Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, when Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, who led the 7th Cavalry, lost his entire command to Lakota warriors after falling on them unexpectedly in their own territory.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn wasn’t the beginning of the story.
It was the consequence of repeatedly breaking treaties, ignoring the law when it became inconvenient, and then calling the people defending their own land “hostile.”
The movie Little Big Man was released in 1970 and has been aired repeatedly throughout the years. I saw it the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years of high school. The massacre scene in the movie changed my life. Thanks to the movie, I became aware of the myriad atrocities committed by the US Army and the various administrations from the late 1600's through, well, today.
It is the largest genocide of against any group of indigenous people in the known history of the world. Heather could recount events like Little Big Horn everyday and not cover them all in a year. I recommend reading her book - Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre.
We can never make up for the atrocities committed against the Native Americans.
We can't make that up, GJ, because of parallel atrocities normalized.
Trail of Tears. Sand Creek. Forced internment of Japanese Americans. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Selma. My Lai. Abu Ghraib. Minab.
The rapes of 1200 girls and young women by the rich and powerful mutually invested with Donald and Jeffrey just continue the lawlessness -- and merge with many other international branches of criminality.
Schools in U.S. and abroad, more guided by humanities and essaying, or just testing?
Add the enslavement of Black people to the list. It went on so long that it's hard to pin a particular place or event to it. Selma happened long after it (supposedly) ended, and Tulsa happened more than 50 years before that.
Selma happened because it was allowed to happen. When Jews tried the same, they were murdered. I"ll take a march and a few fire hosings to being murdered.
We aren't teaching enough now and have not been in the past. We need to address this. It is not a reflection on teachers, the vast majority of whom are ridiculously under paid, under resourced, under valued, and over managed. However, if we pretend there is no problem, then we will never find a solution.
And teachers are being pressured not to teach the full history of the USA, only the White Nationalist version. It's not their fault. DEI is under attack on all sides.
I marched with underfunded teachers on strike in the LA City School system back in 1969-70. Even then, we had a selfish, greedy and anti-intellectual streak in the country that translated into chronic underfunding. I had to learn about Black and Indigenous US history from my UU church in the 2010s. What's wrong with this country?
It doesn't help that trump is having history erased in the Smithsonian and national park exhibits. Links in the Arlington cemetery's website of blacks, women, and Hispanics have been deleted. I understand that a placard honoring black soldiers in the Netherlands? has been removed.
Darling if you taught history in a US high school then you KNOW HE IS RIGHT.
I quite literally had not heard much of this until today. We were not taught anything about the subjugation of the American Indian in US History in the 1970's. We were taught that things like the 'Battle of Little Bighorn' was betrayal by 'the natives'. I think my 'Native American' history was less than a week out of 13 years. They were too busy celebrating 200 years of "America F#$% Yeah" and explaining how the blameless settlers dealt with such 'hardships'.
Reading Tad Stoermer's "A Resistance History of the United States". I'm 4 chapters in. Normally I'm one of those people who reads a book in one sitting. But every new revelation makes my head spin and the nausea roil. I have to read it in small chunks not just to process how horrible the founding fathers were.. but to process HOW MUCH MY TEACHERS LIED. American history books for high schoolers are whitewashed to the extreme. I already know that when he gets to the Civil Rights movement I'm going to lose my mind.
I am a strong proponent of public schools. Literally every woman in my family besides me and my cousin's daughter, the banker, on both sides for 3 generations is a teacher. I'm pro-union and anti-administration. There are few things more important than the ideal of a free public education.
But if you can't admit that we have a history of whitewashing what our children learn then you were most definitely part of the problem.
I graduated from a public high school in 1969. Knew none of this until I became an adult. Embarrassed to say I had never heard of Emmett Till until I was well into my 60s. We need to be truthful in our classrooms.
Can’t wait to read Tad’s book—it’s next on my list.
In the 90’s they just didn’t teach us anything about Little Big Horn or any other indigenous history for that matter… skipped it all together (in one of the top rated districts in the state). We didn’t read a single book in both 7th and 8th combined. Wow was private 9th grade a massive struggle/catch up for me.
If you want to learn more about our Indigenous population's history, I am reading Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal. I'm less than 100 pages in, but am very impressed, and I think you will like it.
Mary, I've been reading Mr. Balla's comments for more than a year. His comments are often misinterpreted – usually by active or retired teachers – as attacks on public schools. In fact, his ire is directed at the U.S. Government and complicit school administrations that distort education policy such that the humanities are suppressed and teachers are constrained to "teach to the test." He is really on the teachers' side and supports public schools. It's the policymakers for whom he has contempt.
Dale, this is true. However, his solution is too simple. This time he could have left that part out as well. My husband has Lakota ancestry and they celebrated this day yesterday with nary a mention of the humanities.
Am I the Mary to whom you refer? This has been a bumpy ride! I have read Balla’s comments for a while now. I’m prepared to be wrong or cranky, but I confess to being sick of teacher bashing and public school bashing, too. The conservative right wing has targeted public education for decades and I was personally targeted by conservative women of america for the first 10 years of my career for simply using a sociology textbook that dared to show LGBTQI families as normal. Teachers who dare to teach real us history are targeted and harassed if they are at public schools with weak leadership. In my case it stopped when I transferred to a school within the same district that took harassment of teachers as if their family was under attack.
Mary, have you seen what they’re doing to the standards in Texas? That is the actual war on public schools. Phil is advocating for improvements—changes that emphasize critical thinking. I don’t think that is part of the war on education at all.
I don't view it as a swipe on the public schools, but rather a swipe on the weak curriculum the history teachers had to work with. My 8th grade American History teacher was awesome, but the curriculum didn't really cover the myriad mass murders of any of the tribes.
When I got to high school even the AP History class didn't cover these events. Kudos to you Mary for teaching your students about the atrocities committed by the US Cavalry and Government against many minority groups.
These "swipes" show what our education system does not teach! Truthfully, I have learned so much here on LFAA that wasn't taught when I was in school & I graduated in 1955! This is NOT a swipe on teachers - but our education system itself. I agree with Emma who commented below. There is a problem and currently, even more of a problem with the damage by this current administration, it really must be repaired going forward.
I too graduated high school in 1955 and admit all through school emphasis was on how exceptional the USA was. I have to believe most teachers in 1937 to 1955 were taught the same basic principles of the USA being exceptional. So now we know better and the question is what are we (individual we and corporate we) going to do about it?
Mary, I went to public schools and very much appreciate what they do. But at the same time, having read real history books, like The 1619 Project and Heather's Wounded Knee, I have realized that at least in the schools I went to, history classes covered things like the Pilgrims, but never got as far even as the Civil War, and definitely did not cover anything positive about the Indigenous people of our country. My assessment of the history classes I got was that they taught to the image that the US has always wanted maintained. I hope your classes were different.
I don't think any of my teachers in any subject were willing to go against the curriculum or ideology of the schools where they were teaching.
I worked as a computer consultant for the Knights of Columbus for almost 13 years and yet I never criticized the business or the Catholic Church when I worked there.
Someone else here recommended addition of Tulsa. Yes. Also proper to add Wounded Knee. Now, too, "ICE and CBP murderous round-ups for U.S. concentration camps."
There's nothing wrong with humanities and essaying when accompanied by math and sciences. Note most European students take coursework that's the equivalent of our one to two years of college so American students miss out on the critical thinking skills of philosophy. And more stop any learning skills here in our country when life long learning is not a nice to have but a requirement. And the powerful failure to learn any language but English where you learn the nuances of gesture and slang along with the actual words.
Phil, our history and the history of nearly every other place is filled with atrocities which are part of the human pattern. Not every event is about teaching or not of the humanities. No amount of education can get rid of greed, racism, genocide, etc.
The actions of nations reflected the vagaries of each other for centuries. Military power was in hand with industrial growth. New methods of transportation enabled waterway access to the whole planet. The wealth of nations and the success or failure of their military endeavors created a competition to rule larger segments of the populace. Borders were a tentative line in the sand which shifted as colonial opportunity encircled the globe. Nations grabbed each other. There really was no spare dignity of consequence. Populations the earth over shifted in response to famine, war, persecution and disease. There have been earmarks of change but most significantly not until ww2 ended and the United Nations came about. That event brought a shift in attitudes which made the twentieth century stand apart. That nations joined together on a worldwide playing field shows the magnitude of human change. The era of the sail ended. We are the recipients of a vastly new order. Change has been the constant in world domination. Change will stay the constant. Domination has the opportunity to give way to cooperation. How we begin to deal with each other is no longer unthinkable.
Pat, I would agree about the role of industrialization in giving Europe and us a leg up in terms of conquest. Humans without modern technology managed to commit plenty of atrocities in search of power, wealth, etc. I would hope we can learn to cooperate, but we have people like death star. Also with climate change we are going to have a lot of people with all sorts of problems.
I agree with you except on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As has been said over and over by experts, those two prevented the deaths of perhaps a million more American soldiers.
Phil, I'm thankful to you and Heather for mentioning the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864. Most Colorado school children learn about it; most school children in other states do not.
My freshman year in college I lived in the White Antelope dorm. Cheyenne Chief White Antelope was a peace advocate before being murdered at Sand Creek. The dorm had previously been named Nichols Hall, after Captain David Nichols, who brutally participated in the massacre.
For me it is a sign of respect to hear Native Americans tell their own stories, and not rely solely on non-native accounts, as important and respectful as they might be. Cheyenne George Bent was a survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre. "The Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters" is his correspondence with historian George Hyde.
"The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapahoe People Forever," from History Colorado, compiles accounts from eye witnesses and their descendents, and other historical sources.
I wondered if anyone would bring up Little Big Man. It was the first movie I saw that showed Native Americans in a good way. One of my favorite movies. I will read her book!
My fourth grade teacher in rural Wyoming showed us, “I will fight no more forever “ the story of chief Joseph “ leading his people to Canada, almost making it. I still remember
The scene from that Arthur Penn directed movie has forever stuck in my head is at the end where the character played by Dustin Hoffman follows Chief Dan George (the Native American actor) to a hilltop to die because the old man thinks it's a good day to do that.
"You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather. And now You have decided the Human Beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere. I am gonna die now, unless death wants to fight... Today is a good day to die."
Thank you for recommending Heather's book. Our prejudices often seem ever-growing. In my opinion it reveals "white person's" deep insecurities that someone is out to take what they believe belongs completely to them!!!
There is this depressing fact. In history, no country dominated by a majority race has ever seen a different race reach the majority without extreme violence. Non-hispanic whites will soon be a minority here.
But it does not follow that violence is inevitable. Modern democratic institutions, legal protections, economic interdependence, and broadly shared civic identities can all reduce the likelihood that demographic change results in widespread violence. History offers warnings, not deterministic predictions.
So I choose to look past the Trump disaster with some hope. I think it is past time for us all to do so.
This country has enormous strengths, still. One of our chief strengths is our capacity to change.
The demographics have inexorably shifted. I often think about the overwhelming changes that occurred in Russia as the Romanovs gave way to the revolution of the Bolshevik’s under Lenin after WWI. The Red Terror led to the deaths of millions. Stalin regime followed with accounts of as many as Twenty million dead not counting those killed in WWII. In 1999 Putin made his move killing 100,000-200,000 Chechnya s who were Soviet citizens. Ultimately he has been credited with murdering 1.1 million people. I think we can do better. Even with Trumps pale death toll of some 600,000, I don’t see the need to conduct killing sprees to adjust profiles of race.
“Wounded Knee..” was our introduction to Heather’s works. We keep the book in view and lend it often. Each reader has been left with a profound sadness…and new awareness of the ugly side of our history.
It makes me wonder how many students in Maine know who Heather Cox Richardson is. I know the Bangor Daily News has never mentioned her to my knowledge.
For whatever reason, I started reading the book "Little Big Man" yesterday (not for the first time, and I've also watched the movie). Fictional account, but there's enough fact in it to emphasize the atrocities. Well worth reading or watching this account.
We remember the genocide but we can't forget the few who took action to try to right the wrong. See what the same General Crooks did to alter the course of history.
Crooks took action which resulted in the structure of law that produced the 1960's civil rights legislation. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968.
"We can never make up for the atrocities committed against the Native Americans." OF course you can. Instead of writing comments about what a good person you are, why not give the land under your house back to the Indians?
Hello Kelli... As a Rule-Of-Thumb, Chinese, and Egyptian Dynasties lasted between 200 to 300 years... Unless this American Experiment is Reinvigorated, Time Is Ticking...
As do I JL. Imagine the fulfillment of the constitutional promise. Imagine ending conflict between governments. Imagine a kind of equality given every person on earth. Imagine changes in practices which harm the planet.
Time is ticking, Apache, and Putin is getting humiliated.
He's going to start throwing nukes. He hates the west. Cannot imagine in all his arrogance that Zelensky and his fellow Ukrainians can, as they are now doing, beat the forces that corrupt Putin and his fellow corrupt oligarchs have themselves self-decimated -- scarcely three decades after having looted (with U.S. investing aid) Mother Rus's vast resources for their own corruption.
I dread having to see the "civilized" world descend into its own vast looting and self-decimation following the interruptions the first nukes will let ensue.
Russians may take things into their own hands. They have done it before. This Czar is flailing. Their economic minister just created a film flam of a funding scheme to keep the nation afloat. Russia is on financial dialysis.
Russians are hurting, shortages and high prices. Their young men are being fed into a wood chipper.
Energy infrastructure is being wrecked by Ukrainian drones.
Putin's war is a failure by any measure.
I could be wrong. It happens all the time. But I think Putin and Trump have some things in common: Arrogance, bad judgement and vulnerability. I think it's a crap shoot as to which one goes down first.
This is a comment directed to all of you who have lauded Zelensky which is also my sentiment. I was in London last month staying at a hotel owned by a middle eastern consortium. As were most employees it seemed, there was a young man from outside UK but not of Middle Eastern descent at the front desk with whom I engaged. I asked him from where he came. "Ukraine" the reply. At this I went into full blown apology and my own admiration of Zelensky and his resilient courage. His immediate reply to my focus on Zelensky was, "Well, the Ukrainian people." I responded "of course, oh yes of course" and continued with my effusive apology for my country's failings of late. He responded almost with tears thanking me, expressing how much my words meant. Henceforth, whenever I hear reference to Zelensky or his brave countrymen, I will always remember Bohdan, and the people from whom arose one of the world's heros of our time.
As an aside my father often talked about that idea alluded to in these comments--does the man make the times or do the times make the man? (Or woman)
Apache, as it turns out, this 200-to-300-year meter seems to govern many realms of human existence. I remember learning that religion can be measured in the same blocks of time.
And resonate with our capacities for compassion and for sociopathic greed. And yes, it seems that "normal" can be both a source of comfort and trust, and anesthetizing facade for many horrors.
I’ve been writing more about these patterns at We Have Friends Everywhere—the rule of law, public trust, and what happens when accountability stops at the powerful. If this conversation resonates with you, everything there is free to read.
It seems that the ugly side of human nature is a constant, ans at at times, is overwhelming. And always there are those who mean no harm and are just pursuing a decent life.
Thank you for sharing these wise words that remain relevant even after 900 years.
Have we not yet learned to love, honor and appreciate one another? Have we chosen to reject rather than listen to wisdom from the ages?
We will pay for our self-centered, short term motives for personal gain and power...only for our lifetime... ignoring the future of our country and our friends throughout the world, and our grandchildren....ignoring the gifts, sacrifices and wisdom of those who came before us.
I believe that key to wisdom is a fruitful sense of what most matters, and we don't seem to me to focus on that very much in our game-obsessed society.
One of things we have lost and time plays a role here the 30 minute sit com and it’s 30 minute resolution with the journey of a good and or heroic person. I like comics and I like stories but we have been in an era of the anti hero and again Milton’s Lucifer or Shakespeare’s Lady Mc Beth fascinating characters but not real life and also only part and parcel. The real work of good people and those that fall into that category is hard and not easy . And one doesn’t have to be heroic to know being good or doing the right thing can be cumbersome and difficult. Easy to follow the crowns the only tale about sheep falling off of a cliff or the lemmings. There have been many times in my life where I thought damnation this is going to hard but it is the moral and ethical thing to do. I hope all of us can learn that again. And history shows us what happens when people do not make the hard choices and also shows us what happens when ethics and morals are followed.
"The brief outline of the ballad is that while Thomas is lying outdoors on a slope by a tree in the Erceldoune neighborhood, the queen of Elfland appears to him riding upon a horse and beckons him to come away. When he consents, she shows him three marvels: the road to Heaven, the road to Hell, and the road to her own world (which they follow). After seven years, Thomas is brought back into the mortal realm. Asking for a token by which to remember the queen, he is offered the choice of having powers of harpistry, or else of prophecy, and of these he chooses the latter."
I stopped believing in elves and prophesy long ago, but some myths model patterns of truth, and while the future's not ours to see, but some sequences are likely to proceed with regularity, and with keen observation and thought, and perhaps a dash of artful intuition, some people appear to me more reliably "prophetic", at some points in history, and likely in the present. It seems like a good way to go.
And isn't life an endless presentation of choices?
No one has ever proven yet that there would be an ugly side of "human nature" in the first place.
Yes, people can do a lot of harm. The question is: is that in their very nature, or is it the result of a good nature harming others out of ignorance, ignorance caused by certain conditions that aren't the fault of anyone... ?
