If he’s filing in Texas, homestead exemptions may allow Alex to keep his home, but property taxes and the expenses of running a large home may require him to sell it out of financial necessity.
2.8 million dollar house, $7 to 10 million in other properties, assets,cash & equivalents, retirement accounts. Take it alll, and payments for the rest of his life. 150 years ago Alex Jones would have been tarred and feathered.
This short quote from the article says it all concern the cult that once was the Grand Old Party: ''...Republicans have increasingly fetishized guns as a symbol of individualism...'' the bastardization of freedom. Thank you, Heather.
I think the phrase "Republicans have increasingly fetishized guns as a symbol of individualism..." could have been written substituting "masculinity" for "individualism". I think that those who feel the need to have a bump stock in their lives have a real problem with their own self image.
That is exactly what I was thinking--although I would use an anatomical word that's a lot more explicit than "masculinity" when referring to what these m**herf**kers fetishize. As always, HCR tries to keep it polite. I think that in these situations, politeness gets us nowhere. If a guy thinks a gun will make his penis look bigger, he has to be ridiculed. Full stop.
I am disappointed to find that readers have to wade through screen after screen after screen of whining about what is, admittedly, yet another deeply misguided decision by a truly awful collection of six Supreme Court justices appointed by rethugs but which is very far from the most important topic HCR discussed in today’s Letter, which is that America’s most powerful CEOs know that voters are likely to put a lazy, venal, ignoramus in the White House, which ignoramus will set in motion a great many actions that will take civilization over a cliff. Really, folks, while it’s true that the sea is not (yet) boiling hot, it’s plenty damn hot enough to force billions of people over the next fifty years to move to places where conditions allow large mammals to survive, their current homes being at that time no longer such a place, which migration is going to cause such a massive disturbance in human behavior that it’s hard to imagine that civilization can survive. The way we’re headed, people, it’ll be a Mad Max world by the end of the century. And the sea is gonna get a whole lot hotter with the Orange Jesus adored by so many adoring, True Jesus (I used the term ironically, at best, maybe sarcastically) fans in the White House. Or with any rethug in the White House, for that matter. We need to stop whining about a problem we have absolutely no hope of fixing until we put a solid majority of Democrats in both chambers of Congress and a Democrat in the White House. Without a trifecta, and a trifecta that persists for several decades, nothing else we do will matter a whit to the future of civilization. Stop whining about what we have no hope of fixing, yet, and go out and get our people, the decent human beings among us, to the polls in November to throw the bums out, permanently. It’s a tall order, I know, and we don’t have good odds of success, but it’s our only hope. Get crackin’.
Yup Rex - we humans do tend to latch on to the little (relatively) nit-picking issues, dont we? In fact, that is how the Replubs keep their followers in line. I havent read your post from this morning yet - will get to that one next! Actually this comment of yours right here sort of hits all the high spots!! And yeah, I agree, if we dont manage a trifecta - all the other issues - no matter how important or not - arent going to matter.
I agree with Rex Page that the most important part of Heather's newsletter today (i.e., June 14) was that the CEOs found that Trump “was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map."
It reminds me of an experiment discussed in an ancient book by Konrad Lorenz (unless my memory has become remarkably meandering and incapable of keeping a straight thought) in which a fish was, in effect, lobotomized and returned to its school, after which the school followed the lobotomized fish. I always thought that example held a lesson for humanity.
Somehow civilizations advanced, ideas were formed and opinions were stated for centuries without a race toward crudity. Aren’t we all getting tired of it?
You're kidding, right? If you want absolutely disgusting crudity, read the Greek and Roman poets and playwrights. Or, in the Middle Ages, Chaucer, Langland, most of the Italian poets, the more popular apocryphal biblical texts. Or Marquis de Sade, Voltaire, Dafoe, Swift, and Shakespeare and his peers. Or . . . I could go on. Crudity is the core of creativity.
Sadly, more may as the idea of a machine gun for everyone spreads. As we can see from women with extreme anti-abortion views, and as leaders in the book-banning movement, females are not intrinsically more tolerant, life-affirming or humane than men.
It appears to be irrational until you recognize the one thing underlying everything the leadership of the MAGA Republican Party is doing. Everything they do is in service of their divide and conquer agenda. They don't actually care about guns, or the 2nd amendment, or the life of the unborn, or the people they've conned into supporting them, or even each other. They are all a means to an end in which they imagine themselves having the "freedom" to tell everyone else what to do, and enough power to make sure everyone does what they are told.
I couldn't agree more, James. I think it's all about keeping their office. Many are supporting Trump so they don't lose in the next election. And others like Tuberville, Gaetz, Vance, etc. are rednecks while still others are in the category with MTG and Boebert, just plain idiots.
I remember when W championed compassionate conservatism. It never occurred to me to look up the definition until now. The definition for it and neoliberalism are basically interchangeable. Such tripe. No telling how much government money Pappy Bush and his “Points of Light” initiative forked over to some of the same religious organizations that are now trying to destroy American democracy.
No, not sincere at all. It was a conservative con that was enacted to get Americans used to the idea that the government didn't serve the people but the business community solely.
I think it's helpful to remember the true inheritance of the Bush family. I don't know anything about Prescott Bush's father, but when he was a partner in Brown Bros Harriman he conspired with others to overturn the FDR administration. Look up Smedley Butler and the Bonus Army.
They've always believed their great privilege financially entitled them to control others.
No, the robber barons of FDR’s time truly hated FDR and Eleanor, They were traitors to their class and it killed them that FDR was President. Then the Republicans ran Thomas Dewey against Harry Truman totally expecting Dewey to win. That truly was a heady time for Democrats ! We hoped for Adlai but no one really cared the Eisenhower won. He was our national hero, the General of DDay and the end of Hitler’s Germany. After Truman got rid of General MacArthur, Eisenhower was the General of Generals without the pretenses.
One would think, hope, the MSM would take note of far more than it does. Without the "alternate" sources via Substack and others, precious little would be as thoroughly covered. Not that anyone here needs be told. Grateful daily for the existence of these sources and the comments that so often yield more.
In maga world life is sacred from conception until birth. After birth not at all. Shoot at will. Could it be that women are the target of sanctity of life laws and men are the protected mass shooters.
Why are the republicans striving to see who can be the most outrageously offensive? Christmas cards featuring AR-15's, shooting Bud Light cases, supporting bump stocks et al.
If it's a contest, Kristi Noem has won with her account of shooting a puppy (the veracity of which I question in light of this contest).
This crap about, "I need a gun to overthrow an oppressive government", is a pipe dream. They just wanna play macho.
I have two words for all those who think they are going to take over the government by force: Marine Corps.
"Hate, resentment and anger" are the cornerstones of MAGA values according to President Biden. HCR reported this last week taken from one of his recent speeches.
I agree Betsy, that cruelty also is a key component.
Has been since chump’s blather about Obama’s birthplace. Then worse every day, new targets, new accusations, and vicious bullschittery that too many developed a taste for.
The world looks on and shakes it's head in disbelief. It appears thatvin the US gun ownership is more important than our future generation. What an absolute shame.
Sure seems that way. So discouraging to see this Supreme Court vote to allow bump stocks. In 1977 when my brother-in-law was 21 he was murdered by a 17 year old in a random act of violence with a "Saturday night special" gun. 4 other people were injured. The destructive ripple of those few minutes continues. Since then I have been leading a weekly program for teens in secure detention, in memory of Otto, in part to share the Ripple Effect of gun violence.
We also created am Otto Meisenheimer Prevention of Gun Violence Research Fund at the IU School of Public Health. If that teen had had a bump stock, horrible to think that many more lives might have been lost. There is absolutely NO reason to allow bump stocks. So sad to be moving backwards when the only solution seems to be counting on legislators who too many are bought and owned by the NRA.
That makes it even more shameful. The more I read the more convinced I am that our educational system has to take some of the blame! People are showing their lack of it!
As did people watching Hitler's takeover of Germany. Kristallnacht. Anyone who bothered to read Mein Kampf. They can be excused somewhat for not having instant access to information as we do now.
But then our information gets skewed and our leaders stand by helplessly. See article about Stanford's disinformation research group in the Post.
Our forefathers must be turning over in their graves. This is a continuing theme in the bastion of the former “Grand Ole Party” now operating as the “Grand lying Old Party of ass-holes.” Pardon my French.
Kinder words than they deserve. The hypocrisy would choke anyone with an iota of integrity. I couldn’t spew that tripe if I had guzzled enough booze to kill a horse. Yet the sycophants bow and scrape to evil and pretend he’s Jesus. Must be a trip for Mitch since he’s the one who demanded bowing down to him. Ha
Because our species has such an attention deficit disorder, and we quickly focus on the carnage of the day to motivate ourselves, you know, when women forget that voting for conservatives will ultimately end control of their bodies until it’s too late, sorry to say, we need another bumpstock carnage similar to Las Vegas days befor the election to create a massive blue wave that will ensure a super majority of democrats in congress to effect protective legislation for We, the People. Isn’t that sickening?
Very sad. It is like a double homicide for the Sandy Hook families. First the children are murdered. Then memories of the children, to be cherished, are murdered, too.
¿How does one become an Alex Jones?
¿Can wealth really be that important?
A sickness eats away at our culture . . . and our children.
EDIT: thank you, all for an informative polylogue 💡, in response to this initial comment which hardly does y'all justice. ✌️
For all the R shouting about protecting fetuses and protecting kids from drag queens, etc., they don't care about children or most other people either. If they did, they would accept federal government food help during the summer. They would enact meaningful gun laws. They would stop regulating medical decisions for women. They would do everything to help ordinary people. But they prefer power and money and being the party of death.
I just keep writing postcards with TonyTheDemocrat to get Democrats elected. If DeJoy hasn’t figured a way to keep them from getting to their destinations… But the price goes up to .56 cents on 14 July. Does anyone else remember penny postcards?
Order stamps online. Google “forever stamps.” These are not scams. I have been buying from them for last three years. They are companies who bought up large quantities of stamps from business that failed and other legal stockpiles. You can get postcard stamps also. Very good for use with FieldTeam 6 and other groups. Forever means just that.
You are so right. The world cannot make sense of what, very sadly, America is becoming. I cannot explain to my many friends overseas how an animal like tRump can be candidate to the Presidency with a real possibility of becoming elected!
Exactly!!! MAGA and much of the GOP don't seem to get that educational, health and economic support for people in need is a social investment that repays over and over.
Ned, just look at the republican congressmen in tRump's corner. They have been bribed and see a life of great wealth and power, in exchange for their support. However, they overlook tRump's history. He has screwed everyone that has been in his corner for decades, IMO.
JL, the very best speech money can buy!!! Wait! There’s more…with your dollars you too can buy a Congressional Rep, or even—ta-da!—a Supreme Court Justice!….don’t wait, make your purchases now while supplies last!!!!
Yes,I agree.I read something yesterday on another Substack that speaks of Trump and I am paraphrasing here-If he can’t screw it, get praise from it or can’t make money off of it , he hates it which pretty much sums up his bottom line.
He will burn this country to the ground to get what he wants which is admiration and money. He recently floated the idea of getting rid of income taxes for putting tariffs on everything. The man is insane.
How does one become an Alex Jones? How does one become a Goebbels, or such. I often wondered that about the German insanity. Now I watch it here. Little men who see the power of a so-called big man and latch on like a newborn to a tit.
I guess you'd have to have lived in post wwi Germany et al to acquire some of their sensibility, perverse as it was, only bringing on gigantic tragedy of mass death and destruction.
I can't quite... Hitler was gearing Germany up for a massive war of conquest, depopulation of far eastern Europe esp Ukraine for German colonization, extermination of Jews, massive confiscation of European wealth. illiberal democracy i certain can believe
I am not posting this essay ONLY to seek attention; yes guilty as charged. I post it because I am really, really frightened.
EDIT: thank you, Jeri, as well for your insight into opportunism. We need look no further than Shady J.D. Vance. Like all those intellectuals flocking to the S.S.
I sense a growing similarity to Hitler/ Goebbels lies and the strident defenses of Trump by the Republican members of Congress.
It is quite unsettling to note the similar incredible denials of reality that propelled the Nazi’s to power and helped Trump be elected.
By 1945 an obviously insane shell of a Leader was issuing futile nonsensical orders followed adoringly by hypnotized military cultist officers just as Mike Johnson and Lindsey Graham deny the reality of an inept mind crumbling publicly.
Reality is going to be a very harsh decider of an unpleasant outcome.
These are frightening times. Dr Cox Richardson as well as Dr Bandy Lee, offer hope. https://bandyxlee.substack.com/ One from history and one from psychiatry.
Yes, Alex Jones couldn't do this by himself. Most of his liquid assets will be stripped from him, finally, we hope. By current pricing, 2.4m for his home isn't wealth amok, though i wish it too had been on the "auction block" with something left for modest living. The man's mind is pathological, and treatment would be a welcome mandate. My guess is he actually knows he spews lies.
The SH families are having to live their lives rewitnessing the "triggers" of their unfathomable losses each and every day. There isn't enough $ to compensate for that
But, speaking of reliving triggers it has taken me a few days to come to terms with one of my own that I thought might have been mentioned here already which is MAGA Mike's decision last week to refuse extending and expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). He did it to appease his MAGA base who said that it would be too expensive,...but, $8T in tax gifts to their donors is just fine with more to come.
The trigger for me is that my father became ill in his 50s and died 3 yrs later due to radiation exposure at the NV Test Site back in the 60s & 70s. The details are hard to discuss w/o going to a place I read TC in LA describing a few days ago about his own family's experience via another former POTUS. I'm not very good at summarizing in a few words and a blog is not the place for the longer story but, suffice it to say there are many thousands of workers like my father who sacrificed themselves in the line of duty in the early nuclear world, uranium mining and related industries not to mention those who had nothing to do with it but to live "downwind". But, now the govt has turned their back on them and their families. All of them,... forgotten,...disposable. There aren't words to describe it. It had already passed the Senate and Biden said he would sign it but, the "so-called" Christian MAGA Mike refused to even bring it up for a vote.
