The Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause was not written as an aspiration — it was written as a direct response to state legislatures that had already demonstrated they would use their lawmaking power to subordinate citizens by race. The Black Codes were not a theoretical threat; they were enacted within months of the Confederacy's surrender. Congress added the amendment to the Constitution precisely because it did not trust that electoral majorities, left unchecked, would protect the rights of minorities within their borders.
Richardson's closing claim, that voices seeking to preserve discriminatory government are "gaining traction", may be accurate in some respects, but the constitutional architecture she describes was built to survive exactly that kind of political pressure. The relevant question for self-government is not whether such voices exist, but whether the institutions designed to check them are functioning: whether courts apply equal protection with consistency, whether Congress exercises its explicit enforcement power under the Fourteenth Amendment, and whether federal officials treat that amendment as a binding constraint rather than a policy preference. Those are measurable things, and the answers matter perhaps more than the general warning her essay closes with.
A constitutional architecture remains only as good as the people within the institutions that form it choose. Every day we see multiple personal and institutional choices that speak to blinding self-interest, the failure to do one's duty, grand corruption, public deception. Half of Congress is made up of elected representatives who've chosen to live under (and participate in) a cult of chaos and destruction rather than defend liberty. A major political party practices regular subservience to a demented criminal who cares not one whit for the Constitution, or even his own followers. A stacked Supreme Court openly sides with partisanship and racism, sabotaging the Fourteenth Amendment through unsigned three-sentence rulings hiding from a shameful place they call an "emergency docket." And let's not forget half of the American electorate who choose not to vote, not to participate in the polis, letting others passively speak for them.
The counterbalance to all that has been the growing mass movement against autocracy, for human rights, encouraged by some courts, judges, a few intrepid reporters and journalists, opposition Democrats. The only real guarantee of keeping our republic and its institutions is the majority's unwillingness to tolerate being slowly boiled to death by a minority of power-hungry incompetents who believe the rest of us who don't think like them don't count. Will it be enough for November? Can our momentum reverse their assault against us, against common decency itself? Can we repair the damage they have already done to those powerful 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments?
By way of answer, paraphrasing Martin Luther's words from centuries ago, pray as if the outcome depended on God, but work as though everything actually depended on you alone.
The danger of the moment is Pulte installed as DNI with orders to look into election fraud. I think Trump flipflopped when he got the message from Clayton that he wouldn't go along with the bogus election fraud investigation.
Trump is pushing again to end the filibuster and get a national SAVE America Act passed. Given the polls, more Republicans who are up for re-election are weighing whether they will be swept away in a blue wave or, if they compromise their principles just a tiny bit more, they can stay in power permanently.
With Pulte in place to do mischief with the voter rolls, the likelihood of a less than fair election has risen. So, the likelihood is that members of Congress up for election will be more comfortable with the idea of obeying Trump's commands. The rewards are being dangled in front of them. Vote to end the filibuster and you can get put on the insider info signal chat and make a fortune in the stock market. The guardrails are down. No one is prosecuting Trump for it.
The plan to destroy democracy is based on incremental steps to get Congress to be more co-opted and enmeshed in the corruption, which increases the malleability of their ethics and character, whatever little they have left.
Yes, Georgia, it appears gutless GOP reps and senators are more concerned with getting on the Trump gravy train than obeying and sustaining the Constitution. We are finding out what happens when all three "pillars" of our democracy crumble in unison. Scary stuff, still manageable with a sizeable blue wave in November.
I believe the "corruption" issue will sway more voters than the equally urgent "fascism" issue, as Americans tend to be more practical than ideological. I hope Democratic candidates will inform voters ad nauseum of how corrupt Trump and the GOP are, and why this is how the ultra-rich keep getting richer while the rest of us are standing still at best.
Metaphorically speaking, the authoritarian movement is the matador, the democratic movement is the bull, the authoritarian movement’s bad behavior is the cape, and the matador wins by keeping the bull focused on the cape.
The bull stops pointing its horns at the cape, and starts pointing them at the matador, by understanding that authoritarians mistakenly believe we are not equal. Instead, they behave as if we are all jockeying for a position in a dominance hierarchy. If I behave as if I am jockeying for a position in a dominance hierarchy, then I am implying to them that I agree.
When I behave as if we are all equal, then I am contributing to the collective “point horns at matador” effort. The way to do that is to think global while acting local starting with the person in the mirror.
I’m not saying to ignore the authoritarian movement’s bad behavior. I’m just saying, “Stop aiming our horns at the cape.”
Yes Rickey, as HCR poignantly served us an example of what white lawmakers, even today think, we cannot ignore their thoughts and wishes expressed by some yahoo a little more than 150 years ago: '“It looked like everything worth living for was gone,”' Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight later recalled." I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that almost all republicans in the House and Senate still echo, in their minds that is, those brain-dead dictates from some "all about me" cattleman. And this is the principal problem: they all pretty much feel that it is "all about them." That is that vision they carry that all of us must destroy.
MAGA cultists follow Trump because he gives them reasons to be aggrieved, so their situation is not due to their own choices; it is due to someone undeserving stealing opportunity from them. In every authoritarian regime, there is an “other”.
You're probably correct about the politician's thought process, Riad, it is definitely what the Oligarch donors, who have ultimate power over these politicians, believe. They are the biggest factor in the destruction of our democracy.
Yes, good reminder thanks! I also do this with my Republican Representative. By his responses I realize they do not see it as corruption, only as corrections to a system that has gone too far against the “ job creators”, the “Christian Nation”, and is a system that doesn’t honor the history of this country. And that they are the ones fighting for this country. You can’t convince people who seem to have kept alive the genes from those who tried to destroy our country during the Civil War and after. We need to throw them all out of office during elections and prosecute those who participated in the undoing of Democracy and rule of law and corruption, followed illegal orders and ignored the courts.
In real life, the GOP itself has become neofascist, so GOP "reps and senators" aren't "gutless", they SUPPORT the idea of falsely claiming that they won the 2020 election, and then massively distorting the election process so that they can continue to install fascism in the US, step by step.
And it's fascism that vitally needs corruption at the highest levels. Corruption is only a bad thing for the ruling party inside a democracy.
And it's precisely because Americans have a blind aversion to ideologies that so many people today still imagine that the problem is Trump, rather than the GOP.
We urgently need to stop treating voting as something that has merely to do with "messaging" and need to take responsibility as citizens, engaging in real, respectful debates with everyone (no one excluded), and these debates have to be about corruption and material issues (= what you call "practical") but they also urgently have to be about fascism as an ideology, and its alternative.
If we don't do this, so if as citizens we reduce society to consumerism and material problems only (in the wealthiest country on Earth...), fascism WILL take over. A democracy vitally needs a thriving debate culture among citizens. And it vitally needs citizens to be interested in ideas, rather than kitchen table issues only. There is no other solution.
all true, but Harris focused strongly on fascism in 2024 and did not get much traction. Biden spoke of oligarchy and probably lost the attention of all the MAGA voters who did not know the word. People do understand corruption. The challenge is to get the message to people who have Fox 'news' or equivalen running all day and who therefore never hear of the corruption (or the fascism, or the oligarchy.)
This IS the problem today - the reducing of public discourse to how politicians should "message".
"We the people" forgot that for democracy to thrive (or to just be able to keep it) we HAVE to engage in real debates about ideology.
Instead, it seems as if even today, DISCUSSION forums (including this one) are used to just brainstorm about what ads politicians should make.
The biggest disaster today IS the fact that the GOP is installing fascism. Our first job, as "we the people", is to make sure that everyone, without any exception, knows this basic fact, understands how to define fascism, learns how to recognize that the GOP has become a neofascist party, and then spreads the news.
Saying year after year that we cannot even mention what the GOP is doing 24/7 because people don't know yet what they're doing is not how we'll ever keep democracy alive.
(By the way, Harris only mentioned "fascism" about one month before the election. Her focus throughout the entire summer of 2024 was affordability, and trying to get people to understand what Democrats achieved under Biden.
Still, the reason why she couldn't focus strongly on fascism is precisely because "we the people" turned away from discussing ideology. The problem lies with us. "Messaging" is good to sell a product. A democracy depends on civil society, not ads.)
The challenge is to get the message to people who have Fox 'news' or equivalen running all day and who therefore never hear of the corruption (or the fascism, or the oligarchy.)
It's no longer just about FOX lying about everything but about the fact that all media has been throttled.
My brother watched FOX entertainment (aka news) 24/7. How to change the mind of those brainwashed with lies? How to make the anti abortion crew see that there are more issues that determine their religiosity and faithfulness to God? How to get the uneducated to understand the words used to put fear? How to get the 98% to understand that this administration is stealing from them by allowing the multi rich to get more money and power through war? Their eyes and ears are closed because they buy the lies. How do we change that.
That thought has occurred to me, too. My "gutless" Republican Congressman could actually be a white Christian Nationalist and so wholeheartedly supports the fascist regime. I've asked him if it is so, that he is a white Christian Nationalist, but I've received no reply. At a minimum he is defying the oath that he took to our Constitution and should be voted out of office.
There are three pillars of today's neofascist GOP:
1. the original Steve Bannon MAGA leaders, who already met with Putin's palace ideologue Alexander Dugin in 2008 in Italy (more encounters followed, including many GOP leaders and even "influencers") and who fundamentally agrees with Dugin that democracy is bad and fascism good. This is also where you find most white supremacists.
2. the neofascist tech billionaires (Peter Thiel already gave public lectures pro fascism and against democracy in 2009, and he bankrolls JD Vance's career as venture capitalist and politician; then there's Musk, Sacks, and so many others, including non-tech neofascist billionaires).
3. neofascist "Christian" nationalists, led today by the Heritage Foundation (and its director Kevin Roberts; read his 2024 book "Dawn's Early Light", where he calls for the destruction of all US institutions - which DOGE started but hasn't completed yet) and its sister organization "America First". More than half of the current senior WH staff comes from these organizations. The Heritage Foundation worked together with Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka, Viktor Orban (Hungary's neofascist leader) and Orban's Danube Institute to write Project 2025, which contains all the executive orders needed to destroy democracy and replace it with fascism as fast as possible (roadmap for the next few years; it can take up to a decade to complete this).
So you'd have to ask yourself whether your GOP Rep. adopted behavior in Congress or in the media that shows that he belongs to one or more of these three pillars to know whether he's a neofascist or one of the by now extremely rare pro-democracy Republicans in Congress.
A bit easier: we should ALL work together to study what they do in DC and in the media, so that we can help each other figure out who's a neofascist and who's not. Still, the GOP itself became a neofascist party, after 2020, with most pro-democracy rank and file being thrown out gradually, during the Biden years, so imho, for now what matters is that ALL Republicans are voted out, and that not a single one of them can be elected as long as the GOP remains a neofascist party.
I agree with your point that fascism requires corruption. but doesn’t that mean that if you are talking about corruption you are talking about the front facing part of fascism. A white Trump supporter is not part of the “other” so all they experience is the corruption and redistribution of wealth upwards. To talk about the harm done to “others” when the white Trump cultists are still deep in their grievance dilutes the message.
To break MAGA and Trump we have to switch the white MAGA cultists object of grievance from immigrants and minorities to the oligarchs who are stealing money from the 99%.
What makes you imagine that "a white trump supporter (...) all they experience is the corruption and redistribution of wealth upwards"?
They have been put in an alternative facts bubble ever since Fox was created. At worst, they turn against Trump in 2028, but the political narrative about the country and Democrats will still stand, so they'll vote for no matter what neofascist who criticizes Trump, and definitely not for a Democrat - unless "we the people" finally engage in real debates with them, lift the veil, and show them what is truly going on: the installation of fascism.
That will take time, of course. But that's precisely why it's SO urgent that "we the people" stop talking about "messaging" and ads etc. and get real.
You are absolutely correct, Georgia - the grievance must be redirected to the ones who are the cause for the grievances - the oligarchs. There are some books out at this time that are spot on: 1) Nancy MacLean, "Democracy in Chains; 2) Barbara McQuade, "Attack from Within," and just out, "The Fix." Going way back to 2004, Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
Politics has become a taboo topic. And leftwing cancel culture didn't help either. We need to begin to discuss it, with everyone, everywhere - as is the case in all thriving democracies.
Yes EUWDTB. So the the mowrons that want to get rid of "liberals" or the "democrat" think One Party is enough. I use lower-case because that's how MAGA and Der fuhrer present us. Just like HE refers to women by their first name, lowering them in stature.., manure. The "morons" think "one party" will solve it all. Dictators eliminate wasteful time discussing liberal nonsense - KAAaa-BBBbbbbooom!
As experts of fascism have shown, corruption and incompetence are always vital to keep a fascist regime in place.
There are many reasons for this.
First of all, when corruption is rampant, civil society as a whole tends to become highly cynical. That's great, from a fascist perspective, because you need the opposite for any democracy to thrive. People need to believe in our common humanity and be willing to accept imperfection and contribute to the welfare of all step by step, compromise after compromise. That requires a lot of faith in "we the people".
Secondly, fascist parties are usually having SOME form of public support (as Orban had for a long time) as long as they can claim that they are going to "drain the swamp". For that, a swamp needs to exist first... . Their propaganda is designed to make it difficult for people to understand that these fascists ARE the swamp, that they are committing all the corruption in the first place.
Third, since fascist parties are by definition revolutionary, they need constant chaos. And how to better claim that you're AGAINST corruption if, once in a while, you jail some of your own for corruption? This is also why fascist regimes tend to work with a "shadow government": there are those who are in the public eye, and those behind the scenes (in this case, the neofascist tech billionaires and the neofascist Heritage Foundation). Those who are the official political leaders are first allowed to commit a lot of corruption by the shadow government, until the public turns against them. Then they remove him and replace him with the next neofascist politician, while the public believes that they're ruthless when it comes to eradicating corruption (since they even destroy the careers of "their own").
We're already seeing this happening today. I'm sure that MTG for instance was hired by the GOP's neofascist "shadow cabinet" to create a neofascist opposition against Trump, in case Trump would definitively lose the trust of the only people who matter (the about 1/3 of the American people systematically voting for the GOP). Vance is clearly there too to take over and then project a very different image of leadership (much more polished and religious) than Trump, in case too many people would become too disgusted with Trump. Etc.
Only in a democracy is corruption a bad thing. In a fascist regime, it's exactly what keeps the regime alive.
Acting with impunity has replaced acting with integrity, has it not. I have watched this creeping evil for decades and now the rubber meets the road. Seems that repub “lawmakers” are focused on the possibility of needing “wealth management” instead of any recognition of public service. Where is Epstein when his services are needed more than ever.
Yesterday, HCR focused on the groundswell of positive stirrings. May they metastasize faster than the evil which permeates our so-called representative government.
Trump or his puppetmasters are adept at providing the carrot and the stick. Do what he wants, and you get a ticket on the corruption gravy train. Do not obey,and you will be primaried or put on his retribution list and go bankrupt bankrolling your defense. The stick was always there, but now the carrot is out in the open
Where the rubber meets the road. Where we know truth dwells in hearts and minds and has since time began. Where reluctant magats either shit or sit, locked in eternity both hands full of toilet paper or arise in dignity. No one is coming to help them wipe. Eventually the throne holders themselves either come clean or hold tight to their shitty paper stuck to their shoe as they walk along.
Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 appearing to put teeth behind the principles in the Emancipation Proclamation, but the appearance was an illusion. So, what will put teeth behind the principles in the Emancipation Proclamation?
A direct personal relationship is either transactional or transformational. In a transactional relationship, at least one person is trying to get their way. In a transformational relationship, two people are trying to get to the truth.
In every direct personal relationship, conflicts emerge. Conflicts that emerge in transformation relationships are resolved.
A conflict emerges because two people draw conflicting conclusions by using different logic to interpret the same evidence. The logic is initially flawed because two different chains of logic initially serve two limit interests. The conflict is resolved in a transformational relationship by two people working together to identify and correct the flaws. Correct the flaws, and the conflict is resolved. When the conflict is resolved, two people are drawing harmonious conclusions serving their common interest.
In every transactional relationship, at least one person is violating the principles in the Emancipation Proclamation. In every transformational relationship, two people are adhering to the principles of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Authoritarianism is a symptom of the “transactional relationship” disease. To cure the disease, think global, but act local starting with the person in the mirror.
While I agree with much of what you say -- and I am by no means defending the criminals and grifters in this Administration -- but not all transactions lead to one person violating another. As a retired transactional lawyer, my goal in drafting a contract was to create a set of rules both parties could follow without undue hardship or stress to either of them. Granted I was in house at a major University and most of the contracts were with donors or prospective donors. But what I loved about contract drafting was anticipating and solving issues before they arose - protecting my client, while also providing fair terms for both parties. I realize that this is the not the context in which you were speaking - not by a long shot.
I agree with you. I am really upset that the Republicans are smearing Obama by linking a nonissue about a reserve fund for his center to the subcontractor issues with the contractor in Chicago while Trump is getting a free gift in perpetuity in Miami of land on the waterfront to build an 80-floor mostly residential and commercial tower with his name on it with a “museum” with Air Force 1 in the lobby. It is obscene.
Metaphorically speaking, authoritarianism is the matador, the pro-democracy movement is the bull, and authoritarianism wins if the matador can keep bull focused on the cape. In your comment, you are focused on the cape. My original comment is a how-to instruction for aiming the horns at the matador.
Your comment is also a reply to lauriemcf. See also my reply to the same comment.
The "disease" is a transactional relationship, and the cure is a transformational relationship. Transactional interactions occur within both types of relationships. There is nothing wrong with a transactional interaction.
People in a transformational relationship are equals. People in a transactional relationship are in a dominance hierarchy.
Our nature is egalitarian. For many thousands of generations, prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian multi-family bands comprised of transformational relationships. An oversized band exceeded Dunbar’s Number (150 individuals), but then the band would divide into two bands.
Authoritarianism emerged only 400 generations (100 centuries) ago when the violence rate increased suddenly at the dawn of the Neolithic Period because human population exceeded the hunter-gatherer (H/G) carrying capacity of roughly two square miles per mouth.
Per Steven Pinker, the violence rate trended upward for roughly 300 generations, but it’s been trending downward for the last 100 generations because of traditions like the world’s great religions, democracy, science, justice, etc., that counsel for transformational and against transactional relationships. The American Constitution is one of those traditions.
If I behave as if my personal relationships are transactional, then I’m enabling others to follow my example and I’m implying that it’s okay for someone to get to the top of the dominance hierarchy. And why not Trump?
If I behave as if my personal relationships are transformational, then I’m part of the cure.
Thank you for that very lucid explanation. So my small talk approach is about starting clean in the relationship and trying to build up a series of small transformational interactions to build trust in the hope that eventually what are currently likely to be transactional interactions can become tranformational.
I have tried to use a different model based on Melody Beattie’s books—to “report” the actions internally, to accept what is, and to avoid being judgemental. So “he did this to me, and I felt this way”—not that “he did this to me, and he MADE me feel this way.” I think I like your model better because it addresses both people on an equal footing throughout the interaction.
One possible outcome of a transactional interaction should be for one of the people to disengage. The example would be when someone leaves an abusive relationship.
In the Iran War, Trump keeps trying to get his way, and the Iranians are trying to get their way by periodic disengagement, so the interaction actually is that both parties are trying to get their way, so it is two-sided transactional with different tactics.
Yes. It's the Hippocratic Oath writ large. Do something, but first, do no harm.
I've place long-term relationships on long-term hold by saying, "Mutual respect will be the topic of our next conversation. I'm ready to have that conversation whenever you want. Let me know."
Talarico's grandfather told James, "Practicing Christianity is hard, but it's simple." Same goes for being an American. In both traditions, it involves treating other as equals.
And white Christian nationalists wait patiently while the whole thing implodes because it is their chance to replace the structure with their vision. They want everyone on their knees praying for heaven. Patriarchy reinvigorated with women silenced. Forget civil rights. The whole country one big Christian plantation.