I think more of the behaviors of people, for good or ill, are shaped by circumstances than we like to admit, but that our nature is contains both social and antisocial impulses, to varying degrees that are filtered by parenting and community. You see it in playgrounds. It also seems that in any era or society that unaccountable power tends to corrupt.
It's just sad that humans, with all their intellect, can be so stupid. And cruel. It's always better to know history, warts and all, than to squeeze your eyes shut tightly.
Mary Ann, years ago, I wrote in an essay that included this: "... the greatest strength is also the greatest weakness."
This is true when considering human intellect. It is our greatest strength and also, our greatest weakness.
Of all the creatures on Earth, only humans are capable of hate. Every other creature is either predator or prey, but regardless, they do not hate those they harm or would harm them.
Hate is a uniquely human response, but it is not instinctive. Hate must be taught by one human to another. That teaching/learning requires intellect.
It's liitle wonder Trump doesn't want Americans to be reminded how their nascent democracy got off to the worst possible start and didn't improve much after that either.
Mike Hammer.., Sad but true..., a SS mentality dwells amongst us (in the cowardice minds of the Jan 6'ers, for example). Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco "little boy" Cruz, Tulsi..., for another example. And, ICE. But, being the cowards they are.., the wannabe's.., they would've been trashed by the SS because they lack the guts. Some sick people Out there. We, are indeed an "island", and "they" are "rubbing us out" one by one. What's the actual number of detention centers? What is the number of detainees? How about categorizing the reasons for detention? To get the real picture of what is going one on, this needs to be tracked daily, Remember, ICE is the personal gestapo of one man, and it aint heggseth.
Alex, don’t believe ‘the gutsy’ impression of the SS that you seem to have is anything beyond a war movie portrayal and the perverse elevation of enemy strength as part of elevating oneself for having vanquished them.
The SS were every bit as flawed and cowardly humans as the current crop of white supremacists and ‘proud boy’s’, et al.
Most modern Germans are made of much better stuff than the SS. (But Americans? Our gen remains to show the metal we’re made of!)
Mark, I don't watch "war movies", and you're right about their "portrayal". I dislike making any mention of the SS but we are quite headed in that direction. I should say 'established in that direction'. Yes, many Germans were not Party members. In particular, the pilots, strangely enough. Like ordinary German citizens they could be arrested. Kind of like ICE is doing today. Seeing is believing, and much is being obscured from view.
So far. Our perpetually refreshed involvement in "regime change" wars and atrocities up to and including today - will we NEVER learn? - suggests we are almost certain to make even the darkest eras we've survived seem as white, pure, bright, as the driven snow. Now, with nukes!
CONTRAST THIS... While Trump has spent $400 million of our taxpayer dollars on a ballroom... Canada on July 21, 2025 signed a $300 million dollar grant to launch one the the largest indigenous-led conservation projects in the world - NWT ( Northwest Territories) Our Land for the Future... The initiative, led by indigenous peoples, will advance large-scale, long-term conservation, stewardship, and economic development throughout the Northwest territories... It will generate hundreds of good, culturally meaningful jobs, sustaining indigenous ways of life for generations to come and drive climate action and resilience.
We need to take back our Democracy for the good of the planet... And we need to take inspiration for our fight from Hungary, Ukraine, and what the inspiring people of Canada are doing to protect all people and ways of life. Earlier a Federal Judge in Mass. ruled against Trump 's executive order which included the proposed postal ruling... Marc Elias said : "And look, we're going to have hard days ahead, but this was a good one. The courts did the right thing. Voters were protected. Democracy was on the docket and it won." His video is excellent - I will post it here...
Per NBC News headline, "Judge blocks Trump’s executive order on mail voting." ....... CAVEAT: I have not examined any response to the Court's order or docket status.
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NBC News Update:
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June 25, 2026, 7:55 AM PDT / Updated June 25, 2026, 8:35 AM PDT
By Jane C. Timm
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the implementation of key parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting, declaring the plans to intervene in state-run elections unconstitutional.
Sadly, don’t think we can use the term “no brainer” anymore. This Supreme Court is turning our world upside down. Who would’ve thought there’d even be a question about birthright citizenship, never mind TPS?!?
I understand your sadness & other's grief but, I was commenting on a very specific judge ruling that has just been correctly issued.
There are nine (9) SCOTUS opinions yet to be published this 2025-26 Term including the "birthright" case, Trump v Barbara another 'no brainer'.
I am no way near as SCOTUS astute as the "AMY", the Founder of SCOTUSblog.com but, I have already posted my belief based on deductive reasoning NOT hope that Defendant Barbara will prevail.
The Trump vs Barbara opinion could possibly be published next Monday but, definitely before 7/2/26. The opinion will be 1 measure of where we are as a nation on the eve of our 250th July 4th.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn should not be remembered only as the defeat of George Armstrong Custer. It should be remembered as a lesson in what happens when power breaks its promises and then calls resistance “hostility.”
The Lakota were not invading someone else’s country. They were defending land that had been guaranteed to them by treaty. The Black Hills belonged to them by law, by history, and by sacred meaning. Yet when gold was found, the promises of the United States suddenly became inconvenient. Prospectors poured in, officials tried to force a sale, and Native leaders who refused to surrender their homeland were branded as enemies.
That is the moral center of the story. Little Bighorn was not born in one hot afternoon of battle. It grew from broken treaties, stolen resources, military pressure, settler greed, and the repeated refusal to treat Indigenous nations as human beings with rights of their own. When people are cornered, lied to, displaced, and attacked, their resistance should not surprise anyone.
The lesson is clear: injustice often disguises itself as law and order. The powerful write deadlines, draw borders, issue commands, and then condemn the people who refuse to be erased. But defending your home is not savagery. Keeping your word is not weakness. Respecting sovereignty is not charity. It is justice.
Little Bighorn teaches us that peace cannot be built on theft. A nation that breaks its promises eventually meets the consequences of its own dishonor.
"The lesson is clear: injustice often disguises itself as law and order. The powerful write deadlines, draw borders, issue commands, and then condemn the people who refuse to be erased."
At the risk of starting a war of words (which I promise, right now, that I will not reply to), israel did indeed learn from this scenario. When the white man of Germany slaughtered millions of Jewish people, the Hebrew tribes that had been pushed into Europe moved back to join their fellow tribe, the other indigenous people that still lived in what is now called the State of Israel. Once the world, via the United Nations, granted Israel the right to be a sovereign nation (on a tiny portion of the remnants of what was then known as British Palestine after Jordan had already carved out 70% of that territory for itself), the Arab armies of five surrounding countries attacked them. The Israelis rose up and fought them back. Various times over the years similar attacks were made by Arab armies and various militia against Israel (and continue to this day), and each time the Israelis successfully defeated them. The Jews, indigenous to this land, have defended their country, a nation given to them by the world; that is, by a vote of the UN which also voted to create a separate Arab state which offer was rejected.
So, put tiny Israel in the place of the other indigenous people and the surrounding Arab countries in the place of the American government and how does it look different to you?
I am not defending Israel’s settler actions in the West Bank and Gaza. That is an abomination. Nor will I defend Israel’s excessive military actions. But I do see the necessity of Israel’s defensive actions against its constantly invading and attacking hostile neighbors. No other nation would allow that to destroy its sovereignty. And no other nation is criticized for it as is Israel. Without saying Israel is committing genocide (which it is not), there are genocides happening around the world —all abominations—but the only protests in the streets and boycotts organized are against Israel. Why is that?
Very well said. The "Middle East" wars (that are not restricted to the middle east) are 2000 yr old religious/cultural conflicts that seem to have no resolution The 19th century Wars in the American West were wars of conquest, driven by gold fever and expansion. They were genocidal. Reading the newspapers of the time, the debate was "should we put them (natives) on reservations or just wipe them out". Those wars and slavery are the saddest, shameful chapters in American history. I do believe the USA is a great country (IF we can survive Trump), but far from perfect.
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.”
– John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.
Heard a discussion today with Charlie Sykes and Professor Corey Brettschneider of Brown University about his book The Presidents and the People
Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It. First among them John Adams with his sedition act. A conversation between Prof Brettschneider and HCR would be pretty fascinating, especially in light of her opinion about Thomas Jefferson and his manipulation of the electoral college, a sort of threat itself.
America has done some very good things and some very bad things over the course of its 250-year history, and it continues to do so. Donald Trump and his followers are being driven by their unwillingness to accept the truth of the latter part of that statement. As a result, they will be remembered for having committed, and been responsible for, modern versions of many of the bad things. Trumpism, and everything it stands for, will be remembered as a dark and regressive chapter in American history.
Recently heard someone speak at a conference who was prevented from continuing his speech because he referred to the mass killings of native Americans as Genocide! Indeed he was correct!
Having "white" skin is a terrible moral disability if history is any measure. I send periodic contributions to a Lakota Indian School. It really is the least that I can do.
(Richard, I do too, but please continue to read the reviews of how that money is used vs number of students, etc. I still recall the decades (during peak of HIV) in Zambia where students spent most of their time working fields to support a slim pretext of a school.)
There seems to be a parallel in our present day. The majority of Americans both black and white have had enough and if they can recognize the benefit of uniting in spite of their petty differences could rule the day. Democracy is and will continue to be a grand experiment.
The difference between the past and the present is that information is now instant and reaction can be devastatingly instant. We are closer to that scenario than we've ever been in this country. Impulsiveness may rule the near future.
The Trail of Tears where thousands of Southeastern Indians died. Andrew Jackson was told by the courts that he couldn't take the Indians' land. His basic response was "Who is going to stop me?" Sound familiar?
I now i am a "white man" but I cheered for the Indians.
There were many trails of tears. Not just one. One looks and between massacres of othered groups and the lynchings it is deep and dark with thankfully here’s who spoke up and out. The Equal Justice Initiative has gathered soil from the ground of lynchings and holds many . This should be part and parcel of any group that has suffered discrimination or violence. Part of human maturity is being able to cope with hard and difficult and sometimes horrible life situations. We can honor our history with its people. What I want and think most people desire and wish for is truth and justice and mercy with an ongoing effort to rectify and continue on to better.
Kelli, it does sound familiar. I was struck by “ The Tetons welcomed their eastern relatives but discounted their horrific tales of the revenge enacted on the Santee…”. Although we still hover around 30% in polls who think trump is doing a good job I wonder at the percentage of limited information, non-critical thinkers and their effect on resistance in the U.S. I realize this was only one person but someone I know told me the other day that things are not as bad for brown immigrants as reported in the news because he knows a couple of immigrant families who have realized the “American Dream” ( owning a business, buying a house). For him, two fortunate families discount ICE, the surge in funding, SCOTUS attack on asylum seekers, and all the other actions taken by this administration, if he even knows about them. You can’t persuade someone like that because their limited knowledge of a couple of cases is weighted more than the countless legitimate reports of the opposite that you could show them. He’s made up his mind, it comforts and makes him feel safe. He openly presents himself as a “good Christian”.
Exactly. Two anecdotes become more real to them than mountains of evidence because those anecdotes preserve the worldview they already have. Once comfort becomes more important than truth, facts stop being persuasive.
The same stories are being told now - wealthy men using the government power collecting more wealth from the poor. The role of a government is to protect the iweak. Mr. Trump is however one of the wealthy takers. Tragedy of America continues.
The Trail of Tears caused by Andrew Jackson ( listed as one of the worst presidents) Thousand of Indians lost their land which was already cultivated so the white man could take over. Judges said that Jackson couldn't do that. Jackson said( paraphrased) Who is going to stop me. Sound familiar? a phrase currently used today.
My wife is part Cherokee. I traced her lineage back to the Trail of Tears. Oddly, enough she is also descended from Henry VII and much of the English and French royalty. Most of her ancestors came to the US before 1650, except the Native Americans of course.
She has never registered as Cherokee even though she is eligible.
My husband claims a "very low percentage" of blood from a tribe in the early days of Rangeley, Maine. It was probably the Amaseconti Tribe which was a small division of the Abenaki Tribe. During our years living in Iowa, Nebraska and, especially South Dakota, we became very aware of the many atrocities inflicted on the resident tribes by our government.
It was beyond American. It was the way of the civilized world. Take what you can from cultures you found beneath your state of the art militarism. It was civilization discovering the world to be plundered at large. Colonization gone berserk. What would one expect of the upstart USA. Of course we plundered the rest of the continent. After all, that was the way of the entire world. That chapter of human conflict has vestigial remnants in battles now raging in Russian aggression to usurp Ukraine. A battle, by the way which may very well result in Ukraine usurping Russia. We finally learned to respect borders. Or did we?
The Same General Crooks took action to right the wrong. Just 3 years later after the Little Big Horn event he did something magnificent that set the stage for the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960's.
I just skimmed the 1980 lakota scotus case tonight; that case alone pretty much lays out your point. I didn’t have enough knowledge to really take it in, so will work on my poor historical knowledge and go back to reread it.
Yes. I am sorry I did not mean to imply that it was limited. I just meant to note that the case in question goes through some of the history of how the govt avoided treaty obligations as a matter of practice.
I will add to Indigenous persons....any person of color.
What I find so strange is the amount of money we spend on sun tanning lotions to brown our white skin in the summer and some go to "tanning" booths year round to maintain that "brown skin".
Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the Sioux Nation (Sioux), and that no treaty for the cession of any part of the reservation would be valid as against the Sioux unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Sioux population. The treaty also reserved the Sioux' right to hunt in certain unceded territories. Subsequently, in 1876, an "agreement" presented to the Sioux by a special Commission but signed by only 10% of the adult male Sioux population, provided that the Sioux would relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and to hunt in the unceded territories, in exchange for subsistence rations for as long as they would be needed. In 1877, Congress passed an Act (1877 Act) implementing this "agreement" and thus, in effect, abrogated the Fort Laramie Treaty. Throughout the ensuing years, the Sioux regarded the 1877 Act as a breach of that treaty, but Congress did not enact any mechanism by which they could litigate their claims against the United States until 1920, when a special jurisdictional Act was passed. Pursuant to this Act, the Sioux brought suit in the Court of Claims, alleging that the Government had taken the Black Hills without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. In 1942, this claim was dismissed by the Court of Claims, which held that it was not authorized by the 1920 Act to question whether the compensation afforded the Sioux in the 1877 Act was an adequate price for the Black Hills, and that the Sioux' claim was a moral one not protected by the Just Compensation Clause. Thereafter, upon enactment of the Indian Claims Commission Act in 1946, the Sioux resubmitted their claim to the Indian Claims Commission, which held that the 1877 Act effected a taking for which the Sioux were entitled to just compensation, and that the 1942 Court of Claims decision did not bar the taking claim under res judicata. On appeal, the Court of Claims, affirming the Commission's holding that a want of fair and honorable dealings on the Government's part was evidenced, ultimately held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of at least $17.5 million, without interest, as damages under the Indian Claims Commission Act,
Page 448 U. S. 372
for the lands surrendered and for gold taken by trespassing prospectors prior to passage of the 1877 Act. But the court further held that the merits of the Sioux' taking claim had been reached in its 1942 decision, and that therefore such claim was barred by res judicata. The court noted that only if the acquisition of the Black Hills amounted to an unconstitutional taking would the Sioux be entitled to interest. Thereafter, in 1978,Congress passed an Act (1978 Act) providing for de novo review by the Court of Claims of the merits of the Indian Claims Commission's holding that the 1877 Act effected a taking of the Black Hills, without regard to res judicata, and authorizing the Court of Claims to take new evidence in the case. Pursuant to this Act, the Court of Claims affirmed the Commission's holding. In so affirming, the court, in order to decide whether the 1877 Act had effected a taking or whether it had been a noncompensable act of congressional guardianship over tribal property, applied the test of whether Congress had made a good faith effort to give the Sioux the full value of their land. Under this test, the court characterized the 1877 Act as a taking in exercise of Congress' power of eminent domain over Indian property. Accordingly, the court held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of interest on the principal sum of $17.1 million (the fair market value of the Black Hills as of 1877), dating from 1877.
That is the history of that case, the link to the case is above.
And sometimes the battlefield is in the courts. I recommend Rebecca Nagle's great 2024 book BY THE FIRE WE CARRY: The Generations-Long Fight for Native Land. It focuses on the legal fight for Native land in Eastern Oklahoma but works in plenty of the wider history in the process.
What "border" are you referring to?!? The one that was arbitrarily constructed out of whole cloth because Southern white people who wanted to expand American slavery into the northern part of recently independent Mexico, i.e., Tejas, decided that they could simply make up a bullshit rationale for war that one of our greatest Presidents bitterly opposed on the floor of the House?!? Is that the "border" you refer to?!?
And by the way, by what stretch of your delusional and ignorant exhortations do you see the slightest scintilla of a comparison between the multitudinous broken promises successive American governments made to the Indigenous Peoples whose land they stole and lives they destroyed, with the non-existent Biden promise of border security?!?
Please go back to the dark, dank hole you crawled out of, and leave the rest of us alone, as I have requested numerous times previously.
By the way, those were called Democrats back then…. including the inventors of the KKK. Oooops. It’s a little late at night for history lesson but there it is. Thank you for getting me involved. By the way, you’re gonna be a lot better off trying to live in reality a.k.a. today. Where the only palace racism exists is in racist heads.