Now with bump stocks back in the hands of those with only "hate, resentment and anger" in their souls there will quite predictably be far more "triggers". Ned is sadly correct that "a sickness is eating away at our culture".
Not to mention Joe Biden’s eldest son dying of brain cancer and being exposed to burning pits. He understands this loss. Compassion is what this country needs.
So sorry to hear about your father. I missed all of this discussion about radiation. I agree with you that we should be extending and expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. What can we do now?
I blame forever chemicals and pollutants for damaging our the part of our brains where empathy and understanding and generosity springs.
I also blame ALL (even Clinton and Obama) of the presidents and their administrations, since Reagan who did not turn this train away from enriching the rich and taking from the middle class and the poor.
Yes, they’ve played a part but I stop short of saying “ both parties are corrupt”. Currently the Republican Party is leveling a huge amount of damage. You’re not seeing this amount of corruption coming from the left. We have to start somewhere to move forward and I think Biden is trying to do just that for the most part.
Very hard to watch yet it felt necessary to see what these parents have had to endure. 12 years later they still get death threats, verbally abused, berated for what some lunatic fringe believes is a hoax because of Alex Jones "Infowars' website.
During the trials and after hearing from some of the parents of the children that were slaughtered at Sandy Hook, Alex Jones is still unrepentant and lacks any empathy for the parents. He deserves this judgement against him although it probably does nothing to help the immense sorrow and grief that these parents have suffered and must continue to feel and relive through court cases and harassment. Not sure if Alex Jones has children but what if one of them had been killed at the multitude of school shootings that have happened in the U.S., would he even believe it then?
Alex’s ex-wife understands that Alex is a kook, and she doesn’t want to expose their children to his nutty thinking. She also found out through the defamation suits against Alex that he wasn’t forthright with her about how many assets he actually owned, which could be a basis to increase his child support obligations. The bankruptcy would put an automatic stay on it, though.
I agree that he is conscious of his decisions and fully responsible for them, but I think he believes in his own nonsense. The court is hitting him where he deserves, right in his wallet.
Tho’ awful to contemplate, I’d like a time machine to drag his ass to Sandy Hook and to, first hand, walk through those halls and rooms and be faced with the reality and then to face the parents after. I’m not a mean person, but that sliver of me that can be if I summon it, wants this to haunt his dreams as long has he sleeps. That someone can be as viscerally cruel as he has been to the parents of lost children and to the survivors who will carry this trauma their whole life just astounds me…the definition of depravity.
Eisenhower made sure the townspeople had to go through Dachau and the death camps were heavily documented with pictures so no one could deny it.
My parents went through Dachau (and the Eagle's Nest) when we were stationed in Germany during the Nuremberg Trials and Berlin Airlift (I was a toddler at the time but do have a few memories of things like the Munich Train Station and I think a Zoo in Munich sometime between 47 to 50). Their economy was so poor that my TSgt father could afford two live in maids (mother and daughter), and had an artist that paid for his room and board with oil painting (either sold on the street or given to us). I'm told I actually learned to speak German (from the maids) before English.
Though the Germans seemed friendly and kind to me, my mother, especially as we grew older and became appalled at what they had fallen into, always cautioned that we weren't that different from them, it could happen to us, too. After we discussed some of the history, she always mentioned Hitler was more popular in Germany than FDR was in the US as reinforcement that we could become like them.
I’m sure there are pictures that he should be forced to see and be haunted by for every nanosecond of his miserable existence, viscerally cruel says it well. Hard to find the words but you did.
I think that there is something deeply missing within us that is causing the resurgence of the need for power and control. Look at the rise of authoritarianism throughout the world. There is also enormous need. Migration has been growing for years.
Those countries opening their doors to receive the starving, the homeless and the persecuted have done so at a cost. Realistically but negatively, citizens regard immigrants as invaders who are taking resources from their country..... taking opportunities/jobs ( that no one else wants but are necessary for many economies) away from us and immigrants are accused of increasing crime.
I am reminded of the Irish fleeing from starvation who came to us, and the Chinese who helped build our railroad systems, and the early Mexican settlers of California who had to fight to keep the homes/ranches they had built and where they had lived for years....as California was claiming its statehood....not to mention removing lands from the Indians who were here before us....and not to mention the people of color who were stolen from their homes in Africa, brought here to labor for landowners, etc.
Wanting to reclaim the use of such powerful and unnecessary weapons is just a sign of our dark side and a feeling of helplessness at being attacked when we have been "Caught at misbehaving". How are these days so different ?
Throughout the world, I think we as a people are too afraid of losing what we believe we should own....rather than sharing our abundance and finding it profitable.
I am reminded of the a story of the little boy, Jesus' disciples found among a crowd of people who had gathered to listen to His teachings. The crowd had been there a long time and they were tired. Jesus asked the disciples to ask the people if they had food and this little boy brought a basket of bread and fish to the disciples . The disciples gave the basket to Christ who blessed the food, broke it into pieces and there was enough for everyone...and even leftovers.(John 6:8-11)
Emily, I think, perhaps, if look far enough back….when different iterations of the genus Homo walked the earth, Homo sapiens moved into territories of others and either assimilated (eventually outbreeding?) or replaced/vanquished (we will never actually know exactly HOW it came to be). Seems like this is hardwired into us—and perhaps a “memory” that eventually changed our DNA to be suspicious/fearful of the “other” coming into “our” land. Interesting that many of us carry DNA markers of Neanderthals and Denisovans, so we did intermingle! I do fret about, and it is already beginning, what will likely be the massive movement of people due to climate change….many of them will be our own citizens moving elsewhere in the country to escape areas no longer really habitable.
AJ could only exist when there is an audience ignorant and open to and accepting stupid conspiracies and willing to send money to him for the useless products he was hawking.
Anything for money…the Maga mantra. Maybe the loss of much of his wealth will help Alex to mend his wats, but doubtful. I’m sure he has millions more secured off shore so he can continue his lies and slander. A maga darling and example to their kind.
“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” —Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent from the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Garland v. Cargill
Any first year law student would quickly realize the plaintiffs in the mifepristone case didn't have standing. Why did it take them so long to come down with an obvious decision like this?
They needed the time to lay the groundwork for the next case that will come before the court so that they CAN ban mifepristone. Read the decision. In the words of the Monty Python song, if you are a fundamentalist Catholic, “Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted. God gets quite irate.”
And that lack of humanity yesterday produced folks who had supported treason right back to the historical site where it had initially occurred….to honor the guy who had implemented it…..
The thing I find so wrong and troubling with this SCOTUS decision is that it is an attack of the very structure of our Federal government. For well over a century we have had a regulatory approach in which Congress passes a law that states principles and objectives, and then leaves it to an administrative part of the government to write detailed regulations that are consistent with the intent expressed in the law. That's the way the FDA regulates drugs. That's the way NHTSA writes safety regulations for motor vehicles. That's the way the FAA regulates aircraft safety, and on and on. What we do not do, is expect politicians to be detail level experts, nor to spend the almost unimaginable funds required to maintain staffs that are expert in the details of everything that needs to be regulated. Imagine the conservative outcry if we were to fund Congressional staffing to that level, and the taxes that would be required to support it. The old Soviet apparatchik system would look trivial in comparison. This decision is close to being insane.
Good post. Your discussion of the regulatory approach is spot on. It is vastly preferable to drafting legislation for every contingency. But I think it would be possible to have that same regulatory staff draw up proposed legislation that could then be passed to congressional staffers for final drafting into law. There are sufficient resources in the "Deep State." Call the MAGAt bluff a few times, especially if they threaten to filibuster. Maybe if they had to perform perform that filibuster physically, they'd get tired enough to lay off. Manchin and Sinema almost certainly will be gone from the next Senate. There is a decent chance that at least one of them will be replaced by a real Democrat. Vote Blue all the way through!
Visible at the core of everything the right wing does is a self asserted right to do as the please at others expense. That's why the US broke with the monarchy, and why we bother to have laws. There are always those who maintain that if they are in a position to bully others, they ought to be allowed to do so.
Very true. But the twisted RWNJ definition of freedom is simply the right to do as they please without consequences to themselves. I don't think most of them actively seek to harm others. They just don't care. If others are affected by their freedom, that's their problem. There is no corresponding virtue of restraint or responsibility, civic or otherwise. The reality-based community needs to take back the word "freedom" and define it clearly.
Reality and conscience based community. "Freedom, liberty, worthy of the name does not deprive others of their own "unalienable" human rights. That, I think, is the cornerstone. A society that allows any person, or any group, to bully others is corrupted, period. We may never create a perfect society, but we have the choice to actively seek one, else see real freedom die.
MAGA types have repeatedly told me that real adults know that life isn't fair; and that's true to a point, as misfortunes abound. BUT, as human beings, have the choice to try to be fair, and to support caring, or else add to the mayhem; the difference between a genuinely "free society" and a nasty dictatorship or failed state.
Exactly right, sir, and well said. Your comment encapsulates the noble ideas of both Lincoln ("Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves") and FDR (Freedom of speech, worship, freedom from want and fear).
On a side note, this substack community is an oasis in the desert of mindless gab, pointless hate, stupidity, misinformation and disinformation that makes up so much of our information environment. What a pleasure it is to wake up in the morning (I'm 5 time zones west of EDT), grab a cup of coffee, sit down at the computer and find a thoughtful, well-written response to something one has posted.
This is certainly an echo chamber, but it is one comprised of intelligent, articulate, courteous, and compassionate members. Even when we disagree passionately, the disagreements are polite and thoughtfully expressed. And a sense of humor seems to underlie all. Maybe it's because so many of us are Of A Certain Age. Life has taught us things, including humility. It's a guilty pleasure to join in these conversations.
It not exactly an echo chamber as I have been in the midst of people who repeat the same talking points nearly verbatim, and not just on the extreme right. Even paraphrasing takes some active thought. I think HCRs viewpoint unsurprisingly attracts those with a similar viewpoint and value system, but also drawing from diverse life experiences and interpretations. In any case, I think I am hearing the thoughts of individuals, not just the repetition of an orthodoxy.
I have empathy but not sympathy for most of the base of the far right. It's a funny mind game they have chosen, and I appreciate where they are, having grown up in a conservative so-called Christian extended family in southern Ohio. Believing in the concept of a soul and that there must be something after death gives a lot of comfort to people as loved ones "shrug off this mortal coil." But of course that comfort inevitably leads to bad things, such has pontificating when ensoulment occurs, or their nonsense about the need to be conservative about that. So they start down the path of being cruel to teenage and adult women in order to be "respectful" (that's the word they use) of this thing they have totally made up. With that, they are well along down the slippery slope to just being evil in order to avoid questioning their faith. So empathy for the mental conundrum from whence they start, but zero sympathy for where it leads them.
I agree that especially with emergent situations which often involve new technologies, that having Congressional hearings that lead to staff drafting initial regulations is often good and necessary. But maintaining the regulatory regime over the long term, regardless of the topic, is almost always best left to people who have committed their working lives to being experts in whatever topic it is. Yeah, they need to be hauled into committee sessions and given a hard time every once in a while. That what they don't go overboard. And there needs to be some give and take on that, and it's often hard to figure out where the balance between personal freedom and what's good for society should be. And the nice thing about our system is that when there is uncertainty, it can be left to the states at least for a while, so that a variety of solutions can be tried and compared. But eviscerating the whole and telling Congress that it has to explicitly state what the rate of fire is for something to be classed as a "machine gun" is just plain stupid on its face. So we have six obviously stupid judges - stupid in the sense that they clearly lack the humility and good sense that people in their roles need to have.
That's another thing I don't get about the far right. They tend to claim to be religious conservatives, and yet the founding prophet or supposed deity they purport to follow invariably preached the critical importance of humility. They should spend more time practicing the "do unto others" aspects of their supposed faiths.
Or a buoy marker where one is needed. Perhaps like other places to sail one must be aware of water color and depth or have local knowledge. I’m wondering if this reef has become exposed for all to see? If not by now I would say we’re sailing at night or our eyes are closed.
That's a toughie. Certainly it includes keeping a spotlight on what they are up to and whose interests are served, and whose interests are ignored or trampled. Make an ongoing thing of who gave them their jobs, and why. It takes a crook to pick a crook.
Every tool can be misused as a weapon, so given the "Mr. Hyde" side of human nature, constructing reliably benign procedures is always tricky.
And yet, the folly of entrusting the fate of nation entirely to the whims of a single party is now fully evident, whether in the composition and accountability of $COTUS members*, or a rogue presidency. The crimes of Trump and the "GOP" are overwhelming. Somehow we need tools to correct a disastrous error or case of patent malfeasance, beyond the crap shoot of trusting one side or another of partisan politics? Our existing system of checks and balances seems rather buggy.
"Republicans" are now enraged in systematic efforts to bring down the republic. It seems to me that our choice remains truly governance of the people, by the people, for the people, or some flavor of tyranny. Is there any evidence in history to contradict the adage that unchecked power tends to corrupt?
* Can the personal pick of a corrupt felon ever escape the taint of impropriety?
I remembering the search not to find FBI investigation of charges against that creep and his patently unprofessional testimony; clearly not a suitable candidate for trust with adult responsibilities.
Anyway, in private industries, having lied on your intake interview can easily get you fired.
Craig, may I suggest the book by Michael Lewis “The Fifth Risk” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk. Although it is specific to the Obama-to-Trump transition, to me it is much more expansive than that….it pulls back the cover of what some (erroneously IMHO) call the “deep state”….it’s those public servants & agencies who work everyday to keep us and our country safe. Anyway highly recommend it, and his other books too.
It may be a delay in the handshake between the html code and the server. I'm on Lopez Island with a very slow service. A count, which could simply be a corrected count and not a new count that has started over, does appear after a few minutes. It could very well be that the disappearance of the counter is temporary. The local power cooperative is slowly installing new buried fiber service through our islands, but it may be a few more years before it reaches us.