And yesterday, I had a depressing blow that laid me low. An article told how Rupert’s evil empire is negotiating to buy Roku, which I depend on since our communication media has been so corrupted. And apparently is interested in YouTube as well. Won’t that put them and the Ellisons in charge of every outlet. Is substack next? The article alluded to a settlement within the Murdock family that apparently means that Rupert was able to change his trust provisions. I had not seen that or heard it. Apparently Lachlan is the chosen one since James flamed out years ago. Am I dreaming or hallucinating. Somebody wake me up.
JD, Roku is merely an aggregator of streaming services, similar to cable, except where cable relies on its own cable infrastructure, Roku relies on Internet providers. At first blush, you might think your options are limited because you need a branded device to get the service. Examples: Amazon Fire TV (undesirable), Google TV Streamer (less undesirable) and Apple TV (less undesirable).
But if you have a "smart TV," you don't need the above mentioned devices at all. All these streaming services, and many more, are available as "apps" that are installed on your smart TV. On a smart TV platform, Roku has many competitors, such as Tubi, Sling, Pluto, Crackle, Stirr, and the list goes on. Some require paid subscriptions, but most are free. Some services, such as Peacock, bundle networks under their corporate umbrella.
I have a Samsung television, which includes Samsung's own channel aggregator that streams literally hundreds of channels. If those channels aren't enough, hundreds of apps, including channels from major U.S. cities can be downloaded and installed. You can definitely find a way to avoid Roku and actually end up with more options.
Smart TVs are pretty affordable these days. A one-time investment in a smart TV can eliminate the endless cost of subscriptions. Or it can give you a huge assortment of subscriptions to choose from.
Thank you for this. I have watched for decades the take over of media by the monied vipers, thinking that I would always be able to avoid the worst of the changes. You almost make me believe in a quote about the future of changes in mass communication from a strange source. Murdoch Mysteries, Canadian series from Season 13, episode 11. The writers tend to deal with our issues in a turn-of-the-century world. And with a bit of snark.
“The future is unknown, but indicators abound as to what it might become. Wireless communication portends the instantaneous dissemination of knowledge from all parts of the world. Knowledge will end prejudice, demagogues will no longer flourish, lies and misinformation will disappear. The matters and crises that shake us all will be dealt with intelligently and plausibly. All of humanity will be able to embrace their better selves and knowledge will prevail.”
Hope this gives you a laugh. Money knows what to buy, politicians first, then communication. I am old so I can find a way to avoid the worst of it. But evil can dress up as the most beautiful solution to our problems. I have two smart tv’s and have ditched so much. And found alternatives using Roku and YouTube; the search continues…
I love the Murdoch Mysteries! When I visited my late mother, she would ask me to show episodes of the Murdoch Mysteries on my MacBook and we'd watch together. I loved his Frank Lloyd Wright house with the microwave closet in the kitchen.
I empathize with being chased away from my comfortable habits by money-grubbing oligarchs. At least I'm not getting "old and sot in my ways."
I read that too and made a note to see if there are alternatives to ROKU. My first thought is there are not, but what do I know. I got rid of cable tv ages ago, maybe it's time to toss the big screen on the wall too.
It’s entirely reasonable to be terrified! We’re seeing the masks and the gloves coming off, all over the place. Now that the people in power have solidified their grip on the country’s political system, they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and no one can ever hold them to account. Right?
Let me offer you an alternative analysis. The elite control the media, and yet the media is still reporting on all the awful things being done by people in power, without any way for us to stop them. Thus, the narrative of “They have all the power, we have none” is something that they really, really need us to believe.
Now, consider that Trump wasn’t responsible for centralizing all this power into the Presidency; the Dems and GOP were. We now know that, at basically any point in time over the past couple decades, either party could have pulled a Trump and secured full, unquestioned political power for themselves. Why didn’t they?
The system isn’t anywhere near as invulnerable as they want you to think it is. The emperor has no clothes. Visit http://UTW.vote and find out how we can be their nightmare, instead of the other way around.
You are right. The article said that Fox “is partners right now with YouTube” and that won’t change. Sorry I lied about that. I also read that Google has become a leader in AI and will embed aspects of their AI expertise in gmail. I ditched ATT and switched to gmail and all things Google. Maybe two cans and a string best bet these days.
You're correct in every single respect save one. What this administration has done is show just how much power Congress and the Supreme Court have allowed to slip into the hands of the Presidency. They always claimed that if a President stepped out of line, they would impeach and remove; now, we can see that for the falsehood it is.
Up until now, the only true limits on the Presidency were the "gentleman's agreement" not to do anything too egregious while holding onto the reins, because of how much it would galvanize and alienate the electorate. They were getting away with it, too; only then, someone who wasn't a gentleman managed to get into the top seat.
Consider, now: why do you suppose it was that the "powers that be" were so diligent at maintaining that gentleman's agreement? Over the past couple decades, ANY President could have done what Trump is doing, to advance his party's agenda. So then, why haven't the Dems or the GOP ever done that? Why were they so very careful? What exactly were they afraid of?
While you consider that, the one correction I'd like to offer is that this isn't THE end, it's just AN end: the end of the wool being pulled over the eyes of the American people. President Trump has united the nation's electorate in a way we haven't been united in two and a half centuries. If you want to truly see what the power of "No" can do, visit UTW.vote, and imagine if the next "No" comes not from the Presidency, or Congress, or the Supreme Court, but instead from millions of American citizens, wielding not just the public imagination, but also the power of Constitutional law and precedent with a strength we haven't seen since our nation was founded.
Yes Dutch, it does. However, this is exactly why it falls on people like you and me to call out these criminal absurdities. It reminds me of the film, Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington: there is a scene where Tom Hanks' character is challenged by his firm's sabotage to his work and says: "every problem has a solution; every problem has a solution."
When someone answers the phone at my reps’ offices, they claim not to know the rep’s position on [x]. Every.single.time. And of course I never get a return call. So I settle for leaving a comment.
You have nailed it, IMHO. When the Extreme Court undermines the Constitution by its recent, unprecedented rulings, they are complicit in destroying our democracy. What they have done with the VRA is clear evidence of that and a clear bent toward white supremacy. The Southern states have moved swiftly to re-create the Confederacy that I don’t believe ever really went away…it just went underground until DJT made it acceptable to hate. He also protects those who hate. Sadly and unfortunately, I also believe that the former GOP party in Congress are also working hard to maintain and promote white supremacy.
Happy Valley No More, you too, have hit the nail on the head. Although I'm a "Yankee transplant," I have lived in Southern states most of my life. White male supremacy has always been a hidden component of Southern culture.
Legislation can change behavior, but it doesn't change minds. White Southerners have chafed under laws that forced them to hide their racism and misogyny. As the Suprettes have loosened that choke-collar of gender and racial equality, Southerners and all bigots feel more free to be who they are.
Note: Not all Southerners are racist misogynists, but stereotypes don't come from nowhere.
Too many people do not participate in our government. Many do not have a clue what is happening in our county. It is really sad! Some of our counties don't have a Democrat organization any longer in this red state. Many are closet Democrats and are afraid they will lose business or friends.
The tactic of voter repression has been central to right-wing "Conservative" politics at least since Nixon implemented the Southern Strategy with his 1968 Presidential campaign. Everyone who supported and voted for GOP candidates from then until now are complicit in the startling diminishment of our country at the hands of right-wingers.
I would like to see Democratic candidates make public political financing for all levels of governmental elected positions a major plank of their platform. That and endorsing common-sense constitutional amendments to strengthen the guardrails to protect our democracy and keep the power always in the hands of the voters and not the politicians and wealthy elite.
I have not seen any Democratic candidate call out the complicity of all elected GOP officials in every aspect of Trump's fascist rule and the outrageous corruption.
Their complicity should kill the GOP as a party and their members ability to ever hold office again. They are evil people who deserve nobody's respect.
It would make me happy for Roberts to be debarred along with Alito and Thomas…the graft Supremes. Additionally, it would delight me for all GOP Congressional members to be expelled for not living up to their oaths of office. They are traitors.
To illustrate the contrast you've painted between an administration of blatant corruption and ineptitude and those fighting to preserve truth and what makes up our democracy:
Yesterday on Juneteenth we celebrated the grand opening of the African American Museum of Bucks County here in Pennsylvania of which my husband was the lead architect. The exhibits paint a history of the pain of slavery and overcoming adversity that belongs to all Americans. It's a gem and merits your visit. What irony that just miles away in Philadelphia this administration is repeatedly litigating to strip history of any mention of slavery at The President's House (also a project of my husband's firm, KMA). Meanwhile trump's pet project, the Reflecting Pool, at the tune of millions of dollars of our taxed money just days after its "beautification," is filled with algae that's turned it green with slabs of its flag blue paint peeling off. What better symbol than this to blaringly show that everything he touches turns to sewage....
The point about people, not just structure, deserves real weight. James Madison made nearly the same argument in Federalist No. 51: if angels governed, no constraint on power would be necessary at all. The Fourteenth Amendment was built on that same assumption of human failure. It did not trust electoral majorities to protect minority rights through good faith alone, which is precisely why Congress gave itself explicit enforcement power under Section 5 rather than leaving the guarantee to whoever happened to hold office.
That enforcement power is a more useful place to look than any single official's conduct, however that conduct gets described. Has Congress used Section 5 to pass enforcement legislation this term, and what was the vote. Has the Supreme Court's emergency docket, a tool every recent administration has leaned on more heavily than the last, applied the same standard of review to equal protection claims that it applies elsewhere, or a lower one. Those are questions a roll call and a docket can answer. An assessment of anyone's character cannot.
The frustration in the comments here is not unfounded. Constitutional text only restrains power to the extent that the people staffing its institutions choose to be restrained by it, and that restraint has never applied itself. The design is not self-executing. What executes it is the attention of people living under its outcomes, citizens who can see the difference between the system as it was designed to operate and the system as it is currently operating, and who use the legislative session and the ballot, not only the comment section, to act on that difference. Outrage is necessary for the architecture to function, but not sufficient.
The founders built the mechanism and left it to the people it was meant to serve. Civik offers one way into that mechanism, a way to see what's moving through a state house or Congress and put a position on record before the session that decides it adjourns: https://civik.us
And yet...the regime is reinterpreting the 14th amendment and seeking to deny citizenship to people born in this country. Even though the Supreme Court has previously ruled in favor of the citizenship provisions, Mr. Trump (goaded by Steven Miller) is hopeful that the Court will ignore past precedent and give him the possibility to deport people born here, and then, perhaps, strip citizenship from others who, despite having earned the right to become Americans, displease him. We await this, and other consequential decisions as the Court finishes its term. (As they say, watch this space for more information...)
I'm not awaiting any more, and I'm not planning on letting the Court, or any of the three branches, scribble all over our Constitution any worse than they already have. UTW launches on June 29, and by July 4, America will know how we can close the book on this awful, awful chapter of our history. I hope you'll subscribe and join the fight, or at least check out what a fantastic job the web team did on the site at https://UTW.vote!
Juneteenth reminds us that fighting and dying for freedom doesn’t bring justice and equality unless people are informed and willing to act. White Christian nationalist males are seizing power and we have to stop them again. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to keep. The American idea is that taxpayers should be voters. Let’s make it liberty for all. Contact your representatives and vote Blue.
Please, for clarity, the word Christian in the phrase White Christian nationalist should at the very least have the word Christian in quotation marks. For they are altogether and simply un-Christian. It is not possible to be a Christian when your aspirations, your whole thought processes, are directly against 95% of what Jesus taught.
Morning, Lynell! Believe me I understand your perspective. I replied at length to pilgrimRVW a handful of responses down from yours. I like Derek Smith's "rebrand" of them as "Christofascistic", and will probably start using that myself.
Majority Democrats has assembled a “party within the party” of PACs, wealthy donors, and consultants pushing Democrats to the center — and testing the limits of campaign finance law.
Morning, Ally! Good to know some of us still think doing unto others as you would have them do unto you are words to live by whether or not you think it’s the Christian thing to do!
Lynell, back in college, I had a high school friend that went two years at SOU (then SOSC) and transferred to her denomination's college in Aurora, IL. We had carpooled together for our one overlapping year. We had continual correspondence that first year, and when she came home for the summer, we got together for lunch. She told me that she had enjoyed being in that Christian environment, and had learned a lot. One of those was that there were a lot of people who although vocal in their Christianity, their actions did not match their words. She told me "For a non-theist, you are the most Christian person I know." I thanked her for the compliment.
Fast forward 30+ years. We reconnected on Facebook, and in person after her older brother died suddenly and I went back to Medford to help her clean his apartment and get her house ready for the family to come together for his funeral. A couple years later, she had to move, and I ended up driving a 26' U-Haul from Medford to northern Washington. On that visit, I told her that I remembered that conversation and took it as one of the compliments that I treasured most. She said "It was intended that way."
Is doing to others as you would have them do to you so great a doctrine? eg the politician who doesn't challenge someone else's lies, because he wouldn't want someone to challenge his. Ian
As is your right, Bill, to not believe in a god which I think is the whole point of separating church from state since many who don’t believe in church are free to still embrace government.
Oh, you are implying violence committed by your god? Your god is just one of 5000+ gods out there, available for you to worship. That he is going to, and has, committed violence against human beings would seem to make him unworthy of worship, don’tcha think?
pilgrimRVW, I have to disagree. When someone takes the Holy Bible and uses it to justify their position that I will burn in their hell for who I am, and Christians follow the Holy Bible, then they have earned that label. Believe me, I understand the desire to distance yourself and your more honest and truly Christian brethren (and sisteren, if that can be said following the Holy Bible and how it acknowledges women). I am a retired cop. I like to think I was a good one. It is hard to argue against the ACAB* (All Cops Are Bad/Bastards) cadre when I watch how law enforcement handled the demonstrations following George Floyd's murder and other violent police incidents.
I also want to say that I believe that y'all should have two branches of Christianity: The followers of Christ, and the Old Testament adherents. I agree 100% that a true follower of Christ is in no way, shape, or form adhering to the establishment of the the Christian Nationalists view of the establishment of a white, male dominated, single flavor of Christian, heteronormative, cisgendered society. I revert to my original tenant: If you beat me with a bible for who I am, and call yourself a Christian, than how can I not view you as a Christian?
Pilgrim, you are repeating a protest that comes up frequently. At some point, people who identify as Christian must come to grips with the fact that their "brand reputation" has been irreversibly altered by an overwhelming majority of examples, and live with the shame or choose a new brand.
The "no true Scotsman fallacy" is not a defense.
Black & Decker was once known to be a brand of reliable, high-quality tools that came with a lifetime guarantee. They literally invented the electric drill. In 1975, the company passed out of the family's hands. Today, Black+Decker is just a brand applied to anything, including cheap power tools made in China, which fail quickly. Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker would be ashamed of what their brand has become, but their brand is what it is.
Hm I wonder RVW. Jesus did not as far as I know condemn slavery. Indeed I know of no 'Holy Book' that does. Doesn't the Battle Hymn of the American Republic gloss over this too? Ian
People are perfectly capable of announcing a general policy and then evading a practical application of it. Fact is slavery, not least that practised by the Roman Empire was extremely cruel as I understand it. But that didn't get a peep out of Jesus, whom the same Roman Empire put to death in its usual cruel way. How about that? Ian
There is always a discrepancy between what one should do and what one often does. What I said was in response to the comment that Jesus never condemned slavery.
I have said elsewhere that if you scour the Bible you can find support for almost anything terrible action. The total elimination of the previous Inhabitants of the “Promised Land” God required of His People seems to be being carried out in Gaza, to the despair and fury of many people. If your child is disrespectful and answers you with sass, you may have it put to death. Those who have a brain and the gift of faith realize that the scribes who, over centuries, wrote the books of the Bible wrote with the manners and mores of their ages, and were edited the same way.
I think it is the combination of Christianity and Empire, that began when Constantine declared Catholicism to be the faith of the Roman Empire, that initiated this now full-blown problem. Jesus was not aligned with empire obviously.
I could never quite understand the celebration of news of freedom coming 2 whole years late. For those two years, Texas enslaved and remained unnecessarily enslaved. That in itself is a crime. Did the enslaved receive compensation I assure you they didn’t. That’s a dirge to sing if I ever heard one sung.
I had what I thought was a pretty good public education and yet, I was never taught about Juneteenth in history class.I was a history major in college and vaguely remember this date being discussed.It wasn’t until Joe Biden signed the holiday into law that I fully read about all of the particulars about this date.smh
Uninformed people in my uppity area have little knowledge of what Juneteenth is, care even less, and have a sampling of snide remarks set aside just for this celebration. Sickening. I guess they never heard of the 'shoe on the other foot' theory.
"In 1866 [Congress] wrote and passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Its first section established that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Fast forward to the Summer of 2026. Here's my Friend-of-Sotomayor brief: "All persons born ..." in the United States certainly includes the real "Barbara" born in USA the defendant in 'Trump vs Barbara' the SCOTUS opinion that will be published in the next 14 days. I will be at SCOTUSblog.. Born in the USA ... hang in there Barbara. ⚖️
20+ plus opinions yet to be published
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Meanwhile, per a SCOTUSblog's KELSEY DALLAS' "Opinion Analysis,
a Divided [Supreme] Court bars federal district court review of NON-final state-court judgments
There is an important 2026 national election case filled by 22 state AG's headed for summary judgment in Massachusetts.
Juneteenth is not just a holiday. It is a moral checkpoint. It reminds America that freedom did not come from the kindness of the powerful, but through struggle, resistance, truth, and the refusal of Black people to surrender their humanity.
In the age of racist MAGA Trumpism, Juneteenth matters more than ever because white backlash is no longer whispering. It is banning books, attacking voting rights, demonizing diversity, rewriting history, and turning cruelty into policy. It wants a country where only some lives are protected, only some stories are honored, and only some people are allowed to belong.
Juneteenth stands against that lie. It honors enslaved people in Texas who learned, two and a half years late, that the law had finally recognized what was always true: they were human beings, not property. But legal freedom was never the same as justice.
That is why Juneteenth must not be reduced to cookouts, slogans, or corporate performance. It must be a day of memory, resistance, and renewed commitment.
Celebrating Juneteenth now is an act of defiance. It declares that America’s future will not be built on white supremacy, authoritarian nostalgia, or historical amnesia, but by those brave enough to tell the truth, defend democracy, and keep pushing freedom forward.
and yet, those very amendments are being targeted. Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, Kavanagh, Barrett and even Roberts have thrown doubt about those three amendments. The attacks on the Voting Rights Acts are the first actions toward the repeal. Through the power of judicial review, the fascists leaning white supremacy, Christian theocracy movement has found ways to use the system to undermine congressional authority.
Yes, the Constitutional architecture was designed to withstand such pressure, but these guys through the ALEC and armed with the strategy first outlined in the Lewis Powell Memo, are out to repeal those amendments and plunge America as a whole into the dark past.
Ask John Robert’s and, Sadly, Clarence Thomas, and the answer is clear. The “leadership” today has snd will negate the efforts of the past to provide equal protection. The fox not only guards the henhouse, but rules the roost with impunity.
It's pretty clear that today there is a "cancer growing on the body politic," to borrow John Dean's phrase. My own family was involved in the exploitation of Black Americans. My great grandfather,T.S. Sutherland, the younger brother of my great, great-uncle, William Depriest Sutherland, who died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, had slaves and fathered a daughter with one of his slaves in 1850. Her descendants have connected with us through DNA; however, though we've reached out to bring them into family affairs (we've had family reunions annually going back to 1930) they have declined. I see it as the sins of the forbears being passed down to their descendants. Another great grandfather, S.C.A. Rogers, lost two sons at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. We assume that their remains are buried in burial trenches for Confederate soldiers. I have been a member of the NAACP for the past 50 years and it's fairly clear that the struggle for equality will go on long past my passing.