One of my college buddies actually wrote a book you might want to read its titled TGIT. And I’m not sure if you can actually look it up like that but it’s an existing book. And TGIT stands for. thank God it’s today. Have a nice evening daniel.
Actually, Julius, you are just a lost soul. From my first post to my last, I have said one thing. I am here for one thing and one thing only. The last thing I need, are your stupid, empty accusations, retorts, your insults, and your incredible capacity of ignorance… and actually what I do normally is, I respond to Heather‘s ridiculousness on a daily basis, where she tells you some of the truth, some of the time. But I’ve not seen a post yet, but she tells you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth not once
What I said was I say it again all I need is to make you aware of facts that you have no idea exist. And Voilà. Thousands and thousands of people are being made aware and have been very appreciative.
You know Julius, you guys are gonna have to get your nomenclature, correct?
There are 30 40,50 people that probably post 10 1520 times a day are this site. And
THEY ARE NEVER REFERRED TO AS TROLLS. OOOOPS The only time you call them a troll is where they don’t agree with you and the reason they don’t agree with you is because they percent facts you don’t like. So I’m sorry I didn’t mean to bring up fact that you were not aware of in total and complete ignorance of life has it exist today?
We call people trolls when they disagree with the facts of history and current events. Like agreeing that Renee Nicole Good was trying to run over Jonathan Ross. Like agreeing that Alex Pretti was planning a violent attack on ICE / CBP. Like agreeing that FDT has been a great president. -- People who hold and express those views are trolls. That seems to place you squarely in their camp.
Oh! And, like agreeing that indigenous people were "hostile" when they were not. Like covering up the atrocities committed by U.S. troops. -- Same as we're doing today by covering up the illegality of bombing suspected drug boats, kidnapping foreign leaders (regardless of how despicable they might be), starting wars for no reason at all. Covering up the Epstein files to protect politicians and businessmen.
https://www.labornotes.org/2026/01/renee-good-killed-ice-was-standing-solidarity-her-neighbors She should’ve never been anywhere near there. She put herself in harms way. Now I can keep going on and on and on, but now you know that pretty had had a fight with ice Asians 11 days earlier and should’ve never been where he was because he should’ve been in jail arrested for kicking in the taillight of the SUV.
And she had been following ice agents around all day and for days actually from what I understand so now you have the other half of the story that you were not aware of as usual.
Rene Good was asked three times to get out of the car and she refused and she ran…instead. If she had gotten out of the car, I bet about 100% chance she’d still be alive today wouldn’t you? Yikes
Well I’m going to send you FACTS AND PRETTI AND GOODE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjYMCdD8Cck ALEX PRETTY ATTACKED ICE AGENTS AND HAD A FIGHT WITH ICE AGENTS 11 DAYS BEFORE THIS INCIDENT SO IT WASN’T HIS FIRST ENCOUNTER AND HE ACTUALLY HAD TO BE THROWN DOWN BY TWO OR THREE ICE AGENTS TO THE GROUND AND WHEN HE GOT UP. HE RAN AFTER THEIR SUV AND KICKED IN THE TAIL LIGHT, WHICH BY LAW IS PUNISHABLE FOR ONE YEAR IN PRISON FOR DAMAGING A FEDERAL VEHICLE SO THERE’S NUMBER ONE PUTTING HIMSELF IN HARMS WAY HE HAD NO BUSINESS BEING THERE. HE HAD NO PURPOSE IN BEING THERE EXCEPT FOR IMPEDING THEIR JOB.
AND THERE’S A VIDEO AND I CAN SHOW YOU A FEW MORE IF YOU’D LIKE ..
Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old American woman, was fatally shot in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross, on January 7, 2026. Good was in her car, stopped sideways in the street, which led Ross to circle her vehicle on foot. Other agents approached, and one ordered her to get out of the car while reaching through her open window. Good briefly reversed, then began moving forward and to the right, into the direction of traffi She refused to get out of her car. Repeatedly asked to get out of her car and she refused, and she apparently struck the agent according to the testimony. And I’m gonna get you some more information as well since you know nothing about what actually happened.
I could out English you and out orthographically trounce you if need be… but you’re new here so I’ll cut you you know many of you obviously can use a computer, but I’m not sure any of you have been introduced to the blessing of voice texting. While the software has not caught up to every single in your window and phrase, it certainly does the job of painting, the context and the content versus a spelling error, or God forbid a dangling participle or a preposition at the end of a sentence which obviously makes the entire story so much different than the facts themselves. Tried coming up to speed in the real world.
And if you don’t think Trump has a good vocabulary, he does just fine and you know how we know that because he’s now the most influential human being on the planet and you don’t get that by being incapable of communicating. Ooooooops.
Not all trolls are American. Indeed, most non-American trolls are paid to troll. Depending on who they work for, they may be paid by the number of posts they make or, more often, by the number of responses they get. And too, Rick could be part of a team all posting under one name, not unlike the Russian "Internet Research Agency"..
Why is it when people have no answer? All they do, is insult and accuse without any substance. They just make dumb statements and walk away. Wait a minute I think that was redundant. lol by the way, which part was horseshit, please be specific LMAO
Gee, Rick. You are so well-informed, you should start your own Substack. That way you won't have to deal with all these people making dumb statements without any substance, redundant as that may be.
I actually have my own Substack, but I’ve never used it. It was offered to be free probably a year ago, but I’ve never used it once to post because I’m not here to post to myself. What I do is I respond to inanity stupidities, ignorance, bias jealousy, envy, hate, unfounded, accusations, insults. That’s what I do and that’s why I’m here. And the name of the game is one thing only. AWARENESS. Many people here are not becoming aware of things. They didn’t know before because Heather doesn’t tell them the the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in fact, many times she avoids the subject at all if that particular day Trump had a major win on the world stage she avoids it like the plague.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? You must be living in another country or perhaps another planet. The border has been a $1 trillion problem already. Problem has gone to the Supreme Court six times. I guess that’s not important. That’s not a problem.
The fact that there’s been hundreds of American citizen women RAPED AND MURDERED BY ILLEGALS IS NOT A PROBLEM EITHER? Do you know how many raped and murdered women by illegal would there have been if they were not allowed to cross the border? Hmmmmmmmmm. Fucking ZERO….. but other than that, it’s nice of you to stick up for women, even those that are being trafficked.
I’m actually sitting here stunned, thinking that there’s people that actually think that your statement is true HFS.
And what particular part of anything that I have posted here do you Deign to say is Kool-Aid? I wonder. Do you know how many needless attacks and rapes there have been on American citizens by illegal aliens. Because you know how many would have been attacked if they didn’t cross the border and they weren’t in the US. Well, you don’t even even have to be good in math to determine the answer. ZEEEEEEERO WHAT PART OF THE TRUTH DON’T YOU LIKE?
We should have listened to the Lakota tribes of South Dakota earlier on because they were not allowing Kristi Noem on their reservations. And they still don’t and they never will.
I might be mistaken, but I don't recall a single Senator of either party asking Moonbat Eyes why she wasn't allowed on Lakota land during her confirmation hearings. You'd think somebody would have focused on that.
Mullin is Cherokee. I didn’t know who he was before his nomination, but I remember seeing that right before and being confused about how this would go. I am curious about how the tribe has chosen to handle mullin’s new position.
Heather, expert historian on our Indian wars, and exterminations, gets one lovely side result here.
Accountability. The Sioux and their allies held Custer and his braggadocio accountable.
Earlier today Heather appeared on Katie Couric’s podcast, both there, too, centered on accountability.
Except for Jefferson Davis, who after the Civil War did do prison time, Heather pointed out how no Confederates were held accountable for their efforts to destroy the United States for a whites-only supremacy country instead. We know, too, that following the crash of the housing market in 2008, and the near-crash of the banking system then, no large bankers went to prison.
Nearly the same after the crash of 1929. I found online a piece by Jason M. Breslaw, which discussed the Pecora Commission, whose work from 1932 on “led to indictments,” but, again, then, “most escaped prosecution.”
So Heather and Katie went round and round on how criminal Donald just lets his criminality rule all, with Heather tying that up by looking at his enabling Republicans in Congress. Said she, “They vowed that they were going to enforce the Constitution, and they’re simply doing whatever he tells them to.”
That's the way it has been for much of American history, where genuine savages ever rule for the unaccountable rich and powerful -- still rule protecting them all covered up in the Trump-Epstein file.
And let's not forget Nixon. If Ford hadn't pardoned him, he would have gone to trial and perhaps done hard time. Then we might have been spared our current shame and disgrace.
I can only surmise that Ford, like most Americans, think a POTUS is above reproach…but COME ON! Donald Trump incited a murderous MOB to try and take over the Capitol.
We ALL saw it…expecting - now seems so näive - Trump and all his goons to rot in jail for TREASON.
Jean, there were some in Garland’s DOJ who resisted prosecuting a (former) PRESIDENT; they thought that went too far. Others were afraid and some were holdovers from his first admin. That was one—but not the only—factor in the long delay.
And Nixon committed treason by doing a secret, behind-the-scenes deal in Vietnam while LBJ was still president and trying to find a way out of the war...Nixon persuaded the crooks in the S V. gov't. not to cooperate, as they'd do "better" under him when he got elected. And look what happened: more deaths on both sides, the destabilization of Cambodia, which led to Pol Pott (sp?) and all those massacres, tremendous uprisings in the US streets, and Watergate... Tricky Dicky was a traitor and a crook.
Well per JD, when he isn't busy quoting diddy, poor nixon was caught up by the same deep state as trump; a little break in gone bad, what should have been a 12 hr news story at best. Guess he is going to be a 2 yr placeholder since clearly no one bothers to even attempt to prep him.
THE PEOPLE will win…sometimes by just ‘surviving’!
My daughter-in-law, whom my son describes as ‘the smartest person he knows’, fled Cambodia’s massacres, with her mother and two sisters, as a child. She came to Montreal, Canada, and has a fab salary working in Toronto now, and they have two adorable sons, 9 & 6 y.o. ☺️
There may be a ‘levelling off’ now that Trump’s health is slowing him down. Karma!
But the symbolic ‘knives’ within his own regime are drawn for the Orange Julius Caesar…👀…😉
Whatever may have been Nixon's fate under law, it was imperative that his betrayals were met with legal justice and equal protection, and that did not happen. Ford may have meant well, but he undermined rule of law, and opened a crack in the concept of universal accountability that has much widened in the present.
Unlikely. Much of our current shame and disgrace is deserved. We had 2 opportunities to make it better or different and we bungled both of them and made it catastrophically worse. Now we're experiencing what indigenous peoples did.
And let's not forget the ChristoNazis' favorite brand of plausibly deniable genocide -- extermination by austerity, medical misogyny and anti-vax hysteria.
This is what happens when we allow unguarded power to grow within our government. This occurs when we the people choose corruption over morality regarding many of those in leadership positions.
We have not been faithful to our better values thus we are a part of the decimation
of the stability of the best we are meant to be.
The world sees what we have chosen to tolerate and the results to the greatness we once held.
The greatest country in the world you’re sitting here on a computer, talking about whisper, living the same life of the Indians did? No, you’re totally lost in the past
“The greatest country in the world?” The U.S. is reviled by virtually every country around the world, except perhaps Russia and Saudi Arabia. I’m a citizen of the U.S. and Canada and Canadians certainly don’t think the U.S. is the greatest.
Mr. Sender has nothing better to do with his life, so he brings his delusional little self here and annoys the rest of us. The best thing to do is ignore him. He won't ever go away, as he has no real pastimes other than this. Think of him as a mosquito with a laptop. Cheers.
That’s a good thing. I’m glad you brought it up Joel, because if Biden hadn’t pardoned himself, he probably be hanging by his toes upside down on the White House lawn, naked, and not even know why he was there.
And in the Regan years of the 1980’s the debacle of the thrifts failing that we taxpayers had to bail out. Those guys should never have been allowed to touch money again but no consequences for them.
If you mean the S&L crisis, that was at least keenly investigated and many wrongdoers convicted. The subprime crisis was much greater and more damaging, yet dodgy bankers got a pass. Too big to fail, too big to hold accountable means they were just plain too big, and we had dealt with monopolists before; yet this time around, our government helped them get bigger.
Thanks for the link. I personally found this traumatizing on several levels. I gave up counting the number of times Couric implied, or straight up used clear language, that indicated we just need to return to normal. I may go back and watch it again later. We are going to need a parliamentary system; Democrats don't seem to be getting this, and I cannot stomach 12 future years of the current regime in different makeup.
Strange isn't it, how money so frequently eludes accountability, or when caught "red handed" winds up with token sentences. $COTUS fiercely defended a life sentence for a man who stole some videos for his kids, but some seem too rich (and/or connected) to jail. I have read about important businessmen selling to and aiding the Nazis in WW II, but somehow getting away with it. It's the same double standard all the fuss was about in 1776, but we couldn't quite bear to part with it, and today it's more than just metaphor that we struggle with a monarchy.
It is classism, plain and simple, with a side of racism and xenophobia thrown in. The rich get away with criminality; the poor pay dearly for real or manipulated wrongdoing. It’s the American way. How else could we ever tolerate the for-profit prison industry, and the well-chronicled cradle-to-prison pipeline?
JL, this line in HCR's Letter stood out to me: "Caught between these two necessities, the government chose to protect the railroad [instead of the Bozeman Trail]."
The Bozeman Trail was a route used by anonymous prospectors and emigrants heading west, while the transcontinental railroad was built and controlled by politically well-connected tycoons.
The U.S. Government has always, always sided with its wealthy friends.
Today's government affinities should come as no surprise.
America has a long history of letting traitors off the hook. Look at the loyalists in the revolution and come forward. Look at how we romanticize vigilantes and organized crime. The old "put a stick in the eye of government" is what the country was founded on - rebel against the king. That attitude has carried forward right into the right wing of today. There is a great book - Bringing the War Home - that exposes how the returning Vietnam vets returned home with the understanding of how the government let them down (they were right). There are a lot of former military in the militias as we saw on J6 and the events that lead up to them with the parade of armed men in state capitols with no consequences. Another great book written by a Brit titled The Great American Delusion that deals with a number of things in particular our single minded focus on self not community.
Hey, you missed all the big news today. A lot of people were apologizing for Obama building his library on stolen land boy they you really let him off the hook, huh?
Not to mention, they fixed the reflecting pool I guess that’s why you didn’t cover it
Yeah, and how is that impact in your life today phil. ? No, I’m gonna start suggesting a book that my friend will really appreciate I start suggesting to most of you here. He’s a very philosophical guy, and very smart. You would like it because he owns a number of flower fields where he had a raging successfully flower business. And he wrote a book called. TGIT. thank God it’s today. Imagine what you guys would learn from trying to live in today, rather than to live in ancient prehistoric history
The Nazi Republicans: The Rise of Racist Christian Nationalism
Nazi Republicans know what their marching orders are: follow Cheeto’s voter suppression and interference. They are counting on the midterms will be rigged. Every Nazi Republican racist policy that comes from SCOTUS, Cheeto and his WH goons, or those in the legislature is driven by white Christian Nationalism, animated by Project 2025. The Nazi Republican plan seeks to disenfranchise 66% of the electorate.
WE the People demand more of the Democratic party and the Democratic Socialist movement within the party recognize the danger facing the country while the Democratic establishment continue to want business as usual, hoping this too will pass, hoping that they get a nice pat on the head from Nazi Republicans.
These “cowardly lions” as O’Donnell describes them are not to be believed when they say they regret that they voted for something that turns to shit….like Cassidy’s confirmation vote for RFK Jr. Let’s not forget that Cheeto was impeached twice and Senate Republicans prevented conviction because it would sure look bad for the party if two Republican presidents had been forced to leave office. And even if some Republicans did the right thing on the J6 impeachment it wasn’t enough to get the appropriate conviction but for Nixon in that day even Republicans had the moral conviction that there were enough votes for conviction.
Despite their failings the Nazi Republicans have managed until now to obfuscate the true KKK leanings they have for our fellow AfroAmerican citizens as evidenced by the SCOTUS ruling that finally gutted the last remnants of the VRA(Voting Rights Act). Of course the Federalist supported nominations came from a Nazi Repubican institution and with the help of McConnell sealed the partisan SCOTUS now serving.
And for now the Nazi Republicans who have so far rubberstamped Cheeto’s brazen nepotistic corruption are feeling uneasy. Tax breaks for the ultrawealthy donor class while gutting the American social safety net, abandoning American aid to foreign countries but ok with genocide, and firing necessary civil servants in the name of fiscal conservatism can seem alright, federal corruption is a step gone too far. But they’re ok with wining elections by cheating and digitally manipulating the results.
So the Nazi Republicans have shown the American people who they really are. A group of lawless, bought off, immoral, racist, misogynistic culture warriors who have propaganidized themselves to public office. WE the People have seen enough. The electorate should not give them the public office of dogcatcher for at least 20 years.
Cute. Maybe true. But does he really wear a diaper and smell????????????? And Hitler had one ball or some stuff wrong with his genitals... Makes sense.
Yes! All the Canadian veterans knew the song “Hitler Only Has One Ball”, and when they ended up in the local Veteran’s Hospital, used to request it of our band, every Tuesday at their pub, and they sang along
Most of them are gone now, but they would be appalled at what America now calls a ‘President’, and insulted on behalf of their counterparts on the beaches of Normandy…who preserved US Freedom…for THAT!