Craig, as a retired tech support person, I am interested in your issue. When you attempt to correct your typos, do you use the "elipsis" (the three horizontal dots on the right side of the column) to enter "Edit" mode? Using the Edit mode, the "Likes" are normally preserved. That's the only procedure of which I am aware in the Substack system to edit a previously posted text. I've never attempted to access Substack tech support, so I don't know what to expect in that regard.
note the ideological divide between justices appointed by the Federalist Society versus those via the American Bar Association. America is divided at ats legal base... so much for the unbiased nature of law - justice is not "blind" in practice.
They are after destroying that regulatory approach. The administrative part of the government is what Bannon pledged to destroy. Deliberately and with malice
"What we do not do, is expect politicians to be detail level experts,"
That's an understatement. That's the way anything large and complicated gets done. The people who propose building a shopping center lack the finer details of how to engineer a parking structure, or how to pour cement. Mess it up and you have a real problem.
Yes... Craig... beautifully stated. It is this, the undermining of our regulatory agencies, that leave forever chemicals in our water supply and food chain, allow corporations to continue to pollute indiscriminately, and allow for food additives that were outlawed in Europe long ago. SCOTUS is complicit. They should be arrested for shifting our regulatory processes on a dime.
I'm pretty sure the right wing has an agenda of federal government operations to undermine and are helping create these cases with the intent to go before the Supreme Court. The best fiction novelist couldn't have put together a better plot arch.
But this is how the “administrative state”gets destroyed. Fill it full of holes so it all eventually falls apart. It’s at that point it can be drowned in a bathtub which, if I remember rightly, is Grover Norquist’s stated goal for our United States. At the rate we’re going, individual states will be in charge of our lives sort of as we were before we became the United States. History; it’s a marvelous thing.
It is time to get our Representatives to write the laws. I hope they are busy at it now. Then if the republicans vote no, one more confirmation that they don’t care about children’s safety. I know it’s been shown as many times as nestle has sold poison, but it needs to be proven again.
We operated under "enabling legislation" as is was impossible to codify every possibility to achieve intent and purposes or to anticipate violations of the legislative intent. During my time laws were instruments to achieve societal goals, not methodologies that would be developed in the programs or projects operationalized through national laws.
WHAAA??? Name coastal waters after someone who, in the blink of an eye, would open them up for exploration and exploitation??? When I saw this I practically laughed out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of it. Donald John T***p is one of the environment's biggest enemies, and if he can't drill in it or build a golf course on it, he has zero use for it! I do hope this idea dies a quick and ignominious death.
As for T***p returning yesterday to the scene of the Jan. 6th crime, I loved a meme I saw that said:
"They really welcomed Adolph back to the beer hall, huh . . . "
I really thinnk he's going down, in more ways than one. I hope the SCOTUS does not rule in his favor for immunity and that we get to learn what secret files went where. But yes, how many more ways can the Rethugs malign our nation and us?
Politicians seated on the supreme court should be indicted for obstruction of justice in the immunity case... they ruled on the case simply by delaying their opinion, thus delaying his trial. No justice or justices.
I further hope that SCOTUS is not already planning who they'd choose in a contested election. It'd be a shame if the election were "decided" before we even voted.
I hope Trump’s incoherence at the CEO meeting makes them think twice about supporting him. Are regulations and taxes really making those multi millionnaires suffer? Companies are profitable and the market is up under Biden.
As HCR documents in today's Letter, Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC reported that some of the CEOs left the meeting with the understanding (finally) that Trump is a lazy, unfocussed ignoramus. Surely people with this understanding are obligated by their own humanity to do everything they can to keep the lazy, unfocussed, ignoramus out of the White House. That goes double (to understate it) for people with the resources and the ability to attract media attention held by CEOs of major US corporations. If I hear those CEOs shouting from the rooftops about Trump's ignorance, incompetence, and venality and shouting from the rooftops that putting Trump in the White House is likely to inflict severe harm, not only on people, but also on businesses, worldwide, I will believe that those CEOs have come to understand their obligations to use their enormous influence to convince the public that a vote for Trump is unwise. Without hearing rooftop shouting along these lines from corporate HQs, rational people will be forced to conclude that not only are American CEOs as greedy and uncaring about human consequences of their actions as they have appeared to be for many years, they also fail to perceive the catastrophic damage a Trump presidency will inflict on their business operations. This is not a time for competent CEOs to keep their head down about the November election.
I agree that the likelihood of any of those CEOs doing the right thing is negligible, but I want to point out their pernicious behavior in choosing not to lift a hand to save the republic.
My observation is that CEOs rise to that position by being predictable and conforming, Not just competent. They may well have been primed to see Trump as a lesser evil than a Biden-supported regulatory regime that may coerce them to act a bit differently and adapt to a new understanding about how the world works.
In my decades in the corporate world, I saw the truly creative and effective people, having been rising fast through the ranks because they were appreciated by their hard working peers, ended up leaving the company when they realized that their monumental efforts and contributions were being perceived like waves against rocks - dramatic and causing erosion. Thus, I don't expect the conformists who made it to the top to perceive Trump as "that bad".
Instead, my hope lies in the voting population to come together and force change.
(Addendum: Those creative folk left after 10 or more years, enough time to actually retire if one lived modestly while earning corporate salaries. )
The stock market is up 45% since President Biden took office - it actually lost value during DT's term. This is just another example of how Republican businessmen, those who endorse DT anyway (i.e. most) intend to vote against their own interests next November.
The stock market benefits the share holders. It is no indication of how stake holders benefit. Biden is working to benefit those of us who have a stake in democracy and a true free market.
The stock market prices in short term fluctuations and long term trends. The Trump years spooked a lot of investors into pessimism about the short term. Under Biden, the market is behaving normally, averaging about 5-10%/year over multiple administrations. Slap COVID on top and you can explain the Trump era's volatility and slump and Biden era's steadiness and normal rise on top of a boost from recovery.
On the other hand, CEOs spout about a long term focus while worrying about yearly bonuses. Businesses I generally, though, worry about the time it takes for a product to bring a return on investment. For drug companies, it's 8-17 years. Tech startups 1-5 years.
Banks 1-5 years, oil companies 5-20 years. And so on. In other words, reading the stock markets for political insights is only marginally more useful than reading tea leaves.
I'll go so far as lumping all companies as "rich people" is about as close to reality as Alito's world view.
Reminder: the COVID-19 pandemic was far from under control in Jan 2021, when Biden took office. There had just been a failed insurrection. The previous administration was in no way cooperating with the transition. Yet, the stock market recovered. Did all these business cycles for drugs banks, oil, etc, magically coincide in entering their profit phases? Or was there something else at work here? If we are having normal market behavior under Biden ( I believe we are), what was going on under Trump, who is supposedly every business man's friend? COVID raged for less than half his administration, so it cannot be blamed for all of the economic slide that occurred from 2017 - 2021. That is why i said Republican businessmen intend to vote against their own interests in November of 2024.
I weep, for the future victims of gun violence, and for the murdered children of Sandy Hook who should have been graduating from high school this year with their classmates.
NOTHING should ever be named after the pathetic subhuman and convicted felon tffg, certainly not 4.4 million square miles of coastal waters as we all know he has no interest whatsoever in preserving nature and the environment. Ironic too that today, Flag Day every June 14, is his birthday, when he has and continues to do everything he can to destroy our democracy.
I was thinking the same thing, Carolyn, or maybe the filthiest, worst smelling, vile toxic waste facility in the entire world. ''Donald TUMP toxic waste dump'' and a sign that says, ''Keep away, deadly waste, extremely hazardous!!''
The treasonous bastard should be fed to sharks or the Kraken in the millions of square miles of coastal waters(off Florida I'm guessing). So undeserving of anything to be named after him but as for the flag I have seem him molest them at times. The flags may bring a class action lawsuit against him soon and probably the Alito's too.
attendees dislike the Biden administration’s enforcement of antitrust laws, its price caps on drugs and medical products, and its promise of progressive tax policy and like Trump’s promise to slash regulations and cut taxes, so they went into the meeting hoping to support him.
This is what made the Greatest Generation the Greatest Generation. After future C.E.O.s had fought next to future plumbers, I believe an ethos emerged. "Okay, I went to private schools. ¿But shouldn't Joey the plumber, who proved his abilities in the war be allowed to go of college? ¿Why should Joey's sons and daughters, when they are smart and work hard, not get to go to my college?"
Though I am indulging in euphoric recall, I remember senior managers of the company my father worked for. They likely preferred more money to less, but they managed and they were okay with things. I really think that many understood that people deserve decent lives; they had fought with them. If that ethos ever existed beyond my limited memory and immediate circumstances, it is gone now.
Ned, I think that we need two years of public service after high school and before further education. It could be military service or working for charities for forty hours a week with two weeks of vacation. Each would be paid at the level of an Army private. The children of millionaires need to work next to the children of the poor so that both groups see the other group as individuals rather than cartoon cutouts and learn to appreciate their strengths.
Mary, I met with many students at the completion of their AmeriCorps or Peace Corps service—some had a modest contribution to college costs & is why they were seeing me (to coordinate with their state/fed student aid). ALL of the students I met with/counseled shared that it was a wonderful experience and they were grateful for the opportunity—for some it influences the trajectory of their lives/professions. There are SO many areas that having a “Corps” of workers could make a huge and positive difference in—-AND expand awareness instead of the “siloed” existence so many currently live in. Of course there would need to be sufficient stipend so these “conscripts” could live…the devil is in the details, but think creative minds could come up with solutions.
What would really be great is if we could reimagine our whole educational system. We need to move away from children sitting at desks all day to more hands on learning in communities at an early age.
A combination of theory and practice with opportunities for students to engage with each other would establish a sense of collective responsibility and civics.
I remember campaigning for one w/e for AMB Shriver -- mainly as a way to get out of Dodge 😉 -- and, when he met us (as students of his bro-law's high school) -- the Ambassador did not brag about his many accomplishments in seeking to build the Great Society. 💓He pitched the Peace Corps. 🥳As a teen, his sincerity transfixxed me. I resolved to serve in the Peace Corps. BOOM! Thirty-five years later, there I was in Mexico. 🤭
EDIT: thank you for a heart-warming story, Barbara; brightened my day.
I've thought the same, but it would be enormously expensive and a nightmare to administer. Would the undoubted communal benefits outweigh the cost? The situation that Ned talked about occurred because we were thrust into war. Could we do it in peacetime?
I served in the National Health Service Corps for 2 years as part of my nursing scholarship. Incredible experience. Learned as much, maybe more, in those rural clinics and hollows ("hollers") as in my nursing program. But I think requiring a similar year of service for all high school graduates would build resentment. Instead, I recommend scholarships like mine should be expanded to more careers and locations, for students to choose. And perhaps build in a week of a similar living experience into senior year, maybe with a required Civics Class.
I love the idea Mary, however that would require something no one seems to want to pay - taxes - and it would also require something the right has managed to destroy - government.
Absolutely. But generations change and memories are short. Actually when I think about it now, that’s when things really were progressive, but in a pragmatic way.
Ned, in the way-back I remember children of some company’s workers got scholarships/aid paid by their parent’s employers as a benefit/perk. That was a long time ago and don’t know if any still do that or not….always respected those that did.
I met the family member who was head of Timken many years ago a graduate school forum. Very humble, thoughtful, decent man. He showed me that having a macho mouth does NOT make a gentleman manly.
Great point Ned. Now many of these wealthy folks are "trust fund" babies. Look around at how many of them are not the self made millionaires. So many of them, Kochs, Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Waltons and the like all started way up on the ladder and now seem intent on making sure that the they pull up the ladder behind them. They invest heavily in "non-profit" legal groups that spend their time finding loop holes around the law and ways to change the law to benefit them.
Rickey, love that 'branch' name, you make a really important point -- at least as I understand it. Baron Montesquieu declared, when I read and did not not understand him in college: citizens of a democracy must live and breathe what he called the republican spirit lest the democracy slide into anarchy followed by dictatorship or bee-line straight for dictatorship. American society has opted for legalisms over the spirit of laws (Baron M. put it); for winning as the only thing over a fair opportunity for all. Thank you for your powerful voice.
Well said! You cover a range of issues that that speak directly to the cancer within our country. No other country would tolerate this. It’s Friday , you are tired, yet yo give us the gift of information needed to retain our democracy. Bravo and thank you Heather!
Can we please have more reporting by the media on tfg’s incoherence? Great, now the insurrectionists have access to machine guns. Oh, and “thoughts and prayers” to those yet to be murdered by scotus.
CForestM-/ Agree that media should report on Trump’s incoherence. I’ve started sending journalists choice paragraphs from his rambling rallies. They are shocking.
Donald Trump turned 78 today, and he's already finding it difficult to keep a coherent line of thought. He rambles all over the place. Last weekend, he delivered a stream of consciousness lecture on the evils of electric boats and sharks -- this to a Las Vegas audience that was sweltering in 102-degree desert heat, for whom the perils of ocean-going electric boats and shark bites were not exactly uppermost. Yesterday, he rambled on to business leaders, who left the meeting shaking their heads in disbelief at the random and rather disconnected thoughts the Great Man had heaped upon them.
One wonders where Trump will be mentally in another couple of years. His father, Fred, was only a few years older when his mind started going. As Mary Trump tells it, one day a look of panic spread over Fred's face as it became clear that he didn't recognize a single person in the room. On other days, he would come down the stairs ten or fifteen times, look at his wife and ask "Hey, Toots, what's for dinner?" She would answer, and he would smile with satisfaction, and go back upstairs, only to come down again in a few minutes with the same question. He would be impeccably dressed, except that he wasn't wearing pants.
That's what we have to look forward to if Donald Trump becomes President again. Heaven help us.