Unfortunately, that "constitutional architecture" has been severely weakened by this regime. Don't like a law? Ignore it. Court orders? Well, sometimes you can ignore those too. The constitution and its amendments such a bother? Twist, bend, break.
Yep, they’re measurable. The courts have absolutely not provided equal protection to people of color. Look at stats on capital punishment, for example. Look at stats on drug enforcement. On officer-involved shootings. The USA is a work in progress. We can say definitely that the institutions don’t protect themselves—they rely on the courage and tenacity of individual patriots. And we can say that you, Civik USA, seem to have the relevant questions conflated, whereas, it’s clear the institutions are not functioning as designed and the Rule of Law is still very much an aspirational concept, including some great successes and a great many failures.
Depends on where you get your news on how well the Constitution is holding. Corporate media propaganda is telling everyone our biggest problem of the week is the reflecting pool. The week before that it was the cage fight. And on and on.
The Government of the United States is now fascist.
More people continue to die in ICE concentration camps.
The supreme court has already said, very recently, that allowing black people fair representation in government discriminates against whites. They clearly don't feel a need to uphold our constitution.
The Demon-Haunted World - Sagan’s masterwork explores several core concepts that empower readers to navigate a complex world. The Baloney Detection Kit: Sagan provides a practical toolkit for critical thinking. This includes testing ideas with independent confirmation, questioning arguments from authority, utilizing Occam's razor, and testing for falsifiability. Sagan demonstrates how a lack of scientific rigor invites fear and manipulation. Sagan argues that science is not just a body of knowledge, but a way of thinking. It is an essential light that protects democratic freedoms and technical civilization from the "demons" of irrationality.
I am not sure that science can always claim to protect democratic freedoms nor that Sagan was making this argument. It can be used equally as well to suppress those freedoms. We have deployed science to exploit our planet's resources beyond sustainable levels and yet now we look to science again to find ways to repair the damage. I would say rather that science depends on those democratic freedoms and that it cannot operate without them.
There is a rampant anti-intellectualism infecting western society, seen most clearly in the United States, the most scientifically developed of all democracies, a distrust of expertise and even observable facts. It is accompanied by the rise of conspiracy movements that are spread by means of the very technology that is distrusted.
The book I would recommend is the Chilean writer, Benjamin Labatut's astonishing 'When We Cease To Understand The World' for a sense of the perils we face through the rapid advances of sciences and technologies that are outpacing the ability of lawmakers to understand and control for the benefit of wider society. The recent boom in AI spending is an example of this phenomenon.
Science is the most reliable information we have, so far as we can determine, about the nature of our physical world. That information helps us understand and appreciate, our circumstances. Science is a methodology that anyone can practice, but under that (in my opinion) is an epistemology of intellectual honesty. The practice of science produces information, and information can be used for both beneficial and evil purposes, as history demonstrates. Almost any tool can be used as a weapon and many as a means of conquest. I think that wisdom combines accuracy with human values and experience, and although the topic of wisdom has a long history, it seems to me to be a neglected temporary concern.
Intellectualism can present as a game, but also as earnestness. As humility. As curiosity. As the pursuit of true justice because I think justice worthy of the name comes of an earnest search for truth.
Wish I had said that. I recommend PBS NOVA Specials if you want to experience a sliver of scientific thought at its best. Not entertainment so be forewarned. Just food for the grey cells.
I agree. Einstein once wrote: "One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have."
Science is also a human activity, so epistemological honesty cannot always be guaranteed nor can it be characterised simply as the dispassionate pursuit of objective information about the world. Progress in science is not only about the accumulation of better data either. Stephen J. Gould in his book 'Ever Since Darwin' includes an essay about the validation of the theory of continental drift. He points out that all the data necessary to show that continents must have drifted apart were available when Wegener then made his then startling hypothesis. It was resisted for many years by the scientific community because there was then no plausible mechanism for how they drifted. It's a valuable lesson people should remember when considering the mad rush by tech companies to horde ever larger accumulations of data to feed their large language models in the pursuit of what Musk calls "Jesus-like cures" and the other wonders that the AI moguls have promised us.
However, so far as I know science is the only human activity that has self-correction embedded in it and no other human enterprise that I know of would submit to anything like Popper's demand that valid scientific theories must all in principle be falsifiable. Thus there are no high priests or shamans of science, however eminent and esteemed certain scientists undoubtedly are.
Russell, thanks for the book title and the blurb says the book could seem dark, but, it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and named one of the New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2021.
Anti-intellectualism indeed. And it is an "infection" that goes back as far as I can remember. It is being used as a weapon by this administration to deny us clean energy, safe medications, safe drinking water, vaccines, and a host of other things.
People often compare the Trump administration's rejection of science with the Stalinist period in Russia. As the author of Ecclesiastes says: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
Exactly Russell! Science is a way to attest (prove) facts. Facts are problematic because they do not align with maga disinformation and division objectives. Hence facts are to be denied and science (and education) are made suspect because they can prove the facts. And the facts are that a great majority of people do not agree with maga (project 2025) objectives.
One thing I have found in conspiracists' thinking is that science is static; thus, they believe science lies. They don't seem to understand that science evolves as new information/facts emerge and older theories are disproven. Kuhn's *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions* still applies. When a paradigm cannot stand up to rigorous examination when stubborn facts arise, the paradigm falls and a new one takes it place, to which (unfortunately) adherents cling stubbornly, resisting new data that doesn't fit their preferred theory. We're all in the petri dish.
Thank you Signe K. I think the pandemic that we all went through is an example of this. I guess I expected the "adherents stubbornly resisting" as in a portion of the population. What I would never have expected would be for people in the top positions of our government not only clinging stubbornly to their preferred theory but, actually refuting science itself. The Petri dish has been contaminated.
I agree. Science works best when it stands humbly before the facts. Thomas Henry Huxley, 'Darwin's Bulldog', once wrote about what he called "the great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact".
In our post-truth world (and never science never promises more than an approximation of the truth) we are now offered 'alternative facts', which usually means the selection of only those facts that support a person's viewpoint.
We need to draw a clear line between "facts," which are discernable and open to new evidence, and "beliefs," which are personal and yet to be proven as facts. We are all entitled to our beliefs, but they are best kept to ourselves or shared with friends/colleagues for open and critical discussion. We would be nowhere without our beliefs, but they are just that, beliefs, until objective investigation can prove them otherwise.
Anti-intellectualism is hardly new. 1) Harvey Circulation of the Blood 1628, Galileo 1633, Scopes Monkey Trial 1922, Dover Pennsylvania 2005 with its attempt to invent Creationist Science. Ian
How about supporting both Sagan and Labatut? Oh and not all science is supporting going beyond our resources. See sundropfarms.com for renewable energy greenhouses which will enable us to sustainably well feed 10 to 12 billion people to West European standards of variety adn quantity. Ian
Science is like any tool, wielded by fools, charlatans or carpenters. Since science requires some gray cells, one would assume intelligence. Our circumstances today would warn against such an assumption. Intelligence can be corrupted more lethally than ignorance, it seems.
Had to Google Velikovsky. Yep, a trip to pitch Newton. But doesn’t seem that he had an answer for explaining quantum, and other anomalies. Maybe AI can do what Einstein couldn’t. Won’t hold my breath. Interesting though
You're welcome, Kristen. I did read Carl Sagan's book many years ago and I still have it somewhere. It's a great pity more people didn't read it - we not be in quite such a mess now.
Data centers will serve several purposes. One being the “cloud” which will be all our hard drives, just out of our reach. Another will be AI programmed to tell the genuses how smart and superior they are. AI will determine other uses, with or without human help…
Implementation of technology has always been advanced by the military to kill people in war more efficiently. Science can be used for evil as well as for the benefit of society, just like religion has been used throughout history.
I’m afraid I don’t agree. ‘Modern’ western science, as in the reductionist-materialistic thinking of Descartes, Newton and Galilei that still pervades almost all of the natural sciences, has done immense and irreparable harm to the environment and the planet. It supports the viewing of the earth and its inhabitants, including humans, as “resources” to be used, because reductionist-materialistic thinking _reduces_ life to a random bumping into each other of elementary particles - a meaningless, soulless universe totally devoid of any purpose.
Remember, (Western) science and war have always been intricately linked since its conception, and the link is money. Why did Newton’s mechanics become so popular and influential? Not because it made our lives or understanding of Nature better. No, because it allowed the precise calculation of the trajectory of a cannonball. THAT was interesting to the powers that were, because it made war much more deadly and efficient.
In that sense, one could just as well claim that science has caused many wars and many deaths. And there have been civilizations that did quite well for a long time without science; a lot of Indigenous tribes still do, in fact,even though their cultures and world views might seem ‘irrational’ to us. I think that the defining thing that protects democracy is not science, but moral principle. As soon as narcissists without any moral priniciples start to occupy key positions, it’s the beginning of the end.
You’re right. Truly, the defining thing that protects democracy is not science, but moral principle. But we also need accurate science, not ruled by gut feelings.
That's mostly true, although there were a few scientists, like Edward Teller, who knew the power of the atomic bomb but nevertheless believed that it should be used. I remember reading that one of the chemists who witnessed the first Trinity atomic bomb test in New Mexico 1945 exclaimed: "You're going to drop that on a city?!!".
That's a rather dismal view of science if I may say so. After all, it has also delivered vaccines and medicines like antibiotics which have extended human lifespans and improved the conditions in which people live. It has taught us about the world we live in and provided us with a firm basis for a rational philosophy to replace the superstitions of the past. It's certainly not the fault of science that people still cling to those old superstitions. It also provides most of the answers to the current problems the world faces if we only we choose to heed them. Science is not responsible for the wars men make on each other, even though technology has greatly enhanced our ability to kill each other.
The example I like to give to illustrate the relationship between science and its uses is the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Scientists raised the alarm over the loss of ozone in the 1980s and established that CFCs were the principal cause. World leaders then acted quickly to reduce these chemicals by around 99%. It was a model for evidenced-baed policy. Scientists are now again raising the alarm over the effects of the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and it's certainly not for want of repeated warnings from the scientific community that world leaders are still failing to respond adequately to the risks posed by global warming.
In Newton's cannonball thought experiment he assumed that the trajectory of a cannonball would be affected by what he believed was the force of gravity. However, Einstein showed in his General Theory of Relativity that gravity isn't a force at all but rather a property of the fabric of space-time. This didn't change the trajectories of cannonballs and we still use much of Newton's math to send our spaceships into the great beyond but it did provide us with a better understanding of the universe.
I’d argue that “indigenous tribes” do practice science in the sense that close observation and experimentation, which contribute to the formulation (however informal that may appear to be to an outside observer) of testable hypotheses about how the world (I.e., the various plants and flora and fauna of their surroundings) works is science.
Jared Diamond writes that indigenous peoples will often recognise new species of plants that botanists have failed to identify. Anthropologist Don Johanson writes about how he would enlist members of the Afar tribe to help him find human fossils in the deserts of Ethiopia. They had a peculiar ability to spot these fossils (his famous Lucy discovery was named Australopithecus afarensis).
Interesting that I should read your comment. I was lamenting yesterday, that I no longer had that book on my shelves, because the current situation (including "MAHA") had me wanting to read it yet again. I do "purges" of books every once in a while, so that I have room to walk around. But, sometimes, I regret it.
Hi Roberta. Founding father Gouverneur Morris wrote the phrase "we the people" into his Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. I believe he would have understood the inclusiveness of your meaning, and its underpinning of a healthy social contract. He would have had no problem with your "God Bless," as he believed in a divine Creator. He also lambasted slavery and, being a party animal, he would have frolicked on his peg leg at today's Juneteenth celebration.
God bless you for your comment, the least of which because it gave me a chance to learn how to spell Gouverneur's first name once and for all!
what's this, 'we the people' nonsense, Roberta? in a democracy ALL are included...which is why i think the US has never really BEEN a democracy...too many excluded(Natives, women, blacks come readily to mind...no matter WHAT the laws were) from voting, for one...
the U.S. is a good ideal...but one that seems doomed to never really come to fruition...
We are always striving for that goal. Do not give up. They take us back, we move us forward. Back and forth getting closer to that goal. The Obama Celebration was a reminder of what decency looks like. Let us try to get that back. Let us make sure that being mean and evil is not cool. We need to be the change we wish to see.
yeah...i loved what i read 2 days ago(yesterday, for me). Heather put it all together wonderfully...first breath of fresh air in quite a while for me, re: the US...
i totally support what you're saying. and i HAVE been creating the world i wish to live in almost all of my life...the reason i moved away from a pretty good life there was i would no longer pay taxes to what i saw them being spent on...there were a number of other reasons, as well...none that i feel the need to repeat right now, though. i don't mean to be disheartening...but with all that i've read here about using 'less mean' language(e.g. trailer trash), i thought it was important to point out that 'we the people' means ALL the occupants of that country. and that is CERtainly a goal to strive for...
Trailer trash is just as derogatory as the 'n' word. I've known many people that live in very nice manufactured homes that keep them up much better than many people that live million dollar homes.
The real white trash in the US are the oligarchs who feel it is there obligation to buy as many Republican seats as they can.
Susan Collins' reelection campaign has received over $9 million from 97 billionaires 100% of whom live outside of Maine. This is the white trash we need to clean up.
Yes, and that all-inclusive phrase serves to perpetuate stereotypes, which in turn feeds prejudices, biases, etc, which are much easier to act on than taking the time to do the harder job of careful, thoughtful consideration of the actual people who are cast under that wide, all-inclusive net.
BTW: I lived for most of my youth in trailers of various sizes and designs, at times in trailer parks or more upscale mobile home communities, as well as on privately owned property. And in light of some of the other blanket stereotypes being tossed into the discussions on this forum, I am also a white, male, christian American. And I am 74 years old. I do not resemble, in any form, the images those descriptions tend to conjure.
BobCaster, I don't know if you read my original response to that post (I'm on the left coast, and am reading and responding 6-8 hours after the Letter is posted). I'm a retired cop, and can recite from memory the street addresses of 8 or so "trailer parks" in the county that called for law enforcement services. At every single one of those "frequent flyer" residences, I had incredible and positive contacts with residents as well.
I know well the "labeling" that occurs. I was labeled a "sports dyke" most of my youth. I was also labeled a (choose your adjective) cop. Good, bad, funny, incompetent, stupid, weird, and the list goes on. My favorite nickname, however, was Deputy Tuba.
It is a goal to strive for. I am working towards that from abroad. That is I am mostly living abroad. Also working on issues here. Going to my Indivisible Abroad meeting today and belong to political action groups here as well. While I pay taxes in both countries, I have stressed to Americans living abroad that they can vote even if they have not paid taxes. Voting is not connected to the IRS.
Did I say that I didn't vote? I believe elections are rigged...but I'd rather make the effort ANYways recently, just in case...I HAVE been known to be wrong, now and again...
You said it, Linda! I hope you'll support me when I launch UTW in barely over a week, or at least take a quick glance at https://UTW.vote to get a better idea of what I'm planning (and to admire what a fantastic job the UTW web team has done with the site).
Thank you very much, Ally! And I entirely agree—I fell in love with it after I found the Tumblr blog "unfuckyourhabitat" quite a few years back, which was super helpful to me in getting my living space sorted out! The idea of "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be Not Absolutely Miserable" was such an eye-opener for me, and it changed my life for the better.
So, y'know, if anyone from UFYH ever happens to see this comment, know that you were part of the story that led to UTW! ❤️
Isaac, I’m 79 years old and I’ve seen a lot in my day. During your life you’ll go through some hard times but also better ones. I don’t know why you are taking offense to We the People? I just keep praying and hoping for better times for everyone. God bless.
my reason is that there are OBviously people known as maga...even MORE importantly, the ultra rich pulling most of the strings/dictating policies and inciting division...i got the sense that your comment didn't include them(not that i blame you, in some cases). but until the playing field can be leveled, in terms of the ultra rich/all others division, and people can come to agreement(re: maga) in terms of equality, that place will NEVER be 'united'. and from what i can tell, the former is adamant about letting the latter happen. so, for me, a 'we the people' reeks of cognitive dissonance, said the 75 yo...
and, if you don't mind, i'm going to leave God out of this conversation except to say that i am doing so...
and, for whatever it's worth, i wish you and yours good health...
I think if we look closely it's plain as day. Some people's "thing" is to attempt to control and dominate everybody; to take ever more of others resources just because they can. Not always, but often those who are most fiercely against any empowerment of the poor are among the very most powerful and privileged. Some of these psychopaths even delight in making less privileged people suffer, as is patently evident in this regime.
Right on Jim Carmichael. If we look at the world of plants - having a monoculture in a farm completely strips the soil of nourishing fungi to flourish, but introduce biodiversity (for example, planting shade plants among coffee beans) that biodiversity (along with animal grazing) creates a full-bodied soil.
🌎 #shorts - GROUNDswell_Film | Can a Film about Soil, Change the World? (6/5/26)
I blame much of the racism on isolated groups of people who rarely interact in a meaningful way with others outside of their clan. I've lived in 10 US states and traveled to all but one. Most often, the most blatantly racist people I've met are from families that have lived in the same community for generations, who rarely interact with people from outside their friends and family.
I usually agree with you but I think your comment is a simplistic explanation to a complex issue. The south has among the highest populations of both Latinos and Blacks, yet they are by far among the most racist states in the nation, even though they interact with these people almost daily. Racism is cultural. I grew up in a small mill town that had a large minority Puerto Rican population. We were also ethnically diverse in our community of around 10,000 residents. Many despised the Puerto Ricans in spite of attending school and church with these families. Yet I am not racist and was taught to judge people by their character and not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. My husband grew up in a far less diverse town. He also judges people by their character. A friend who grew up in the large Massachusetts city is quite racist even though his city was far more diverse than my little town.
We need to stop making this about how much traveling one has done. Our children were raised in our, for the sake of argument, all white town. Yet none are racist and none are well-traveled. We have a Puerto Rican grandson and a Brazilian son-in-law. Worldly people can be, and are, racist. My cousin travels extensively. She also grew up in a large very diverse city. She is disgustingly racist and a trumper to the core. One can be worldly without having ever travelled beyond their gate. They do this by reading books, reading history, reading, or watching, the news. Travel for many is beyond their financial ability. This doesn't automatically make them ignorant of the world around them. There are other ways to learn about the world besides immersing one's self in its culture. You can travel by books. Intellectual curiosity will teach far more about culture than spending a handful of days visiting a far away land.
Which I no longer doubt will be the extinction of our species and the toxic reduction of our once-vibrant Mother Earth to permanent Precambrian lifelessness.
“A twenty-two-year-old man graduated from Stanford University last Sunday.
Now he’s starting a new futures exchange with a $30 million venture capital investment that values his fledgling company at $300 million.
His name is Theodore Gillibrand, and he’s the son of pro-crypto Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York.
During his time at Stanford—while his mom was pushing the crypto agenda—Theodore interned at Andreessen Horowitz and did a fellowship at Paradigm, two venture capital funds heavily invested in crypto.
I often warn that Republicans aren’t the only problem when it comes to the tech fascist takeover of our democracy. The crypto, AI and venture capital barons have enough money to try to buy both sides. That’s why it’s disturbing that Democrats who ought to know better—including Gavin Newsom—are cozying up to crypto.
Surely, it’s just a coincidence that the beneficiary of this miraculous VC investment is the son of a pro-crypto senator.”
Ugh! Even when I think I’m well-informed, I just can’t pull back the layers of the onion far enough to see a big picture. I’m writing postcards trying to flip the country blue, protesting and making phone calls. But, AIPAC and AI crypto money is an equal-opportunity poison…many Democrats are taking it too! Gillibrand purports to be fighting for NY, but as a parent with lots of insider info, just imagine the conversations over Sunday dinner with her son? How can a well-intentioned voter untangle all this information? Thank you Heather, and the commenters, for helping steer the debate!