DJT is not the longer term point. The hard work is to ask if in fact the US presidency is monarchical, this despite all your No Kings ballyhoo, and what minimal but nevertheless sufficient changes are necessary. Try the hard work. Ian
OUCH Ian — can you really blanketly accuse us of NOT doing hard work against this corrupt regime? Very unfair. I led a local chapter of Indivisible for one year, grew it from a mailing list of 8 to over 400 … if you think that was easy, I have a golden arch in DC to sell you.
There's more than one kind of hard work, which a more cautious version of what I wrote would have noted.
But I think if you just intend to just try the old situation that you're very much underestimating what you're up against. Which is great anxiety by the millionaires and billionaires about the continually growing expense of public life, that they're going to have to pay for it. Its because the New Deal was an exercise in economic human rights. that's what the Musks and Thiel's of this world are on about, or so I would argue. They're badly frightened and increasingly doubt if the growth of economic human rights will serve their grasping selves. And they have some grounds for their fears. Ian
Anyone with power can abuse it, as we see so often. The US Constitution is magnificent. We do have a balance of powers... No changes necessary. Remember how they thought about FDR!!! And term limits apply. I taught Con Law at Columbia so I did the hard work Ian. :)
Does anyone else see Pete Kegsbreath's face flash before them when the topic of General Armstrong Custer's arrogance and cruelty arises? Did Custer also bounce up and down on his Florsheims in front of a TV camera when trying to co-splay GI Joe, I wonder?
I think GAC was more of a buckskin moccasin or a leather booted cavalry man than a Florsheim fop as Kegsbreath is. In fact, Custer was a real soldier, earning commendations for his bravery in the Civil War, commendations that Hegseth could only earn on the heavy carbon copy paper pumped out by the late Trump University.
I learned tonight, on another substack, that he did something similar, maintaining his blond hair long specifically for effect. Apparently there were some similarities.
You know, I tried to be nice to you and I haven’t come up with a mean acronym for your name or a pseudonym or a moniker that I can hang on you. But you are beginning to attempt me. Lol.
Lt. Colonel George Custer was so arrogant and condescending to the indigenous tribes that he refused to shake hands with Kiowa Chiefs Satanta and Lone Wolf when they tried to negotiate with him, having them arrested instead and the rest of the tribe confined to Fort Cobb. Custer even led an attack on the surviving members of northern Cheyennes, while his military band played music. In only a few minutes, hundreds of Native Americans were dead, only a few of them warriors. Among the dead was their Chief Black Kettle who had just tried to negotiate a truce and food for his starving people.
These are just a couple of examples of his cruelty and arrogance years before his last stand at Little Big Horn. Custer was a genocidal maniac that got a taste of his own medicine, but it was a short lived victory for the Plains tribes...
Today SCOTUS, "calling balls and strikes", as Justice Roberts likes to say, decided to "Strike Out" immigrants to the US, more than 50 years after Congress passed humane asylum immigration legislation. They did this knowing full well that our Immigration Czar, Steven Miller, is a full on neo-Nazi, white nationalist, itching to throw as many non-white immigrants out of the US as he can. And probably African Americans too, who's forefathers have been in America for many, many more generations than Miller.
Of course, the "joke" is actually on Steven Miller. The people SCOUTS is empowering, will happily toss Miller into an Auschwitz style oven. He maybe a fascist, but he's also Jewish, so there is no way he qualifies as a true American.
How could we possibly have gotten to this point in America? We are so much better than this.
When I was a child in the South in the 1950s, it WAS worse than this. Civil rights battles had been going on since Reconstruction, but they bore fruit in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We CAN find our way out of this debacle - personally, I believe the first thing we have to do is require that political ads provide evidence to substantiate their claims to a board of ethics - we HAVE to do something about the propaganda. But we also have to get an amendment providing terms for justices. The goals require participation. So WE can find our way out of this, but only if WE are all involved.
I was a child (involuntarily) in the South during the 1950s, and while it was bad, it has never in the history of our planet been as bad as it is now: not only are we facing a new Hitler and a new Nazi Regime, this time it has irreversible technological omnipotence, literally infinite wealth and perpetual control of the doomsday button. How could it possibly ever be worse than what it is already becoming?
We are about to find out. The Supine Court is about to announce its decision in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v Barbara. We will learn who qualifies as a real American.
Rick--- you seem ignorant of the facts--- I ran Friends of SNCC at Columbia U 1964-66--- it has been intense for blacks in this country forever!!! And racism, antisemitism, and the common cold are endemic to humanity, too!
I used Knickerbocker restaurant for meetings and Cohn had a table in the back--- he was always eyeing me, sorta drooling... such a fucker. Bad man. But one of Trump's key advisors!!!
Nah! Cohn knew the law and how to subvert it! Miller is an Eichmann wannabe, the only thing missing is the gas chambers in the concentration camps miller created in warehouses! He’s a sniveling suck up reveling in his perverted fantasies in service to the criminally insane Trump!
God so many empty, headed irrational people here it’s amazing just amazing. Have you guys been living in caves for the last 50 years? This country has gone over backwards to end racism, and it did so time and time and time again to the point where it got over the top nuts. I’ll give you one perfect example you’re ready. We have in this country in Congress, a black caucus. Now, what the hell is a black caucus and why are they there? We don’t have a Hispanic caucus. We don’t have an Asian caucus. We don’t have a Haitian caucus. We don’t have a white caucus. Why do we have a black caucus? That’s called special Treatment.
Merrill, I disagree with your last sentence. As HCR's Letter reminds us, "we" are and always have been pretty awful, with only brief, shining moments of decency.
Our aspirations are "better than this," but our lived history falls spectacularly short of what some of us imagine.
Do you find it odd that we discuss Miller this way on this site? I am not countering your analysis in any way, I just find it odd when he comes up in this way on this site, given the connections. I see it daily and I am starting to realize I may be the only person it kind of weirds out [for lack of a better way to put it].
Did you just use the word Auschwitz oven? Well it’s too late to respond, but I’m going to keep this alert for myself so that I respond to you tomorrow. Don’t ever use that word again don’t ever use that phrase again because there’s nothing today that even resembles those words. And to say that to another human being, well I’m not gonna let you get away with it. How’s that?
Well technically there are no ovens but people are getting extinguished as we speak. Including the followers of Islam in China that the Arab followers of Islam could care less about because I guess they are not from the middle east. Also in the Sudan Black Africans who practice Christianity are being extinguished by the Islamic peoples in the North. Nobody seems to care much about either of these atrocities but they are happening right now.
I think you’re missing the biggest point Atlanta. The single most group of persons created individuals on this planet, since the beginning of recorded history, have been the JEWS.
Well, there may not be any ovens today, but any reference to the Nazis has no business being in the lethargy today. Where it should be verboten so to speak. And the only reason I say that Elena is because people use it out of ignorance because they don’t know the whole story or they don’t care, but usually it’s because they don’t know.
I could stop them from saying that by saying look every time you use the word Nazi here’s what we’re gonna do we’re gonna pretend you’re Jewish we’re gonna send a Nazi to you and we’re gonna pardon him in advance for anything he does to you that sound fair to you that OK ? Good
It was not only Jews that were killed. They killed homosexuals and people considered to have mental defects, some with physical defects, and gypsies and Roma and Communists. When One is not Safe, NOONE is Safe!
That is NOT what people mean when they call someone a Nazi!
It would be more accurate (c Wiki) to use the term neo-Nazi.
However, let me suggest you try that sentence again with the word “Hispanic” or “Haitian.” People ARE dying and they have just gotten started - and getting more money from Congress.
The word Nazi has no applicability to today and should never be seen or heard by somebody here. Now, if you want to use it in a demeaning fashion, that’s fine but to call somebody that name today my wish for them is to be a Jew and to meet a Nazi and let them be treated the way Nazi would treat the Jews back then and then we would never hear from these people would be very appropriate
And you are fairly ignorant when you come to trying to compare a Nazi or the use of the word to Hispanic or Haitian.
You do realize that Joe Biden flew Haitians in here regardless of previous criminal record etc.
have you ever heard or read the book suicidal empath. ? Pick up a copy
What’s the matter you don’t like the Supreme Court anymore? You sure did like it when they came out with the abortion really did didn’t you? But now Trump actually made it a democratic event rather than controlled by nine elites in Washington that you currently hate. Isn’t that amazing why don’t you thank Trump for doing that because he did.
Well, actually, because my member is large enough and long enough, I could actually fuck myself in my face while you go have to look for yours even when you go to the bathroom to pee. I hope you’re enjoying that new increase in sales tax in California as if it wasn’t enough that they’re the highest tax state with gasoline property personal income tax. Now they’re increasing the sales tax to 10% and in Florida as an example, the sales tax is 4% and they’re ready to put it on the ballot and initiative to eliminate property tax entirely.
The Supreme Court was never democratic. That is the job of Congress. The Supreme Court should only invalidate laws that conflict with the US Constitution. Congress can overrule any Supreme Court decision if they get enough votes, but they rarely do this, still they have the right to do it.
Elena, you just made my point for me, but you were thrilled to death with the abortion ruling weren't you by the what did you call them a undemocratic bunch?
But now the issue of abortion is up to the voters is it not?
Oh, and by the way, here's another thought for you
INEPTOCRACY
IN-ep-toc'-ra-cyl
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services aid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Yes it is up to the voters. We are a democracy. If you do not rule by the people you should move to Russia or somewhere else where the people's opinions do not count.
There has never been a national vote on abortion, so how can you make the above statement. Unless everyone has a chance to vote on this issue, then the vote is NOT legitimate?
The Supreme Court today is exact doing exactly what the Supreme Court has done for years. Wow I get to. I get to respond to Merrill again. This is cool. Hey Merrill, you’re outside your fucking mind House that I can’t get any clearer. And guess what TPS just got defeated today. You ever hear the book suicidal empathy you should read it.
Steffen Miller is a full on support of Israel and his Jewish are you living on Mars or Pluto or where these days? Steven Millie doesn’t give a shit if they’re white or black or green or purple. If they’re here illegally they’re here illegally. End of sentence. And I didn’t know that you were such a raving racist but now I do and so does the public here because everybody should be treated equally not specially equally got that word equally equally think of that equally no special treatment for anybody
The only case you can make is a nutcase, which fits you perfectly oh, and by the way
The war is OVER….WE WON… Let me see if I can help you here. Their entire military fleet is underwater or 48 warships but they process. Billions of dollars of warships
All their military aircraft is gone..billions of dollars Their industrial military complex and infrastructure is gone Their uranium is buried under grounds of disaster and rubble for now, but that will end soon enough Allow me to continue
In the suite was closed. They were losing $500 million a day of revenue.which is 80% of their economy Therefore they have a 50% unemployment rate right now approximately an 85% estimated inflation rate which something is over 300%
All of your original leaders, including the ayatollah, and alter, military leaders were destroyed in a bombing ..The secondary replacements who took their place was destroyed, in a bombing….Derek third tier of leader ship replacements were destroyedIn a bombing…they are trying to find new leaders who are willing to soon look like the previous three regimes, which are dead…
They recently killed 45,000 protesters in a big march because the populace is becoming a little bit less supportive with women walking around without heat jobs in miniskirts Which used to be punishable by stoning
And any and all money that’s going to be paid to them it’s going to come through American coppers, American companies, American suppliers, American banks, etc.
So please awaken from your truck induced delusion, evaluate what I printed up here because if this is any way to win a war I’m sure glad you’re not anywhere near a leadership position
They recently killed 45,000 protesters in a big march because the populace is becoming a little bit less supportive with women walking around without heat jobs in miniskirts Which used to be punishable by stoning--- Rick, this should be deleted since it is FALSE.
Heat? miniskirts? --- shame on you!!! You know nada. I am done with you as I wrote... too off and out of control and wrong.
We colonizers have been viciously brutal since day one. The native population may appear to have been "beaten," but I believe Mother Nature keeps score... and that's why we have a concept called "karma". In my bones, I feel a reckoning is coming. (see: the lack of water in many parts of our country... and how many stupid people think it's more important to use it for AI data centers than for people for example) And the native population maybe be all that's left. Just thinking out loud.
Thank you for saying you share my concern. We as a species are so f-ing self-centered. I fear this isn’t going to end well. Look at the heat wave in Europe! 😱
So sad... Ted Turner complained that God did not make humans smarter and nicer. War itself since Day 1 has to be the dumbest activity ever... and exterminating species as we have done is veryyyy bad karma!!! Also, see Mara Cohen on Facebook, Indian Jewish! :)
And it never stopped. The poorest people in this country TODAY are the ones who were here first. We and the US government have always treated them like the enemy and it still continues. In a technologically superior 21st century, only 80% of indigenous people have access to electricity. We, as a nation should be ashamed and do something about it.
No. Profits from casinos are turned over to the tribes whose members run the casinos. No Native American casino operators are getting "rich" from casinos.
Because turning a profit is not the same as "getting rich." Casino profits are turned over to tribal leadership to be invested in infrastructure and assistance to the tribal population. The tribal people being helped by casino profits are not getting rich. In fact, most residents of reservations live below poverty levels. Without the aid of casino revenues, they'd be destitute.
I'm editing to add that casinos have to pay extraordinary taxes to the states and/or communities where they're located.
FYI, in Arkansas, Baptists blocked casinos, claiming gambling is "against God's will." Legislators finally ignored the Bible-thumpers and legalized casinos when tribal casino organizers promised to pay massive taxes to the state. The tax revenue would be redistributed to college students as scholarships and also, fund the gaming commission. The chance of an Indigenous student receiving a scholarship is nearly zero.
You're right, Neal. One of the worst "gifts" we gave the tribes we wanted to subdue was alcohol. Contagious diseases weren't far behind. A forever shame.
Wait for today's Supreme Court to rule that birthright citizenship doesn't include those still living on ancestral lands on top of oil, gold, natural gas, cobalt, uranium and rare earth metal deposits that mysteriously keep ending up in the Republican Party's bank accounts.
I seriously can’t; I really need them to do us this one solid and just tell trump no in one sentence on this one. I am going to need to invest in pepcid if this keeps up.
Though I had a good public school education and then earned a bachelor’s and two masters degrees, I knew almost nothing about America’s indigenous peoples. Now that I’m retired, I’ve had the time to take classes and read about how Americans “conquered” the Indians who were here first. That history should have been part of my early education. When we’ve gotten our country’s leadership restored, I hope that American history is provided in more truth and detail to all our children. Knowing about the past makes more sense of the present.
In 7th grade, one of our teachers had us keep a journal for the year, “pretending” we were on the trail of tears. That has really stuck with me for the almost 4 decades since. We have to teach history; I fully believe the failure to do so is why we are in this situation today.
I think that in red states nowadays, kids are taught that the “pure” white man was first in America, and those nasty savage Indians came later to take their jobs…
Laurie, I agree with you. I am truly aggravated about all the days I was forced to sit in school listening to all this white washed bull sh-t. Like you I am like a sponge to learning the truth.
“Back on May 1, my friend Katie Phang joined us for Five Questions. Four days earlier, she had sued Todd Blanche over DOJ’s failure to fully release the Epstein Files in compliance with the Transparency Act. At the time, I called it “a novel theory, but one that’s very elegant.” And tonight, I can add successful. Late this afternoon, the Judge entered an injunction in her favor.
Katie explained her lawsuit like this in Five Questions: “This lawsuit is about making lawyers actually obey the law. Since December 19, 2025 [the date Congress set for full release of the files], the Trump DOJ has violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act and, in doing so, it has prevented me from being able to do my job as an independent journalist.”
*See link for full story on Substack. And we are grateful to United States District Judge Emmet G Sullivan.
DOJ has until July 2 to comply with the order. Tick Tock.
We’re in this together, Joyce”
…
‘Finally: A Judge Orders the Government to Release the Rest of the Epstein Files in a Lawsuit Filed by Katie Phang’
Thanks for the link and info regarding Katie Phang's lawsuit. I read (diagonally) through the material and ended up with the feeling that DOJ's intent is to keep kicking the can down the road past the elections this fall. If Trump and company prevail, then all of this is for naught.
Well Ed (Iowa) let's hope we don't see this cover-up go on and on while we pay wages to the Republican congress while they treat this free PTO time as a game. .
A book from the 1970’s rocked my world when I was in my 20’s. It is “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown. We are so fortunate to have Heather introduce history into today’s political landscape. There is much that has been forgotten and she brings the goods every time.
Notable Apache chiefs include Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, Mangas Coloradas, Juh, Nana, and Lozen, among others.
The Apache people, native to the southwestern United States, were organized into various bands, each with its own leaders. Some of the most prominent Apache chiefs and leaders include:
Geronimo (Goyathlay) – A Chiricahua Apache medicine man and warrior, Geronimo became famous for his resistance against Mexican and U.S. forces in the late 19th century. He led raids across Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico, eventually surrendering in 1886 and later living on reservations in Florida and Oklahoma
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Cochise – A Chiricahua Apache chief known for defending Apache lands in southeastern Arizona. Cochise resisted American expansion and formed alliances with other Apache leaders, maintaining autonomy for his people until his death
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Victorio – Chief of the Chiricahua Apache, Victorio led his band in numerous raids and evaded U.S. forces for over a decade. He was killed in 1880 in Mexico after being surrounded by troops
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Mangas Coloradas – A Mimbreno Apache chief and father-in-law to Cochise, Mangas Coloradas was a key figure in Apache resistance against settlers and military forces in Arizona and New Mexico
Lozen – Sister of Victorio, Lozen was a warrior and prophet who participated in battles and was known for her spiritual abilities and strategic insight
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Other notable chiefs include Santos, Nahche, Nakaidoklini, Bonito, and Eskiminzin, who played important roles in negotiations, warfare, and maintaining Apache culture across different bands
These leaders are remembered for their bravery, strategic leadership, and resistance to colonization, and they remain central figures in Apache history and cultural heritage.