Mary Trumps Substack from Thursday “The Good in Us” has a a great illustration showing morality by different categories including death counts from Sharks ( 4, the lowest) and Trump (750,000, on of the highest from Covid). There was no category from electric boats.
Larry, I know it is very sad….Trump Derangement Syndrome. I hope he is able to get help for his derangement that is increasing apparent for all to see. I hope his family & friends are making the necessary arrangements to keep him well cared for in his dotage. Sad. Bigly sad. There was a man, a big strong man, who came up to me, his eyes brimming with tears, expressing his concern that Trump needed to have an intervention soon so he can be cared for in his precipitous decline.
Alito's ruling is not insane. It is logical and internally consistent. What is insane is our country's inability to pass any significant control on firearms. So let's follow Alito's advice. Write the legislation. Publish the names of all those who vote in opposition. Make them actually perform the filibuster. Film it. Use those names and that film in advertisements targeted at those individuals that say plainly "These are the people who want to allow your children to be killed." No need to overturn the second amendment. Want to shoot military weapons? Join the National Guard.
The national fetishization of the AR-15 is a sign of a large-scale mental illness. It is a military-grade weapon ("assault weapon" is a vague and useless term) whose primary purpose is to kill human beings quickly and in large numbers.
In the summer of 1967, as a 20-year-old Army officer candidate, I witnessed a demonstration of the potential lethality of the M-16 that has stayed with me ever since. This was at the time the M-16 was replacing the M-14 as the standard Army infantry rifle. At school, in the early '60s we had trained with the M-1. During the summer camp, we were issued, trained with, and fired the M-14. There were not as yet enough M-16s available for office candidate training. The M-16s were going to Vietnam (for that matter, so were most of us). On this particular afternoon, the instructor told us about the M-16. Then a demonstrator placed two water-filled metal cans (these were said to approximate the consistency of a human body) next to each other about 20 meters down the rifle range. He then fired a three-round burst from the M-14 into one of the cans, neatly puncturing it with all three rounds (nice group!). Then he fired a single round from the M-16 into the other can, knocking it into the air and tearing it apart. I have never forgotten that. And I think about it every time I hear about one of these school shootings. No person who is not wearing the uniform of our military or law enforcement services needs to own or operate such an instrument of death.
James, I wrote a few paragraphs here about my (enlisted) Army experience in Vietnam, arguing that there is very little significant difference between the M16 and the AR15, and that the bumpstock issue is beside the point of the important discussion our nation needs to have.
David, I replied to your excellent post with a few paragraphs of my own (yes, I am too wordy), but I don't know where they went after I hit "Post". Hope you find them interesting if you can find them.
You're probably right. After all, a Supreme Court Justice has to be an accomplished liar, or at least an obfuscator, to get through the confirmation process. Mark Twain used to refer to lawyers by the term "prevaricator." I just think we need to keep pressing the issue. Confront them with their own words. Make them throw out perfectly good laws for "reasons." Maybe if enough voters stay angry enough long enough we can drag the SC into the 21st century through the reform process. Not so sure about Alito, though, who seems mired in the 17th century.
James, On a lighter side: I was in OCS Jul 67 - Jan 68. Ft Benning’s “School for Boys.” 😉 Perhaps our paths crossed. From there I went to jump school and on to Ft Bragg for SF. Arrived in RVN Dec 21, 1968. DEROS’d mid-August 1970; back to Smoke Bomb Hill at Fr Bragg. RIF’d May 1972. Airborne!
It was at Ft. Devens where I saw this demonstration. After I graduated from school and got my ROTC commission, I ended up at Ft. Gordon for the Signal Officer Basic Course. Another amusing incident happened in that training. As part of our course, we learned to throw hand grenades. I had never done this before, nor, apparently, had any of the other young 2LTs in the course. We lined up in a trench behind some scarred aircraft canopies that were laid on their sides to observe the instructors as they showed us how to do it. When the first grenade exploded, we all startled and ducked instinctively into the trench. I'd never heard such a loud explosion so close before. When it came my turn to throw, I was a star. Perfect spiral. Post route. I don't think I've ever thrown anything so far or so accurately before or since. The idea was to get it as far away from me as possible. :-)
James, I have a hand grenade story as well. I went through Basic at Fort Leonard Wood (aka Lost In The Woods), Misery, I mean Missouri. When it was my turn to throw the grenade, I wasn't very nervous. The training guy was very clear in his instructions, and was obviously extremely alert, watching for any misstep, ready to take swift action if anything went wrong. I played catcher in a softball league when I was a kid, so I had some experience at throwing and hitting what I was aiming at. This time the target was a tire. I threw the grenade up high, like they instructed, so it wouldn't roll past the target. The guy in the tower said over the loudspeaker "Good throw #4! You blew up the tire!" The guy in the tower had not been generous with his praise for those who went before me, so I felt proud of myself for destroying that tire. That was the only time I threw a live hand grenade.
I was never an enthusiastic soldier. But I was not a sh!tbird. I believed I had a duty to serve, a belief instilled in me, or suggested to me, by my father, who served in the Army in Europe during the war. In "our" war I took my job seriously. And the experience of the war never goes away, at least not for me.
Good story, David. I could have written your last paragraph myself. We grew up in an environment much different from today's. The vast majority of our elders and other authority figures had served in the war, either as members of the military or in other capacities. Nobody had to pressure us into service. It was simply expected.
I ended up being very opposed to war. I have other stories to tell, but I'll save them for later. My all-time favorite comment on the willingness to serve, and the idea of the duty of a citizen to serve, was expressed in a Democratic rebuttal to President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech in 2007. Here is the relevant excerpt.
"...Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way...We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it...."
Sometimes I think about General Washington and the winter at Valley Forge. I've read various stories about the privation, the hunger, the lack of sanitary facilities, and how they coped and stayed there instead of going home to their families. I ask myself if I would have stayed. My answer is always yes, I would have stayed. Easy for me to say. I could have stayed in college, but I quit in the middle of my 3rd semester, autumn of '67. Was immediately reclassified from 2S student deferment, to 1A, or whatever it was, eligible for the draft. I enlisted for four years, hoping to go to language school, to learn Russian or Chinese. At the end of Basic, when it was time to learn what our next training assignment would be, a non-com had a big smile for me. He said "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you got your request to go to language school. The bad news is that you're not going to learn Russian or Chinese, you're going to learn Vietnamese. I smiled and thanked him and went on my way. By the end of Basic Training I had learned that the Army will do with you whatever they see fit to do. So I was not surprised or disappointed. I was willing to try to do my best, come what may.
Jim Webb expressed what I think: "...they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it...."
Here is the address for a text version of (now former) Senator Webb's Democratic Rebuttal to the President's 2007 State of the Union speech.
I admire your capacity for expressive, articulate commentary. Some things haven't changed. My youngest son enlisted in the Air Force in 2008 hoping to get language training in something like Russian, Chinese or Korean. He got language training all right. In Arabic. And several deployments to places where people wanted to kill him.
Regarding the filibuster, as presently enacted those who want to filibuster a bill need not show up. The onus is on the majority to override it. So all you would film is the majority.
SCOTUS could have just upheld the ban and helped a lot of people survive future mass murders. But no, the great seekers of truth/Grand Imposers of Catholic Doctrine just gave the country the single digit salute.
I'd like to run across Sam and Clarence in the grocery store and spit in their faces. Just like they are doing to us.
I hope all the pols and celebs that met the Pope in Rome yesterday send him to the USA to speak to the Conservative Catholic Authoritarian Christian Nationalists and remind them that they are not true Christians at all, much less Catholics in good standing.
Stephen Colbert was excited to be going to see the Pope. But more important, He also said that the latest CEO of WaPo was a journalist in London, working under Rupert Murdoch, when he engaged in the actions that resulted in his being taken to court. What the hell was Bezos thinking. Somebody who learned his craft under Murdoch is a far cry from Ben Bradley. No wonder we are screwed by MSM.
You are so right, Hope, these cretins are far from being true Christians, they are the polar opposite of Christians. They are horrible excuses for human beings.
I'd rather see them in a grocery store that was being attacked by someone with a bumpstock! I think you could find that in the "Just Desserts" aisle!!!!
Follow the money - since Thomas loves getting all those expensive trip benefits and never recuses himself and since Alito is almost always on the wrong side of supporting the people, let’s follow the money and discover their connection to the NRA and/or gun manufacturers.
1) Newest insanity has the Clarence court blessing mass murder;
2) its predecessor court blessed Citizens United dark money funding all the Clarences about the land;
3) and today it has immunized its insurrectionist-in-chief from due process trial – also immunized themselves from the Constitution’s Article 14, section three on insurrectionists.
It blesses all attacking us: billionaires, machine-gunning lone madmen, mobs attacking our Capitol, any state aborting personal choices for women, their health, and families.
The cruelty of Alex Jones towards those families makes my heart ache so much. It's unbelievable that someone could be that cruel!
Cruelty is a key component of the MAGA ethos.
Jones likes the money and the influence. He should lost everything, period.
Every penny to those kids families.
It will be pennies to the dollar, Ted. Jones doesn’t have $1.5B to his name, and his multimillion dollar home isn’t for sale.
Too bad the judge hasn’t ordered him to sell his house and buy a more modest one.
If he’s filing in Texas, homestead exemptions may allow Alex to keep his home, but property taxes and the expenses of running a large home may require him to sell it out of financial necessity.
He should be living in a trailer in a park where the people he abhors live.
A tent.
2.8 million dollar house, $7 to 10 million in other properties, assets,cash & equivalents, retirement accounts. Take it alll, and payments for the rest of his life. 150 years ago Alex Jones would have been tarred and feathered.
He IS very wealthy, though. He and his equally scummy father have been adept over the years at hiding assets through shell companies.
Oh,.. :-0.
New news for sure. Well buried apparently.
Agree!
This short quote from the article says it all concern the cult that once was the Grand Old Party: ''...Republicans have increasingly fetishized guns as a symbol of individualism...'' the bastardization of freedom. Thank you, Heather.
I think the phrase "Republicans have increasingly fetishized guns as a symbol of individualism..." could have been written substituting "masculinity" for "individualism". I think that those who feel the need to have a bump stock in their lives have a real problem with their own self image.
That is exactly what I was thinking--although I would use an anatomical word that's a lot more explicit than "masculinity" when referring to what these m**herf**kers fetishize. As always, HCR tries to keep it polite. I think that in these situations, politeness gets us nowhere. If a guy thinks a gun will make his penis look bigger, he has to be ridiculed. Full stop.
I am disappointed to find that readers have to wade through screen after screen after screen of whining about what is, admittedly, yet another deeply misguided decision by a truly awful collection of six Supreme Court justices appointed by rethugs but which is very far from the most important topic HCR discussed in today’s Letter, which is that America’s most powerful CEOs know that voters are likely to put a lazy, venal, ignoramus in the White House, which ignoramus will set in motion a great many actions that will take civilization over a cliff. Really, folks, while it’s true that the sea is not (yet) boiling hot, it’s plenty damn hot enough to force billions of people over the next fifty years to move to places where conditions allow large mammals to survive, their current homes being at that time no longer such a place, which migration is going to cause such a massive disturbance in human behavior that it’s hard to imagine that civilization can survive. The way we’re headed, people, it’ll be a Mad Max world by the end of the century. And the sea is gonna get a whole lot hotter with the Orange Jesus adored by so many adoring, True Jesus (I used the term ironically, at best, maybe sarcastically) fans in the White House. Or with any rethug in the White House, for that matter. We need to stop whining about a problem we have absolutely no hope of fixing until we put a solid majority of Democrats in both chambers of Congress and a Democrat in the White House. Without a trifecta, and a trifecta that persists for several decades, nothing else we do will matter a whit to the future of civilization. Stop whining about what we have no hope of fixing, yet, and go out and get our people, the decent human beings among us, to the polls in November to throw the bums out, permanently. It’s a tall order, I know, and we don’t have good odds of success, but it’s our only hope. Get crackin’.
Yup Rex - we humans do tend to latch on to the little (relatively) nit-picking issues, dont we? In fact, that is how the Replubs keep their followers in line. I havent read your post from this morning yet - will get to that one next! Actually this comment of yours right here sort of hits all the high spots!! And yeah, I agree, if we dont manage a trifecta - all the other issues - no matter how important or not - arent going to matter.
I agree with Rex Page that the most important part of Heather's newsletter today (i.e., June 14) was that the CEOs found that Trump “was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map."
It reminds me of an experiment discussed in an ancient book by Konrad Lorenz (unless my memory has become remarkably meandering and incapable of keeping a straight thought) in which a fish was, in effect, lobotomized and returned to its school, after which the school followed the lobotomized fish. I always thought that example held a lesson for humanity.
Florida real estate will be a great purchase if you want swampland and Republican governance.
This is the post I mentioned. Another Rex! But with the same mindset.
https://www.upstateamerican.com/p/outrage-should-meet-trumps-horror?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=b9ign&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Well stated Rex.
The manly man's body parts looks even bigger in a big bad pickip truck- so he thinks!
Let's not forget overly long ties...
Flying an upside down American flag from the tail gate whenever possible
OH yes, loud, jacked up, and maybe a flag flying and some bumper stickers of hate.
Somehow civilizations advanced, ideas were formed and opinions were stated for centuries without a race toward crudity. Aren’t we all getting tired of it?
You're kidding, right? If you want absolutely disgusting crudity, read the Greek and Roman poets and playwrights. Or, in the Middle Ages, Chaucer, Langland, most of the Italian poets, the more popular apocryphal biblical texts. Or Marquis de Sade, Voltaire, Dafoe, Swift, and Shakespeare and his peers. Or . . . I could go on. Crudity is the core of creativity.
Agreed. How many women have carried out mass shootings?
Precious few
Sadly, more may as the idea of a machine gun for everyone spreads. As we can see from women with extreme anti-abortion views, and as leaders in the book-banning movement, females are not intrinsically more tolerant, life-affirming or humane than men.
But one in Nashville, last year.