How did the "Party of Lincoln" become the "Party of Trump"? Follow the money.
Through the whole of history, follow the money. and other forms of social power. Like the old "Fire Triangle" (fuel, oxygen, heat) I think there is a coercive-power triangle; Money, Rank, and Violence; and violence is not always readily visible. Some may remember the murder scene in Kubrick's "2001" where all you see is the data. A great deal of social violence is that hidden.
Awareness (such as "Woke") and sensory experience is what human sentience is all about. "Brain dead" is the lack of capacity for that. Reality is both beautiful and terrifying. Every small child knows that. My dog knows that. How much reality can we stand?
Heather spends the long part in hers today celebrating Juneteenth.
And she concludes celebrating, too, the traction we now have similar to that great old history.
It was just yesterday Barack, Michelle, and Zohran all celebrated diversity, equality, inclusion.
From the Chicago park outside the Obama Presidential Center to Lower Manhattan, they not only recentered America to our D.E.I., they also fully embraced the positive, the confident, the Yes We Hope and the Yes We Can all, too, of Juneteenth.
Criminal Donald and his phalanxes of dark money meanwhile sink lower to narrowest of corporate interests. Their bright boy and girl lobbyists ever pay more millions in bribes to Supreme Court justices and Congress critters. They ever up the extortions from elite law, top universities, merger-covetous legacy media, algorithm hate-messaging social media, and all the techies now smelling AI.
And with Americans sick at the higher consumer prices everywhere, our helplessly widening wealth gap, how do we measure the difference between renewed celebration on one hand for the true heart of diverse America and on the other hand our evidently deadly corrupt status quo?
We measure it by reading the essay Pauline Kael wrote in 1969, called "Trash, Art, and the Movies."
She loved America's vernacular, its vitalities, serendipities, and our many gifts coming from non-orthodox places and from each other. And she placed these in fresh and amazing contradistinction to the stifling of our eminently corrupted, our living dead in high places everywhere.
There was a poignant article by New Jersey representative LaMonica MacIver in yesterday's Rolling Stone about the continuing significance of Juneteenth today as she faces the possibility of 17 years in prison for protesting the inhumane squalor of the Delany Hall ICE detention center.
When black members of Congress can continue to be subjected to such grotesque indignities as she has suffered then you realise how far America remains away from fulfilling the high ideals espoused in its flawed Constitution.
The U.S. actually, truly, and by tens of millions of dollars is deliberately reenacting the fascist concentration camps of nearly a century ago.
Tens of thousands endure horrid food, lack of medical care, cruelty by ICE and CBP thug agents, and ever-encircling profit-taking and corruption at the top of all these camps.
So glad I caught your comment, Apache. Years ago my husband and I drove a ways into the Pine Ridge reservation, on our way to the Badlands. We didn't stay long; I remember my chest tightening, and wanting to leave.
The Badlands was different, ineffable. We spent a good two hours driving through, up to Wall Drug. We stopped at one scenic overlook, and stayed quite a while. Our two dogs at the time usually ran around when we made stops, but there, they stood quietly with us, sniffing the wind, looking and listening, then settled down at our feet while we stood....and experienced.
Thank-You Susan for that Story... Stephen Miller, who's Family has been in the USA for only 3-Generations, now wants to take away our Citizenship... Your Dogs are Perceptive... Much Sorrow At Pine Ridge...
Stephen Miller is unnatural in every sense of the word, and that is his downfall.
We can keep putting pressure on elected officials, the courts, and constitutional lawyers to fight against his perversion of what it means to be a citizen, and keep drawing attention to this serious matter.
We can actively help reforest the pine trees at Pine Ridge. I believe the healthier those trees, the healthier their spirit of resilience in the face of harshness, which they will then share with their people.
What do you think? With your permission, I can at least start by meditating on this, or anything else you believe would be helpful.
Good to see your correspondence with Susan, Apache.
How many legacies does the U.S. have to its shame?
The Trail of Tears and the use of the U.S. cavalry on the High Plains is just one intermixed history. Slavery and the arrogation of the faux aristocracy of the slave owning class was another. The incarceration of Japanese-Americans 1942-45 a third. A fourth -- subjection to the far-right foundations of the Powell memo, its testing tentacles dehumanizing schools, offshoring of millions of working-class American jobs, and then Citizens United with all its new enslaving and mad war-making class as we have now both in mass murders we commit abroad, regime-change installation of dictators abroad, (whose secret police we train), and now concentration camps for persons of color as part of the lawlessness too many of us normalize for our criminals in high places.
Thanks for this reminder, Apache. It is my opinion that unless and until the US Government and Citizenry acknowledges it's "greatness" was founded on the land theft and near genocide of the Indigenous population and on the backs of kidnapped Black slave labor, we can never hope to achieve the "greatness" that the white male founding fathers "established".
Greatness worthy of the name does not cling to falsehoods, lies of commission or omission. Not that I claim any such perfection, but confession and sharing of credit would seem to be part of the criteria. we can't erase past mistakes but we can choose to strive to do better.
Thus -- though it took the partnershiping with Original Nazi war criminals to do it --the American Reich achieves the ecogenocidal purpose it ever sought -- often with plausible deniability but always with relentless fanaticism -- since the 1772 Somerset case.
I think that the Constitution itself is not so flawed as is its application. Despite the ostensible aim of law for consistency, words can be twisted, most impactfully by those in power. Both MLK and Pete Hegseth claim(ed) to follow the Christian Bible, yet they do (did) starkly different things.
She is not facing prison for protesting. She is facing retribution for assault. Lawlessness is being defined as protesting. It makes me wonder what definition is used for racism now. The Supreme Court ruling not allowing voting districts to be organized by race is considered racism? How can that be racism?
It not even the power of corporate interests per se. We have reversed the reforms that followed the "Gilded Age" and "Great Depression" such that some individuals control so much wealth that the welfare of the company is no longer paramount. Some of the few internal documents of bankrupted banks that came to light in the "Great Recession" indicate that some managers were quite aware of skating on thin ice, but chose to keep the money flowing into their pockets as long as they could; to hell with the fate of the company or the country. The malignant narcissism gets that bad. Musk bought Twitter as his personal toy, not to grow the company. Bezos and others want sociopolitical leverage, not to build papers "of record". Incorporation is now a dodge around generalized legal accountability; and that change was no accident. The $COTUS criteria for charging political bribery now looks like a slice of Swiss cheese.
And this with all the nominal "Christian Nation" crap that is patently unconstitutional. Did Jesus specifically condemn or embrace diversity (even a Samaritan could be a "neighbor"), equity (even of "the least of these") or inclusion (love (even) thy enemy). I am not pitching Christianity here, but overall "decency", like what Joe McCarthy lost sight of (and whose MO was so like Trumps; with the same mentor). Did the actual text of the document we are urged to celebrate on July 4 embrace or reject diversity, equality, or inclusion, or did it soundly reject it? Famously Lincoln maintained the former.
But if the fight is about individual rights VS the common weal, how can diversity, equity and inclusion even be uttered in the same breath? The seeming secret hiding in plain sight is they're all part of the same, precious thing: Solidarity. E Puribus Unum. I pledge allegiance to the flag, as a reminder, of the REPUBLIC for which it stands. ONE NATION ("under God" is traditional but apocryphal, and Constitutionally controversial) WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL; which we mutually pledge to one another, or it just won't work. As a matter of practice, what does the look like? What fits?
I will never understand why certain people have this distrust of others, this hatred and feeling of superiority over people they don’t even know. I have said this before- when my children were young my way of explaining the difference in skin tone was that our skin was like wrapping paper- we don’t judge a gift by the paper it is wrapped in so why would we judge people as inferior because their wrapping paper was a different color or design than ours? It must have worked because one of my son in laws happens to be wrapped in a color other than white. How boring might our lives be if we didn’t experience things that come to us from the many different cultures and nationalities- food, music, clothing styles and fabrics, pottery- the list could go on and on if I were to describe everything in my life that I enjoy which are part of this great melting pot of life. I for one do not wish to live a “Wonder Bread” life- one in which I cannot eat the wonderful dishes which come from Latin cuisine, Ethiopian cooking, Indian, Asian-you get my drift. So I will continue to use my voice against racism and white supremacy, speaking out when I see wrong- and hope that we truly become that nation described in the famous words of Lincoln (which always make me emotional)- Four score and twenty years ago……
After a long-ago trip solo-backpacking the globe, I returned to my teeny West Village apartment and thought, Anything I found anywhere in the world, the people, the music, the food, the aromas, could be found on 14th Street...
So true! We've lived on both Bank St and Perry Street in the West Village. Now I'm in Brooklyn Heights which has the same feel to me as the West Village of the 80s and 90s!
In 1989 I left my rent-stabilized Jane Street studio for my dream job. I'd give a limb to get back to The City That Never Sleeps! Bank St. and Perry are great places. A friend once said I was living in the best zip code in the world. :) You did too, lauriemcf. 10014 Forever!
What a wonderful analogy and explanation for a child's questioning. Our children learn to hate, they are not born to it. We also have a 1/2 Puerto Rican grandson, our daughter didn't marry the father of her son since they were both too young when their son was born, but he has always been welcome in our home. Our son-in-law is Brazilian/Italian/American and our little granddaughter is a"heinz 57" with Italian, Brazilian, French, Lithuanian and a wee bit of Scotch and Irish thrown into the mix. What matters is that they are kind, generous, moral and emphatic people. The color of their skin doesn't matter, the quality of their character is all that counts.
The fact that there was no mention of Juneteenth on the White House website, the Convicted Felon’s Temu Twitter account, or anywhere else in the federal government speaks volumes.
‘The Trump-Epstein Files Have Not Resulted in a Single Arrest!’
“Action item up top: the ask is an email to your state attorney general today, requesting that the office “open an investigation into the Epstein files, identify any conduct documented that overlaps with the criminal statutes of your state, and share discovery with other state AGs where the evidence reaches conduct in their jurisdictions.” You can find the directory of every state AG office at naag.org/find-my-ag.”
“The answer to our problem is enforcement of the law against even the powerful, without delay or political maneuvering, regardless of how rich or how powerful or how well-defended they are. Delaying the pursuit of justice is exactly how we got where we are today.
We change the calculations of your elected officials by being present and demanding better.”
‘As We Talk About the Kennedy Center and Iran, The Epstein Files Remain Unprosecuted’
Being freed from enslavement by executive or governmental decision, whether from bondage to farmers or being a prisoner of drugs or alcohol or prostitution or self hatred requires immense amounts of work, financial support, and love from the people who prayed for you. It also requires time and carries the risk of backsliding into the " good old days". If we all understand this we may, in time, all escape our own personal enslavement to greed, lust, gluttony, and hatred of those different from us. But it requires us all to admit we are slaves to something. If we are indifferent to helping because "I'm fine, you're not" is our attitude, the abyss for freedom in our country is just around the corner.
We were hurled into the abyss on 22 November 1963. All we have been able to do since then is repeatedly prove there is no way out. Not now; not ever. The slavemasters have seized the helm of the ship of state, and their wealth and technology (and the literally limitless Evil their already infinitely Evil selves can buy) guarantee they can never be overthrown -- that history's arc to bottomless horror is now irreversible.
So too in South Africa, the white 7% imposed apartheid on the rest of the population along with a host of severe civil controls and restrictions. And now that same 7% represents themselves as victims. Confederate racism.
The cliche con is familiar yet somehow effective, more so at some times than others. Blame the victims, fiercely defend the perpetrators. To what end? It's much of what's kept tyrants in business for centuries.
“While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.”
– John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, Jul. 9, 1813.
ICYMI: (1) “Politics Chat, June 18, 2026 - YouTube“. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x1w8-euxcI Heather reviews what is in the MOU and what it’s different elements mean including does it provide evidence that Trump violated the War Powers Act since it clearly states there was a war and Congress never gave its approval.
(2) In her 6/18 Politics Chat Heather recommends that we listen to the recent speeches of NYC Mayor Mamdani and of Michelle Obama. She feels they are so important that she reads them in her newsletter. They demonstrate the extraordinary talents of these two leaders to inspire people to come together. Although Heather is herself very talented in her spoken deliveries, hearing the words spoken by the actual people who spoke them is even more inspirational. I feel they represent historic examples of what leadership should be. Mamdani reminds me of how Nelson Mandela used the success of the South African Rugby National Team to help unify his country coming out of apartheid.
I also recommend for those who are interested in the Michigan Democratic Senate Primary the speech that Dr. Adud El-Sayed made to the UAW: “Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan U.S. Senate Candidate - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLYcfhA3WME
(3) A summary of the Iran MOU: It commits to a cessation of all hostilities including Israel but Israel refuses. It removes all U.S. sanctions on Iran and stops U.S. blockade of great Strait. It gives Iran immediate access to the world financial system. Iran will “use its best efforts” to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow free passage for 60 days only. (It doesn’t address that if tolls are instituted it will violate the international freedom of the seas act which has been in effect since the end of WWII.) Frozen Iranian assets of $24 billion will be returned to Iran. It calls for the U.S. to provide a fund of $300 BILLION to rebuild Iran. In exchange Iran will reaffirm its pledge not to develop a nuclear weapon but without any inspections as were previously required by the JCPOA (Joint Comprohensive Plan Of Action) as negotiated by Obama but torn up by Trump. Good luck on how this is going to go down.
(4) Heather was interviewed by Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU, entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. They discuss what comes next in America.
Hate to use the "heart" symbol for your comment since it seems too trivial to express the anger and disgust we feel at what is being done to the people of this country. I can't understand how minorities and women can support this vile, racist, bigoted regime.
It's not promising, is it? Despite the declaration of yet another ceasefire yesterday, Israel maintained that it would continue to deal with immediate threats, never mind that those threats mainly continue because of its continued occupation of southern Lebanon. Today, Lebanon reports another 12 Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon.
Another problem is that Trump's continued vacillation between hopeful messages and ominous threats always leaves the door open to the Iranians to claim that he he is constantly moving the goalposts. Yesterday, he told reporters that his main priority was to ensure that Iran could not in the future have a nuclear weapon yet only a few days ago he mused that the 'nuclear dust' (his quaint description of Iran's stocks of highly-enriched uranium) were not really important. It's clear that Trump's mercurial nature and inability to focus are not suited to this kind of delicate negotiation.
Juneteenth reminds us that fighting and dying for freedom do not bring justice and equality unless people are informed and willing to act. White Christian nationalist males are again seizing power and need to be stopped. The American idea is that taxpayers should be voters. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to ensure. Honor the people who won recognition of their rights and make them secure. Contact your representatives and vote Blue.
The Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause was not written as an aspiration — it was written as a direct response to state legislatures that had already demonstrated they would use their lawmaking power to subordinate citizens by race. The Black Codes were not a theoretical threat; they were enacted within months of the Confederacy's surrender. Congress added the amendment to the Constitution precisely because it did not trust that electoral majorities, left unchecked, would protect the rights of minorities within their borders.
Richardson's closing claim, that voices seeking to preserve discriminatory government are "gaining traction", may be accurate in some respects, but the constitutional architecture she describes was built to survive exactly that kind of political pressure. The relevant question for self-government is not whether such voices exist, but whether the institutions designed to check them are functioning: whether courts apply equal protection with consistency, whether Congress exercises its explicit enforcement power under the Fourteenth Amendment, and whether federal officials treat that amendment as a binding constraint rather than a policy preference. Those are measurable things, and the answers matter perhaps more than the general warning her essay closes with.
A constitutional architecture remains only as good as the people within the institutions that form it choose. Every day we see multiple personal and institutional choices that speak to blinding self-interest, the failure to do one's duty, grand corruption, public deception. Half of Congress is made up of elected representatives who've chosen to live under (and participate in) a cult of chaos and destruction rather than defend liberty. A major political party practices regular subservience to a demented criminal who cares not one whit for the Constitution, or even his own followers. A stacked Supreme Court openly sides with partisanship and racism, sabotaging the Fourteenth Amendment through unsigned three-sentence rulings hiding from a shameful place they call an "emergency docket." And let's not forget half of the American electorate who choose not to vote, not to participate in the polis, letting others passively speak for them.
The counterbalance to all that has been the growing mass movement against autocracy, for human rights, encouraged by some courts, judges, a few intrepid reporters and journalists, opposition Democrats. The only real guarantee of keeping our republic and its institutions is the majority's unwillingness to tolerate being slowly boiled to death by a minority of power-hungry incompetents who believe the rest of us who don't think like them don't count. Will it be enough for November? Can our momentum reverse their assault against us, against common decency itself? Can we repair the damage they have already done to those powerful 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments?
By way of answer, paraphrasing Martin Luther's words from centuries ago, pray as if the outcome depended on God, but work as though everything actually depended on you alone.
The danger of the moment is Pulte installed as DNI with orders to look into election fraud. I think Trump flipflopped when he got the message from Clayton that he wouldn't go along with the bogus election fraud investigation.
Trump is pushing again to end the filibuster and get a national SAVE America Act passed. Given the polls, more Republicans who are up for re-election are weighing whether they will be swept away in a blue wave or, if they compromise their principles just a tiny bit more, they can stay in power permanently.
With Pulte in place to do mischief with the voter rolls, the likelihood of a less than fair election has risen. So, the likelihood is that members of Congress up for election will be more comfortable with the idea of obeying Trump's commands. The rewards are being dangled in front of them. Vote to end the filibuster and you can get put on the insider info signal chat and make a fortune in the stock market. The guardrails are down. No one is prosecuting Trump for it.
The plan to destroy democracy is based on incremental steps to get Congress to be more co-opted and enmeshed in the corruption, which increases the malleability of their ethics and character, whatever little they have left.
Yes, Georgia, it appears gutless GOP reps and senators are more concerned with getting on the Trump gravy train than obeying and sustaining the Constitution. We are finding out what happens when all three "pillars" of our democracy crumble in unison. Scary stuff, still manageable with a sizeable blue wave in November.
I believe the "corruption" issue will sway more voters than the equally urgent "fascism" issue, as Americans tend to be more practical than ideological. I hope Democratic candidates will inform voters ad nauseum of how corrupt Trump and the GOP are, and why this is how the ultra-rich keep getting richer while the rest of us are standing still at best.
Asking these people why they approve of the corruption needs to be raised in any interview or townhall meeting. I am asking mine daily in letters.
I am going to start asking my R reps why they approve of Trump’s corruption. I call them almost daily. Excellent point, Rickey.
Metaphorically speaking, the authoritarian movement is the matador, the democratic movement is the bull, the authoritarian movement’s bad behavior is the cape, and the matador wins by keeping the bull focused on the cape.
The bull stops pointing its horns at the cape, and starts pointing them at the matador, by understanding that authoritarians mistakenly believe we are not equal. Instead, they behave as if we are all jockeying for a position in a dominance hierarchy. If I behave as if I am jockeying for a position in a dominance hierarchy, then I am implying to them that I agree.
When I behave as if we are all equal, then I am contributing to the collective “point horns at matador” effort. The way to do that is to think global while acting local starting with the person in the mirror.
I’m not saying to ignore the authoritarian movement’s bad behavior. I’m just saying, “Stop aiming our horns at the cape.”
Do they ever give you a straight answer?
Yes Rickey, as HCR poignantly served us an example of what white lawmakers, even today think, we cannot ignore their thoughts and wishes expressed by some yahoo a little more than 150 years ago: '“It looked like everything worth living for was gone,”' Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight later recalled." I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that almost all republicans in the House and Senate still echo, in their minds that is, those brain-dead dictates from some "all about me" cattleman. And this is the principal problem: they all pretty much feel that it is "all about them." That is that vision they carry that all of us must destroy.
MAGA cultists follow Trump because he gives them reasons to be aggrieved, so their situation is not due to their own choices; it is due to someone undeserving stealing opportunity from them. In every authoritarian regime, there is an “other”.