The Battle of Little Bighorn should be remembered as one of the greatest military screw-ups in our history. I can think of no other failed military operation that resulted in 100% casualties.
In histories I’ve read, Custer had big political ambitions he no doubt believed would be boosted by glorious military victories against “hostile” western natives. In his arrogance he vastly underestimated the strength and spirit of his Lakota adversaries. He shouldn’t be remembered as some kind of hero.
And a big part of the reason he is remembered as such is because of the PR campaign that his widow did. There’s a big statue of Custer on horseback in Monroe, Michigan.
Very likely Ms. Custer had ambitions similar to her husband’s that were dashed that day at the Little Bighorn. She was going to get what she could from his memory.
I read that Custer had presidential aspirations. Given the rashness and lack of strategic thinking he demonstrated at Little Bighorn, it’s probably a good thing he never made it. Mrs. Custer no doubt had detailed plans in mind for re-decorating the White House. Alas, we’ll never know what curtain material she had picked out.
Sadly, at least since the dawn of the Holocene, prolonged episodes of brutal conquest have been recurrent themes in our history, and on every continent. One can only hope that Carney is wrong, and that the current mess is but a temporary departure from the new path we have been trying to set for humanity since the end of the second world war. Maybe with the help of leadership from the Canadians and Europeans we can get past this sort of horrific behavior.
Just because Johnson, Nixon, both Bushes, and Trump led military engagements that violated the principles set forth in Kennedy's speech, the course he proposed was the right one. The thing about positive values is that it is a daily task to both remind ourselves of what they are, and then attempt to follow through and live up to them. Philosophers down through the ages, in many corners of the earth have understood this. It was perhaps most clearly expressed in the ideals of Shinto, Buddhism, and the concept of a liturgy developed by the medieval church. The structural idea is much less about some specific dogma than it is the notion that for us to have a chance to live up to whatever we believe, we have to work at it. Routine recitation of our principles is a powerful tool for giving us that chance.
Laziness in general, and mental laziness in particular are perhaps our worst enemies. Being a critical thinker takes work. Being honest takes work. Those are alien concepts to Trump simply because he is one of the mentally laziest persons to ever walk across a political stage. Plus, he feeds his demons instead of the better angels of his nature. He is his own Iago. But as JFK insisted, we can all do better. All we have to do is make that commitment to ourselves, and that is a commitment we can all make. So yes, I choose to be an optimist.
Anyone who has read biographies of George Armstrong Custer knows he was a character. Self aggrandizing egomaniac. Headstrong, energetic young man who rankled at authority. He knew better than all the generals. Rushing to murder indigenous women and children, his career and life were over at age 36.
America has had some characters. Senator Joe McCarthy and his lead attorney Roy Cohn, for example. Two characters who held the nation, the Press and the opposition spellbound with fear and hate. Their talent was complete devotion to immorality. To attack innocents with hell fire and vengeance, without scruples for their historically dishonorable acts. Few in the nation had the balls, the guts to stand up to them. For fear they would be branded "red commies".
Interestingly, neither Joe or Roy were motivated by money. Just the thrill of power over others. The "Army-McCarthy" investigations and hearings that grabbed the attention of America for months, were touted as scouring the Army for red commie Russian spies. In reality, the cause of the attacks and accusations about the Army was Cohn's petulent anger at the Army Generals for insulting Roy's boyfriend. Of course, no one in the Press who knew this truth had the courage to blow the whistle.
Today we have a President who trained and learned about law breaking from Roy Cohn. This time the power character is motivated not by power but by money. Governing with competence has never held Donald's attention. But offer him gold trophies he didn't earn. Offer him luxury airplanes and golf resorts and cash. Now you have his attention.
The opposition and the Press are so easily fooled and distracted. Read about Roy Cohn in depth. Understand the power of breaking laws so big and so fast the cops can't keep up. Track the schemes and cons and scams the Trump Family are perpetrating on Americans. Acknowledge that the "fix is in". Donald and his family control the military, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, half the Congress and two thirds of the Supreme Court. They are free to loot us citizens without fear of prosecution. And they are doing it.
Like a mob boss, the spoils of the crimes and cons trickle down to the Reps and Senators and judges and paid public officials who enable the looting. The GOP Senators are working for the Trump Family now. Not us.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn wasn’t the beginning of the story.
It was the consequence of repeatedly breaking treaties, ignoring the law when it became inconvenient, and then calling the people defending their own land “hostile.”
That pattern should sound familiar.
Darkest chapter in American History and boy do we have some dark history.
The movie Little Big Man was released in 1970 and has been aired repeatedly throughout the years. I saw it the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years of high school. The massacre scene in the movie changed my life. Thanks to the movie, I became aware of the myriad atrocities committed by the US Army and the various administrations from the late 1600's through, well, today.
It is the largest genocide of against any group of indigenous people in the known history of the world. Heather could recount events like Little Big Horn everyday and not cover them all in a year. I recommend reading her book - Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre.
We can never make up for the atrocities committed against the Native Americans.
We can't make that up, GJ, because of parallel atrocities normalized.
Trail of Tears. Sand Creek. Forced internment of Japanese Americans. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Selma. My Lai. Abu Ghraib. Minab.
The rapes of 1200 girls and young women by the rich and powerful mutually invested with Donald and Jeffrey just continue the lawlessness -- and merge with many other international branches of criminality.
Schools in U.S. and abroad, more guided by humanities and essaying, or just testing?
Add the enslavement of Black people to the list. It went on so long that it's hard to pin a particular place or event to it. Selma happened long after it (supposedly) ended, and Tulsa happened more than 50 years before that.
Duly noted, Susanna.
Tulsa now added to short list. As is Wounded Knee.
Selma happened because it was allowed to happen. When Jews tried the same, they were murdered. I"ll take a march and a few fire hosings to being murdered.
I taught US History for 28 years. These constant swipes at schools are part of the war on public schools. I did not expect to find it here.
We aren't teaching enough now and have not been in the past. We need to address this. It is not a reflection on teachers, the vast majority of whom are ridiculously under paid, under resourced, under valued, and over managed. However, if we pretend there is no problem, then we will never find a solution.
And teachers are being pressured not to teach the full history of the USA, only the White Nationalist version. It's not their fault. DEI is under attack on all sides.
I marched with underfunded teachers on strike in the LA City School system back in 1969-70. Even then, we had a selfish, greedy and anti-intellectual streak in the country that translated into chronic underfunding. I had to learn about Black and Indigenous US history from my UU church in the 2010s. What's wrong with this country?
It doesn't help that trump is having history erased in the Smithsonian and national park exhibits. Links in the Arlington cemetery's website of blacks, women, and Hispanics have been deleted. I understand that a placard honoring black soldiers in the Netherlands? has been removed.
What's your solution? Oh, and what's the problem that needs a solution?
Darling if you taught history in a US high school then you KNOW HE IS RIGHT.
I quite literally had not heard much of this until today. We were not taught anything about the subjugation of the American Indian in US History in the 1970's. We were taught that things like the 'Battle of Little Bighorn' was betrayal by 'the natives'. I think my 'Native American' history was less than a week out of 13 years. They were too busy celebrating 200 years of "America F#$% Yeah" and explaining how the blameless settlers dealt with such 'hardships'.
Reading Tad Stoermer's "A Resistance History of the United States". I'm 4 chapters in. Normally I'm one of those people who reads a book in one sitting. But every new revelation makes my head spin and the nausea roil. I have to read it in small chunks not just to process how horrible the founding fathers were.. but to process HOW MUCH MY TEACHERS LIED. American history books for high schoolers are whitewashed to the extreme. I already know that when he gets to the Civil Rights movement I'm going to lose my mind.
I am a strong proponent of public schools. Literally every woman in my family besides me and my cousin's daughter, the banker, on both sides for 3 generations is a teacher. I'm pro-union and anti-administration. There are few things more important than the ideal of a free public education.
But if you can't admit that we have a history of whitewashing what our children learn then you were most definitely part of the problem.
I graduated from a public high school in 1969. Knew none of this until I became an adult. Embarrassed to say I had never heard of Emmett Till until I was well into my 60s. We need to be truthful in our classrooms.
You lost me at “darling”.
Condescension has no place here.
Can’t wait to read Tad’s book—it’s next on my list.
In the 90’s they just didn’t teach us anything about Little Big Horn or any other indigenous history for that matter… skipped it all together (in one of the top rated districts in the state). We didn’t read a single book in both 7th and 8th combined. Wow was private 9th grade a massive struggle/catch up for me.
If you want to learn more about our Indigenous population's history, I am reading Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal. I'm less than 100 pages in, but am very impressed, and I think you will like it.
Yes! Also a fan of resistance history. Highly recommend
Mary, I've been reading Mr. Balla's comments for more than a year. His comments are often misinterpreted – usually by active or retired teachers – as attacks on public schools. In fact, his ire is directed at the U.S. Government and complicit school administrations that distort education policy such that the humanities are suppressed and teachers are constrained to "teach to the test." He is really on the teachers' side and supports public schools. It's the policymakers for whom he has contempt.
Dale, this is true. However, his solution is too simple. This time he could have left that part out as well. My husband has Lakota ancestry and they celebrated this day yesterday with nary a mention of the humanities.
Am I the Mary to whom you refer? This has been a bumpy ride! I have read Balla’s comments for a while now. I’m prepared to be wrong or cranky, but I confess to being sick of teacher bashing and public school bashing, too. The conservative right wing has targeted public education for decades and I was personally targeted by conservative women of america for the first 10 years of my career for simply using a sociology textbook that dared to show LGBTQI families as normal. Teachers who dare to teach real us history are targeted and harassed if they are at public schools with weak leadership. In my case it stopped when I transferred to a school within the same district that took harassment of teachers as if their family was under attack.
Mary, have you seen what they’re doing to the standards in Texas? That is the actual war on public schools. Phil is advocating for improvements—changes that emphasize critical thinking. I don’t think that is part of the war on education at all.
Unfortunately, Texas determines what goes into our History books.
A war of ideas? Oh no!
I don't view it as a swipe on the public schools, but rather a swipe on the weak curriculum the history teachers had to work with. My 8th grade American History teacher was awesome, but the curriculum didn't really cover the myriad mass murders of any of the tribes.
When I got to high school even the AP History class didn't cover these events. Kudos to you Mary for teaching your students about the atrocities committed by the US Cavalry and Government against many minority groups.
Even the "swipes" entirely miss their mark though Gary.
These "swipes" show what our education system does not teach! Truthfully, I have learned so much here on LFAA that wasn't taught when I was in school & I graduated in 1955! This is NOT a swipe on teachers - but our education system itself. I agree with Emma who commented below. There is a problem and currently, even more of a problem with the damage by this current administration, it really must be repaired going forward.
I too graduated high school in 1955 and admit all through school emphasis was on how exceptional the USA was. I have to believe most teachers in 1937 to 1955 were taught the same basic principles of the USA being exceptional. So now we know better and the question is what are we (individual we and corporate we) going to do about it?
Mary, I went to public schools and very much appreciate what they do. But at the same time, having read real history books, like The 1619 Project and Heather's Wounded Knee, I have realized that at least in the schools I went to, history classes covered things like the Pilgrims, but never got as far even as the Civil War, and definitely did not cover anything positive about the Indigenous people of our country. My assessment of the history classes I got was that they taught to the image that the US has always wanted maintained. I hope your classes were different.
America the excellent - that's what has been taught for far too long.
I don't think any of my teachers in any subject were willing to go against the curriculum or ideology of the schools where they were teaching.
I worked as a computer consultant for the Knights of Columbus for almost 13 years and yet I never criticized the business or the Catholic Church when I worked there.
But since I've retired, I don't hold back.
Can also add all the obscene prison/concentration camps holding immigrants today to the list of atrocities at the hands of our government.
Yes, Bambi -- my short list was too short.
Someone else here recommended addition of Tulsa. Yes. Also proper to add Wounded Knee. Now, too, "ICE and CBP murderous round-ups for U.S. concentration camps."
There's nothing wrong with humanities and essaying when accompanied by math and sciences. Note most European students take coursework that's the equivalent of our one to two years of college so American students miss out on the critical thinking skills of philosophy. And more stop any learning skills here in our country when life long learning is not a nice to have but a requirement. And the powerful failure to learn any language but English where you learn the nuances of gesture and slang along with the actual words.
Phil, our history and the history of nearly every other place is filled with atrocities which are part of the human pattern. Not every event is about teaching or not of the humanities. No amount of education can get rid of greed, racism, genocide, etc.
The actions of nations reflected the vagaries of each other for centuries. Military power was in hand with industrial growth. New methods of transportation enabled waterway access to the whole planet. The wealth of nations and the success or failure of their military endeavors created a competition to rule larger segments of the populace. Borders were a tentative line in the sand which shifted as colonial opportunity encircled the globe. Nations grabbed each other. There really was no spare dignity of consequence. Populations the earth over shifted in response to famine, war, persecution and disease. There have been earmarks of change but most significantly not until ww2 ended and the United Nations came about. That event brought a shift in attitudes which made the twentieth century stand apart. That nations joined together on a worldwide playing field shows the magnitude of human change. The era of the sail ended. We are the recipients of a vastly new order. Change has been the constant in world domination. Change will stay the constant. Domination has the opportunity to give way to cooperation. How we begin to deal with each other is no longer unthinkable.
Pat, I would agree about the role of industrialization in giving Europe and us a leg up in terms of conquest. Humans without modern technology managed to commit plenty of atrocities in search of power, wealth, etc. I would hope we can learn to cooperate, but we have people like death star. Also with climate change we are going to have a lot of people with all sorts of problems.
I agree with you except on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As has been said over and over by experts, those two prevented the deaths of perhaps a million more American soldiers.
You've a good point there, Dave.
Though, too, other experts have been going round and round on this one (many other complications then, much other history, involved).
My own father was waiting to go ashore in the U.S. planned landings that November.
Phil, I'm thankful to you and Heather for mentioning the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864. Most Colorado school children learn about it; most school children in other states do not.
My freshman year in college I lived in the White Antelope dorm. Cheyenne Chief White Antelope was a peace advocate before being murdered at Sand Creek. The dorm had previously been named Nichols Hall, after Captain David Nichols, who brutally participated in the massacre.
For me it is a sign of respect to hear Native Americans tell their own stories, and not rely solely on non-native accounts, as important and respectful as they might be. Cheyenne George Bent was a survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre. "The Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters" is his correspondence with historian George Hyde.
"The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapahoe People Forever," from History Colorado, compiles accounts from eye witnesses and their descendents, and other historical sources.
I wondered if anyone would bring up Little Big Man. It was the first movie I saw that showed Native Americans in a good way. One of my favorite movies. I will read her book!
My fourth grade teacher in rural Wyoming showed us, “I will fight no more forever “ the story of chief Joseph “ leading his people to Canada, almost making it. I still remember
The scene from that Arthur Penn directed movie has forever stuck in my head is at the end where the character played by Dustin Hoffman follows Chief Dan George (the Native American actor) to a hilltop to die because the old man thinks it's a good day to do that.
"You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather. And now You have decided the Human Beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere. I am gonna die now, unless death wants to fight... Today is a good day to die."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_Man_(film)
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_big_man.pdf#
there are other great quotes from that movie
The movie takes artistic license with history somewhat which HCR, so into actual details, may object to.. nevertheless it's a great movie imo.
Most memorable film.
GJ Loft ME CA FL IL NE CT MI,
Thank you for recommending Heather's book. Our prejudices often seem ever-growing. In my opinion it reveals "white person's" deep insecurities that someone is out to take what they believe belongs completely to them!!!
There is this depressing fact. In history, no country dominated by a majority race has ever seen a different race reach the majority without extreme violence. Non-hispanic whites will soon be a minority here.
But it does not follow that violence is inevitable. Modern democratic institutions, legal protections, economic interdependence, and broadly shared civic identities can all reduce the likelihood that demographic change results in widespread violence. History offers warnings, not deterministic predictions.
So I choose to look past the Trump disaster with some hope. I think it is past time for us all to do so.
This country has enormous strengths, still. One of our chief strengths is our capacity to change.
The demographics have inexorably shifted. I often think about the overwhelming changes that occurred in Russia as the Romanovs gave way to the revolution of the Bolshevik’s under Lenin after WWI. The Red Terror led to the deaths of millions. Stalin regime followed with accounts of as many as Twenty million dead not counting those killed in WWII. In 1999 Putin made his move killing 100,000-200,000 Chechnya s who were Soviet citizens. Ultimately he has been credited with murdering 1.1 million people. I think we can do better. Even with Trumps pale death toll of some 600,000, I don’t see the need to conduct killing sprees to adjust profiles of race.
“Wounded Knee..” was our introduction to Heather’s works. We keep the book in view and lend it often. Each reader has been left with a profound sadness…and new awareness of the ugly side of our history.
How The South Won The Civil War was mine.