I could see MTG or BIMBERT doing it.
Sylvia Siegrist of PA comes to mind, but she is also
mentally ill.
LDE. Little d*ck energy.
They have made individualism and conservatism the dirtiest words in the English language. One would think the MSM would take notice.
We have so many firearms out there, yet all we hear is how “pro-life” they are. I guess they fail to see the irony in their pronouncements.
It appears to be irrational until you recognize the one thing underlying everything the leadership of the MAGA Republican Party is doing. Everything they do is in service of their divide and conquer agenda. They don't actually care about guns, or the 2nd amendment, or the life of the unborn, or the people they've conned into supporting them, or even each other. They are all a means to an end in which they imagine themselves having the "freedom" to tell everyone else what to do, and enough power to make sure everyone does what they are told.
I couldn't agree more, James. I think it's all about keeping their office. Many are supporting Trump so they don't lose in the next election. And others like Tuberville, Gaetz, Vance, etc. are rednecks while still others are in the category with MTG and Boebert, just plain idiots.
Proud Party of death
Absolutely.
A thousand likes to your comment! Actually pro fetus! After the fetus is born, it’s suck it up little person you are on your own!
They are all conveniently blind.
I remember when W championed compassionate conservatism. It never occurred to me to look up the definition until now. The definition for it and neoliberalism are basically interchangeable. Such tripe. No telling how much government money Pappy Bush and his “Points of Light” initiative forked over to some of the same religious organizations that are now trying to destroy American democracy.
I thought that was a scam to take away as much as they could from the government. And then forget it. No way I thought that was sincere…
No, not sincere at all. It was a conservative con that was enacted to get Americans used to the idea that the government didn't serve the people but the business community solely.
For a little fun listen to "Woodys Landlord" from Tim Grimm.
I think it's helpful to remember the true inheritance of the Bush family. I don't know anything about Prescott Bush's father, but when he was a partner in Brown Bros Harriman he conspired with others to overturn the FDR administration. Look up Smedley Butler and the Bonus Army.
They've always believed their great privilege financially entitled them to control others.
No, the robber barons of FDR’s time truly hated FDR and Eleanor, They were traitors to their class and it killed them that FDR was President. Then the Republicans ran Thomas Dewey against Harry Truman totally expecting Dewey to win. That truly was a heady time for Democrats ! We hoped for Adlai but no one really cared the Eisenhower won. He was our national hero, the General of DDay and the end of Hitler’s Germany. After Truman got rid of General MacArthur, Eisenhower was the General of Generals without the pretenses.
Truth!
One would think, hope, the MSM would take note of far more than it does. Without the "alternate" sources via Substack and others, precious little would be as thoroughly covered. Not that anyone here needs be told. Grateful daily for the existence of these sources and the comments that so often yield more.
So sad that so many think that crap is all there is. Some family, I am sad to say, won’t watch any news or read newspapers.
My exact experience, painfully.
Yes, I took note of Heather using that word “fetishize” - strong language for our cool headed historian. And well chosen, I’d say.
Strong language is critical.
In maga world life is sacred from conception until birth. After birth not at all. Shoot at will. Could it be that women are the target of sanctity of life laws and men are the protected mass shooters.
Why are the republicans striving to see who can be the most outrageously offensive? Christmas cards featuring AR-15's, shooting Bud Light cases, supporting bump stocks et al.
If it's a contest, Kristi Noem has won with her account of shooting a puppy (the veracity of which I question in light of this contest).
This crap about, "I need a gun to overthrow an oppressive government", is a pipe dream. They just wanna play macho.
I have two words for all those who think they are going to take over the government by force: Marine Corps.
"Hate, resentment and anger" are the cornerstones of MAGA values according to President Biden. HCR reported this last week taken from one of his recent speeches.
I agree Betsy, that cruelty also is a key component.
But all of those are based on fear, and the MAGA manipulators are masters of stoking fear.
YES!
Has been since chump’s blather about Obama’s birthplace. Then worse every day, new targets, new accusations, and vicious bullschittery that too many developed a taste for.
The world looks on and shakes it's head in disbelief. It appears thatvin the US gun ownership is more important than our future generation. What an absolute shame.
A Foxified country, on the Goebbels model
Sure seems that way. So discouraging to see this Supreme Court vote to allow bump stocks. In 1977 when my brother-in-law was 21 he was murdered by a 17 year old in a random act of violence with a "Saturday night special" gun. 4 other people were injured. The destructive ripple of those few minutes continues. Since then I have been leading a weekly program for teens in secure detention, in memory of Otto, in part to share the Ripple Effect of gun violence.
We also created am Otto Meisenheimer Prevention of Gun Violence Research Fund at the IU School of Public Health. If that teen had had a bump stock, horrible to think that many more lives might have been lost. There is absolutely NO reason to allow bump stocks. So sad to be moving backwards when the only solution seems to be counting on legislators who too many are bought and owned by the NRA.
So sorry!
I appreciate your sympathy. How do we convince legislators to ban bump stocks?
And how many authoritarians are enjoying this display of a country in crisis. They are eating it up.
That makes it even more shameful. The more I read the more convinced I am that our educational system has to take some of the blame! People are showing their lack of it!
As did people watching Hitler's takeover of Germany. Kristallnacht. Anyone who bothered to read Mein Kampf. They can be excused somewhat for not having instant access to information as we do now.
But then our information gets skewed and our leaders stand by helplessly. See article about Stanford's disinformation research group in the Post.
Our forefathers must be turning over in their graves. This is a continuing theme in the bastion of the former “Grand Ole Party” now operating as the “Grand lying Old Party of ass-holes.” Pardon my French.
Kinder words than they deserve. The hypocrisy would choke anyone with an iota of integrity. I couldn’t spew that tripe if I had guzzled enough booze to kill a horse. Yet the sycophants bow and scrape to evil and pretend he’s Jesus. Must be a trip for Mitch since he’s the one who demanded bowing down to him. Ha
Because our species has such an attention deficit disorder, and we quickly focus on the carnage of the day to motivate ourselves, you know, when women forget that voting for conservatives will ultimately end control of their bodies until it’s too late, sorry to say, we need another bumpstock carnage similar to Las Vegas days befor the election to create a massive blue wave that will ensure a super majority of democrats in congress to effect protective legislation for We, the People. Isn’t that sickening?
Beyond sickening. I’ve wondered what it will take to get traction. The options are not Mary Poppins
Very sad. It is like a double homicide for the Sandy Hook families. First the children are murdered. Then memories of the children, to be cherished, are murdered, too.
¿How does one become an Alex Jones?
¿Can wealth really be that important?
A sickness eats away at our culture . . . and our children.
EDIT: thank you, all for an informative polylogue 💡, in response to this initial comment which hardly does y'all justice. ✌️
For all the R shouting about protecting fetuses and protecting kids from drag queens, etc., they don't care about children or most other people either. If they did, they would accept federal government food help during the summer. They would enact meaningful gun laws. They would stop regulating medical decisions for women. They would do everything to help ordinary people. But they prefer power and money and being the party of death.
Yes… vote them Out.
Only vote blue from now on.
The former GOP is the party of death as they disregard morality, empathy, and respect for others while ceaselessly money and power.
Register millions of new Democrats to vote out the party of death.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
I just keep writing postcards with TonyTheDemocrat to get Democrats elected. If DeJoy hasn’t figured a way to keep them from getting to their destinations… But the price goes up to .56 cents on 14 July. Does anyone else remember penny postcards?
Order stamps online. Google “forever stamps.” These are not scams. I have been buying from them for last three years. They are companies who bought up large quantities of stamps from business that failed and other legal stockpiles. You can get postcard stamps also. Very good for use with FieldTeam 6 and other groups. Forever means just that.
We need to stop expecting them to care. What more proof do we need.
You are so right. The world cannot make sense of what, very sadly, America is becoming. I cannot explain to my many friends overseas how an animal like tRump can be candidate to the Presidency with a real possibility of becoming elected!
Exactly!!! MAGA and much of the GOP don't seem to get that educational, health and economic support for people in need is a social investment that repays over and over.
Authoritarians don’t care. They just want you to shut up and get in line.
Agreed 😡
My thoughts exactly Michele!
Ned, just look at the republican congressmen in tRump's corner. They have been bribed and see a life of great wealth and power, in exchange for their support. However, they overlook tRump's history. He has screwed everyone that has been in his corner for decades, IMO.
Bribed with wealth and power just like certain members of the Supreme Court.
We can thank Citizens United. Free speech is bought and paid for; making other speech difficult to be heard.
Then it's not free, is it?
JL, the very best speech money can buy!!! Wait! There’s more…with your dollars you too can buy a Congressional Rep, or even—ta-da!—a Supreme Court Justice!….don’t wait, make your purchases now while supplies last!!!!
And just for fun…from the film Cabaret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JDWJzKYfdc
Apparently.
Worse than being bought, any who resist are banished, intimidated, primaried, and even families threatened.
Yes,I agree.I read something yesterday on another Substack that speaks of Trump and I am paraphrasing here-If he can’t screw it, get praise from it or can’t make money off of it , he hates it which pretty much sums up his bottom line.
Oh Glorious DJT! He may screw all the others, but won't screw m.....
The biggest of the big lies
He will burn this country to the ground to get what he wants which is admiration and money. He recently floated the idea of getting rid of income taxes for putting tariffs on everything. The man is insane.
They all deserve to be screwed with an electric screw driver.
Under the bus is already crowded and they could join that group any time.
Wouldn’t it be horrible if his supporters were to get the same screw job as the American public is getting every day from tfg????🤨
How does one become an Alex Jones? How does one become a Goebbels, or such. I often wondered that about the German insanity. Now I watch it here. Little men who see the power of a so-called big man and latch on like a newborn to a tit.
I guess you'd have to have lived in post wwi Germany et al to acquire some of their sensibility, perverse as it was, only bringing on gigantic tragedy of mass death and destruction.
We don’t have an excuse, like living in post ww1 Germany. But we are traveling the same path.
I can't quite... Hitler was gearing Germany up for a massive war of conquest, depopulation of far eastern Europe esp Ukraine for German colonization, extermination of Jews, massive confiscation of European wealth. illiberal democracy i certain can believe
And where do you think the rich oligarchs plan to take us? Religious rule, inquisition, extermination of opposition, white supremacy, etc.
¡BINGO, Jeri! I have wondered since early 2016 about the origins of Trump's politics of revenge.
¿Against whom?
¿And for what?
But Trump had a point about Mexico paying for the wall; after all, the Mexicans paid for Hadrian's Wall and even the Great Wall of China.
😉🤭🥳
Probably started in the play pen
Fine insight. I think many of us would be vulnerable under those conditions. I wrote this over eight years ago as a warning to me from me.
https://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2016/05/letter-116-b-getting-historical.html
I am not posting this essay ONLY to seek attention; yes guilty as charged. I post it because I am really, really frightened.
EDIT: thank you, Jeri, as well for your insight into opportunism. We need look no further than Shady J.D. Vance. Like all those intellectuals flocking to the S.S.
I sense a growing similarity to Hitler/ Goebbels lies and the strident defenses of Trump by the Republican members of Congress.
It is quite unsettling to note the similar incredible denials of reality that propelled the Nazi’s to power and helped Trump be elected.
By 1945 an obviously insane shell of a Leader was issuing futile nonsensical orders followed adoringly by hypnotized military cultist officers just as Mike Johnson and Lindsey Graham deny the reality of an inept mind crumbling publicly.
Reality is going to be a very harsh decider of an unpleasant outcome.
These are frightening times. Dr Cox Richardson as well as Dr Bandy Lee, offer hope. https://bandyxlee.substack.com/ One from history and one from psychiatry.
Sadly, I agree
Love that phrase, they love that tit.
Seems like the only analogy that fits
Yes, Alex Jones couldn't do this by himself. Most of his liquid assets will be stripped from him, finally, we hope. By current pricing, 2.4m for his home isn't wealth amok, though i wish it too had been on the "auction block" with something left for modest living. The man's mind is pathological, and treatment would be a welcome mandate. My guess is he actually knows he spews lies.
The SH families are having to live their lives rewitnessing the "triggers" of their unfathomable losses each and every day. There isn't enough $ to compensate for that
But, speaking of reliving triggers it has taken me a few days to come to terms with one of my own that I thought might have been mentioned here already which is MAGA Mike's decision last week to refuse extending and expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). He did it to appease his MAGA base who said that it would be too expensive,...but, $8T in tax gifts to their donors is just fine with more to come.
The trigger for me is that my father became ill in his 50s and died 3 yrs later due to radiation exposure at the NV Test Site back in the 60s & 70s. The details are hard to discuss w/o going to a place I read TC in LA describing a few days ago about his own family's experience via another former POTUS. I'm not very good at summarizing in a few words and a blog is not the place for the longer story but, suffice it to say there are many thousands of workers like my father who sacrificed themselves in the line of duty in the early nuclear world, uranium mining and related industries not to mention those who had nothing to do with it but to live "downwind". But, now the govt has turned their back on them and their families. All of them,... forgotten,...disposable. There aren't words to describe it. It had already passed the Senate and Biden said he would sign it but, the "so-called" Christian MAGA Mike refused to even bring it up for a vote.
Now with bump stocks back in the hands of those with only "hate, resentment and anger" in their souls there will quite predictably be far more "triggers". Ned is sadly correct that "a sickness is eating away at our culture".
Not to mention Joe Biden’s eldest son dying of brain cancer and being exposed to burning pits. He understands this loss. Compassion is what this country needs.
So sorry to hear about your father. I missed all of this discussion about radiation. I agree with you that we should be extending and expanding the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. What can we do now?
B.K., my sincerest sympathy for your loss, though likely long ago. The injustice of it may make that loss a daily one. 🙏😢⚖️
I blame forever chemicals and pollutants for damaging our the part of our brains where empathy and understanding and generosity springs.