You're probably correct about the politician's thought process, Riad, it is definitely what the Oligarch donors, who have ultimate power over these politicians, believe. They are the biggest factor in the destruction of our democracy.
Yes, good reminder thanks! I also do this with my Republican Representative. By his responses I realize they do not see it as corruption, only as corrections to a system that has gone too far against the “ job creators”, the “Christian Nation”, and is a system that doesn’t honor the history of this country. And that they are the ones fighting for this country. You can’t convince people who seem to have kept alive the genes from those who tried to destroy our country during the Civil War and after. We need to throw them all out of office during elections and prosecute those who participated in the undoing of Democracy and rule of law and corruption, followed illegal orders and ignored the courts.
And their answers?
In real life, the GOP itself has become neofascist, so GOP "reps and senators" aren't "gutless", they SUPPORT the idea of falsely claiming that they won the 2020 election, and then massively distorting the election process so that they can continue to install fascism in the US, step by step.
And it's fascism that vitally needs corruption at the highest levels. Corruption is only a bad thing for the ruling party inside a democracy.
And it's precisely because Americans have a blind aversion to ideologies that so many people today still imagine that the problem is Trump, rather than the GOP.
We urgently need to stop treating voting as something that has merely to do with "messaging" and need to take responsibility as citizens, engaging in real, respectful debates with everyone (no one excluded), and these debates have to be about corruption and material issues (= what you call "practical") but they also urgently have to be about fascism as an ideology, and its alternative.
If we don't do this, so if as citizens we reduce society to consumerism and material problems only (in the wealthiest country on Earth...), fascism WILL take over. A democracy vitally needs a thriving debate culture among citizens. And it vitally needs citizens to be interested in ideas, rather than kitchen table issues only. There is no other solution.
all true, but Harris focused strongly on fascism in 2024 and did not get much traction. Biden spoke of oligarchy and probably lost the attention of all the MAGA voters who did not know the word. People do understand corruption. The challenge is to get the message to people who have Fox 'news' or equivalen running all day and who therefore never hear of the corruption (or the fascism, or the oligarchy.)
Why are you so obsessed with "marketing"?
This IS the problem today - the reducing of public discourse to how politicians should "message".
"We the people" forgot that for democracy to thrive (or to just be able to keep it) we HAVE to engage in real debates about ideology.
Instead, it seems as if even today, DISCUSSION forums (including this one) are used to just brainstorm about what ads politicians should make.
The biggest disaster today IS the fact that the GOP is installing fascism. Our first job, as "we the people", is to make sure that everyone, without any exception, knows this basic fact, understands how to define fascism, learns how to recognize that the GOP has become a neofascist party, and then spreads the news.
Saying year after year that we cannot even mention what the GOP is doing 24/7 because people don't know yet what they're doing is not how we'll ever keep democracy alive.
(By the way, Harris only mentioned "fascism" about one month before the election. Her focus throughout the entire summer of 2024 was affordability, and trying to get people to understand what Democrats achieved under Biden.
Still, the reason why she couldn't focus strongly on fascism is precisely because "we the people" turned away from discussing ideology. The problem lies with us. "Messaging" is good to sell a product. A democracy depends on civil society, not ads.)
The challenge is to get the message to people who have Fox 'news' or equivalen running all day and who therefore never hear of the corruption (or the fascism, or the oligarchy.)
It's no longer just about FOX lying about everything but about the fact that all media has been throttled.
My brother watched FOX entertainment (aka news) 24/7. How to change the mind of those brainwashed with lies? How to make the anti abortion crew see that there are more issues that determine their religiosity and faithfulness to God? How to get the uneducated to understand the words used to put fear? How to get the 98% to understand that this administration is stealing from them by allowing the multi rich to get more money and power through war? Their eyes and ears are closed because they buy the lies. How do we change that.
That thought has occurred to me, too. My "gutless" Republican Congressman could actually be a white Christian Nationalist and so wholeheartedly supports the fascist regime. I've asked him if it is so, that he is a white Christian Nationalist, but I've received no reply. At a minimum he is defying the oath that he took to our Constitution and should be voted out of office.
There are three pillars of today's neofascist GOP:
1. the original Steve Bannon MAGA leaders, who already met with Putin's palace ideologue Alexander Dugin in 2008 in Italy (more encounters followed, including many GOP leaders and even "influencers") and who fundamentally agrees with Dugin that democracy is bad and fascism good. This is also where you find most white supremacists.
2. the neofascist tech billionaires (Peter Thiel already gave public lectures pro fascism and against democracy in 2009, and he bankrolls JD Vance's career as venture capitalist and politician; then there's Musk, Sacks, and so many others, including non-tech neofascist billionaires).
3. neofascist "Christian" nationalists, led today by the Heritage Foundation (and its director Kevin Roberts; read his 2024 book "Dawn's Early Light", where he calls for the destruction of all US institutions - which DOGE started but hasn't completed yet) and its sister organization "America First". More than half of the current senior WH staff comes from these organizations. The Heritage Foundation worked together with Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka, Viktor Orban (Hungary's neofascist leader) and Orban's Danube Institute to write Project 2025, which contains all the executive orders needed to destroy democracy and replace it with fascism as fast as possible (roadmap for the next few years; it can take up to a decade to complete this).
So you'd have to ask yourself whether your GOP Rep. adopted behavior in Congress or in the media that shows that he belongs to one or more of these three pillars to know whether he's a neofascist or one of the by now extremely rare pro-democracy Republicans in Congress.
A bit easier: we should ALL work together to study what they do in DC and in the media, so that we can help each other figure out who's a neofascist and who's not. Still, the GOP itself became a neofascist party, after 2020, with most pro-democracy rank and file being thrown out gradually, during the Biden years, so imho, for now what matters is that ALL Republicans are voted out, and that not a single one of them can be elected as long as the GOP remains a neofascist party.
I agree with your point that fascism requires corruption. but doesn’t that mean that if you are talking about corruption you are talking about the front facing part of fascism. A white Trump supporter is not part of the “other” so all they experience is the corruption and redistribution of wealth upwards. To talk about the harm done to “others” when the white Trump cultists are still deep in their grievance dilutes the message.
To break MAGA and Trump we have to switch the white MAGA cultists object of grievance from immigrants and minorities to the oligarchs who are stealing money from the 99%.
What makes you imagine that "a white trump supporter (...) all they experience is the corruption and redistribution of wealth upwards"?
They have been put in an alternative facts bubble ever since Fox was created. At worst, they turn against Trump in 2028, but the political narrative about the country and Democrats will still stand, so they'll vote for no matter what neofascist who criticizes Trump, and definitely not for a Democrat - unless "we the people" finally engage in real debates with them, lift the veil, and show them what is truly going on: the installation of fascism.
That will take time, of course. But that's precisely why it's SO urgent that "we the people" stop talking about "messaging" and ads etc. and get real.
You are absolutely correct, Georgia - the grievance must be redirected to the ones who are the cause for the grievances - the oligarchs. There are some books out at this time that are spot on: 1) Nancy MacLean, "Democracy in Chains; 2) Barbara McQuade, "Attack from Within," and just out, "The Fix." Going way back to 2004, Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
Indeed, EUWDTB, if only the public would wake up and see the truth of our situation, you described so well.
Only we can make that happen.
Politics has become a taboo topic. And leftwing cancel culture didn't help either. We need to begin to discuss it, with everyone, everywhere - as is the case in all thriving democracies.
No "leader" can do this in our place.
Yes EUWDTB. So the the mowrons that want to get rid of "liberals" or the "democrat" think One Party is enough. I use lower-case because that's how MAGA and Der fuhrer present us. Just like HE refers to women by their first name, lowering them in stature.., manure. The "morons" think "one party" will solve it all. Dictators eliminate wasteful time discussing liberal nonsense - KAAaa-BBBbbbbooom!
I agree. The Hungarian model was “the corruption is rampant and the money is coming out of your pocket and into theirs.”
As experts of fascism have shown, corruption and incompetence are always vital to keep a fascist regime in place.
There are many reasons for this.
First of all, when corruption is rampant, civil society as a whole tends to become highly cynical. That's great, from a fascist perspective, because you need the opposite for any democracy to thrive. People need to believe in our common humanity and be willing to accept imperfection and contribute to the welfare of all step by step, compromise after compromise. That requires a lot of faith in "we the people".
Secondly, fascist parties are usually having SOME form of public support (as Orban had for a long time) as long as they can claim that they are going to "drain the swamp". For that, a swamp needs to exist first... . Their propaganda is designed to make it difficult for people to understand that these fascists ARE the swamp, that they are committing all the corruption in the first place.
Third, since fascist parties are by definition revolutionary, they need constant chaos. And how to better claim that you're AGAINST corruption if, once in a while, you jail some of your own for corruption? This is also why fascist regimes tend to work with a "shadow government": there are those who are in the public eye, and those behind the scenes (in this case, the neofascist tech billionaires and the neofascist Heritage Foundation). Those who are the official political leaders are first allowed to commit a lot of corruption by the shadow government, until the public turns against them. Then they remove him and replace him with the next neofascist politician, while the public believes that they're ruthless when it comes to eradicating corruption (since they even destroy the careers of "their own").
We're already seeing this happening today. I'm sure that MTG for instance was hired by the GOP's neofascist "shadow cabinet" to create a neofascist opposition against Trump, in case Trump would definitively lose the trust of the only people who matter (the about 1/3 of the American people systematically voting for the GOP). Vance is clearly there too to take over and then project a very different image of leadership (much more polished and religious) than Trump, in case too many people would become too disgusted with Trump. Etc.
Only in a democracy is corruption a bad thing. In a fascist regime, it's exactly what keeps the regime alive.
Acting with impunity has replaced acting with integrity, has it not. I have watched this creeping evil for decades and now the rubber meets the road. Seems that repub “lawmakers” are focused on the possibility of needing “wealth management” instead of any recognition of public service. Where is Epstein when his services are needed more than ever.
Yesterday, HCR focused on the groundswell of positive stirrings. May they metastasize faster than the evil which permeates our so-called representative government.
Trump or his puppetmasters are adept at providing the carrot and the stick. Do what he wants, and you get a ticket on the corruption gravy train. Do not obey,and you will be primaried or put on his retribution list and go bankrupt bankrolling your defense. The stick was always there, but now the carrot is out in the open
Sadly, I have watched politicians gobble the carrots and bow to the sticks
Where the rubber meets the road. Where we know truth dwells in hearts and minds and has since time began. Where reluctant magats either shit or sit, locked in eternity both hands full of toilet paper or arise in dignity. No one is coming to help them wipe. Eventually the throne holders themselves either come clean or hold tight to their shitty paper stuck to their shoe as they walk along.
Will there be toilet paper, the question as we wipe and clean in November
Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866 appearing to put teeth behind the principles in the Emancipation Proclamation, but the appearance was an illusion. So, what will put teeth behind the principles in the Emancipation Proclamation?
A direct personal relationship is either transactional or transformational. In a transactional relationship, at least one person is trying to get their way. In a transformational relationship, two people are trying to get to the truth.
In every direct personal relationship, conflicts emerge. Conflicts that emerge in transformation relationships are resolved.
A conflict emerges because two people draw conflicting conclusions by using different logic to interpret the same evidence. The logic is initially flawed because two different chains of logic initially serve two limit interests. The conflict is resolved in a transformational relationship by two people working together to identify and correct the flaws. Correct the flaws, and the conflict is resolved. When the conflict is resolved, two people are drawing harmonious conclusions serving their common interest.
In every transactional relationship, at least one person is violating the principles in the Emancipation Proclamation. In every transformational relationship, two people are adhering to the principles of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Authoritarianism is a symptom of the “transactional relationship” disease. To cure the disease, think global, but act local starting with the person in the mirror.
While I agree with much of what you say -- and I am by no means defending the criminals and grifters in this Administration -- but not all transactions lead to one person violating another. As a retired transactional lawyer, my goal in drafting a contract was to create a set of rules both parties could follow without undue hardship or stress to either of them. Granted I was in house at a major University and most of the contracts were with donors or prospective donors. But what I loved about contract drafting was anticipating and solving issues before they arose - protecting my client, while also providing fair terms for both parties. I realize that this is the not the context in which you were speaking - not by a long shot.
I agree with you. I am really upset that the Republicans are smearing Obama by linking a nonissue about a reserve fund for his center to the subcontractor issues with the contractor in Chicago while Trump is getting a free gift in perpetuity in Miami of land on the waterfront to build an 80-floor mostly residential and commercial tower with his name on it with a “museum” with Air Force 1 in the lobby. It is obscene.
His “tastes” are obsene and trashy.
Metaphorically speaking, authoritarianism is the matador, the pro-democracy movement is the bull, and authoritarianism wins if the matador can keep bull focused on the cape. In your comment, you are focused on the cape. My original comment is a how-to instruction for aiming the horns at the matador.
Your comment is also a reply to lauriemcf. See also my reply to the same comment.
The "disease" is a transactional relationship, and the cure is a transformational relationship. Transactional interactions occur within both types of relationships. There is nothing wrong with a transactional interaction.
People in a transformational relationship are equals. People in a transactional relationship are in a dominance hierarchy.
Our nature is egalitarian. For many thousands of generations, prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian multi-family bands comprised of transformational relationships. An oversized band exceeded Dunbar’s Number (150 individuals), but then the band would divide into two bands.
Authoritarianism emerged only 400 generations (100 centuries) ago when the violence rate increased suddenly at the dawn of the Neolithic Period because human population exceeded the hunter-gatherer (H/G) carrying capacity of roughly two square miles per mouth.
Per Steven Pinker, the violence rate trended upward for roughly 300 generations, but it’s been trending downward for the last 100 generations because of traditions like the world’s great religions, democracy, science, justice, etc., that counsel for transformational and against transactional relationships. The American Constitution is one of those traditions.
If I behave as if my personal relationships are transactional, then I’m enabling others to follow my example and I’m implying that it’s okay for someone to get to the top of the dominance hierarchy. And why not Trump?
If I behave as if my personal relationships are transformational, then I’m part of the cure.
Thank you for that very lucid explanation. So my small talk approach is about starting clean in the relationship and trying to build up a series of small transformational interactions to build trust in the hope that eventually what are currently likely to be transactional interactions can become tranformational.
I have tried to use a different model based on Melody Beattie’s books—to “report” the actions internally, to accept what is, and to avoid being judgemental. So “he did this to me, and I felt this way”—not that “he did this to me, and he MADE me feel this way.” I think I like your model better because it addresses both people on an equal footing throughout the interaction.
One possible outcome of a transactional interaction should be for one of the people to disengage. The example would be when someone leaves an abusive relationship.
In the Iran War, Trump keeps trying to get his way, and the Iranians are trying to get their way by periodic disengagement, so the interaction actually is that both parties are trying to get their way, so it is two-sided transactional with different tactics.
Am I understanding you correctly?
Yes. It's the Hippocratic Oath writ large. Do something, but first, do no harm.
I've place long-term relationships on long-term hold by saying, "Mutual respect will be the topic of our next conversation. I'm ready to have that conversation whenever you want. Let me know."
Talarico's grandfather told James, "Practicing Christianity is hard, but it's simple." Same goes for being an American. In both traditions, it involves treating other as equals.
Your last paragraph sums it up very well. Remembering Joseph Goebbels quote:
Democracy provides the very tools needed for its destruction.
And white Christian nationalists wait patiently while the whole thing implodes because it is their chance to replace the structure with their vision. They want everyone on their knees praying for heaven. Patriarchy reinvigorated with women silenced. Forget civil rights. The whole country one big Christian plantation.
I think this whole circus shows that there is simply no match for the power of ‘no’.
No, I won’t obey the Constitution.
No, I won’t follow that court order.
No, I won’t publish these files.
No, I won’t listen to those federal judges.
No, I don’t care what the majority of the people say or think.
As soon as people without conscience and principles start occupying important positions, it’s the end. Narcissism kills everything it touches…
And yesterday, I had a depressing blow that laid me low. An article told how Rupert’s evil empire is negotiating to buy Roku, which I depend on since our communication media has been so corrupted. And apparently is interested in YouTube as well. Won’t that put them and the Ellisons in charge of every outlet. Is substack next? The article alluded to a settlement within the Murdock family that apparently means that Rupert was able to change his trust provisions. I had not seen that or heard it. Apparently Lachlan is the chosen one since James flamed out years ago. Am I dreaming or hallucinating. Somebody wake me up.
JD, Roku is merely an aggregator of streaming services, similar to cable, except where cable relies on its own cable infrastructure, Roku relies on Internet providers. At first blush, you might think your options are limited because you need a branded device to get the service. Examples: Amazon Fire TV (undesirable), Google TV Streamer (less undesirable) and Apple TV (less undesirable).
But if you have a "smart TV," you don't need the above mentioned devices at all. All these streaming services, and many more, are available as "apps" that are installed on your smart TV. On a smart TV platform, Roku has many competitors, such as Tubi, Sling, Pluto, Crackle, Stirr, and the list goes on. Some require paid subscriptions, but most are free. Some services, such as Peacock, bundle networks under their corporate umbrella.
I have a Samsung television, which includes Samsung's own channel aggregator that streams literally hundreds of channels. If those channels aren't enough, hundreds of apps, including channels from major U.S. cities can be downloaded and installed. You can definitely find a way to avoid Roku and actually end up with more options.
https://www.samsung.com/us/tvs/smart-tv/samsung-tv-apps/
Smart TVs are pretty affordable these days. A one-time investment in a smart TV can eliminate the endless cost of subscriptions. Or it can give you a huge assortment of subscriptions to choose from.
Thank you for this. I have watched for decades the take over of media by the monied vipers, thinking that I would always be able to avoid the worst of the changes. You almost make me believe in a quote about the future of changes in mass communication from a strange source. Murdoch Mysteries, Canadian series from Season 13, episode 11. The writers tend to deal with our issues in a turn-of-the-century world. And with a bit of snark.
“The future is unknown, but indicators abound as to what it might become. Wireless communication portends the instantaneous dissemination of knowledge from all parts of the world. Knowledge will end prejudice, demagogues will no longer flourish, lies and misinformation will disappear. The matters and crises that shake us all will be dealt with intelligently and plausibly. All of humanity will be able to embrace their better selves and knowledge will prevail.”
Hope this gives you a laugh. Money knows what to buy, politicians first, then communication. I am old so I can find a way to avoid the worst of it. But evil can dress up as the most beautiful solution to our problems. I have two smart tv’s and have ditched so much. And found alternatives using Roku and YouTube; the search continues…
I love the Murdoch Mysteries! When I visited my late mother, she would ask me to show episodes of the Murdoch Mysteries on my MacBook and we'd watch together. I loved his Frank Lloyd Wright house with the microwave closet in the kitchen.
I empathize with being chased away from my comfortable habits by money-grubbing oligarchs. At least I'm not getting "old and sot in my ways."
I read that too and made a note to see if there are alternatives to ROKU. My first thought is there are not, but what do I know. I got rid of cable tv ages ago, maybe it's time to toss the big screen on the wall too.
I loved ROKU years ago; don’t recall why I gave it up. Got rid of cable channels a year ago.
Has been good for me but I’ll take Dale’s advice and find an app not owned by Nazis. Hopefully
See Dale’s post /reply. Informative for us who don’t live and breathe tv
It’s entirely reasonable to be terrified! We’re seeing the masks and the gloves coming off, all over the place. Now that the people in power have solidified their grip on the country’s political system, they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and no one can ever hold them to account. Right?
Let me offer you an alternative analysis. The elite control the media, and yet the media is still reporting on all the awful things being done by people in power, without any way for us to stop them. Thus, the narrative of “They have all the power, we have none” is something that they really, really need us to believe.
Now, consider that Trump wasn’t responsible for centralizing all this power into the Presidency; the Dems and GOP were. We now know that, at basically any point in time over the past couple decades, either party could have pulled a Trump and secured full, unquestioned political power for themselves. Why didn’t they?