Those rat bastards still are trying, and think they'll win.
It makes me wonder how many students in Maine know who Heather Cox Richardson is. I know the Bangor Daily News has never mentioned her to my knowledge.
Could we give this land back to them to own and govern?
I have been thinking for awhile now that they should manage the forests- bring in native youth, teachable moments
For whatever reason, I started reading the book "Little Big Man" yesterday (not for the first time, and I've also watched the movie). Fictional account, but there's enough fact in it to emphasize the atrocities. Well worth reading or watching this account.
Saw the movie too. Try Dances With Wolves. It has the same theme.
I remember Jeremiah Johnson I came out in movie theaters about the same time as Little Big Man. They don’t make movies like that anymore.
Thanks for the book rec, I will pick it up
Well said, GJ. And to think there’s Native American children that go hungry. The stain continues.
As we continue committing them on a daily basis.
I will definitely get her book, thanks.
I agree with your conclusion, and would also recommend reading Heather's book. The subject matter is very difficult, but the writing is excellent.
We remember the genocide but we can't forget the few who took action to try to right the wrong. See what the same General Crooks did to alter the course of history.
Crooks took action which resulted in the structure of law that produced the 1960's civil rights legislation. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Little Big Horn is how it started.
https://wavesandpositions.substack.com/p/150-years-after-little-bighorn-history
"We can never make up for the atrocities committed against the Native Americans." OF course you can. Instead of writing comments about what a good person you are, why not give the land under your house back to the Indians?
I’m not sure we’re not growing our very own new darkest of chapters.
I worry about that too. History doesn’t repeat itself exactly, but it often rhymes in the patterns we choose to normalize.
Hello Kelli... As a Rule-Of-Thumb, Chinese, and Egyptian Dynasties lasted between 200 to 300 years... Unless this American Experiment is Reinvigorated, Time Is Ticking...
I don't know if there is a standard expiration date, but yes, a lot has been unraveling. I expect dramatic change one way or another.
Hello J L ... After the Constitutional Convention, when asked what Form of Government we had, Ben Franklin replied, "A Republic If We Can Keep It"....
As do I JL. Imagine the fulfillment of the constitutional promise. Imagine ending conflict between governments. Imagine a kind of equality given every person on earth. Imagine changes in practices which harm the planet.
Time is ticking, Apache, and Putin is getting humiliated.
He's going to start throwing nukes. He hates the west. Cannot imagine in all his arrogance that Zelensky and his fellow Ukrainians can, as they are now doing, beat the forces that corrupt Putin and his fellow corrupt oligarchs have themselves self-decimated -- scarcely three decades after having looted (with U.S. investing aid) Mother Rus's vast resources for their own corruption.
I dread having to see the "civilized" world descend into its own vast looting and self-decimation following the interruptions the first nukes will let ensue.
There is another possibility, Phil.
Russians may take things into their own hands. They have done it before. This Czar is flailing. Their economic minister just created a film flam of a funding scheme to keep the nation afloat. Russia is on financial dialysis.
Russians are hurting, shortages and high prices. Their young men are being fed into a wood chipper.
Energy infrastructure is being wrecked by Ukrainian drones.
Putin's war is a failure by any measure.
I could be wrong. It happens all the time. But I think Putin and Trump have some things in common: Arrogance, bad judgement and vulnerability. I think it's a crap shoot as to which one goes down first.
Phil Balla,
I have so much respect for Zelensky.
This is a comment directed to all of you who have lauded Zelensky which is also my sentiment. I was in London last month staying at a hotel owned by a middle eastern consortium. As were most employees it seemed, there was a young man from outside UK but not of Middle Eastern descent at the front desk with whom I engaged. I asked him from where he came. "Ukraine" the reply. At this I went into full blown apology and my own admiration of Zelensky and his resilient courage. His immediate reply to my focus on Zelensky was, "Well, the Ukrainian people." I responded "of course, oh yes of course" and continued with my effusive apology for my country's failings of late. He responded almost with tears thanking me, expressing how much my words meant. Henceforth, whenever I hear reference to Zelensky or his brave countrymen, I will always remember Bohdan, and the people from whom arose one of the world's heros of our time.
As an aside my father often talked about that idea alluded to in these comments--does the man make the times or do the times make the man? (Or woman)
Hello Phil... I hope that the Nukes are never used.... I hope that another 1905, or 1917 occurs first....
Apache, as it turns out, this 200-to-300-year meter seems to govern many realms of human existence. I remember learning that religion can be measured in the same blocks of time.
And resonate with our capacities for compassion and for sociopathic greed. And yes, it seems that "normal" can be both a source of comfort and trust, and anesthetizing facade for many horrors.
I’ve been writing more about these patterns at We Have Friends Everywhere—the rule of law, public trust, and what happens when accountability stops at the powerful. If this conversation resonates with you, everything there is free to read.
https://wehavefriendseverywhere.substack.com
It seems that the ugly side of human nature is a constant, ans at at times, is overwhelming. And always there are those who mean no harm and are just pursuing a decent life.
In which context these lines, from a 900-year-old ballad, seem especially relevant:
"O see ye not yon narrow road
So thick beset with thorns and briers?
That is the path of righteousness,
Though after it but few enquires.
"And see ye not that braid, braid road
That lies across that lily leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Though some call it the road to Heaven."
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DwE1u45a5U&list=RD_DwE1u45a5U&start_radio=1)
Loren Bliss,
Thank you for sharing these wise words that remain relevant even after 900 years.
Have we not yet learned to love, honor and appreciate one another? Have we chosen to reject rather than listen to wisdom from the ages?
We will pay for our self-centered, short term motives for personal gain and power...only for our lifetime... ignoring the future of our country and our friends throughout the world, and our grandchildren....ignoring the gifts, sacrifices and wisdom of those who came before us.
I believe that key to wisdom is a fruitful sense of what most matters, and we don't seem to me to focus on that very much in our game-obsessed society.
One of things we have lost and time plays a role here the 30 minute sit com and it’s 30 minute resolution with the journey of a good and or heroic person. I like comics and I like stories but we have been in an era of the anti hero and again Milton’s Lucifer or Shakespeare’s Lady Mc Beth fascinating characters but not real life and also only part and parcel. The real work of good people and those that fall into that category is hard and not easy . And one doesn’t have to be heroic to know being good or doing the right thing can be cumbersome and difficult. Easy to follow the crowns the only tale about sheep falling off of a cliff or the lemmings. There have been many times in my life where I thought damnation this is going to hard but it is the moral and ethical thing to do. I hope all of us can learn that again. And history shows us what happens when people do not make the hard choices and also shows us what happens when ethics and morals are followed.
True Thomas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Rhymer
"The brief outline of the ballad is that while Thomas is lying outdoors on a slope by a tree in the Erceldoune neighborhood, the queen of Elfland appears to him riding upon a horse and beckons him to come away. When he consents, she shows him three marvels: the road to Heaven, the road to Hell, and the road to her own world (which they follow). After seven years, Thomas is brought back into the mortal realm. Asking for a token by which to remember the queen, he is offered the choice of having powers of harpistry, or else of prophecy, and of these he chooses the latter."
I stopped believing in elves and prophesy long ago, but some myths model patterns of truth, and while the future's not ours to see, but some sequences are likely to proceed with regularity, and with keen observation and thought, and perhaps a dash of artful intuition, some people appear to me more reliably "prophetic", at some points in history, and likely in the present. It seems like a good way to go.
And isn't life an endless presentation of choices?
No one has ever proven yet that there would be an ugly side of "human nature" in the first place.
Yes, people can do a lot of harm. The question is: is that in their very nature, or is it the result of a good nature harming others out of ignorance, ignorance caused by certain conditions that aren't the fault of anyone... ?
I think more of the behaviors of people, for good or ill, are shaped by circumstances than we like to admit, but that our nature is contains both social and antisocial impulses, to varying degrees that are filtered by parenting and community. You see it in playgrounds. It also seems that in any era or society that unaccountable power tends to corrupt.
Many dark chapters exist, but yes, among the worst.
Don't forget the Trail of Tears. Equally horrific.
We are a democratic Republic, not an empire. Letters From An American is a light on our history, not a darkness.
It's just sad that humans, with all their intellect, can be so stupid. And cruel. It's always better to know history, warts and all, than to squeeze your eyes shut tightly.
Mary Ann, years ago, I wrote in an essay that included this: "... the greatest strength is also the greatest weakness."
This is true when considering human intellect. It is our greatest strength and also, our greatest weakness.
Of all the creatures on Earth, only humans are capable of hate. Every other creature is either predator or prey, but regardless, they do not hate those they harm or would harm them.
Hate is a uniquely human response, but it is not instinctive. Hate must be taught by one human to another. That teaching/learning requires intellect.
South Pacific Tge song You have to be Carefully Taught. Roger’s and Hammerstein. It still has truths in it .
It's liitle wonder Trump doesn't want Americans to be reminded how their nascent democracy got off to the worst possible start and didn't improve much after that either.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/04/trump-us-history
Mike Hammer.., Sad but true..., a SS mentality dwells amongst us (in the cowardice minds of the Jan 6'ers, for example). Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco "little boy" Cruz, Tulsi..., for another example. And, ICE. But, being the cowards they are.., the wannabe's.., they would've been trashed by the SS because they lack the guts. Some sick people Out there. We, are indeed an "island", and "they" are "rubbing us out" one by one. What's the actual number of detention centers? What is the number of detainees? How about categorizing the reasons for detention? To get the real picture of what is going one on, this needs to be tracked daily, Remember, ICE is the personal gestapo of one man, and it aint heggseth.
Alex, don’t believe ‘the gutsy’ impression of the SS that you seem to have is anything beyond a war movie portrayal and the perverse elevation of enemy strength as part of elevating oneself for having vanquished them.
The SS were every bit as flawed and cowardly humans as the current crop of white supremacists and ‘proud boy’s’, et al.
Most modern Germans are made of much better stuff than the SS. (But Americans? Our gen remains to show the metal we’re made of!)
Mark, I don't watch "war movies", and you're right about their "portrayal". I dislike making any mention of the SS but we are quite headed in that direction. I should say 'established in that direction'. Yes, many Germans were not Party members. In particular, the pilots, strangely enough. Like ordinary German citizens they could be arrested. Kind of like ICE is doing today. Seeing is believing, and much is being obscured from view.
So far. Our perpetually refreshed involvement in "regime change" wars and atrocities up to and including today - will we NEVER learn? - suggests we are almost certain to make even the darkest eras we've survived seem as white, pure, bright, as the driven snow. Now, with nukes!
And a dark present too... 😔
And what about the bright history? And if you're upset by this ,give the land under your hosue back to the Indians and pay rent.
CONTRAST THIS... While Trump has spent $400 million of our taxpayer dollars on a ballroom... Canada on July 21, 2025 signed a $300 million dollar grant to launch one the the largest indigenous-led conservation projects in the world - NWT ( Northwest Territories) Our Land for the Future... The initiative, led by indigenous peoples, will advance large-scale, long-term conservation, stewardship, and economic development throughout the Northwest territories... It will generate hundreds of good, culturally meaningful jobs, sustaining indigenous ways of life for generations to come and drive climate action and resilience.
We need to take back our Democracy for the good of the planet... And we need to take inspiration for our fight from Hungary, Ukraine, and what the inspiring people of Canada are doing to protect all people and ways of life. Earlier a Federal Judge in Mass. ruled against Trump 's executive order which included the proposed postal ruling... Marc Elias said : "And look, we're going to have hard days ahead, but this was a good one. The courts did the right thing. Voters were protected. Democracy was on the docket and it won." His video is excellent - I will post it here...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2tmzyApELMs
Per NBC News headline, "Judge blocks Trump’s executive order on mail voting." ....... CAVEAT: I have not examined any response to the Court's order or docket status.
******************
NBC News Update:
*******************
June 25, 2026, 7:55 AM PDT / Updated June 25, 2026, 8:35 AM PDT
By Jane C. Timm
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the implementation of key parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting, declaring the plans to intervene in state-run elections unconstitutional.
IMO: No brainer.
Sadly, don’t think we can use the term “no brainer” anymore. This Supreme Court is turning our world upside down. Who would’ve thought there’d even be a question about birthright citizenship, never mind TPS?!?
I understand your sadness & other's grief but, I was commenting on a very specific judge ruling that has just been correctly issued.
There are nine (9) SCOTUS opinions yet to be published this 2025-26 Term including the "birthright" case, Trump v Barbara another 'no brainer'.
I am no way near as SCOTUS astute as the "AMY", the Founder of SCOTUSblog.com but, I have already posted my belief based on deductive reasoning NOT hope that Defendant Barbara will prevail.
The Trump vs Barbara opinion could possibly be published next Monday but, definitely before 7/2/26. The opinion will be 1 measure of where we are as a nation on the eve of our 250th July 4th.
Please keep in mind that the ruling only applies to the 23 states that brought the lawsuit. The other 27 are, so far, unaffected.
Presumably the lawsuits against Steiner wii be well prepared and already filed.
Thank you.
Michele2,
Thank you! Your excellent, well-placed words have captured my same thoughts but more fully!
The Lesson of Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn should not be remembered only as the defeat of George Armstrong Custer. It should be remembered as a lesson in what happens when power breaks its promises and then calls resistance “hostility.”
The Lakota were not invading someone else’s country. They were defending land that had been guaranteed to them by treaty. The Black Hills belonged to them by law, by history, and by sacred meaning. Yet when gold was found, the promises of the United States suddenly became inconvenient. Prospectors poured in, officials tried to force a sale, and Native leaders who refused to surrender their homeland were branded as enemies.
That is the moral center of the story. Little Bighorn was not born in one hot afternoon of battle. It grew from broken treaties, stolen resources, military pressure, settler greed, and the repeated refusal to treat Indigenous nations as human beings with rights of their own. When people are cornered, lied to, displaced, and attacked, their resistance should not surprise anyone.
The lesson is clear: injustice often disguises itself as law and order. The powerful write deadlines, draw borders, issue commands, and then condemn the people who refuse to be erased. But defending your home is not savagery. Keeping your word is not weakness. Respecting sovereignty is not charity. It is justice.
Little Bighorn teaches us that peace cannot be built on theft. A nation that breaks its promises eventually meets the consequences of its own dishonor.
Michael Corthell,
Thank you for this excellent historical contribution even as it points to our continued greed and self-centeredness as Americans.
We have not changed so much, have we?
Heroes require courage and I treasure those who fully face "the enemy" in this battle. I stand with the weapon of my vote for their support!
"The lesson is clear: injustice often disguises itself as law and order. The powerful write deadlines, draw borders, issue commands, and then condemn the people who refuse to be erased."
...and write the history books.
Israel learned from the US
At the risk of starting a war of words (which I promise, right now, that I will not reply to), israel did indeed learn from this scenario. When the white man of Germany slaughtered millions of Jewish people, the Hebrew tribes that had been pushed into Europe moved back to join their fellow tribe, the other indigenous people that still lived in what is now called the State of Israel. Once the world, via the United Nations, granted Israel the right to be a sovereign nation (on a tiny portion of the remnants of what was then known as British Palestine after Jordan had already carved out 70% of that territory for itself), the Arab armies of five surrounding countries attacked them. The Israelis rose up and fought them back. Various times over the years similar attacks were made by Arab armies and various militia against Israel (and continue to this day), and each time the Israelis successfully defeated them. The Jews, indigenous to this land, have defended their country, a nation given to them by the world; that is, by a vote of the UN which also voted to create a separate Arab state which offer was rejected.
So, put tiny Israel in the place of the other indigenous people and the surrounding Arab countries in the place of the American government and how does it look different to you?
I am not defending Israel’s settler actions in the West Bank and Gaza. That is an abomination. Nor will I defend Israel’s excessive military actions. But I do see the necessity of Israel’s defensive actions against its constantly invading and attacking hostile neighbors. No other nation would allow that to destroy its sovereignty. And no other nation is criticized for it as is Israel. Without saying Israel is committing genocide (which it is not), there are genocides happening around the world —all abominations—but the only protests in the streets and boycotts organized are against Israel. Why is that?
Very well said. The "Middle East" wars (that are not restricted to the middle east) are 2000 yr old religious/cultural conflicts that seem to have no resolution The 19th century Wars in the American West were wars of conquest, driven by gold fever and expansion. They were genocidal. Reading the newspapers of the time, the debate was "should we put them (natives) on reservations or just wipe them out". Those wars and slavery are the saddest, shameful chapters in American history. I do believe the USA is a great country (IF we can survive Trump), but far from perfect.
“I’m not defending “ — uh, yes, you are.
So, Michael when do we begin reparations for this “Darkness?”
I'll just stick this in for future thought:
What kind of democracy should Switzerland promote?
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/global-elections/what-kind-of-democracy-should-switzerland-promote/91595977
Once, this was history. Now, it is radical leftist antifa woke propaganda…
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.”
– John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.
Heard a discussion today with Charlie Sykes and Professor Corey Brettschneider of Brown University about his book The Presidents and the People
Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It. First among them John Adams with his sedition act. A conversation between Prof Brettschneider and HCR would be pretty fascinating, especially in light of her opinion about Thomas Jefferson and his manipulation of the electoral college, a sort of threat itself.