I also blame ALL (even Clinton and Obama) of the presidents and their administrations, since Reagan who did not turn this train away from enriching the rich and taking from the middle class and the poor.
Yes, they’ve played a part but I stop short of saying “ both parties are corrupt”. Currently the Republican Party is leveling a huge amount of damage. You’re not seeing this amount of corruption coming from the left. We have to start somewhere to move forward and I think Biden is trying to do just that for the most part.
I recently watched 'The Truth vs. Alex Jones' on HBO. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31189901/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%2520people%2520vs%2520alex%2520jones
Very hard to watch yet it felt necessary to see what these parents have had to endure. 12 years later they still get death threats, verbally abused, berated for what some lunatic fringe believes is a hoax because of Alex Jones "Infowars' website.
During the trials and after hearing from some of the parents of the children that were slaughtered at Sandy Hook, Alex Jones is still unrepentant and lacks any empathy for the parents. He deserves this judgement against him although it probably does nothing to help the immense sorrow and grief that these parents have suffered and must continue to feel and relive through court cases and harassment. Not sure if Alex Jones has children but what if one of them had been killed at the multitude of school shootings that have happened in the U.S., would he even believe it then?
His divorce hearing had something about child custody if my mind is working at 4 am
Alex’s ex-wife understands that Alex is a kook, and she doesn’t want to expose their children to his nutty thinking. She also found out through the defamation suits against Alex that he wasn’t forthright with her about how many assets he actually owned, which could be a basis to increase his child support obligations. The bankruptcy would put an automatic stay on it, though.
So she had no clue that he was a scam artist! I sort of thought it was inbred
He is not a kook. He is consciously pursuing attention by whatever means. He is responsible for his evil-doing.
I agree that he is conscious of his decisions and fully responsible for them, but I think he believes in his own nonsense. The court is hitting him where he deserves, right in his wallet.
I wish someone would take him out!
Love of money.
over human beings.
That's what makes it evil.
He still has not paid the families!
Tho’ awful to contemplate, I’d like a time machine to drag his ass to Sandy Hook and to, first hand, walk through those halls and rooms and be faced with the reality and then to face the parents after. I’m not a mean person, but that sliver of me that can be if I summon it, wants this to haunt his dreams as long has he sleeps. That someone can be as viscerally cruel as he has been to the parents of lost children and to the survivors who will carry this trauma their whole life just astounds me…the definition of depravity.
Eisenhower made sure the townspeople had to go through Dachau and the death camps were heavily documented with pictures so no one could deny it.
My parents went through Dachau (and the Eagle's Nest) when we were stationed in Germany during the Nuremberg Trials and Berlin Airlift (I was a toddler at the time but do have a few memories of things like the Munich Train Station and I think a Zoo in Munich sometime between 47 to 50). Their economy was so poor that my TSgt father could afford two live in maids (mother and daughter), and had an artist that paid for his room and board with oil painting (either sold on the street or given to us). I'm told I actually learned to speak German (from the maids) before English.
Though the Germans seemed friendly and kind to me, my mother, especially as we grew older and became appalled at what they had fallen into, always cautioned that we weren't that different from them, it could happen to us, too. After we discussed some of the history, she always mentioned Hitler was more popular in Germany than FDR was in the US as reinforcement that we could become like them.
I’m sure there are pictures that he should be forced to see and be haunted by for every nanosecond of his miserable existence, viscerally cruel says it well. Hard to find the words but you did.
Barbara,
I think that there is something deeply missing within us that is causing the resurgence of the need for power and control. Look at the rise of authoritarianism throughout the world. There is also enormous need. Migration has been growing for years.
Those countries opening their doors to receive the starving, the homeless and the persecuted have done so at a cost. Realistically but negatively, citizens regard immigrants as invaders who are taking resources from their country..... taking opportunities/jobs ( that no one else wants but are necessary for many economies) away from us and immigrants are accused of increasing crime.
I am reminded of the Irish fleeing from starvation who came to us, and the Chinese who helped build our railroad systems, and the early Mexican settlers of California who had to fight to keep the homes/ranches they had built and where they had lived for years....as California was claiming its statehood....not to mention removing lands from the Indians who were here before us....and not to mention the people of color who were stolen from their homes in Africa, brought here to labor for landowners, etc.
Wanting to reclaim the use of such powerful and unnecessary weapons is just a sign of our dark side and a feeling of helplessness at being attacked when we have been "Caught at misbehaving". How are these days so different ?
Throughout the world, I think we as a people are too afraid of losing what we believe we should own....rather than sharing our abundance and finding it profitable.
I am reminded of the a story of the little boy, Jesus' disciples found among a crowd of people who had gathered to listen to His teachings. The crowd had been there a long time and they were tired. Jesus asked the disciples to ask the people if they had food and this little boy brought a basket of bread and fish to the disciples . The disciples gave the basket to Christ who blessed the food, broke it into pieces and there was enough for everyone...and even leftovers.(John 6:8-11)
Emily, I think, perhaps, if look far enough back….when different iterations of the genus Homo walked the earth, Homo sapiens moved into territories of others and either assimilated (eventually outbreeding?) or replaced/vanquished (we will never actually know exactly HOW it came to be). Seems like this is hardwired into us—and perhaps a “memory” that eventually changed our DNA to be suspicious/fearful of the “other” coming into “our” land. Interesting that many of us carry DNA markers of Neanderthals and Denisovans, so we did intermingle! I do fret about, and it is already beginning, what will likely be the massive movement of people due to climate change….many of them will be our own citizens moving elsewhere in the country to escape areas no longer really habitable.
https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/
I thought, well, that jumps the shark. But shark jumping has become a Repub olympic sport.
AJ could only exist when there is an audience ignorant and open to and accepting stupid conspiracies and willing to send money to him for the useless products he was hawking.
Anything for money…the Maga mantra. Maybe the loss of much of his wealth will help Alex to mend his wats, but doubtful. I’m sure he has millions more secured off shore so he can continue his lies and slander. A maga darling and example to their kind.
It actually seems demonic.
“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” —Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent from the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Garland v. Cargill
And when I see justices whose minds are not open, whose decisions come pre-canned I say we’ve lost the rule of law and bought into fascism.
Any first year law student would quickly realize the plaintiffs in the mifepristone case didn't have standing. Why did it take them so long to come down with an obvious decision like this?
They needed the time to lay the groundwork for the next case that will come before the court so that they CAN ban mifepristone. Read the decision. In the words of the Monty Python song, if you are a fundamentalist Catholic, “Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted. God gets quite irate.”
The wisdom of the “ fools on the hill “
Yes, I’d love to know what behind the scenes wrangling was happening to slow down such an obvious conclusion.
Duck behave like ducks. Humans often lack humanity.
And that lack of humanity yesterday produced folks who had supported treason right back to the historical site where it had initially occurred….to honor the guy who had implemented it…..
It was In-your-face, screw you world. We are sitting in the halls of government, outliars no more
SOME humans lack humanity. Not all.. I believe there are many decent people still in this world.
So do I …and I sure hope they vote…and get others out to vote too!
So do I. A majority. But the cretins cheat and lie with barely a twinge of guilt
Yep.
The thing I find so wrong and troubling with this SCOTUS decision is that it is an attack of the very structure of our Federal government. For well over a century we have had a regulatory approach in which Congress passes a law that states principles and objectives, and then leaves it to an administrative part of the government to write detailed regulations that are consistent with the intent expressed in the law. That's the way the FDA regulates drugs. That's the way NHTSA writes safety regulations for motor vehicles. That's the way the FAA regulates aircraft safety, and on and on. What we do not do, is expect politicians to be detail level experts, nor to spend the almost unimaginable funds required to maintain staffs that are expert in the details of everything that needs to be regulated. Imagine the conservative outcry if we were to fund Congressional staffing to that level, and the taxes that would be required to support it. The old Soviet apparatchik system would look trivial in comparison. This decision is close to being insane.
So clearly enunciated and cogent. I wanted to say the same thing, and I could not have said it better or pithier. Thank you.
Good post. Your discussion of the regulatory approach is spot on. It is vastly preferable to drafting legislation for every contingency. But I think it would be possible to have that same regulatory staff draw up proposed legislation that could then be passed to congressional staffers for final drafting into law. There are sufficient resources in the "Deep State." Call the MAGAt bluff a few times, especially if they threaten to filibuster. Maybe if they had to perform perform that filibuster physically, they'd get tired enough to lay off. Manchin and Sinema almost certainly will be gone from the next Senate. There is a decent chance that at least one of them will be replaced by a real Democrat. Vote Blue all the way through!
Visible at the core of everything the right wing does is a self asserted right to do as the please at others expense. That's why the US broke with the monarchy, and why we bother to have laws. There are always those who maintain that if they are in a position to bully others, they ought to be allowed to do so.
When did bullying become an admirable trait. My momma would give no quarter, nor should we…
Very true. But the twisted RWNJ definition of freedom is simply the right to do as they please without consequences to themselves. I don't think most of them actively seek to harm others. They just don't care. If others are affected by their freedom, that's their problem. There is no corresponding virtue of restraint or responsibility, civic or otherwise. The reality-based community needs to take back the word "freedom" and define it clearly.
Reality and conscience based community. "Freedom, liberty, worthy of the name does not deprive others of their own "unalienable" human rights. That, I think, is the cornerstone. A society that allows any person, or any group, to bully others is corrupted, period. We may never create a perfect society, but we have the choice to actively seek one, else see real freedom die.
MAGA types have repeatedly told me that real adults know that life isn't fair; and that's true to a point, as misfortunes abound. BUT, as human beings, have the choice to try to be fair, and to support caring, or else add to the mayhem; the difference between a genuinely "free society" and a nasty dictatorship or failed state.
Exactly right, sir, and well said. Your comment encapsulates the noble ideas of both Lincoln ("Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves") and FDR (Freedom of speech, worship, freedom from want and fear).
On a side note, this substack community is an oasis in the desert of mindless gab, pointless hate, stupidity, misinformation and disinformation that makes up so much of our information environment. What a pleasure it is to wake up in the morning (I'm 5 time zones west of EDT), grab a cup of coffee, sit down at the computer and find a thoughtful, well-written response to something one has posted.
This is certainly an echo chamber, but it is one comprised of intelligent, articulate, courteous, and compassionate members. Even when we disagree passionately, the disagreements are polite and thoughtfully expressed. And a sense of humor seems to underlie all. Maybe it's because so many of us are Of A Certain Age. Life has taught us things, including humility. It's a guilty pleasure to join in these conversations.
It not exactly an echo chamber as I have been in the midst of people who repeat the same talking points nearly verbatim, and not just on the extreme right. Even paraphrasing takes some active thought. I think HCRs viewpoint unsurprisingly attracts those with a similar viewpoint and value system, but also drawing from diverse life experiences and interpretations. In any case, I think I am hearing the thoughts of individuals, not just the repetition of an orthodoxy.
I have empathy but not sympathy for most of the base of the far right. It's a funny mind game they have chosen, and I appreciate where they are, having grown up in a conservative so-called Christian extended family in southern Ohio. Believing in the concept of a soul and that there must be something after death gives a lot of comfort to people as loved ones "shrug off this mortal coil." But of course that comfort inevitably leads to bad things, such has pontificating when ensoulment occurs, or their nonsense about the need to be conservative about that. So they start down the path of being cruel to teenage and adult women in order to be "respectful" (that's the word they use) of this thing they have totally made up. With that, they are well along down the slippery slope to just being evil in order to avoid questioning their faith. So empathy for the mental conundrum from whence they start, but zero sympathy for where it leads them.
I agree that especially with emergent situations which often involve new technologies, that having Congressional hearings that lead to staff drafting initial regulations is often good and necessary. But maintaining the regulatory regime over the long term, regardless of the topic, is almost always best left to people who have committed their working lives to being experts in whatever topic it is. Yeah, they need to be hauled into committee sessions and given a hard time every once in a while. That what they don't go overboard. And there needs to be some give and take on that, and it's often hard to figure out where the balance between personal freedom and what's good for society should be. And the nice thing about our system is that when there is uncertainty, it can be left to the states at least for a while, so that a variety of solutions can be tried and compared. But eviscerating the whole and telling Congress that it has to explicitly state what the rate of fire is for something to be classed as a "machine gun" is just plain stupid on its face. So we have six obviously stupid judges - stupid in the sense that they clearly lack the humility and good sense that people in their roles need to have.
That's another thing I don't get about the far right. They tend to claim to be religious conservatives, and yet the founding prophet or supposed deity they purport to follow invariably preached the critical importance of humility. They should spend more time practicing the "do unto others" aspects of their supposed faiths.
Scotus is a submerged reef with no warning lights.
Yep, our SCOTUS is definitely a submerged reef; however, I believe we’ve been warned.
Submerged all right, but up to their eyeballs in corruption. The right wing side of it, that is. Shills for the will of plutocrats.
So all we can do is sit and watch?
The warnings went unheeded for most of my long life.
We can certainly oppose them and reject their ilk. Getting rid of them is harder. I have mixed feelings about expansion.
Or a buoy marker where one is needed. Perhaps like other places to sail one must be aware of water color and depth or have local knowledge. I’m wondering if this reef has become exposed for all to see? If not by now I would say we’re sailing at night or our eyes are closed.
So: we know it's there, we understand its danger, what do we do about it?
Hard after they have the majority. Unless Dems have the balls to revamp the court. I say way past time
That's a toughie. Certainly it includes keeping a spotlight on what they are up to and whose interests are served, and whose interests are ignored or trampled. Make an ongoing thing of who gave them their jobs, and why. It takes a crook to pick a crook.
A major rethink on how to compose the "supreme court" of the land is in order, don't you think?
The President? or the Congress? Whom does SCOTUS respond to? (Serious question).
Every tool can be misused as a weapon, so given the "Mr. Hyde" side of human nature, constructing reliably benign procedures is always tricky.