The system isn’t anywhere near as invulnerable as they want you to think it is. The emperor has no clothes. Visit http://UTW.vote and find out how we can be their nightmare, instead of the other way around.
Murdoch is buying Roku (I don’t even know what it is), but there are no reports of buying YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Ma'am, Roku is basically a TV streaming service. I confirmed this with Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku
My only experience with it is to get the first 6 years of the British Baking Show.
Thanks.
You are right. The article said that Fox “is partners right now with YouTube” and that won’t change. Sorry I lied about that. I also read that Google has become a leader in AI and will embed aspects of their AI expertise in gmail. I ditched ATT and switched to gmail and all things Google. Maybe two cans and a string best bet these days.
Yes, Google is heavily into AI.
Hard to shame people that have none. With trump providing the distraction, they continue their work.....
You're correct in every single respect save one. What this administration has done is show just how much power Congress and the Supreme Court have allowed to slip into the hands of the Presidency. They always claimed that if a President stepped out of line, they would impeach and remove; now, we can see that for the falsehood it is.
Up until now, the only true limits on the Presidency were the "gentleman's agreement" not to do anything too egregious while holding onto the reins, because of how much it would galvanize and alienate the electorate. They were getting away with it, too; only then, someone who wasn't a gentleman managed to get into the top seat.
Consider, now: why do you suppose it was that the "powers that be" were so diligent at maintaining that gentleman's agreement? Over the past couple decades, ANY President could have done what Trump is doing, to advance his party's agenda. So then, why haven't the Dems or the GOP ever done that? Why were they so very careful? What exactly were they afraid of?
While you consider that, the one correction I'd like to offer is that this isn't THE end, it's just AN end: the end of the wool being pulled over the eyes of the American people. President Trump has united the nation's electorate in a way we haven't been united in two and a half centuries. If you want to truly see what the power of "No" can do, visit UTW.vote, and imagine if the next "No" comes not from the Presidency, or Congress, or the Supreme Court, but instead from millions of American citizens, wielding not just the public imagination, but also the power of Constitutional law and precedent with a strength we haven't seen since our nation was founded.
Yes Dutch, it does. However, this is exactly why it falls on people like you and me to call out these criminal absurdities. It reminds me of the film, Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington: there is a scene where Tom Hanks' character is challenged by his firm's sabotage to his work and says: "every problem has a solution; every problem has a solution."
I keep asking my three elected reps why they allow the corruption and keep changing the law to protect them
When someone answers the phone at my reps’ offices, they claim not to know the rep’s position on [x]. Every.single.time. And of course I never get a return call. So I settle for leaving a comment.
Wow! Where do you live? Unless the “x’s” you’re asking about are really arcane, those reps have to go. They’re clearly not rep-ing.
No, they are not; they have made that clear. But their staffs never know what their position is, by design I think.
Could you share what their response is? Do they even bother to respond?
"Boiled to death" is a surprisingly accurate description. Unfortunately.
Sage advice from the 1800s. (I didn't know who to attribute those words to, so thanks)
You have nailed it, IMHO. When the Extreme Court undermines the Constitution by its recent, unprecedented rulings, they are complicit in destroying our democracy. What they have done with the VRA is clear evidence of that and a clear bent toward white supremacy. The Southern states have moved swiftly to re-create the Confederacy that I don’t believe ever really went away…it just went underground until DJT made it acceptable to hate. He also protects those who hate. Sadly and unfortunately, I also believe that the former GOP party in Congress are also working hard to maintain and promote white supremacy.
Happy Valley No More, you too, have hit the nail on the head. Although I'm a "Yankee transplant," I have lived in Southern states most of my life. White male supremacy has always been a hidden component of Southern culture.
Legislation can change behavior, but it doesn't change minds. White Southerners have chafed under laws that forced them to hide their racism and misogyny. As the Suprettes have loosened that choke-collar of gender and racial equality, Southerners and all bigots feel more free to be who they are.
Note: Not all Southerners are racist misogynists, but stereotypes don't come from nowhere.
Ronnie (and Lee Atwater) made it acceptable to hate, chump just hopped onboard the hate train
I live in a very blue state, so my reps and Senators are on board. I’m 74 and just had hip replacement surgery. So what do I do?
I can pray! I can also donate to specific candidates in Red states!
Too many people do not participate in our government. Many do not have a clue what is happening in our county. It is really sad! Some of our counties don't have a Democrat organization any longer in this red state. Many are closet Democrats and are afraid they will lose business or friends.
Well said ICTT - “our unwillingness to tolerate being slowly boiled to death by power-hungry incompetents” ..
The tactic of voter repression has been central to right-wing "Conservative" politics at least since Nixon implemented the Southern Strategy with his 1968 Presidential campaign. Everyone who supported and voted for GOP candidates from then until now are complicit in the startling diminishment of our country at the hands of right-wingers.
I would like to see Democratic candidates make public political financing for all levels of governmental elected positions a major plank of their platform. That and endorsing common-sense constitutional amendments to strengthen the guardrails to protect our democracy and keep the power always in the hands of the voters and not the politicians and wealthy elite.
I have not seen any Democratic candidate call out the complicity of all elected GOP officials in every aspect of Trump's fascist rule and the outrageous corruption.
Their complicity should kill the GOP as a party and their members ability to ever hold office again. They are evil people who deserve nobody's respect.
It would make me happy for Roberts to be debarred along with Alito and Thomas…the graft Supremes. Additionally, it would delight me for all GOP Congressional members to be expelled for not living up to their oaths of office. They are traitors.
To illustrate the contrast you've painted between an administration of blatant corruption and ineptitude and those fighting to preserve truth and what makes up our democracy:
Yesterday on Juneteenth we celebrated the grand opening of the African American Museum of Bucks County here in Pennsylvania of which my husband was the lead architect. The exhibits paint a history of the pain of slavery and overcoming adversity that belongs to all Americans. It's a gem and merits your visit. What irony that just miles away in Philadelphia this administration is repeatedly litigating to strip history of any mention of slavery at The President's House (also a project of my husband's firm, KMA). Meanwhile trump's pet project, the Reflecting Pool, at the tune of millions of dollars of our taxed money just days after its "beautification," is filled with algae that's turned it green with slabs of its flag blue paint peeling off. What better symbol than this to blaringly show that everything he touches turns to sewage....
The point about people, not just structure, deserves real weight. James Madison made nearly the same argument in Federalist No. 51: if angels governed, no constraint on power would be necessary at all. The Fourteenth Amendment was built on that same assumption of human failure. It did not trust electoral majorities to protect minority rights through good faith alone, which is precisely why Congress gave itself explicit enforcement power under Section 5 rather than leaving the guarantee to whoever happened to hold office.
That enforcement power is a more useful place to look than any single official's conduct, however that conduct gets described. Has Congress used Section 5 to pass enforcement legislation this term, and what was the vote. Has the Supreme Court's emergency docket, a tool every recent administration has leaned on more heavily than the last, applied the same standard of review to equal protection claims that it applies elsewhere, or a lower one. Those are questions a roll call and a docket can answer. An assessment of anyone's character cannot.
The frustration in the comments here is not unfounded. Constitutional text only restrains power to the extent that the people staffing its institutions choose to be restrained by it, and that restraint has never applied itself. The design is not self-executing. What executes it is the attention of people living under its outcomes, citizens who can see the difference between the system as it was designed to operate and the system as it is currently operating, and who use the legislative session and the ballot, not only the comment section, to act on that difference. Outrage is necessary for the architecture to function, but not sufficient.
The founders built the mechanism and left it to the people it was meant to serve. Civik offers one way into that mechanism, a way to see what's moving through a state house or Congress and put a position on record before the session that decides it adjourns: https://civik.us
And yet...the regime is reinterpreting the 14th amendment and seeking to deny citizenship to people born in this country. Even though the Supreme Court has previously ruled in favor of the citizenship provisions, Mr. Trump (goaded by Steven Miller) is hopeful that the Court will ignore past precedent and give him the possibility to deport people born here, and then, perhaps, strip citizenship from others who, despite having earned the right to become Americans, displease him. We await this, and other consequential decisions as the Court finishes its term. (As they say, watch this space for more information...)
I'm not awaiting any more, and I'm not planning on letting the Court, or any of the three branches, scribble all over our Constitution any worse than they already have. UTW launches on June 29, and by July 4, America will know how we can close the book on this awful, awful chapter of our history. I hope you'll subscribe and join the fight, or at least check out what a fantastic job the web team did on the site at https://UTW.vote!
Just subscribed. I'll give anyone and anything a look and chance to save our republic.
Thank you, Mickey! I'll do my best not to let you down. 🫡
Please don't blame only trump and his administration, it belongs to the GOP and has be their goal for a very long time.
Juneteenth reminds us that fighting and dying for freedom doesn’t bring justice and equality unless people are informed and willing to act. White Christian nationalist males are seizing power and we have to stop them again. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to keep. The American idea is that taxpayers should be voters. Let’s make it liberty for all. Contact your representatives and vote Blue.
Please, for clarity, the word Christian in the phrase White Christian nationalist should at the very least have the word Christian in quotation marks. For they are altogether and simply un-Christian. It is not possible to be a Christian when your aspirations, your whole thought processes, are directly against 95% of what Jesus taught.
Amen, pilgrimRVW. Amen.
Morning, Lynell! Believe me I understand your perspective. I replied at length to pilgrimRVW a handful of responses down from yours. I like Derek Smith's "rebrand" of them as "Christofascistic", and will probably start using that myself.
https://www.levernews.com/the-new-democratic-machine-and-the-billionaires-behind-it/?utm_source=intro-drip&utm_medium=marketing-email&utm_campaign=intro-drip-general3-upgrade&vgo_ee=7aq%2FSx8pNIn8VU8fQJkG1VV%2BJs%2Bb57YlIMt0u2F1GvZb5P7%2BFug%3D%3AODwfTe7Ukm0h9uwQXeJdo5B7nptpEadp#:~:text=The%20New%20Democratic%20Machine%20%E2%80%94%20And%20The%20Billionaires%20Behind%20It
Majority Democrats has assembled a “party within the party” of PACs, wealthy donors, and consultants pushing Democrats to the center — and testing the limits of campaign finance law.
Morning, Ally! Good to know some of us still think doing unto others as you would have them do unto you are words to live by whether or not you think it’s the Christian thing to do!
Lynell, back in college, I had a high school friend that went two years at SOU (then SOSC) and transferred to her denomination's college in Aurora, IL. We had carpooled together for our one overlapping year. We had continual correspondence that first year, and when she came home for the summer, we got together for lunch. She told me that she had enjoyed being in that Christian environment, and had learned a lot. One of those was that there were a lot of people who although vocal in their Christianity, their actions did not match their words. She told me "For a non-theist, you are the most Christian person I know." I thanked her for the compliment.
Fast forward 30+ years. We reconnected on Facebook, and in person after her older brother died suddenly and I went back to Medford to help her clean his apartment and get her house ready for the family to come together for his funeral. A couple years later, she had to move, and I ended up driving a 26' U-Haul from Medford to northern Washington. On that visit, I told her that I remembered that conversation and took it as one of the compliments that I treasured most. She said "It was intended that way."
Is doing to others as you would have them do to you so great a doctrine? eg the politician who doesn't challenge someone else's lies, because he wouldn't want someone to challenge his. Ian
I prefer the more precise adjective Christofascistic.
As a Christian I would like to agree but the label is the label. I take comfort in what Jesus and His Father will do to people misusing the name.
I prefer no god no where no how it just doesn’t exist. More humans have died invoking their god than any other reason. Cheeses weepers.
As is your right, Bill, to not believe in a god which I think is the whole point of separating church from state since many who don’t believe in church are free to still embrace government.
Oh, you are implying violence committed by your god? Your god is just one of 5000+ gods out there, available for you to worship. That he is going to, and has, committed violence against human beings would seem to make him unworthy of worship, don’tcha think?
pilgrimRVW, I have to disagree. When someone takes the Holy Bible and uses it to justify their position that I will burn in their hell for who I am, and Christians follow the Holy Bible, then they have earned that label. Believe me, I understand the desire to distance yourself and your more honest and truly Christian brethren (and sisteren, if that can be said following the Holy Bible and how it acknowledges women). I am a retired cop. I like to think I was a good one. It is hard to argue against the ACAB* (All Cops Are Bad/Bastards) cadre when I watch how law enforcement handled the demonstrations following George Floyd's murder and other violent police incidents.
I also want to say that I believe that y'all should have two branches of Christianity: The followers of Christ, and the Old Testament adherents. I agree 100% that a true follower of Christ is in no way, shape, or form adhering to the establishment of the the Christian Nationalists view of the establishment of a white, male dominated, single flavor of Christian, heteronormative, cisgendered society. I revert to my original tenant: If you beat me with a bible for who I am, and call yourself a Christian, than how can I not view you as a Christian?
White RELIGIOUS Nationalist
Absolutely
JD, I sure understand where you're coming from. I have responded at length to pilgrimRVW. I commiserate with you on the bastardization of your faith.
Pilgrim, you are repeating a protest that comes up frequently. At some point, people who identify as Christian must come to grips with the fact that their "brand reputation" has been irreversibly altered by an overwhelming majority of examples, and live with the shame or choose a new brand.
The "no true Scotsman fallacy" is not a defense.
Black & Decker was once known to be a brand of reliable, high-quality tools that came with a lifetime guarantee. They literally invented the electric drill. In 1975, the company passed out of the family's hands. Today, Black+Decker is just a brand applied to anything, including cheap power tools made in China, which fail quickly. Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker would be ashamed of what their brand has become, but their brand is what it is.
Hm I wonder RVW. Jesus did not as far as I know condemn slavery. Indeed I know of no 'Holy Book' that does. Doesn't the Battle Hymn of the American Republic gloss over this too? Ian
He gave the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would want them to do to you. That pretty much forbids slavery, it seems to me.
People are perfectly capable of announcing a general policy and then evading a practical application of it. Fact is slavery, not least that practised by the Roman Empire was extremely cruel as I understand it. But that didn't get a peep out of Jesus, whom the same Roman Empire put to death in its usual cruel way. How about that? Ian
There is always a discrepancy between what one should do and what one often does. What I said was in response to the comment that Jesus never condemned slavery.
I have said elsewhere that if you scour the Bible you can find support for almost anything terrible action. The total elimination of the previous Inhabitants of the “Promised Land” God required of His People seems to be being carried out in Gaza, to the despair and fury of many people. If your child is disrespectful and answers you with sass, you may have it put to death. Those who have a brain and the gift of faith realize that the scribes who, over centuries, wrote the books of the Bible wrote with the manners and mores of their ages, and were edited the same way.
Oh, you mean “believe in me and my daddy or you’re going to hell”? Sheesh.
I think it is the combination of Christianity and Empire, that began when Constantine declared Catholicism to be the faith of the Roman Empire, that initiated this now full-blown problem. Jesus was not aligned with empire obviously.
I could never quite understand the celebration of news of freedom coming 2 whole years late. For those two years, Texas enslaved and remained unnecessarily enslaved. That in itself is a crime. Did the enslaved receive compensation I assure you they didn’t. That’s a dirge to sing if I ever heard one sung.
I had what I thought was a pretty good public education and yet, I was never taught about Juneteenth in history class.I was a history major in college and vaguely remember this date being discussed.It wasn’t until Joe Biden signed the holiday into law that I fully read about all of the particulars about this date.smh
Ya...... me too.
Uninformed people in my uppity area have little knowledge of what Juneteenth is, care even less, and have a sampling of snide remarks set aside just for this celebration. Sickening. I guess they never heard of the 'shoe on the other foot' theory.
2026 " ... Juneteenth by HCR":
"In 1866 [Congress] wrote and passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Its first section established that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Fast forward to the Summer of 2026. Here's my Friend-of-Sotomayor brief: "All persons born ..." in the United States certainly includes the real "Barbara" born in USA the defendant in 'Trump vs Barbara' the SCOTUS opinion that will be published in the next 14 days. I will be at SCOTUSblog.. Born in the USA ... hang in there Barbara. ⚖️
20+ plus opinions yet to be published
***************************************
Meanwhile, per a SCOTUSblog's KELSEY DALLAS' "Opinion Analysis,
a Divided [Supreme] Court bars federal district court review of NON-final state-court judgments
There is an important 2026 national election case filled by 22 state AG's headed for summary judgment in Massachusetts.
Thank you, Counselor.
Per DAVID RHODE on Alex Witt Reports a few minutes ago, 2 PM Eastern, the SoH is not open; Iran wants bombing attacks in LEBANON to cease.
Noted, some tankers are getting through on the southern SoH route.
Juneteenth in the Age of MAGA Trumpism
Juneteenth is not just a holiday. It is a moral checkpoint. It reminds America that freedom did not come from the kindness of the powerful, but through struggle, resistance, truth, and the refusal of Black people to surrender their humanity.
In the age of racist MAGA Trumpism, Juneteenth matters more than ever because white backlash is no longer whispering. It is banning books, attacking voting rights, demonizing diversity, rewriting history, and turning cruelty into policy. It wants a country where only some lives are protected, only some stories are honored, and only some people are allowed to belong.
Juneteenth stands against that lie. It honors enslaved people in Texas who learned, two and a half years late, that the law had finally recognized what was always true: they were human beings, not property. But legal freedom was never the same as justice.
That is why Juneteenth must not be reduced to cookouts, slogans, or corporate performance. It must be a day of memory, resistance, and renewed commitment.
Celebrating Juneteenth now is an act of defiance. It declares that America’s future will not be built on white supremacy, authoritarian nostalgia, or historical amnesia, but by those brave enough to tell the truth, defend democracy, and keep pushing freedom forward.
Michael, Bravo! (The like didn’t work!)
and yet, those very amendments are being targeted. Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, Kavanagh, Barrett and even Roberts have thrown doubt about those three amendments. The attacks on the Voting Rights Acts are the first actions toward the repeal. Through the power of judicial review, the fascists leaning white supremacy, Christian theocracy movement has found ways to use the system to undermine congressional authority.
Yes, the Constitutional architecture was designed to withstand such pressure, but these guys through the ALEC and armed with the strategy first outlined in the Lewis Powell Memo, are out to repeal those amendments and plunge America as a whole into the dark past.
Ask John Robert’s and, Sadly, Clarence Thomas, and the answer is clear. The “leadership” today has snd will negate the efforts of the past to provide equal protection. The fox not only guards the henhouse, but rules the roost with impunity.
Well said, JD.
It's pretty clear that today there is a "cancer growing on the body politic," to borrow John Dean's phrase. My own family was involved in the exploitation of Black Americans. My great grandfather,T.S. Sutherland, the younger brother of my great, great-uncle, William Depriest Sutherland, who died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, had slaves and fathered a daughter with one of his slaves in 1850. Her descendants have connected with us through DNA; however, though we've reached out to bring them into family affairs (we've had family reunions annually going back to 1930) they have declined. I see it as the sins of the forbears being passed down to their descendants. Another great grandfather, S.C.A. Rogers, lost two sons at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. We assume that their remains are buried in burial trenches for Confederate soldiers. I have been a member of the NAACP for the past 50 years and it's fairly clear that the struggle for equality will go on long past my passing.
Unfortunately, that "constitutional architecture" has been severely weakened by this regime. Don't like a law? Ignore it. Court orders? Well, sometimes you can ignore those too. The constitution and its amendments such a bother? Twist, bend, break.
Yep, they’re measurable. The courts have absolutely not provided equal protection to people of color. Look at stats on capital punishment, for example. Look at stats on drug enforcement. On officer-involved shootings. The USA is a work in progress. We can say definitely that the institutions don’t protect themselves—they rely on the courage and tenacity of individual patriots. And we can say that you, Civik USA, seem to have the relevant questions conflated, whereas, it’s clear the institutions are not functioning as designed and the Rule of Law is still very much an aspirational concept, including some great successes and a great many failures.