America has done some very good things and some very bad things over the course of its 250-year history, and it continues to do so. Donald Trump and his followers are being driven by their unwillingness to accept the truth of the latter part of that statement. As a result, they will be remembered for having committed, and been responsible for, modern versions of many of the bad things. Trumpism, and everything it stands for, will be remembered as a dark and regressive chapter in American history.
Recently heard someone speak at a conference who was prevented from continuing his speech because he referred to the mass killings of native Americans as Genocide! Indeed he was correct!
Having "white" skin is a terrible moral disability if history is any measure. I send periodic contributions to a Lakota Indian School. It really is the least that I can do.
(Richard, I do too, but please continue to read the reviews of how that money is used vs number of students, etc. I still recall the decades (during peak of HIV) in Zambia where students spent most of their time working fields to support a slim pretext of a school.)
There seems to be a parallel in our present day. The majority of Americans both black and white have had enough and if they can recognize the benefit of uniting in spite of their petty differences could rule the day. Democracy is and will continue to be a grand experiment.
The difference between the past and the present is that information is now instant and reaction can be devastatingly instant. We are closer to that scenario than we've ever been in this country. Impulsiveness may rule the near future.
It does already in America. Iran war, anyone?
The Trail of Tears where thousands of Southeastern Indians died. Andrew Jackson was told by the courts that he couldn't take the Indians' land. His basic response was "Who is going to stop me?" Sound familiar?
I now i am a "white man" but I cheered for the Indians.
There were many trails of tears. Not just one. One looks and between massacres of othered groups and the lynchings it is deep and dark with thankfully here’s who spoke up and out. The Equal Justice Initiative has gathered soil from the ground of lynchings and holds many . This should be part and parcel of any group that has suffered discrimination or violence. Part of human maturity is being able to cope with hard and difficult and sometimes horrible life situations. We can honor our history with its people. What I want and think most people desire and wish for is truth and justice and mercy with an ongoing effort to rectify and continue on to better.
Kelli, it does sound familiar. I was struck by “ The Tetons welcomed their eastern relatives but discounted their horrific tales of the revenge enacted on the Santee…”. Although we still hover around 30% in polls who think trump is doing a good job I wonder at the percentage of limited information, non-critical thinkers and their effect on resistance in the U.S. I realize this was only one person but someone I know told me the other day that things are not as bad for brown immigrants as reported in the news because he knows a couple of immigrant families who have realized the “American Dream” ( owning a business, buying a house). For him, two fortunate families discount ICE, the surge in funding, SCOTUS attack on asylum seekers, and all the other actions taken by this administration, if he even knows about them. You can’t persuade someone like that because their limited knowledge of a couple of cases is weighted more than the countless legitimate reports of the opposite that you could show them. He’s made up his mind, it comforts and makes him feel safe. He openly presents himself as a “good Christian”.
Exactly. Two anecdotes become more real to them than mountains of evidence because those anecdotes preserve the worldview they already have. Once comfort becomes more important than truth, facts stop being persuasive.
The same stories are being told now - wealthy men using the government power collecting more wealth from the poor. The role of a government is to protect the iweak. Mr. Trump is however one of the wealthy takers. Tragedy of America continues.
The Trail of Tears caused by Andrew Jackson ( listed as one of the worst presidents) Thousand of Indians lost their land which was already cultivated so the white man could take over. Judges said that Jackson couldn't do that. Jackson said( paraphrased) Who is going to stop me. Sound familiar? a phrase currently used today.
My wife is part Cherokee. I traced her lineage back to the Trail of Tears. Oddly, enough she is also descended from Henry VII and much of the English and French royalty. Most of her ancestors came to the US before 1650, except the Native Americans of course.
She has never registered as Cherokee even though she is eligible.
My husband claims a "very low percentage" of blood from a tribe in the early days of Rangeley, Maine. It was probably the Amaseconti Tribe which was a small division of the Abenaki Tribe. During our years living in Iowa, Nebraska and, especially South Dakota, we became very aware of the many atrocities inflicted on the resident tribes by our government.
It was beyond American. It was the way of the civilized world. Take what you can from cultures you found beneath your state of the art militarism. It was civilization discovering the world to be plundered at large. Colonization gone berserk. What would one expect of the upstart USA. Of course we plundered the rest of the continent. After all, that was the way of the entire world. That chapter of human conflict has vestigial remnants in battles now raging in Russian aggression to usurp Ukraine. A battle, by the way which may very well result in Ukraine usurping Russia. We finally learned to respect borders. Or did we?
"That pattern should sound familiar." So it is.
The Same General Crooks took action to right the wrong. Just 3 years later after the Little Big Horn event he did something magnificent that set the stage for the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960's.
See what he did here. 👇
https://wavesandpositions.substack.com/p/150-years-after-little-bighorn-history
Every broken promise has a history before it has a battlefield.
Hello HV... It has been said, that the USG has Broken Every Treaty made with the American Indigenous....
I just skimmed the 1980 lakota scotus case tonight; that case alone pretty much lays out your point. I didn’t have enough knowledge to really take it in, so will work on my poor historical knowledge and go back to reread it.
Hello Emma... It is not just the Lakota Nation, but virtually all Indigenous Nations...
Yes. I am sorry I did not mean to imply that it was limited. I just meant to note that the case in question goes through some of the history of how the govt avoided treaty obligations as a matter of practice.
Apache,
I will add to Indigenous persons....any person of color.
What I find so strange is the amount of money we spend on sun tanning lotions to brown our white skin in the summer and some go to "tanning" booths year round to maintain that "brown skin".
Emma, I can certainly Google it, could you share the link to the 1980 case?
United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980) - link below should work hopefully
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/448/371/
Syllabus:
Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the Sioux Nation (Sioux), and that no treaty for the cession of any part of the reservation would be valid as against the Sioux unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Sioux population. The treaty also reserved the Sioux' right to hunt in certain unceded territories. Subsequently, in 1876, an "agreement" presented to the Sioux by a special Commission but signed by only 10% of the adult male Sioux population, provided that the Sioux would relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and to hunt in the unceded territories, in exchange for subsistence rations for as long as they would be needed. In 1877, Congress passed an Act (1877 Act) implementing this "agreement" and thus, in effect, abrogated the Fort Laramie Treaty. Throughout the ensuing years, the Sioux regarded the 1877 Act as a breach of that treaty, but Congress did not enact any mechanism by which they could litigate their claims against the United States until 1920, when a special jurisdictional Act was passed. Pursuant to this Act, the Sioux brought suit in the Court of Claims, alleging that the Government had taken the Black Hills without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. In 1942, this claim was dismissed by the Court of Claims, which held that it was not authorized by the 1920 Act to question whether the compensation afforded the Sioux in the 1877 Act was an adequate price for the Black Hills, and that the Sioux' claim was a moral one not protected by the Just Compensation Clause. Thereafter, upon enactment of the Indian Claims Commission Act in 1946, the Sioux resubmitted their claim to the Indian Claims Commission, which held that the 1877 Act effected a taking for which the Sioux were entitled to just compensation, and that the 1942 Court of Claims decision did not bar the taking claim under res judicata. On appeal, the Court of Claims, affirming the Commission's holding that a want of fair and honorable dealings on the Government's part was evidenced, ultimately held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of at least $17.5 million, without interest, as damages under the Indian Claims Commission Act,
Page 448 U. S. 372
for the lands surrendered and for gold taken by trespassing prospectors prior to passage of the 1877 Act. But the court further held that the merits of the Sioux' taking claim had been reached in its 1942 decision, and that therefore such claim was barred by res judicata. The court noted that only if the acquisition of the Black Hills amounted to an unconstitutional taking would the Sioux be entitled to interest. Thereafter, in 1978,Congress passed an Act (1978 Act) providing for de novo review by the Court of Claims of the merits of the Indian Claims Commission's holding that the 1877 Act effected a taking of the Black Hills, without regard to res judicata, and authorizing the Court of Claims to take new evidence in the case. Pursuant to this Act, the Court of Claims affirmed the Commission's holding. In so affirming, the court, in order to decide whether the 1877 Act had effected a taking or whether it had been a noncompensable act of congressional guardianship over tribal property, applied the test of whether Congress had made a good faith effort to give the Sioux the full value of their land. Under this test, the court characterized the 1877 Act as a taking in exercise of Congress' power of eminent domain over Indian property. Accordingly, the court held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of interest on the principal sum of $17.1 million (the fair market value of the Black Hills as of 1877), dating from 1877.
That is the history of that case, the link to the case is above.
Eminent domain and fair market value - in good faith, yet? That's rich!
And sometimes the battlefield is in the courts. I recommend Rebecca Nagle's great 2024 book BY THE FIRE WE CARRY: The Generations-Long Fight for Native Land. It focuses on the legal fight for Native land in Eastern Oklahoma but works in plenty of the wider history in the process.
Well, Biden’s broken promise is gonna last another decade. The border is secure. The border is secure. The border is secure.
Hey Rick!
What "border" are you referring to?!? The one that was arbitrarily constructed out of whole cloth because Southern white people who wanted to expand American slavery into the northern part of recently independent Mexico, i.e., Tejas, decided that they could simply make up a bullshit rationale for war that one of our greatest Presidents bitterly opposed on the floor of the House?!? Is that the "border" you refer to?!?
And by the way, by what stretch of your delusional and ignorant exhortations do you see the slightest scintilla of a comparison between the multitudinous broken promises successive American governments made to the Indigenous Peoples whose land they stole and lives they destroyed, with the non-existent Biden promise of border security?!?
Please go back to the dark, dank hole you crawled out of, and leave the rest of us alone, as I have requested numerous times previously.
By the way, those were called Democrats back then…. including the inventors of the KKK. Oooops. It’s a little late at night for history lesson but there it is. Thank you for getting me involved. By the way, you’re gonna be a lot better off trying to live in reality a.k.a. today. Where the only palace racism exists is in racist heads.
One of my college buddies actually wrote a book you might want to read its titled TGIT. And I’m not sure if you can actually look it up like that but it’s an existing book. And TGIT stands for. thank God it’s today. Have a nice evening daniel.
Rick, that is so much horseshit.
I see Rick, our favorite troll is back. His hobby is getting people to respond to whatever he writes. He needs responses. Maybe it's an ego thing.
Actually, Julius, you are just a lost soul. From my first post to my last, I have said one thing. I am here for one thing and one thing only. The last thing I need, are your stupid, empty accusations, retorts, your insults, and your incredible capacity of ignorance… and actually what I do normally is, I respond to Heather‘s ridiculousness on a daily basis, where she tells you some of the truth, some of the time. But I’ve not seen a post yet, but she tells you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth not once
What I said was I say it again all I need is to make you aware of facts that you have no idea exist. And Voilà. Thousands and thousands of people are being made aware and have been very appreciative.
You know Julius, you guys are gonna have to get your nomenclature, correct?
There are 30 40,50 people that probably post 10 1520 times a day are this site. And
THEY ARE NEVER REFERRED TO AS TROLLS. OOOOPS The only time you call them a troll is where they don’t agree with you and the reason they don’t agree with you is because they percent facts you don’t like. So I’m sorry I didn’t mean to bring up fact that you were not aware of in total and complete ignorance of life has it exist today?
We call people trolls when they disagree with the facts of history and current events. Like agreeing that Renee Nicole Good was trying to run over Jonathan Ross. Like agreeing that Alex Pretti was planning a violent attack on ICE / CBP. Like agreeing that FDT has been a great president. -- People who hold and express those views are trolls. That seems to place you squarely in their camp.
Oh! And, like agreeing that indigenous people were "hostile" when they were not. Like covering up the atrocities committed by U.S. troops. -- Same as we're doing today by covering up the illegality of bombing suspected drug boats, kidnapping foreign leaders (regardless of how despicable they might be), starting wars for no reason at all. Covering up the Epstein files to protect politicians and businessmen.
https://factually.co/fact-checks/crime/what-was-renee-good-doing-at-the-scene-b7cd2b
https://www.labornotes.org/2026/01/renee-good-killed-ice-was-standing-solidarity-her-neighbors She should’ve never been anywhere near there. She put herself in harms way. Now I can keep going on and on and on, but now you know that pretty had had a fight with ice Asians 11 days earlier and should’ve never been where he was because he should’ve been in jail arrested for kicking in the taillight of the SUV.
And she had been following ice agents around all day and for days actually from what I understand so now you have the other half of the story that you were not aware of as usual.
Rene Good was asked three times to get out of the car and she refused and she ran…instead. If she had gotten out of the car, I bet about 100% chance she’d still be alive today wouldn’t you? Yikes
Well I’m going to send you FACTS AND PRETTI AND GOODE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjYMCdD8Cck ALEX PRETTY ATTACKED ICE AGENTS AND HAD A FIGHT WITH ICE AGENTS 11 DAYS BEFORE THIS INCIDENT SO IT WASN’T HIS FIRST ENCOUNTER AND HE ACTUALLY HAD TO BE THROWN DOWN BY TWO OR THREE ICE AGENTS TO THE GROUND AND WHEN HE GOT UP. HE RAN AFTER THEIR SUV AND KICKED IN THE TAIL LIGHT, WHICH BY LAW IS PUNISHABLE FOR ONE YEAR IN PRISON FOR DAMAGING A FEDERAL VEHICLE SO THERE’S NUMBER ONE PUTTING HIMSELF IN HARMS WAY HE HAD NO BUSINESS BEING THERE. HE HAD NO PURPOSE IN BEING THERE EXCEPT FOR IMPEDING THEIR JOB.
AND THERE’S A VIDEO AND I CAN SHOW YOU A FEW MORE IF YOU’D LIKE ..
Renée Nicole Macklin Good, a 37-year-old American woman, was fatally shot in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross, on January 7, 2026. Good was in her car, stopped sideways in the street, which led Ross to circle her vehicle on foot. Other agents approached, and one ordered her to get out of the car while reaching through her open window. Good briefly reversed, then began moving forward and to the right, into the direction of traffi She refused to get out of her car. Repeatedly asked to get out of her car and she refused, and she apparently struck the agent according to the testimony. And I’m gonna get you some more information as well since you know nothing about what actually happened.
Husband of Ruth writing:
Golly, Rick, not only do you sound like trump, your command of the English language is equally great.
I could out English you and out orthographically trounce you if need be… but you’re new here so I’ll cut you you know many of you obviously can use a computer, but I’m not sure any of you have been introduced to the blessing of voice texting. While the software has not caught up to every single in your window and phrase, it certainly does the job of painting, the context and the content versus a spelling error, or God forbid a dangling participle or a preposition at the end of a sentence which obviously makes the entire story so much different than the facts themselves. Tried coming up to speed in the real world.
And if you don’t think Trump has a good vocabulary, he does just fine and you know how we know that because he’s now the most influential human being on the planet and you don’t get that by being incapable of communicating. Ooooooops.
Not all trolls are American. Indeed, most non-American trolls are paid to troll. Depending on who they work for, they may be paid by the number of posts they make or, more often, by the number of responses they get. And too, Rick could be part of a team all posting under one name, not unlike the Russian "Internet Research Agency"..
Why is it when people have no answer? All they do, is insult and accuse without any substance. They just make dumb statements and walk away. Wait a minute I think that was redundant. lol by the way, which part was horseshit, please be specific LMAO
Gee, Rick. You are so well-informed, you should start your own Substack. That way you won't have to deal with all these people making dumb statements without any substance, redundant as that may be.
I actually have my own Substack, but I’ve never used it. It was offered to be free probably a year ago, but I’ve never used it once to post because I’m not here to post to myself. What I do is I respond to inanity stupidities, ignorance, bias jealousy, envy, hate, unfounded, accusations, insults. That’s what I do and that’s why I’m here. And the name of the game is one thing only. AWARENESS. Many people here are not becoming aware of things. They didn’t know before because Heather doesn’t tell them the the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in fact, many times she avoids the subject at all if that particular day Trump had a major win on the world stage she avoids it like the plague.
The border isn’t and hasn’t been the problem.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? You must be living in another country or perhaps another planet. The border has been a $1 trillion problem already. Problem has gone to the Supreme Court six times. I guess that’s not important. That’s not a problem.
The fact that there’s been hundreds of American citizen women RAPED AND MURDERED BY ILLEGALS IS NOT A PROBLEM EITHER? Do you know how many raped and murdered women by illegal would there have been if they were not allowed to cross the border? Hmmmmmmmmm. Fucking ZERO….. but other than that, it’s nice of you to stick up for women, even those that are being trafficked.
I’m actually sitting here stunned, thinking that there’s people that actually think that your statement is true HFS.
hey rick, does AI drink Kool Aid too?
🤖
And what particular part of anything that I have posted here do you Deign to say is Kool-Aid? I wonder. Do you know how many needless attacks and rapes there have been on American citizens by illegal aliens. Because you know how many would have been attacked if they didn’t cross the border and they weren’t in the US. Well, you don’t even even have to be good in math to determine the answer. ZEEEEEEERO WHAT PART OF THE TRUTH DON’T YOU LIKE?
We should have listened to the Lakota tribes of South Dakota earlier on because they were not allowing Kristi Noem on their reservations. And they still don’t and they never will.
I might be mistaken, but I don't recall a single Senator of either party asking Moonbat Eyes why she wasn't allowed on Lakota land during her confirmation hearings. You'd think somebody would have focused on that.
D’ya mean in Congress? Focused? Lately?
It only hurts when I laugh.
Republicans.....