And yet, the folly of entrusting the fate of nation entirely to the whims of a single party is now fully evident, whether in the composition and accountability of $COTUS members*, or a rogue presidency. The crimes of Trump and the "GOP" are overwhelming. Somehow we need tools to correct a disastrous error or case of patent malfeasance, beyond the crap shoot of trusting one side or another of partisan politics? Our existing system of checks and balances seems rather buggy.
"Republicans" are now enraged in systematic efforts to bring down the republic. It seems to me that our choice remains truly governance of the people, by the people, for the people, or some flavor of tyranny. Is there any evidence in history to contradict the adage that unchecked power tends to corrupt?
* Can the personal pick of a corrupt felon ever escape the taint of impropriety?
I'm remembering Brett Kavanaugh's hearing.
I remembering the search not to find FBI investigation of charges against that creep and his patently unprofessional testimony; clearly not a suitable candidate for trust with adult responsibilities.
Anyway, in private industries, having lied on your intake interview can easily get you fired.
Craig, may I suggest the book by Michael Lewis “The Fifth Risk” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk. Although it is specific to the Obama-to-Trump transition, to me it is much more expansive than that….it pulls back the cover of what some (erroneously IMHO) call the “deep state”….it’s those public servants & agencies who work everyday to keep us and our country safe. Anyway highly recommend it, and his other books too.
It's a tribute to those public servants for all they do for all of us.
He is a spot-on observer and recorder of our history going way back. His talks on C-span are amazing.
"The Fifth Risk" by Michael Lewis is a terrific book. Agree completely with your recommendation. Every American citizen should read it.
It may be a delay in the handshake between the html code and the server. I'm on Lopez Island with a very slow service. A count, which could simply be a corrected count and not a new count that has started over, does appear after a few minutes. It could very well be that the disappearance of the counter is temporary. The local power cooperative is slowly installing new buried fiber service through our islands, but it may be a few more years before it reaches us.
I apologize for the typos. Every time I correct one, it wipes out the previous likes, which seem to be quite a few. Thanks.
Craig, as a retired tech support person, I am interested in your issue. When you attempt to correct your typos, do you use the "elipsis" (the three horizontal dots on the right side of the column) to enter "Edit" mode? Using the Edit mode, the "Likes" are normally preserved. That's the only procedure of which I am aware in the Substack system to edit a previously posted text. I've never attempted to access Substack tech support, so I don't know what to expect in that regard.
I'm interested in the reply. I've been using the ellipsis very happily and unaware of anything disappearing.
Does it? Is LFAA also infected with AI?
note the ideological divide between justices appointed by the Federalist Society versus those via the American Bar Association. America is divided at ats legal base... so much for the unbiased nature of law - justice is not "blind" in practice.
This SCOTUS assertion of power over government agency decisions is as deadly, if not more so, than legalizing bumpstocks.
Concur.
They are after destroying that regulatory approach. The administrative part of the government is what Bannon pledged to destroy. Deliberately and with malice
"What we do not do, is expect politicians to be detail level experts,"
That's an understatement. That's the way anything large and complicated gets done. The people who propose building a shopping center lack the finer details of how to engineer a parking structure, or how to pour cement. Mess it up and you have a real problem.
Like third world countries
Yes... Craig... beautifully stated. It is this, the undermining of our regulatory agencies, that leave forever chemicals in our water supply and food chain, allow corporations to continue to pollute indiscriminately, and allow for food additives that were outlawed in Europe long ago. SCOTUS is complicit. They should be arrested for shifting our regulatory processes on a dime.
I'm pretty sure the right wing has an agenda of federal government operations to undermine and are helping create these cases with the intent to go before the Supreme Court. The best fiction novelist couldn't have put together a better plot arch.
We are doomed.
And now here comes Chevron. The case re: the herring fishermen whose complaints were resolved. SCOTUS took it up anyway.
But this is how the “administrative state”gets destroyed. Fill it full of holes so it all eventually falls apart. It’s at that point it can be drowned in a bathtub which, if I remember rightly, is Grover Norquist’s stated goal for our United States. At the rate we’re going, individual states will be in charge of our lives sort of as we were before we became the United States. History; it’s a marvelous thing.
It is time to get our Representatives to write the laws. I hope they are busy at it now. Then if the republicans vote no, one more confirmation that they don’t care about children’s safety. I know it’s been shown as many times as nestle has sold poison, but it needs to be proven again.
We operated under "enabling legislation" as is was impossible to codify every possibility to achieve intent and purposes or to anticipate violations of the legislative intent. During my time laws were instruments to achieve societal goals, not methodologies that would be developed in the programs or projects operationalized through national laws.
Great comment and eye-opening. Hoping to see more of this in public discussion!
WHAAA??? Name coastal waters after someone who, in the blink of an eye, would open them up for exploration and exploitation??? When I saw this I practically laughed out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of it. Donald John T***p is one of the environment's biggest enemies, and if he can't drill in it or build a golf course on it, he has zero use for it! I do hope this idea dies a quick and ignominious death.
As for T***p returning yesterday to the scene of the Jan. 6th crime, I loved a meme I saw that said:
"They really welcomed Adolph back to the beer hall, huh . . . "
I liked Adam Scheifs comment; “Bring your felon to work day”
Trump Derangement Syndrome is running wild here.
It's pretty easy when he is the one who is deranged
A Russian bot on the lose.
As it should. Get a grip, Larry.
I really thinnk he's going down, in more ways than one. I hope the SCOTUS does not rule in his favor for immunity and that we get to learn what secret files went where. But yes, how many more ways can the Rethugs malign our nation and us?
Politicians seated on the supreme court should be indicted for obstruction of justice in the immunity case... they ruled on the case simply by delaying their opinion, thus delaying his trial. No justice or justices.
“Catch and Kill” is alive and well on the “Supreme” Court.
I further hope that SCOTUS is not already planning who they'd choose in a contested election. It'd be a shame if the election were "decided" before we even voted.
That’s the plan, man. A free and fair election is not an option
That truly is the purpose of the outrageous Republican Party: Keep in power by any means.
Elections are for chumps, the Dem kind
Perhaps they should rename the “Devils Triangle” after tRump…an apt name for anything associated with that “A~*Hole!
I hope Trump’s incoherence at the CEO meeting makes them think twice about supporting him. Are regulations and taxes really making those multi millionnaires suffer? Companies are profitable and the market is up under Biden.
As HCR documents in today's Letter, Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC reported that some of the CEOs left the meeting with the understanding (finally) that Trump is a lazy, unfocussed ignoramus. Surely people with this understanding are obligated by their own humanity to do everything they can to keep the lazy, unfocussed, ignoramus out of the White House. That goes double (to understate it) for people with the resources and the ability to attract media attention held by CEOs of major US corporations. If I hear those CEOs shouting from the rooftops about Trump's ignorance, incompetence, and venality and shouting from the rooftops that putting Trump in the White House is likely to inflict severe harm, not only on people, but also on businesses, worldwide, I will believe that those CEOs have come to understand their obligations to use their enormous influence to convince the public that a vote for Trump is unwise. Without hearing rooftop shouting along these lines from corporate HQs, rational people will be forced to conclude that not only are American CEOs as greedy and uncaring about human consequences of their actions as they have appeared to be for many years, they also fail to perceive the catastrophic damage a Trump presidency will inflict on their business operations. This is not a time for competent CEOs to keep their head down about the November election.
Dream on, they love that promise of lower taxes. Been waiting most of my long life for Reagan’s “greed is good” approach to wane. Capitalism run amok
I agree that the likelihood of any of those CEOs doing the right thing is negligible, but I want to point out their pernicious behavior in choosing not to lift a hand to save the republic.
Expectation is the root of all heartache, or something like that
My observation is that CEOs rise to that position by being predictable and conforming, Not just competent. They may well have been primed to see Trump as a lesser evil than a Biden-supported regulatory regime that may coerce them to act a bit differently and adapt to a new understanding about how the world works.
In my decades in the corporate world, I saw the truly creative and effective people, having been rising fast through the ranks because they were appreciated by their hard working peers, ended up leaving the company when they realized that their monumental efforts and contributions were being perceived like waves against rocks - dramatic and causing erosion. Thus, I don't expect the conformists who made it to the top to perceive Trump as "that bad".
Instead, my hope lies in the voting population to come together and force change.
(Addendum: Those creative folk left after 10 or more years, enough time to actually retire if one lived modestly while earning corporate salaries. )
As Jeri said, dream on.
And is money really more important than electing a man who could start WW3?
Companies are loving greedflation. Worse than hogs at the trough
The stock market is up 45% since President Biden took office - it actually lost value during DT's term. This is just another example of how Republican businessmen, those who endorse DT anyway (i.e. most) intend to vote against their own interests next November.
The stock market benefits the share holders. It is no indication of how stake holders benefit. Biden is working to benefit those of us who have a stake in democracy and a true free market.
Exactly.
The stock market prices in short term fluctuations and long term trends. The Trump years spooked a lot of investors into pessimism about the short term. Under Biden, the market is behaving normally, averaging about 5-10%/year over multiple administrations. Slap COVID on top and you can explain the Trump era's volatility and slump and Biden era's steadiness and normal rise on top of a boost from recovery.
On the other hand, CEOs spout about a long term focus while worrying about yearly bonuses. Businesses I generally, though, worry about the time it takes for a product to bring a return on investment. For drug companies, it's 8-17 years. Tech startups 1-5 years.
Banks 1-5 years, oil companies 5-20 years. And so on. In other words, reading the stock markets for political insights is only marginally more useful than reading tea leaves.
I'll go so far as lumping all companies as "rich people" is about as close to reality as Alito's world view.
Reminder: the COVID-19 pandemic was far from under control in Jan 2021, when Biden took office. There had just been a failed insurrection. The previous administration was in no way cooperating with the transition. Yet, the stock market recovered. Did all these business cycles for drugs banks, oil, etc, magically coincide in entering their profit phases? Or was there something else at work here? If we are having normal market behavior under Biden ( I believe we are), what was going on under Trump, who is supposedly every business man's friend? COVID raged for less than half his administration, so it cannot be blamed for all of the economic slide that occurred from 2017 - 2021. That is why i said Republican businessmen intend to vote against their own interests in November of 2024.
I weep, for the future victims of gun violence, and for the murdered children of Sandy Hook who should have been graduating from high school this year with their classmates.
NOTHING should ever be named after the pathetic subhuman and convicted felon tffg, certainly not 4.4 million square miles of coastal waters as we all know he has no interest whatsoever in preserving nature and the environment. Ironic too that today, Flag Day every June 14, is his birthday, when he has and continues to do everything he can to destroy our democracy.
Oh, I don’t know—“The Donald tRump Cess Pools” has a nice ring to it.
I was thinking garbage dump or something similar or maybe festering cancer cells.
Trump Swamp?
Trump Dump? Just sayin’….
Or how about the Donald J tRump sewage or garbage collection systems - also more appropriate.
Nah. Sewage treatment and garbage collection is an enormous public good, which is the exact opposite of TFG.
My error. agreed, Whitney
I was thinking the same thing, Carolyn, or maybe the filthiest, worst smelling, vile toxic waste facility in the entire world. ''Donald TUMP toxic waste dump'' and a sign that says, ''Keep away, deadly waste, extremely hazardous!!''
tfg Radioactive Minefields, perhaps?
Only name the cell he will reside in, after him.
Trump's Graybar Hotel.
The treasonous bastard should be fed to sharks or the Kraken in the millions of square miles of coastal waters(off Florida I'm guessing). So undeserving of anything to be named after him but as for the flag I have seem him molest them at times. The flags may bring a class action lawsuit against him soon and probably the Alito's too.
says it all"
attendees dislike the Biden administration’s enforcement of antitrust laws, its price caps on drugs and medical products, and its promise of progressive tax policy and like Trump’s promise to slash regulations and cut taxes, so they went into the meeting hoping to support him.
Many of these CEOs also vowed after January 6 never to support him again. Next to cruelty, greed is a key component of the MAGA ethos.
Betsy, I now call them the Wall Street Wallets….they care about the cash, not the country.
You're on a roll, Betsy!
greed, plain and simple, and power
This is what made the Greatest Generation the Greatest Generation. After future C.E.O.s had fought next to future plumbers, I believe an ethos emerged. "Okay, I went to private schools. ¿But shouldn't Joey the plumber, who proved his abilities in the war be allowed to go of college? ¿Why should Joey's sons and daughters, when they are smart and work hard, not get to go to my college?"
Though I am indulging in euphoric recall, I remember senior managers of the company my father worked for. They likely preferred more money to less, but they managed and they were okay with things. I really think that many understood that people deserve decent lives; they had fought with them. If that ethos ever existed beyond my limited memory and immediate circumstances, it is gone now.
Ned, I think that we need two years of public service after high school and before further education. It could be military service or working for charities for forty hours a week with two weeks of vacation. Each would be paid at the level of an Army private. The children of millionaires need to work next to the children of the poor so that both groups see the other group as individuals rather than cartoon cutouts and learn to appreciate their strengths.
Mary, I met with many students at the completion of their AmeriCorps or Peace Corps service—some had a modest contribution to college costs & is why they were seeing me (to coordinate with their state/fed student aid). ALL of the students I met with/counseled shared that it was a wonderful experience and they were grateful for the opportunity—for some it influences the trajectory of their lives/professions. There are SO many areas that having a “Corps” of workers could make a huge and positive difference in—-AND expand awareness instead of the “siloed” existence so many currently live in. Of course there would need to be sufficient stipend so these “conscripts” could live…the devil is in the details, but think creative minds could come up with solutions.
What would really be great is if we could reimagine our whole educational system. We need to move away from children sitting at desks all day to more hands on learning in communities at an early age.
A combination of theory and practice with opportunities for students to engage with each other would establish a sense of collective responsibility and civics.
Wasn’t the. CCC such?
Yes, saw a few that had been w/ the CCC as well.
Parks today have plenty of left overs from that era. At least from a documentary I saw in Texas.