Equal opportunity = white repression.
Depends on where you get your news on how well the Constitution is holding. Corporate media propaganda is telling everyone our biggest problem of the week is the reflecting pool. The week before that it was the cage fight. And on and on.
The Government of the United States is now fascist.
More people continue to die in ICE concentration camps.
We are in an illegal war.
Here is a good summary of the week:
https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2325511&post_id=202184494&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=dv3vh&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMzI4NjM2NSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MjAyMTg0NDk0LCJpYXQiOjE3ODE5MTIyODgsImV4cCI6MTc4NDUwNDI4OCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTIzMjU1MTEiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.Cs3RqccwJkY-YpRIuea9yfQqA79rg321CcV9bUWwsto
"Zeteo's weekly round-up, documenting the growth of authoritarianism in Trump's second term."
Eternal vigilance. Eternal is a long time.
The supreme court has already said, very recently, that allowing black people fair representation in government discriminates against whites. They clearly don't feel a need to uphold our constitution.
It is very clear that Trump's lickspittles in Congress and on the Supreme Court are taking down the Constitutional guardrails.
We need to read this book by Carl Sagan, who foresaw a lot of what is happening now and gave us The Baloney Detection Kit to fortify us.
Here is a link about Carl Sagan’s book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
The Demon-Haunted World - Sagan’s masterwork explores several core concepts that empower readers to navigate a complex world. The Baloney Detection Kit: Sagan provides a practical toolkit for critical thinking. This includes testing ideas with independent confirmation, questioning arguments from authority, utilizing Occam's razor, and testing for falsifiability. Sagan demonstrates how a lack of scientific rigor invites fear and manipulation. Sagan argues that science is not just a body of knowledge, but a way of thinking. It is an essential light that protects democratic freedoms and technical civilization from the "demons" of irrationality.
I am not sure that science can always claim to protect democratic freedoms nor that Sagan was making this argument. It can be used equally as well to suppress those freedoms. We have deployed science to exploit our planet's resources beyond sustainable levels and yet now we look to science again to find ways to repair the damage. I would say rather that science depends on those democratic freedoms and that it cannot operate without them.
There is a rampant anti-intellectualism infecting western society, seen most clearly in the United States, the most scientifically developed of all democracies, a distrust of expertise and even observable facts. It is accompanied by the rise of conspiracy movements that are spread by means of the very technology that is distrusted.
The book I would recommend is the Chilean writer, Benjamin Labatut's astonishing 'When We Cease To Understand The World' for a sense of the perils we face through the rapid advances of sciences and technologies that are outpacing the ability of lawmakers to understand and control for the benefit of wider society. The recent boom in AI spending is an example of this phenomenon.
Science is the most reliable information we have, so far as we can determine, about the nature of our physical world. That information helps us understand and appreciate, our circumstances. Science is a methodology that anyone can practice, but under that (in my opinion) is an epistemology of intellectual honesty. The practice of science produces information, and information can be used for both beneficial and evil purposes, as history demonstrates. Almost any tool can be used as a weapon and many as a means of conquest. I think that wisdom combines accuracy with human values and experience, and although the topic of wisdom has a long history, it seems to me to be a neglected temporary concern.
Intellectualism can present as a game, but also as earnestness. As humility. As curiosity. As the pursuit of true justice because I think justice worthy of the name comes of an earnest search for truth.
Wish I had said that. I recommend PBS NOVA Specials if you want to experience a sliver of scientific thought at its best. Not entertainment so be forewarned. Just food for the grey cells.
I agree. Einstein once wrote: "One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have."
Science is also a human activity, so epistemological honesty cannot always be guaranteed nor can it be characterised simply as the dispassionate pursuit of objective information about the world. Progress in science is not only about the accumulation of better data either. Stephen J. Gould in his book 'Ever Since Darwin' includes an essay about the validation of the theory of continental drift. He points out that all the data necessary to show that continents must have drifted apart were available when Wegener then made his then startling hypothesis. It was resisted for many years by the scientific community because there was then no plausible mechanism for how they drifted. It's a valuable lesson people should remember when considering the mad rush by tech companies to horde ever larger accumulations of data to feed their large language models in the pursuit of what Musk calls "Jesus-like cures" and the other wonders that the AI moguls have promised us.
However, so far as I know science is the only human activity that has self-correction embedded in it and no other human enterprise that I know of would submit to anything like Popper's demand that valid scientific theories must all in principle be falsifiable. Thus there are no high priests or shamans of science, however eminent and esteemed certain scientists undoubtedly are.
What counts in science is flexibility at the theoretical level, and replication at the practical level.
Russell, thanks for the book title and the blurb says the book could seem dark, but, it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and named one of the New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2021.
You're welcome. It's a jaw-dropping book.
Anti-intellectualism indeed. And it is an "infection" that goes back as far as I can remember. It is being used as a weapon by this administration to deny us clean energy, safe medications, safe drinking water, vaccines, and a host of other things.
People often compare the Trump administration's rejection of science with the Stalinist period in Russia. As the author of Ecclesiastes says: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
Exactly Russell! Science is a way to attest (prove) facts. Facts are problematic because they do not align with maga disinformation and division objectives. Hence facts are to be denied and science (and education) are made suspect because they can prove the facts. And the facts are that a great majority of people do not agree with maga (project 2025) objectives.
One thing I have found in conspiracists' thinking is that science is static; thus, they believe science lies. They don't seem to understand that science evolves as new information/facts emerge and older theories are disproven. Kuhn's *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions* still applies. When a paradigm cannot stand up to rigorous examination when stubborn facts arise, the paradigm falls and a new one takes it place, to which (unfortunately) adherents cling stubbornly, resisting new data that doesn't fit their preferred theory. We're all in the petri dish.
Thank you Signe K. I think the pandemic that we all went through is an example of this. I guess I expected the "adherents stubbornly resisting" as in a portion of the population. What I would never have expected would be for people in the top positions of our government not only clinging stubbornly to their preferred theory but, actually refuting science itself. The Petri dish has been contaminated.
I agree. Science works best when it stands humbly before the facts. Thomas Henry Huxley, 'Darwin's Bulldog', once wrote about what he called "the great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact".
In our post-truth world (and never science never promises more than an approximation of the truth) we are now offered 'alternative facts', which usually means the selection of only those facts that support a person's viewpoint.
We need to draw a clear line between "facts," which are discernable and open to new evidence, and "beliefs," which are personal and yet to be proven as facts. We are all entitled to our beliefs, but they are best kept to ourselves or shared with friends/colleagues for open and critical discussion. We would be nowhere without our beliefs, but they are just that, beliefs, until objective investigation can prove them otherwise.
Anti-intellectualism is hardly new. 1) Harvey Circulation of the Blood 1628, Galileo 1633, Scopes Monkey Trial 1922, Dover Pennsylvania 2005 with its attempt to invent Creationist Science. Ian
It's as old as the hills.
How about supporting both Sagan and Labatut? Oh and not all science is supporting going beyond our resources. See sundropfarms.com for renewable energy greenhouses which will enable us to sustainably well feed 10 to 12 billion people to West European standards of variety adn quantity. Ian
I agree. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answers.
Science is like any tool, wielded by fools, charlatans or carpenters. Since science requires some gray cells, one would assume intelligence. Our circumstances today would warn against such an assumption. Intelligence can be corrupted more lethally than ignorance, it seems.
Yes indeed, for every Einstein there are ten Velikovsky's.
Had to Google Velikovsky. Yep, a trip to pitch Newton. But doesn’t seem that he had an answer for explaining quantum, and other anomalies. Maybe AI can do what Einstein couldn’t. Won’t hold my breath. Interesting though
Thanks for telling us about Benjamin Labatut. I’ll read it, too.
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut review – the dark side of science
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/10/when-we-cease-to-understand-the-world-by-benjamin-labatut-review-the-dark-side-of-science?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
You're welcome, Kristen. I did read Carl Sagan's book many years ago and I still have it somewhere. It's a great pity more people didn't read it - we not be in quite such a mess now.
Data centers will serve several purposes. One being the “cloud” which will be all our hard drives, just out of our reach. Another will be AI programmed to tell the genuses how smart and superior they are. AI will determine other uses, with or without human help…
From my limited knowledge of the subject, these large language models seem to need a great deal of help from humans.
https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/32-times-artificial-intelligence-got-it-catastrophically-wrong
If AI fails to deliver on the many wonders it has promised it will be mother of all bubbles.
Implementation of technology has always been advanced by the military to kill people in war more efficiently. Science can be used for evil as well as for the benefit of society, just like religion has been used throughout history.
Ain’t that the painful truth
Thanks, Kristin - for providing the Sagan link to *The Demon Haunted World*
In France we call this the eternal retour . Evil cannot be totally exterminated. It has too many advocates Let us hope Juneteenth remains
Tfg and his administration commit EVERY single one of Sagan's 20 logical fallacies, practically on a daily basis. Incredible.
Well.... I just committed one in asserting the daily basis :-). I can't prove that.
I’m afraid I don’t agree. ‘Modern’ western science, as in the reductionist-materialistic thinking of Descartes, Newton and Galilei that still pervades almost all of the natural sciences, has done immense and irreparable harm to the environment and the planet. It supports the viewing of the earth and its inhabitants, including humans, as “resources” to be used, because reductionist-materialistic thinking _reduces_ life to a random bumping into each other of elementary particles - a meaningless, soulless universe totally devoid of any purpose.
Remember, (Western) science and war have always been intricately linked since its conception, and the link is money. Why did Newton’s mechanics become so popular and influential? Not because it made our lives or understanding of Nature better. No, because it allowed the precise calculation of the trajectory of a cannonball. THAT was interesting to the powers that were, because it made war much more deadly and efficient.
In that sense, one could just as well claim that science has caused many wars and many deaths. And there have been civilizations that did quite well for a long time without science; a lot of Indigenous tribes still do, in fact,even though their cultures and world views might seem ‘irrational’ to us. I think that the defining thing that protects democracy is not science, but moral principle. As soon as narcissists without any moral priniciples start to occupy key positions, it’s the beginning of the end.
You’re right. Truly, the defining thing that protects democracy is not science, but moral principle. But we also need accurate science, not ruled by gut feelings.
The common denominator is human beings and our choices. And narcissists have no power except that which we give them.
Scientists and technologists developed “the bomb.” Politicians decided to use it.
That's mostly true, although there were a few scientists, like Edward Teller, who knew the power of the atomic bomb but nevertheless believed that it should be used. I remember reading that one of the chemists who witnessed the first Trinity atomic bomb test in New Mexico 1945 exclaimed: "You're going to drop that on a city?!!".
That's a rather dismal view of science if I may say so. After all, it has also delivered vaccines and medicines like antibiotics which have extended human lifespans and improved the conditions in which people live. It has taught us about the world we live in and provided us with a firm basis for a rational philosophy to replace the superstitions of the past. It's certainly not the fault of science that people still cling to those old superstitions. It also provides most of the answers to the current problems the world faces if we only we choose to heed them. Science is not responsible for the wars men make on each other, even though technology has greatly enhanced our ability to kill each other.
The example I like to give to illustrate the relationship between science and its uses is the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Scientists raised the alarm over the loss of ozone in the 1980s and established that CFCs were the principal cause. World leaders then acted quickly to reduce these chemicals by around 99%. It was a model for evidenced-baed policy. Scientists are now again raising the alarm over the effects of the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and it's certainly not for want of repeated warnings from the scientific community that world leaders are still failing to respond adequately to the risks posed by global warming.
In Newton's cannonball thought experiment he assumed that the trajectory of a cannonball would be affected by what he believed was the force of gravity. However, Einstein showed in his General Theory of Relativity that gravity isn't a force at all but rather a property of the fabric of space-time. This didn't change the trajectories of cannonballs and we still use much of Newton's math to send our spaceships into the great beyond but it did provide us with a better understanding of the universe.
I’d argue that “indigenous tribes” do practice science in the sense that close observation and experimentation, which contribute to the formulation (however informal that may appear to be to an outside observer) of testable hypotheses about how the world (I.e., the various plants and flora and fauna of their surroundings) works is science.
Jared Diamond writes that indigenous peoples will often recognise new species of plants that botanists have failed to identify. Anthropologist Don Johanson writes about how he would enlist members of the Afar tribe to help him find human fossils in the deserts of Ethiopia. They had a peculiar ability to spot these fossils (his famous Lucy discovery was named Australopithecus afarensis).
Interesting that I should read your comment. I was lamenting yesterday, that I no longer had that book on my shelves, because the current situation (including "MAHA") had me wanting to read it yet again. I do "purges" of books every once in a while, so that I have room to walk around. But, sometimes, I regret it.
As a society, he is sorely missed. Thank you
I never heard of it. Thank you.
We the People can’t let that happen!!!!
Hi Roberta. Founding father Gouverneur Morris wrote the phrase "we the people" into his Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. I believe he would have understood the inclusiveness of your meaning, and its underpinning of a healthy social contract. He would have had no problem with your "God Bless," as he believed in a divine Creator. He also lambasted slavery and, being a party animal, he would have frolicked on his peg leg at today's Juneteenth celebration.
God bless you for your comment, the least of which because it gave me a chance to learn how to spell Gouverneur's first name once and for all!
what's this, 'we the people' nonsense, Roberta? in a democracy ALL are included...which is why i think the US has never really BEEN a democracy...too many excluded(Natives, women, blacks come readily to mind...no matter WHAT the laws were) from voting, for one...
the U.S. is a good ideal...but one that seems doomed to never really come to fruition...
We are always striving for that goal. Do not give up. They take us back, we move us forward. Back and forth getting closer to that goal. The Obama Celebration was a reminder of what decency looks like. Let us try to get that back. Let us make sure that being mean and evil is not cool. We need to be the change we wish to see.
yeah...i loved what i read 2 days ago(yesterday, for me). Heather put it all together wonderfully...first breath of fresh air in quite a while for me, re: the US...
i totally support what you're saying. and i HAVE been creating the world i wish to live in almost all of my life...the reason i moved away from a pretty good life there was i would no longer pay taxes to what i saw them being spent on...there were a number of other reasons, as well...none that i feel the need to repeat right now, though. i don't mean to be disheartening...but with all that i've read here about using 'less mean' language(e.g. trailer trash), i thought it was important to point out that 'we the people' means ALL the occupants of that country. and that is CERtainly a goal to strive for...
Trailer trash is just as derogatory as the 'n' word. I've known many people that live in very nice manufactured homes that keep them up much better than many people that live million dollar homes.
The real white trash in the US are the oligarchs who feel it is there obligation to buy as many Republican seats as they can.
Susan Collins' reelection campaign has received over $9 million from 97 billionaires 100% of whom live outside of Maine. This is the white trash we need to clean up.
Yes, and that all-inclusive phrase serves to perpetuate stereotypes, which in turn feeds prejudices, biases, etc, which are much easier to act on than taking the time to do the harder job of careful, thoughtful consideration of the actual people who are cast under that wide, all-inclusive net.
BTW: I lived for most of my youth in trailers of various sizes and designs, at times in trailer parks or more upscale mobile home communities, as well as on privately owned property. And in light of some of the other blanket stereotypes being tossed into the discussions on this forum, I am also a white, male, christian American. And I am 74 years old. I do not resemble, in any form, the images those descriptions tend to conjure.
BobCaster, I don't know if you read my original response to that post (I'm on the left coast, and am reading and responding 6-8 hours after the Letter is posted). I'm a retired cop, and can recite from memory the street addresses of 8 or so "trailer parks" in the county that called for law enforcement services. At every single one of those "frequent flyer" residences, I had incredible and positive contacts with residents as well.
I know well the "labeling" that occurs. I was labeled a "sports dyke" most of my youth. I was also labeled a (choose your adjective) cop. Good, bad, funny, incompetent, stupid, weird, and the list goes on. My favorite nickname, however, was Deputy Tuba.
It is a goal to strive for. I am working towards that from abroad. That is I am mostly living abroad. Also working on issues here. Going to my Indivisible Abroad meeting today and belong to political action groups here as well. While I pay taxes in both countries, I have stressed to Americans living abroad that they can vote even if they have not paid taxes. Voting is not connected to the IRS.
Did I say that I didn't vote? I believe elections are rigged...but I'd rather make the effort ANYways recently, just in case...I HAVE been known to be wrong, now and again...
Not assuming either way.
You said it, Linda! I hope you'll support me when I launch UTW in barely over a week, or at least take a quick glance at https://UTW.vote to get a better idea of what I'm planning (and to admire what a fantastic job the UTW web team has done with the site).
Let's drag our country back into the light.
Very cool website. I'm looking into that. What a great verb!
Thank you very much, Ally! And I entirely agree—I fell in love with it after I found the Tumblr blog "unfuckyourhabitat" quite a few years back, which was super helpful to me in getting my living space sorted out! The idea of "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be Not Absolutely Miserable" was such an eye-opener for me, and it changed my life for the better.
So, y'know, if anyone from UFYH ever happens to see this comment, know that you were part of the story that led to UTW! ❤️
The striving is important, maybe the most important aspect
Never give up hope!!!!
..and never give up the work toward the ideal
i left that place a quarter of a century ago...and it's done nothing but gotten worse since...3 months after i arrived here? 9/11...
still...i'm glad people are still struggling towards the ideal or i wouldn't be subscribing to this newletter...
and btw...you seemed to sidestep your 'we the people' comment and my response...i hope your words don't reflect your mindset...
Isaac, I’m 79 years old and I’ve seen a lot in my day. During your life you’ll go through some hard times but also better ones. I don’t know why you are taking offense to We the People? I just keep praying and hoping for better times for everyone. God bless.
my reason is that there are OBviously people known as maga...even MORE importantly, the ultra rich pulling most of the strings/dictating policies and inciting division...i got the sense that your comment didn't include them(not that i blame you, in some cases). but until the playing field can be leveled, in terms of the ultra rich/all others division, and people can come to agreement(re: maga) in terms of equality, that place will NEVER be 'united'. and from what i can tell, the former is adamant about letting the latter happen. so, for me, a 'we the people' reeks of cognitive dissonance, said the 75 yo...
and, if you don't mind, i'm going to leave God out of this conversation except to say that i am doing so...
and, for whatever it's worth, i wish you and yours good health...
You should read A Resistance History of the United States by https://substack.com/@tadstoermer
Chapter three just blew my mind. "We the People" my arse.
We can, but to do so would be tragic.
Just one current example:
"I’m a critical care doctor. I’ve never seen the US harm its children this deliberately"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/19/trump-administration-healthcare-for-kids
Thanks for the link. Good grief!
You can not convince me the people behind project 2025 are not intentionally aiming to make a caste system of rich people and slaves to serve them.
I think if we look closely it's plain as day. Some people's "thing" is to attempt to control and dominate everybody; to take ever more of others resources just because they can. Not always, but often those who are most fiercely against any empowerment of the poor are among the very most powerful and privileged. Some of these psychopaths even delight in making less privileged people suffer, as is patently evident in this regime.
Baffling persistence of racism is everywhere, even Belfast. People seem to have so little curiosity about difference among individuals and groups.
Right on Jim Carmichael. If we look at the world of plants - having a monoculture in a farm completely strips the soil of nourishing fungi to flourish, but introduce biodiversity (for example, planting shade plants among coffee beans) that biodiversity (along with animal grazing) creates a full-bodied soil.
🌎 #shorts - GROUNDswell_Film | Can a Film about Soil, Change the World? (6/5/26)
https://youtube.com/shorts/_7j9KldNYWs?is=3zj5nrBFqkhgFkhm
Great comparison JaKsaa.
Love biodiversity. Center for biodiversity is a worthy organization
Excellent link, JaKsaa.
I blame much of the racism on isolated groups of people who rarely interact in a meaningful way with others outside of their clan. I've lived in 10 US states and traveled to all but one. Most often, the most blatantly racist people I've met are from families that have lived in the same community for generations, who rarely interact with people from outside their friends and family.
