny VonShitzinpants?? Every day is closer to a full police state. How long before real journalists are imprisoned, and protest is made illegal? Scary times.
You’ve got that right.
Every single reporter, news reader, interviewer needs to pause after each "story", look up and say "bullshit". That is the language and brevity that appears republicans can handle. We are living under a dictatorship that is blatantly taking down the country. The level of incompetence is astounding even for a so-called republican "administration".
Every.Single.Day is a nightmare for democracy, the environment, global and domestic economic well being, civility and sanity. Never-the-less people are traveling and vacationing like there is nothing happening which works individually to maintain joy and balance but it shows the difficulty of fighting all of this on a massive physical scale.
So many of us haven't been able to breathe since trump appeared on the national scene but with the heat index again settled in over 100 degrees in Massachusetts, it's physically impossible. And, speaking of breathing, one of my closest friends is planning to visit her daughter in Altadena, CA (house survived but still uninhabitable) where the cleanup for residents is another disaster- the contamination remains epic. Not seeing that on the "news" anymore.
Indeed. Everything this maladministration is doing is absolute BULLSHIT!
And yes, breathing in MA is getting to be like breathing in FL. I do my little bit of "farming" from 6 to 8 AM and have to quit. Go home, change out drenched clothing, hide inside.
30 years ago I didn't have an air conditioner. Just a few days of serious heat.
25 years ago, we operated inns in Maine. AC was not needed. Open the windows at night.
20 years ago AC became an essential amenity if you wanted guests in your B&B.
Now? We have become inside creatures. Hiding from the hot wet blanket called weather.
What will New England be like in 25 years?
It's like that in SW MO now, too. If I don't get out early to do chores and walk the dog, then I don't get out at all. It feels like Miami here in the morning. I can't take the heat anymore and I spent a career working outdoors in the weather.
The South today Bill. From the mid 70’s until the early 90’s I didn’t have AC in my craftsman home here in Atlanta. I had shade from hundred year old oaks
Then a hurricane passing west of us on its way north pushed one of those oaks over, and the city killed the other one removing the stump, presto no shade. Now I’m like you doing most of my gardening early in the day before I shower with the AC set to the upper 70’s. I love the long days of summer, but not the intense heat.
I $upport NPR.
And also not seeing what the DOD is doing with trumps gifted plane….
The Trump dictatorship grows by the day as Stephen Miller’s power and hate for democracy becomes more obvious.
Your sources support your letter as well as indicate that the rapidly rising corruption and incompetence of the Trump Administration is becoming more blatant.
The Supreme Court’s Republican majority do not have the courage to stand up to Trump and Miller’s growing authoritarianism either.
Rather they encourage it.
Yes! For your first two paragraphs. But...
Not sure it has anything to do with courage. Six members of SCOTUS are in fact part of the scheme. They are tools of and an integral part of the plot to install a plutocracy.
We didn't get here by accident or just by the clever con campaign of $trump. There is big oligarch money behind this power grab. And they are colluding with angry disenfranchised Bible Thumping MAGA Haters.
I can imagine Stephen Miller as Maximilien Robespierre. "Eliminates" his enemies until he has gone too far. Our very own "Terror" has just begun. Robespierre was very popular among his supporters and then not so much...
the sooner Miller shares the fate of Robespierre (even if only figuratively), the better for the country.
I totally agree! Thank you for clarifying my statement
Mary Kay, I agree with Bill Alstrom that courage, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the Extreme Court.
I have often referred to Clarence Thomas as a "one-man sleeper cell," installed as a token Black placeholder to discourage the nomination of any other Black judges who would more likely be of a liberal mindset. Recall that for 30 years, he sat like a silent bump on the bench, never asking a question during oral arguments nor writing significant opinions. With the sudden addition of Leonard Leo's protégés, corrupt Clarence has found his voice, and it's an ugly one, in full-throated support of removing others' rights and cheering Trump's foray into dictatorship.
SCOTUS has been redirected from its co-equal power as a check on the executive and legislative branches to an enabler of "centralized executive authority," aka dictatorship.
I would like to see a poll showing Trump's support dropping amongst his MAGA supporters. Ah... here we go (link below) ... a report dated July 3rd.
But the larger problem I see is Trump probably doesn't care about polls at this point, because he is in total revenge and purification mode. He's determined to mold America into his white supremacist image of what should be. And there's enough time - and money for ICE now - that I expect Trump to go forward with his "We will run Los Angeles" threat (and maybe NYC as well) by declaring a national emergency. And Steven Miller will spearhead all of these plans, from an operation management perspective. Just thinking out loud here.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-update-polls-republicans-2094154
I definitely agree that this whole ICE mess is about creating a police state and normalizing thugs roaming the streets. It is terrifying.
Thanks, Steve. As I am a long term optimist (getting harder every day) I do believe that ultimately, a president gets blamed for everything. Now that the traditional "honeymoon" is over, he will own everything. I still hear people laughing as they say "It's Obama's fault!"
What will move $trump's polling to a point of complete "no confidence"? Perhaps a combination of this list in no particular order of impact power:
Reduction in Veterans Care - many are part of Trump's base, friends and relatives
Closing of regional hospitals - lack of care, deaths, loss of jobs!
International incompetence - getting more involved in the Middle East, Ukraine chaos
FEMA - not being there for Americans as we have come to expect
NOAA and NWS - cutting staff, too few weather balloons - disasters, insufficient warnings
Immigration Deportation Overreach - loss of friends, coworkers. loss of key workers leading to shortages of food and other essentials, rising prices...
Tariffs - business uncertainty, businesses refrain from hiring or investing for lack of stable policies, unemployment grows, trading partners seek other nations to partner with, and rising prices...