I remember campaigning for one w/e for AMB Shriver -- mainly as a way to get out of Dodge 😉 -- and, when he met us (as students of his bro-law's high school) -- the Ambassador did not brag about his many accomplishments in seeking to build the Great Society. 💓He pitched the Peace Corps. 🥳As a teen, his sincerity transfixxed me. I resolved to serve in the Peace Corps. BOOM! Thirty-five years later, there I was in Mexico. 🤭
EDIT: thank you for a heart-warming story, Barbara; brightened my day.
I’ve thought that for years!
Less gated community..
yes- time to stop fearing "those" people.
I've thought the same, but it would be enormously expensive and a nightmare to administer. Would the undoubted communal benefits outweigh the cost? The situation that Ned talked about occurred because we were thrust into war. Could we do it in peacetime?
I served in the National Health Service Corps for 2 years as part of my nursing scholarship. Incredible experience. Learned as much, maybe more, in those rural clinics and hollows ("hollers") as in my nursing program. But I think requiring a similar year of service for all high school graduates would build resentment. Instead, I recommend scholarships like mine should be expanded to more careers and locations, for students to choose. And perhaps build in a week of a similar living experience into senior year, maybe with a required Civics Class.
That’s a useful comment. Thanks.
Also, I would include technical and trade schools for the scholarships, too.
I love the idea Mary, however that would require something no one seems to want to pay - taxes - and it would also require something the right has managed to destroy - government.
Absolutely. But generations change and memories are short. Actually when I think about it now, that’s when things really were progressive, but in a pragmatic way.
Ned, in the way-back I remember children of some company’s workers got scholarships/aid paid by their parent’s employers as a benefit/perk. That was a long time ago and don’t know if any still do that or not….always respected those that did.
The Timken Company in Canton , Ohio still does that, and awards scholarships to children of employees world wide.
I met the family member who was head of Timken many years ago a graduate school forum. Very humble, thoughtful, decent man. He showed me that having a macho mouth does NOT make a gentleman manly.
Great point Ned. Now many of these wealthy folks are "trust fund" babies. Look around at how many of them are not the self made millionaires. So many of them, Kochs, Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Waltons and the like all started way up on the ladder and now seem intent on making sure that the they pull up the ladder behind them. They invest heavily in "non-profit" legal groups that spend their time finding loop holes around the law and ways to change the law to benefit them.
Rickey, love that 'branch' name, you make a really important point -- at least as I understand it. Baron Montesquieu declared, when I read and did not not understand him in college: citizens of a democracy must live and breathe what he called the republican spirit lest the democracy slide into anarchy followed by dictatorship or bee-line straight for dictatorship. American society has opted for legalisms over the spirit of laws (Baron M. put it); for winning as the only thing over a fair opportunity for all. Thank you for your powerful voice.
Well said! You cover a range of issues that that speak directly to the cancer within our country. No other country would tolerate this. It’s Friday , you are tired, yet yo give us the gift of information needed to retain our democracy. Bravo and thank you Heather!
What he said. 👍⬆️
Can we please have more reporting by the media on tfg’s incoherence? Great, now the insurrectionists have access to machine guns. Oh, and “thoughts and prayers” to those yet to be murdered by scotus.
CForestM-/ Agree that media should report on Trump’s incoherence. I’ve started sending journalists choice paragraphs from his rambling rallies. They are shocking.
Thank you for helping.
It's the stuff that makes the Goldwater Rule an anachronism.
Donald Trump turned 78 today, and he's already finding it difficult to keep a coherent line of thought. He rambles all over the place. Last weekend, he delivered a stream of consciousness lecture on the evils of electric boats and sharks -- this to a Las Vegas audience that was sweltering in 102-degree desert heat, for whom the perils of ocean-going electric boats and shark bites were not exactly uppermost. Yesterday, he rambled on to business leaders, who left the meeting shaking their heads in disbelief at the random and rather disconnected thoughts the Great Man had heaped upon them.
One wonders where Trump will be mentally in another couple of years. His father, Fred, was only a few years older when his mind started going. As Mary Trump tells it, one day a look of panic spread over Fred's face as it became clear that he didn't recognize a single person in the room. On other days, he would come down the stairs ten or fifteen times, look at his wife and ask "Hey, Toots, what's for dinner?" She would answer, and he would smile with satisfaction, and go back upstairs, only to come down again in a few minutes with the same question. He would be impeccably dressed, except that he wasn't wearing pants.
That's what we have to look forward to if Donald Trump becomes President again. Heaven help us.
Mary Trumps Substack from Thursday “The Good in Us” has a a great illustration showing morality by different categories including death counts from Sharks ( 4, the lowest) and Trump (750,000, on of the highest from Covid). There was no category from electric boats.
James. Trump’s June 9 story about electric boat and sharks was truly amazing.
Well Joe Biden is a mess and everyone knows that. More TDS here.
Larry, I know it is very sad….Trump Derangement Syndrome. I hope he is able to get help for his derangement that is increasing apparent for all to see. I hope his family & friends are making the necessary arrangements to keep him well cared for in his dotage. Sad. Bigly sad. There was a man, a big strong man, who came up to me, his eyes brimming with tears, expressing his concern that Trump needed to have an intervention soon so he can be cared for in his precipitous decline.
I’ve got a bad case of it, so should we all. WE have no doubt about who is deranged
Probably most of the writers on this thread
Alito's ruling is not insane. It is logical and internally consistent. What is insane is our country's inability to pass any significant control on firearms. So let's follow Alito's advice. Write the legislation. Publish the names of all those who vote in opposition. Make them actually perform the filibuster. Film it. Use those names and that film in advertisements targeted at those individuals that say plainly "These are the people who want to allow your children to be killed." No need to overturn the second amendment. Want to shoot military weapons? Join the National Guard.
The national fetishization of the AR-15 is a sign of a large-scale mental illness. It is a military-grade weapon ("assault weapon" is a vague and useless term) whose primary purpose is to kill human beings quickly and in large numbers.
In the summer of 1967, as a 20-year-old Army officer candidate, I witnessed a demonstration of the potential lethality of the M-16 that has stayed with me ever since. This was at the time the M-16 was replacing the M-14 as the standard Army infantry rifle. At school, in the early '60s we had trained with the M-1. During the summer camp, we were issued, trained with, and fired the M-14. There were not as yet enough M-16s available for office candidate training. The M-16s were going to Vietnam (for that matter, so were most of us). On this particular afternoon, the instructor told us about the M-16. Then a demonstrator placed two water-filled metal cans (these were said to approximate the consistency of a human body) next to each other about 20 meters down the rifle range. He then fired a three-round burst from the M-14 into one of the cans, neatly puncturing it with all three rounds (nice group!). Then he fired a single round from the M-16 into the other can, knocking it into the air and tearing it apart. I have never forgotten that. And I think about it every time I hear about one of these school shootings. No person who is not wearing the uniform of our military or law enforcement services needs to own or operate such an instrument of death.
James, I wrote a few paragraphs here about my (enlisted) Army experience in Vietnam, arguing that there is very little significant difference between the M16 and the AR15, and that the bumpstock issue is beside the point of the important discussion our nation needs to have.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-14-2024/comment/59116982
David, I replied to your excellent post with a few paragraphs of my own (yes, I am too wordy), but I don't know where they went after I hit "Post". Hope you find them interesting if you can find them.
Alito only feigns there; He isn't revealing that he would in fact throw out such a congressional fix to the law in judicial review. He lies James.
You're probably right. After all, a Supreme Court Justice has to be an accomplished liar, or at least an obfuscator, to get through the confirmation process. Mark Twain used to refer to lawyers by the term "prevaricator." I just think we need to keep pressing the issue. Confront them with their own words. Make them throw out perfectly good laws for "reasons." Maybe if enough voters stay angry enough long enough we can drag the SC into the 21st century through the reform process. Not so sure about Alito, though, who seems mired in the 17th century.
James, On a lighter side: I was in OCS Jul 67 - Jan 68. Ft Benning’s “School for Boys.” 😉 Perhaps our paths crossed. From there I went to jump school and on to Ft Bragg for SF. Arrived in RVN Dec 21, 1968. DEROS’d mid-August 1970; back to Smoke Bomb Hill at Fr Bragg. RIF’d May 1972. Airborne!
It was at Ft. Devens where I saw this demonstration. After I graduated from school and got my ROTC commission, I ended up at Ft. Gordon for the Signal Officer Basic Course. Another amusing incident happened in that training. As part of our course, we learned to throw hand grenades. I had never done this before, nor, apparently, had any of the other young 2LTs in the course. We lined up in a trench behind some scarred aircraft canopies that were laid on their sides to observe the instructors as they showed us how to do it. When the first grenade exploded, we all startled and ducked instinctively into the trench. I'd never heard such a loud explosion so close before. When it came my turn to throw, I was a star. Perfect spiral. Post route. I don't think I've ever thrown anything so far or so accurately before or since. The idea was to get it as far away from me as possible. :-)
James, I have a hand grenade story as well. I went through Basic at Fort Leonard Wood (aka Lost In The Woods), Misery, I mean Missouri. When it was my turn to throw the grenade, I wasn't very nervous. The training guy was very clear in his instructions, and was obviously extremely alert, watching for any misstep, ready to take swift action if anything went wrong. I played catcher in a softball league when I was a kid, so I had some experience at throwing and hitting what I was aiming at. This time the target was a tire. I threw the grenade up high, like they instructed, so it wouldn't roll past the target. The guy in the tower said over the loudspeaker "Good throw #4! You blew up the tire!" The guy in the tower had not been generous with his praise for those who went before me, so I felt proud of myself for destroying that tire. That was the only time I threw a live hand grenade.
I was never an enthusiastic soldier. But I was not a sh!tbird. I believed I had a duty to serve, a belief instilled in me, or suggested to me, by my father, who served in the Army in Europe during the war. In "our" war I took my job seriously. And the experience of the war never goes away, at least not for me.
Good story, David. I could have written your last paragraph myself. We grew up in an environment much different from today's. The vast majority of our elders and other authority figures had served in the war, either as members of the military or in other capacities. Nobody had to pressure us into service. It was simply expected.
I ended up being very opposed to war. I have other stories to tell, but I'll save them for later. My all-time favorite comment on the willingness to serve, and the idea of the duty of a citizen to serve, was expressed in a Democratic rebuttal to President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech in 2007. Here is the relevant excerpt.
"...Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way...We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it...."
Sometimes I think about General Washington and the winter at Valley Forge. I've read various stories about the privation, the hunger, the lack of sanitary facilities, and how they coped and stayed there instead of going home to their families. I ask myself if I would have stayed. My answer is always yes, I would have stayed. Easy for me to say. I could have stayed in college, but I quit in the middle of my 3rd semester, autumn of '67. Was immediately reclassified from 2S student deferment, to 1A, or whatever it was, eligible for the draft. I enlisted for four years, hoping to go to language school, to learn Russian or Chinese. At the end of Basic, when it was time to learn what our next training assignment would be, a non-com had a big smile for me. He said "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you got your request to go to language school. The bad news is that you're not going to learn Russian or Chinese, you're going to learn Vietnamese. I smiled and thanked him and went on my way. By the end of Basic Training I had learned that the Army will do with you whatever they see fit to do. So I was not surprised or disappointed. I was willing to try to do my best, come what may.
Jim Webb expressed what I think: "...they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it...."
Here is the address for a text version of (now former) Senator Webb's Democratic Rebuttal to the President's 2007 State of the Union speech.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/308971
I admire your capacity for expressive, articulate commentary. Some things haven't changed. My youngest son enlisted in the Air Force in 2008 hoping to get language training in something like Russian, Chinese or Korean. He got language training all right. In Arabic. And several deployments to places where people wanted to kill him.
And of course Alito and Thomas could not possibly been influenced by any unreported gifts. Right?
Regarding the filibuster, as presently enacted those who want to filibuster a bill need not show up. The onus is on the majority to override it. So all you would film is the majority.
Exactly. And that is the problem. Make them actually show up and DO it.
SCOTUS could have just upheld the ban and helped a lot of people survive future mass murders. But no, the great seekers of truth/Grand Imposers of Catholic Doctrine just gave the country the single digit salute.
I'd like to run across Sam and Clarence in the grocery store and spit in their faces. Just like they are doing to us.
I hope all the pols and celebs that met the Pope in Rome yesterday send him to the USA to speak to the Conservative Catholic Authoritarian Christian Nationalists and remind them that they are not true Christians at all, much less Catholics in good standing.
Stephen Colbert was excited to be going to see the Pope. But more important, He also said that the latest CEO of WaPo was a journalist in London, working under Rupert Murdoch, when he engaged in the actions that resulted in his being taken to court. What the hell was Bezos thinking. Somebody who learned his craft under Murdoch is a far cry from Ben Bradley. No wonder we are screwed by MSM.
You are so right, Hope, these cretins are far from being true Christians, they are the polar opposite of Christians. They are horrible excuses for human beings.
CINOs
I'd rather see them in a grocery store that was being attacked by someone with a bumpstock! I think you could find that in the "Just Desserts" aisle!!!!
Follow the money - since Thomas loves getting all those expensive trip benefits and never recuses himself and since Alito is almost always on the wrong side of supporting the people, let’s follow the money and discover their connection to the NRA and/or gun manufacturers.
And the Opus Dei, self-righteous rulers of us all, so they think
Amen and now!!!
A 6-3 decision.
Imagine that?
And yet the immunity case… crickets.
1, 2, 3.
1) Newest insanity has the Clarence court blessing mass murder;
2) its predecessor court blessed Citizens United dark money funding all the Clarences about the land;
3) and today it has immunized its insurrectionist-in-chief from due process trial – also immunized themselves from the Constitution’s Article 14, section three on insurrectionists.
It blesses all attacking us: billionaires, machine-gunning lone madmen, mobs attacking our Capitol, any state aborting personal choices for women, their health, and families.
Yes-and also voting rights. It’s clear that their goal is to “conserve” the status quo-not to make “progress”.