I usually agree with you but I think your comment is a simplistic explanation to a complex issue. The south has among the highest populations of both Latinos and Blacks, yet they are by far among the most racist states in the nation, even though they interact with these people almost daily. Racism is cultural. I grew up in a small mill town that had a large minority Puerto Rican population. We were also ethnically diverse in our community of around 10,000 residents. Many despised the Puerto Ricans in spite of attending school and church with these families. Yet I am not racist and was taught to judge people by their character and not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. My husband grew up in a far less diverse town. He also judges people by their character. A friend who grew up in the large Massachusetts city is quite racist even though his city was far more diverse than my little town.
We need to stop making this about how much traveling one has done. Our children were raised in our, for the sake of argument, all white town. Yet none are racist and none are well-traveled. We have a Puerto Rican grandson and a Brazilian son-in-law. Worldly people can be, and are, racist. My cousin travels extensively. She also grew up in a large very diverse city. She is disgustingly racist and a trumper to the core. One can be worldly without having ever travelled beyond their gate. They do this by reading books, reading history, reading, or watching, the news. Travel for many is beyond their financial ability. This doesn't automatically make them ignorant of the world around them. There are other ways to learn about the world besides immersing one's self in its culture. You can travel by books. Intellectual curiosity will teach far more about culture than spending a handful of days visiting a far away land.
A well stamped passport seems to be correlated with higher levels of tolerance.
hardwired xenophobia, unfortunately...
Which I no longer doubt will be the extinction of our species and the toxic reduction of our once-vibrant Mother Earth to permanent Precambrian lifelessness.
“Welcome to the age of Nepomaxxing.”
“A twenty-two-year-old man graduated from Stanford University last Sunday.
Now he’s starting a new futures exchange with a $30 million venture capital investment that values his fledgling company at $300 million.
His name is Theodore Gillibrand, and he’s the son of pro-crypto Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York.
During his time at Stanford—while his mom was pushing the crypto agenda—Theodore interned at Andreessen Horowitz and did a fellowship at Paradigm, two venture capital funds heavily invested in crypto.
I often warn that Republicans aren’t the only problem when it comes to the tech fascist takeover of our democracy. The crypto, AI and venture capital barons have enough money to try to buy both sides. That’s why it’s disturbing that Democrats who ought to know better—including Gavin Newsom—are cozying up to crypto.
Surely, it’s just a coincidence that the beneficiary of this miraculous VC investment is the son of a pro-crypto senator.”
‘Fortunate Son: Crypto Senator’s Kid, 22, Raises $30 Million’
The Nerds Reich by Gil Duran
JUN 19 2026 | Ghost.org
https://www.thenerdreich.com/fortunate-son-crypto-senators-kid-22-raises-30-million/
* Ghost.org is a professional, open-source publishing platform designed specifically for independent writers, journalists, and content creators.
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Ugh! I already am not a fan of Gillibrand so this solidifies my feelings.
Ugh! Even when I think I’m well-informed, I just can’t pull back the layers of the onion far enough to see a big picture. I’m writing postcards trying to flip the country blue, protesting and making phone calls. But, AIPAC and AI crypto money is an equal-opportunity poison…many Democrats are taking it too! Gillibrand purports to be fighting for NY, but as a parent with lots of insider info, just imagine the conversations over Sunday dinner with her son? How can a well-intentioned voter untangle all this information? Thank you Heather, and the commenters, for helping steer the debate!
How did the "Party of Lincoln" become the "Party of Trump"? Follow the money.
Through the whole of history, follow the money. and other forms of social power. Like the old "Fire Triangle" (fuel, oxygen, heat) I think there is a coercive-power triangle; Money, Rank, and Violence; and violence is not always readily visible. Some may remember the murder scene in Kubrick's "2001" where all you see is the data. A great deal of social violence is that hidden.
Awareness (such as "Woke") and sensory experience is what human sentience is all about. "Brain dead" is the lack of capacity for that. Reality is both beautiful and terrifying. Every small child knows that. My dog knows that. How much reality can we stand?
Heather spends the long part in hers today celebrating Juneteenth.
And she concludes celebrating, too, the traction we now have similar to that great old history.
It was just yesterday Barack, Michelle, and Zohran all celebrated diversity, equality, inclusion.
From the Chicago park outside the Obama Presidential Center to Lower Manhattan, they not only recentered America to our D.E.I., they also fully embraced the positive, the confident, the Yes We Hope and the Yes We Can all, too, of Juneteenth.
Criminal Donald and his phalanxes of dark money meanwhile sink lower to narrowest of corporate interests. Their bright boy and girl lobbyists ever pay more millions in bribes to Supreme Court justices and Congress critters. They ever up the extortions from elite law, top universities, merger-covetous legacy media, algorithm hate-messaging social media, and all the techies now smelling AI.
And with Americans sick at the higher consumer prices everywhere, our helplessly widening wealth gap, how do we measure the difference between renewed celebration on one hand for the true heart of diverse America and on the other hand our evidently deadly corrupt status quo?
We measure it by reading the essay Pauline Kael wrote in 1969, called "Trash, Art, and the Movies."
She loved America's vernacular, its vitalities, serendipities, and our many gifts coming from non-orthodox places and from each other. And she placed these in fresh and amazing contradistinction to the stifling of our eminently corrupted, our living dead in high places everywhere.
There was a poignant article by New Jersey representative LaMonica MacIver in yesterday's Rolling Stone about the continuing significance of Juneteenth today as she faces the possibility of 17 years in prison for protesting the inhumane squalor of the Delany Hall ICE detention center.
When black members of Congress can continue to be subjected to such grotesque indignities as she has suffered then you realise how far America remains away from fulfilling the high ideals espoused in its flawed Constitution.
Amazing, Russell.
The U.S. actually, truly, and by tens of millions of dollars is deliberately reenacting the fascist concentration camps of nearly a century ago.
Tens of thousands endure horrid food, lack of medical care, cruelty by ICE and CBP thug agents, and ever-encircling profit-taking and corruption at the top of all these camps.
Hello Phil... Ever been to an American Indian Reservation?... They are the Original Concentration Camps, and date from the 17th Century...
So glad I caught your comment, Apache. Years ago my husband and I drove a ways into the Pine Ridge reservation, on our way to the Badlands. We didn't stay long; I remember my chest tightening, and wanting to leave.
The Badlands was different, ineffable. We spent a good two hours driving through, up to Wall Drug. We stopped at one scenic overlook, and stayed quite a while. Our two dogs at the time usually ran around when we made stops, but there, they stood quietly with us, sniffing the wind, looking and listening, then settled down at our feet while we stood....and experienced.
Thank-You Susan for that Story... Stephen Miller, who's Family has been in the USA for only 3-Generations, now wants to take away our Citizenship... Your Dogs are Perceptive... Much Sorrow At Pine Ridge...
Stephen Miller is unnatural in every sense of the word, and that is his downfall.
We can keep putting pressure on elected officials, the courts, and constitutional lawyers to fight against his perversion of what it means to be a citizen, and keep drawing attention to this serious matter.
We can actively help reforest the pine trees at Pine Ridge. I believe the healthier those trees, the healthier their spirit of resilience in the face of harshness, which they will then share with their people.
What do you think? With your permission, I can at least start by meditating on this, or anything else you believe would be helpful.
Good to see your correspondence with Susan, Apache.
How many legacies does the U.S. have to its shame?
The Trail of Tears and the use of the U.S. cavalry on the High Plains is just one intermixed history. Slavery and the arrogation of the faux aristocracy of the slave owning class was another. The incarceration of Japanese-Americans 1942-45 a third. A fourth -- subjection to the far-right foundations of the Powell memo, its testing tentacles dehumanizing schools, offshoring of millions of working-class American jobs, and then Citizens United with all its new enslaving and mad war-making class as we have now both in mass murders we commit abroad, regime-change installation of dictators abroad, (whose secret police we train), and now concentration camps for persons of color as part of the lawlessness too many of us normalize for our criminals in high places.
Hello Phil... You, and Susan are Good People... Spread the Light...
Thanks for this reminder, Apache. It is my opinion that unless and until the US Government and Citizenry acknowledges it's "greatness" was founded on the land theft and near genocide of the Indigenous population and on the backs of kidnapped Black slave labor, we can never hope to achieve the "greatness" that the white male founding fathers "established".
Greatness worthy of the name does not cling to falsehoods, lies of commission or omission. Not that I claim any such perfection, but confession and sharing of credit would seem to be part of the criteria. we can't erase past mistakes but we can choose to strive to do better.
Though I have already posted this URL above, it is relevant:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/19/trump-administration-healthcare-for-kids
This is to say nothing of the massive cession of foreign aid.
Thus -- though it took the partnershiping with Original Nazi war criminals to do it --the American Reich achieves the ecogenocidal purpose it ever sought -- often with plausible deniability but always with relentless fanaticism -- since the 1772 Somerset case.
You're just too abstract, and thereby simplistic. Ian
I think that the Constitution itself is not so flawed as is its application. Despite the ostensible aim of law for consistency, words can be twisted, most impactfully by those in power. Both MLK and Pete Hegseth claim(ed) to follow the Christian Bible, yet they do (did) starkly different things.
She is not facing prison for protesting. She is facing retribution for assault. Lawlessness is being defined as protesting. It makes me wonder what definition is used for racism now. The Supreme Court ruling not allowing voting districts to be organized by race is considered racism? How can that be racism?
She was preventing an unlawful arrest. The conduct of the agents was reprehensible.
It not even the power of corporate interests per se. We have reversed the reforms that followed the "Gilded Age" and "Great Depression" such that some individuals control so much wealth that the welfare of the company is no longer paramount. Some of the few internal documents of bankrupted banks that came to light in the "Great Recession" indicate that some managers were quite aware of skating on thin ice, but chose to keep the money flowing into their pockets as long as they could; to hell with the fate of the company or the country. The malignant narcissism gets that bad. Musk bought Twitter as his personal toy, not to grow the company. Bezos and others want sociopolitical leverage, not to build papers "of record". Incorporation is now a dodge around generalized legal accountability; and that change was no accident. The $COTUS criteria for charging political bribery now looks like a slice of Swiss cheese.
And this with all the nominal "Christian Nation" crap that is patently unconstitutional. Did Jesus specifically condemn or embrace diversity (even a Samaritan could be a "neighbor"), equity (even of "the least of these") or inclusion (love (even) thy enemy). I am not pitching Christianity here, but overall "decency", like what Joe McCarthy lost sight of (and whose MO was so like Trumps; with the same mentor). Did the actual text of the document we are urged to celebrate on July 4 embrace or reject diversity, equality, or inclusion, or did it soundly reject it? Famously Lincoln maintained the former.
But if the fight is about individual rights VS the common weal, how can diversity, equity and inclusion even be uttered in the same breath? The seeming secret hiding in plain sight is they're all part of the same, precious thing: Solidarity. E Puribus Unum. I pledge allegiance to the flag, as a reminder, of the REPUBLIC for which it stands. ONE NATION ("under God" is traditional but apocryphal, and Constitutionally controversial) WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL; which we mutually pledge to one another, or it just won't work. As a matter of practice, what does the look like? What fits?
I will never understand why certain people have this distrust of others, this hatred and feeling of superiority over people they don’t even know. I have said this before- when my children were young my way of explaining the difference in skin tone was that our skin was like wrapping paper- we don’t judge a gift by the paper it is wrapped in so why would we judge people as inferior because their wrapping paper was a different color or design than ours? It must have worked because one of my son in laws happens to be wrapped in a color other than white. How boring might our lives be if we didn’t experience things that come to us from the many different cultures and nationalities- food, music, clothing styles and fabrics, pottery- the list could go on and on if I were to describe everything in my life that I enjoy which are part of this great melting pot of life. I for one do not wish to live a “Wonder Bread” life- one in which I cannot eat the wonderful dishes which come from Latin cuisine, Ethiopian cooking, Indian, Asian-you get my drift. So I will continue to use my voice against racism and white supremacy, speaking out when I see wrong- and hope that we truly become that nation described in the famous words of Lincoln (which always make me emotional)- Four score and twenty years ago……
Thanks for allowing me to vent
You have described all the things about why I love living in NYC!
After a long-ago trip solo-backpacking the globe, I returned to my teeny West Village apartment and thought, Anything I found anywhere in the world, the people, the music, the food, the aromas, could be found on 14th Street...
So true! We've lived on both Bank St and Perry Street in the West Village. Now I'm in Brooklyn Heights which has the same feel to me as the West Village of the 80s and 90s!
In 1989 I left my rent-stabilized Jane Street studio for my dream job. I'd give a limb to get back to The City That Never Sleeps! Bank St. and Perry are great places. A friend once said I was living in the best zip code in the world. :) You did too, lauriemcf. 10014 Forever!
What a wonderful analogy and explanation for a child's questioning. Our children learn to hate, they are not born to it. We also have a 1/2 Puerto Rican grandson, our daughter didn't marry the father of her son since they were both too young when their son was born, but he has always been welcome in our home. Our son-in-law is Brazilian/Italian/American and our little granddaughter is a"heinz 57" with Italian, Brazilian, French, Lithuanian and a wee bit of Scotch and Irish thrown into the mix. What matters is that they are kind, generous, moral and emphatic people. The color of their skin doesn't matter, the quality of their character is all that counts.
The fact that there was no mention of Juneteenth on the White House website, the Convicted Felon’s Temu Twitter account, or anywhere else in the federal government speaks volumes.
‘The Trump-Epstein Files Have Not Resulted in a Single Arrest!’
“Action item up top: the ask is an email to your state attorney general today, requesting that the office “open an investigation into the Epstein files, identify any conduct documented that overlaps with the criminal statutes of your state, and share discovery with other state AGs where the evidence reaches conduct in their jurisdictions.” You can find the directory of every state AG office at naag.org/find-my-ag.”
“The answer to our problem is enforcement of the law against even the powerful, without delay or political maneuvering, regardless of how rich or how powerful or how well-defended they are. Delaying the pursuit of justice is exactly how we got where we are today.
We change the calculations of your elected officials by being present and demanding better.”
‘As We Talk About the Kennedy Center and Iran, The Epstein Files Remain Unprosecuted’
The Existentialist Republic
Christopher Armitage
JUN 19 2026 | Substack
https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/as-we-talk-about-the-kennedy-center?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
Thanks, Heather
Juneteenth is a promise, a celebration & a warning.
We need to remember that the reactionary impulse to discriminate & separate never goes away.
Juneteenth means we must jealously guard our freedoms, our equality & the rule of law,
The reactionary impulse to break the law & steal our freedom never dies.
We are now, once again forced to defend the rule of law & equality before the law.
Resist
Avance la Lucha
Being freed from enslavement by executive or governmental decision, whether from bondage to farmers or being a prisoner of drugs or alcohol or prostitution or self hatred requires immense amounts of work, financial support, and love from the people who prayed for you. It also requires time and carries the risk of backsliding into the " good old days". If we all understand this we may, in time, all escape our own personal enslavement to greed, lust, gluttony, and hatred of those different from us. But it requires us all to admit we are slaves to something. If we are indifferent to helping because "I'm fine, you're not" is our attitude, the abyss for freedom in our country is just around the corner.
We were hurled into the abyss on 22 November 1963. All we have been able to do since then is repeatedly prove there is no way out. Not now; not ever. The slavemasters have seized the helm of the ship of state, and their wealth and technology (and the literally limitless Evil their already infinitely Evil selves can buy) guarantee they can never be overthrown -- that history's arc to bottomless horror is now irreversible.
So too in South Africa, the white 7% imposed apartheid on the rest of the population along with a host of severe civil controls and restrictions. And now that same 7% represents themselves as victims. Confederate racism.
The cliche con is familiar yet somehow effective, more so at some times than others. Blame the victims, fiercely defend the perpetrators. To what end? It's much of what's kept tyrants in business for centuries.
“While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.”
– John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, Jul. 9, 1813.
Everybody look what's going down.
Great prescient passage from John Adams!
Though Adams himself had something of a tyrannical streak, he was not a slaveholder and "got" how power tends to corrupt.
"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people."
ICYMI: (1) “Politics Chat, June 18, 2026 - YouTube“. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x1w8-euxcI Heather reviews what is in the MOU and what it’s different elements mean including does it provide evidence that Trump violated the War Powers Act since it clearly states there was a war and Congress never gave its approval.
(2) In her 6/18 Politics Chat Heather recommends that we listen to the recent speeches of NYC Mayor Mamdani and of Michelle Obama. She feels they are so important that she reads them in her newsletter. They demonstrate the extraordinary talents of these two leaders to inspire people to come together. Although Heather is herself very talented in her spoken deliveries, hearing the words spoken by the actual people who spoke them is even more inspirational. I feel they represent historic examples of what leadership should be. Mamdani reminds me of how Nelson Mandela used the success of the South African Rugby National Team to help unify his country coming out of apartheid.
(2a) “When We Are Told It's Impossible...': Zohran Mamdani's Emotional Knicks Parade Speech Stuns Crowd - YouTube” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQanpDThEc
(2b) “WATCH: Former first lady Michelle Obama's full remarks at Obama Presidential Center dedication - YouTube”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SyRLxPFCZg
I also recommend for those who are interested in the Michigan Democratic Senate Primary the speech that Dr. Adud El-Sayed made to the UAW: “Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan U.S. Senate Candidate - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLYcfhA3WME
(3) A summary of the Iran MOU: It commits to a cessation of all hostilities including Israel but Israel refuses. It removes all U.S. sanctions on Iran and stops U.S. blockade of great Strait. It gives Iran immediate access to the world financial system. Iran will “use its best efforts” to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow free passage for 60 days only. (It doesn’t address that if tolls are instituted it will violate the international freedom of the seas act which has been in effect since the end of WWII.) Frozen Iranian assets of $24 billion will be returned to Iran. It calls for the U.S. to provide a fund of $300 BILLION to rebuild Iran. In exchange Iran will reaffirm its pledge not to develop a nuclear weapon but without any inspections as were previously required by the JCPOA (Joint Comprohensive Plan Of Action) as negotiated by Obama but torn up by Trump. Good luck on how this is going to go down.
(4) Heather was interviewed by Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU, entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. They discuss what comes next in America.
“Heather Cox Richardson: What History Predicts Happens Next - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtEJ2BGtXdg. (6/18/26)
What happens next? More of the same...forever: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/us/politics/hegseth-navy-blocked-promotions-diversity.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rlA.0scs.4-kh1xb6tnFT&smid=url-share
Hate to use the "heart" symbol for your comment since it seems too trivial to express the anger and disgust we feel at what is being done to the people of this country. I can't understand how minorities and women can support this vile, racist, bigoted regime.
Boy, do I understand!
It's not promising, is it? Despite the declaration of yet another ceasefire yesterday, Israel maintained that it would continue to deal with immediate threats, never mind that those threats mainly continue because of its continued occupation of southern Lebanon. Today, Lebanon reports another 12 Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon.
Another problem is that Trump's continued vacillation between hopeful messages and ominous threats always leaves the door open to the Iranians to claim that he he is constantly moving the goalposts. Yesterday, he told reporters that his main priority was to ensure that Iran could not in the future have a nuclear weapon yet only a few days ago he mused that the 'nuclear dust' (his quaint description of Iran's stocks of highly-enriched uranium) were not really important. It's clear that Trump's mercurial nature and inability to focus are not suited to this kind of delicate negotiation.
"we are in danger of losing the new nation that it celebrated—one that would honor the equality of all Americans"
We can't let that happen.
Juneteenth reminds us that fighting and dying for freedom do not bring justice and equality unless people are informed and willing to act. White Christian nationalist males are again seizing power and need to be stopped. The American idea is that taxpayers should be voters. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to ensure. Honor the people who won recognition of their rights and make them secure. Contact your representatives and vote Blue.