Ultimately, a combination of bad policies hitting home. The pendulum will swing. I hope.
but MAGAts will be the very last to know about any of these developments because Fox won't tell them.
The pendulum will swing. But it's still on it's arc to worse occurrences: the pile of bodies in Texas will be repeated in other states as the hurricane season progresses, and a gutted NOAA fails us again. The ICE budget will remove even more from FEMA, and continue the expansion of concentration camps and kidnappings. The summer's only started.
I fear you are right. The snowball to Hell is just beginning its descent.
May a Cat 5 hurricane crash into Mar A Lago, unannounced…
I think his enablers are getting to indulge their most white supremacist, vengeful fantasies, and keeping Trump rambling about the possibility of gold leaf in the corners of the White House suits them fine.
The Oval Office already looks like the parlor of a Russian whorehouse.
Russian whorehouses have more class.
James, you're probably right about that!
Trump would know!
The myth of King Midas tells the story of a greedy king who receives a wish from the god Dionysus, granting him the power to turn everything he touches into gold. Initially delighted, Midas soon discovers the curse of his wish when his food and even his daughter turn to gold. He learns a valuable lesson about the dangers of greed and the importance of appreciating what truly matters in life.
There was an OpEd in the WSJ (that progressive bastion) two days ago telling its readers to blame Cruel Nature for the Texas flood, not DOGE’s cuts.
Hard to reach for a greater absurdity. Nature is the Great Mechanic that gave us the Earth and all that therein is; the Himalayas and the Rockies, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and all the other places of unimaginable beauty not remotely achievable by human beings. Not content with the original, it is constantly at work reshaping, refreshing, remolding, revitalizing. Most often that work is so slow that a man might not see more than a bit of it in a lifetime. But at times, yes, it is rapid and can be violent. But it is all of a piece, and calling it ‘cruel' is as pointless as blaming the sun for shining or the ocean for its tides. In truth, we in our hubris pose a far greater threat to Nature than it does to us.
But regardless of what DOGE’s actions may or may not have had in this particular instance, mindlessly gutting the very agencies that teach us about Nature’s activities, do their best to warn us when it is about to make a violent change, and help us to recover afterwards is both pointlessly cruel and unutterable stupid.
We have the go fortune to be sentient beings on an endlessly beautiful and nourishing planet, and yeah, a fairly hazardous one. We also have the capacity to anticipate, blunt, avoid, or transform some of those hazards, and to share a pretty satisfying life for most of us most of the time, IF we play our cards right; but childish ego seems to get in the way.
A sad waste of a species conscious of the world/universe (tho’ we really don’t know much about other sentient beings we share our home with…some are just starting to explore this)…but if we continue to lay waste to our home, Gaia, she can shrug or flick us off as one might a mosquito trying to suck blood. Evolution would continue, but perhaps not come up with another “mind” quite like humans—tho perchance some small group might survive and live more in balance on this planet—no towering spires, feats of technology or space travel, just life and being. I wonder…. As I have oft said, the only reason I want to live forever is find out how it all turns out.
You know very well that it turns out bad. Very bad. Random bad. The greatest gift is finding the beauty within our boundaries. The Barbara Keatings and Heather Coxs’. The professor Wheelocks, the JD Texans, the Marlene Bigleys, those who nurture with care and dignity. This list is strictly random good. If your name is not here I read you. Trust me you are here as well. As I have said we all lay down together and Rex added the importance of the circumstance is not lost. It turns out just as you imagine.
If we were truly a "sentient" species, EVERY news outlet would put Climate Concerns, and solutions thereof, at the top of the fold, front page, first item spoken...EVERY DAY as THE most important subject in the history and future of civilization.
The impact of humans on our planet is so enormous, so beyond the worst Sci Fi novel that we should be thinking about it as if a LARGE asteroid was headed directly at the Earth.
Polar ice is melting. Polar ice has been containing magma - preventing volcanoes from erupting. (Yes! Volcanoes under the ice!) The pressure is beyond measurement. One large eruption away from dystopia. Picture an enormous volcano spewing lava over a polar ice cap, sending clouds of ash and toxic gases into our atmosphere. A temporary cooling followed by more heating as carbon dioxide is added. Seas rising...
A small example is Iceland where the ice is disappearing and eruptions are increasing.
But we are fiddling around, most of us oblivious...and we wonder why aliens have not officially visited us.
Nature reacts to maintain/restore balance. The more out of balance, the more violent the correction.
Pleased that the American Academy of Pediatrics has joined the suit.
Nice to see some spine in some professional organizations.
There are so many MAGA doctors in the US that love Trump and the Republicans. They hate to be forced to pay taxes on the $250,000 plus salaries while underpaying their staffs.
I know some of these, but they won’t be the ones out of a job when Schitt hits the fan
Trump said it wasn’t the right time to talk about his plans to phase out FEMA.
When would be?
The exact same line they trot out after every mass shooting: "now is not the time to talk about gun reform"...
Right after he's phased it out. Just like talking about what went wrong with the 2024 election, right after the election.
Quarter past never.
I think JL it is time to do drive by spitting. Visualize implement.
Thank you for documenting all of this. I don't know how you have the stomach and stamina for it. Future generations thank you, as well.
Trump is going to take over NYC? He lived here. He really is crazy.
People in NYC - myself included - cannot bear Trump. Good luck taking over the city Orange guy.
He is the type to try to rule the world if he could manage it.
6 months ago it seemed far-fetched to suggest that ALL of the Blue States secede.
If Germany could reunify, then we can surely split up into 2 our more countries.
1. It is basically the same speech they give each time there is a shooting massacre.
2. The 2nd tree cannot fall on top of this crippled asshole soon enough.