And hopefully not Kristis replacement as DonOLDs second choices are always worse than his first. A good (bad) example is Blanche and Pulte.
The apples at the bottom of the barrel, sitting in small puddles of slime and goo, always tend to be the smelliest as well.
And are the slimiest.
And the Warm Ooziest!
Those sub human creatures come from the orange creatures cesspool! The bottom of the apple barrel often yields apple cider!
Mullin is Cherokee. I didn’t know who he was before his nomination, but I remember seeing that right before and being confused about how this would go. I am curious about how the tribe has chosen to handle mullin’s new position.
Huh, I didn’t hear DJT refer to Mullin as “Pocahantas” — go figure.
just a smidgen....
Heather, expert historian on our Indian wars, and exterminations, gets one lovely side result here.
Accountability. The Sioux and their allies held Custer and his braggadocio accountable.
Earlier today Heather appeared on Katie Couric’s podcast, both there, too, centered on accountability.
Except for Jefferson Davis, who after the Civil War did do prison time, Heather pointed out how no Confederates were held accountable for their efforts to destroy the United States for a whites-only supremacy country instead. We know, too, that following the crash of the housing market in 2008, and the near-crash of the banking system then, no large bankers went to prison.
Nearly the same after the crash of 1929. I found online a piece by Jason M. Breslaw, which discussed the Pecora Commission, whose work from 1932 on “led to indictments,” but, again, then, “most escaped prosecution.”
So Heather and Katie went round and round on how criminal Donald just lets his criminality rule all, with Heather tying that up by looking at his enabling Republicans in Congress. Said she, “They vowed that they were going to enforce the Constitution, and they’re simply doing whatever he tells them to.”
That's the way it has been for much of American history, where genuine savages ever rule for the unaccountable rich and powerful -- still rule protecting them all covered up in the Trump-Epstein file.
And let's not forget Nixon. If Ford hadn't pardoned him, he would have gone to trial and perhaps done hard time. Then we might have been spared our current shame and disgrace.
I can only surmise that Ford, like most Americans, think a POTUS is above reproach…but COME ON! Donald Trump incited a murderous MOB to try and take over the Capitol.
We ALL saw it…expecting - now seems so näive - Trump and all his goons to rot in jail for TREASON.
UNBELIEVABLE…still!
Jean, there were some in Garland’s DOJ who resisted prosecuting a (former) PRESIDENT; they thought that went too far. Others were afraid and some were holdovers from his first admin. That was one—but not the only—factor in the long delay.
And Nixon committed treason by doing a secret, behind-the-scenes deal in Vietnam while LBJ was still president and trying to find a way out of the war...Nixon persuaded the crooks in the S V. gov't. not to cooperate, as they'd do "better" under him when he got elected. And look what happened: more deaths on both sides, the destabilization of Cambodia, which led to Pol Pott (sp?) and all those massacres, tremendous uprisings in the US streets, and Watergate... Tricky Dicky was a traitor and a crook.
Well per JD, when he isn't busy quoting diddy, poor nixon was caught up by the same deep state as trump; a little break in gone bad, what should have been a 12 hr news story at best. Guess he is going to be a 2 yr placeholder since clearly no one bothers to even attempt to prep him.
THE PEOPLE will win…sometimes by just ‘surviving’!
My daughter-in-law, whom my son describes as ‘the smartest person he knows’, fled Cambodia’s massacres, with her mother and two sisters, as a child. She came to Montreal, Canada, and has a fab salary working in Toronto now, and they have two adorable sons, 9 & 6 y.o. ☺️
There may be a ‘levelling off’ now that Trump’s health is slowing him down. Karma!
But the symbolic ‘knives’ within his own regime are drawn for the Orange Julius Caesar…👀…😉
Whatever may have been Nixon's fate under law, it was imperative that his betrayals were met with legal justice and equal protection, and that did not happen. Ford may have meant well, but he undermined rule of law, and opened a crack in the concept of universal accountability that has much widened in the present.
Unlikely. Much of our current shame and disgrace is deserved. We had 2 opportunities to make it better or different and we bungled both of them and made it catastrophically worse. Now we're experiencing what indigenous peoples did.
Part of it anyway, where rights and promises become meaningless.
And let's not forget the ChristoNazis' favorite brand of plausibly deniable genocide -- extermination by austerity, medical misogyny and anti-vax hysteria.
You’re right, Loren, and because the courts generally work at a glacial pace, justice delayed is … well, you know.
Montana Channing,
This is what happens when we allow unguarded power to grow within our government. This occurs when we the people choose corruption over morality regarding many of those in leadership positions.
We have not been faithful to our better values thus we are a part of the decimation
of the stability of the best we are meant to be.
The world sees what we have chosen to tolerate and the results to the greatness we once held.
The greatest country in the world you’re sitting here on a computer, talking about whisper, living the same life of the Indians did? No, you’re totally lost in the past
“The greatest country in the world?” The U.S. is reviled by virtually every country around the world, except perhaps Russia and Saudi Arabia. I’m a citizen of the U.S. and Canada and Canadians certainly don’t think the U.S. is the greatest.
Mr. Sender has nothing better to do with his life, so he brings his delusional little self here and annoys the rest of us. The best thing to do is ignore him. He won't ever go away, as he has no real pastimes other than this. Think of him as a mosquito with a laptop. Cheers.
"If," Joel.
If justice ever applied to the rich and powerful.
Except, too, Joel, it does -- in our humanities.
Then we might have stopped the auction
That’s a good thing. I’m glad you brought it up Joel, because if Biden hadn’t pardoned himself, he probably be hanging by his toes upside down on the White House lawn, naked, and not even know why he was there.
And in the Regan years of the 1980’s the debacle of the thrifts failing that we taxpayers had to bail out. Those guys should never have been allowed to touch money again but no consequences for them.
If you mean the S&L crisis, that was at least keenly investigated and many wrongdoers convicted. The subprime crisis was much greater and more damaging, yet dodgy bankers got a pass. Too big to fail, too big to hold accountable means they were just plain too big, and we had dealt with monopolists before; yet this time around, our government helped them get bigger.
Good to hear that many were convicted. But we still paid. Just like we paid for the subprime crisis.
Do you have a link for Katie and the Professor's talk, Phil? I found one from ten months ago. Is there a later one you are referring to?
Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yo0m3cPx_s
Thank you, laurie.
This is indeed today's. And well worth anyone's time.
Thanks for the link. I personally found this traumatizing on several levels. I gave up counting the number of times Couric implied, or straight up used clear language, that indicated we just need to return to normal. I may go back and watch it again later. We are going to need a parliamentary system; Democrats don't seem to be getting this, and I cannot stomach 12 future years of the current regime in different makeup.
Agree, Emma, on so many levels!
Thank you, Laurie!!
Thanks to laurie, providing specific link already.
Yep, and in the same vein, trumpty-dumpty will bever have to go to jail for his million crimes, either.
1929 - Andrew Ross Sorkin - great read. Pecora was highly feared for his tenacious pursuit.
Strange isn't it, how money so frequently eludes accountability, or when caught "red handed" winds up with token sentences. $COTUS fiercely defended a life sentence for a man who stole some videos for his kids, but some seem too rich (and/or connected) to jail. I have read about important businessmen selling to and aiding the Nazis in WW II, but somehow getting away with it. It's the same double standard all the fuss was about in 1776, but we couldn't quite bear to part with it, and today it's more than just metaphor that we struggle with a monarchy.
It is classism, plain and simple, with a side of racism and xenophobia thrown in. The rich get away with criminality; the poor pay dearly for real or manipulated wrongdoing. It’s the American way. How else could we ever tolerate the for-profit prison industry, and the well-chronicled cradle-to-prison pipeline?
JL, this line in HCR's Letter stood out to me: "Caught between these two necessities, the government chose to protect the railroad [instead of the Bozeman Trail]."
The Bozeman Trail was a route used by anonymous prospectors and emigrants heading west, while the transcontinental railroad was built and controlled by politically well-connected tycoons.
The U.S. Government has always, always sided with its wealthy friends.
Today's government affinities should come as no surprise.
America has a long history of letting traitors off the hook. Look at the loyalists in the revolution and come forward. Look at how we romanticize vigilantes and organized crime. The old "put a stick in the eye of government" is what the country was founded on - rebel against the king. That attitude has carried forward right into the right wing of today. There is a great book - Bringing the War Home - that exposes how the returning Vietnam vets returned home with the understanding of how the government let them down (they were right). There are a lot of former military in the militias as we saw on J6 and the events that lead up to them with the parade of armed men in state capitols with no consequences. Another great book written by a Brit titled The Great American Delusion that deals with a number of things in particular our single minded focus on self not community.
Hey, you missed all the big news today. A lot of people were apologizing for Obama building his library on stolen land boy they you really let him off the hook, huh?
Not to mention, they fixed the reflecting pool I guess that’s why you didn’t cover it
Yeah, and how is that impact in your life today phil. ? No, I’m gonna start suggesting a book that my friend will really appreciate I start suggesting to most of you here. He’s a very philosophical guy, and very smart. You would like it because he owns a number of flower fields where he had a raging successfully flower business. And he wrote a book called. TGIT. thank God it’s today. Imagine what you guys would learn from trying to live in today, rather than to live in ancient prehistoric history
The Nazi Republicans: The Rise of Racist Christian Nationalism
Nazi Republicans know what their marching orders are: follow Cheeto’s voter suppression and interference. They are counting on the midterms will be rigged. Every Nazi Republican racist policy that comes from SCOTUS, Cheeto and his WH goons, or those in the legislature is driven by white Christian Nationalism, animated by Project 2025. The Nazi Republican plan seeks to disenfranchise 66% of the electorate.
WE the People demand more of the Democratic party and the Democratic Socialist movement within the party recognize the danger facing the country while the Democratic establishment continue to want business as usual, hoping this too will pass, hoping that they get a nice pat on the head from Nazi Republicans.
These “cowardly lions” as O’Donnell describes them are not to be believed when they say they regret that they voted for something that turns to shit….like Cassidy’s confirmation vote for RFK Jr. Let’s not forget that Cheeto was impeached twice and Senate Republicans prevented conviction because it would sure look bad for the party if two Republican presidents had been forced to leave office. And even if some Republicans did the right thing on the J6 impeachment it wasn’t enough to get the appropriate conviction but for Nixon in that day even Republicans had the moral conviction that there were enough votes for conviction.
Despite their failings the Nazi Republicans have managed until now to obfuscate the true KKK leanings they have for our fellow AfroAmerican citizens as evidenced by the SCOTUS ruling that finally gutted the last remnants of the VRA(Voting Rights Act). Of course the Federalist supported nominations came from a Nazi Repubican institution and with the help of McConnell sealed the partisan SCOTUS now serving.
And for now the Nazi Republicans who have so far rubberstamped Cheeto’s brazen nepotistic corruption are feeling uneasy. Tax breaks for the ultrawealthy donor class while gutting the American social safety net, abandoning American aid to foreign countries but ok with genocide, and firing necessary civil servants in the name of fiscal conservatism can seem alright, federal corruption is a step gone too far. But they’re ok with wining elections by cheating and digitally manipulating the results.
So the Nazi Republicans have shown the American people who they really are. A group of lawless, bought off, immoral, racist, misogynistic culture warriors who have propaganidized themselves to public office. WE the People have seen enough. The electorate should not give them the public office of dogcatcher for at least 20 years.
Nazi is overdone, although DJT would like to be Fuhrer. Ian
Cute. Maybe true. But does he really wear a diaper and smell????????????? And Hitler had one ball or some stuff wrong with his genitals... Makes sense.
Yes! All the Canadian veterans knew the song “Hitler Only Has One Ball”, and when they ended up in the local Veteran’s Hospital, used to request it of our band, every Tuesday at their pub, and they sang along
Most of them are gone now, but they would be appalled at what America now calls a ‘President’, and insulted on behalf of their counterparts on the beaches of Normandy…who preserved US Freedom…for THAT!
DJT is not the longer term point. The hard work is to ask if in fact the US presidency is monarchical, this despite all your No Kings ballyhoo, and what minimal but nevertheless sufficient changes are necessary. Try the hard work. Ian
OUCH Ian — can you really blanketly accuse us of NOT doing hard work against this corrupt regime? Very unfair. I led a local chapter of Indivisible for one year, grew it from a mailing list of 8 to over 400 … if you think that was easy, I have a golden arch in DC to sell you.
There's more than one kind of hard work, which a more cautious version of what I wrote would have noted.
But I think if you just intend to just try the old situation that you're very much underestimating what you're up against. Which is great anxiety by the millionaires and billionaires about the continually growing expense of public life, that they're going to have to pay for it. Its because the New Deal was an exercise in economic human rights. that's what the Musks and Thiel's of this world are on about, or so I would argue. They're badly frightened and increasingly doubt if the growth of economic human rights will serve their grasping selves. And they have some grounds for their fears. Ian
Anyone with power can abuse it, as we see so often. The US Constitution is magnificent. We do have a balance of powers... No changes necessary. Remember how they thought about FDR!!! And term limits apply. I taught Con Law at Columbia so I did the hard work Ian. :)
So you think DJT's behaviour is just a bit of fluff. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Ian
Custer was an arrogant fool.
Does anyone else see Pete Kegsbreath's face flash before them when the topic of General Armstrong Custer's arrogance and cruelty arises? Did Custer also bounce up and down on his Florsheims in front of a TV camera when trying to co-splay GI Joe, I wonder?
I think GAC was more of a buckskin moccasin or a leather booted cavalry man than a Florsheim fop as Kegsbreath is. In fact, Custer was a real soldier, earning commendations for his bravery in the Civil War, commendations that Hegseth could only earn on the heavy carbon copy paper pumped out by the late Trump University.
You have a point there.
I love “Florsheim fop” — that’s a keeper. I imagine Kegsbreath thinks more along the lines of “Gucci Gangster” or “Magnificent Mali”… :)
Thank you, Signe!
I'm sort of digging "Gucci Gangster" myself!
I learned tonight, on another substack, that he did something similar, maintaining his blond hair long specifically for effect. Apparently there were some similarities.
Vanity is a cruel mistress; he will weep when confronted by his own aging.
And have lots and lots of work done
However, if you happen to use another nasty pseudonym for somebody, I’m gonna have to bring it. I can almost bet you you’re not gonna like it.
You know, I tried to be nice to you and I haven’t come up with a mean acronym for your name or a pseudonym or a moniker that I can hang on you. But you are beginning to attempt me. Lol.
🤖
No doubt he had his own weird mannerisms…
Lt. Colonel George Custer was so arrogant and condescending to the indigenous tribes that he refused to shake hands with Kiowa Chiefs Satanta and Lone Wolf when they tried to negotiate with him, having them arrested instead and the rest of the tribe confined to Fort Cobb. Custer even led an attack on the surviving members of northern Cheyennes, while his military band played music. In only a few minutes, hundreds of Native Americans were dead, only a few of them warriors. Among the dead was their Chief Black Kettle who had just tried to negotiate a truce and food for his starving people.
These are just a couple of examples of his cruelty and arrogance years before his last stand at Little Big Horn. Custer was a genocidal maniac that got a taste of his own medicine, but it was a short lived victory for the Plains tribes...
Today SCOTUS, "calling balls and strikes", as Justice Roberts likes to say, decided to "Strike Out" immigrants to the US, more than 50 years after Congress passed humane asylum immigration legislation. They did this knowing full well that our Immigration Czar, Steven Miller, is a full on neo-Nazi, white nationalist, itching to throw as many non-white immigrants out of the US as he can. And probably African Americans too, who's forefathers have been in America for many, many more generations than Miller.
Of course, the "joke" is actually on Steven Miller. The people SCOUTS is empowering, will happily toss Miller into an Auschwitz style oven. He maybe a fascist, but he's also Jewish, so there is no way he qualifies as a true American.
How could we possibly have gotten to this point in America? We are so much better than this.
When I was a child in the South in the 1950s, it WAS worse than this. Civil rights battles had been going on since Reconstruction, but they bore fruit in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. We CAN find our way out of this debacle - personally, I believe the first thing we have to do is require that political ads provide evidence to substantiate their claims to a board of ethics - we HAVE to do something about the propaganda. But we also have to get an amendment providing terms for justices. The goals require participation. So WE can find our way out of this, but only if WE are all involved.
I was a child (involuntarily) in the South during the 1950s, and while it was bad, it has never in the history of our planet been as bad as it is now: not only are we facing a new Hitler and a new Nazi Regime, this time it has irreversible technological omnipotence, literally infinite wealth and perpetual control of the doomsday button. How could it possibly ever be worse than what it is already becoming?
Loren:
We are about to find out. The Supine Court is about to announce its decision in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v Barbara. We will learn who qualifies as a real American.
Keep your powder dry!
\Vince S
Have they publicly hung anyone and sent the picture around in postcards? I do believe that was worse. Although it is pretty bad for immigrants.
We’ve been out of this debacle since the mid 60s.
Rick--- you seem ignorant of the facts--- I ran Friends of SNCC at Columbia U 1964-66--- it has been intense for blacks in this country forever!!! And racism, antisemitism, and the common cold are endemic to humanity, too!
It is also simple--- Miller is the new Roy Cohn.
They even look alike.
I used Knickerbocker restaurant for meetings and Cohn had a table in the back--- he was always eyeing me, sorta drooling... such a fucker. Bad man. But one of Trump's key advisors!!!
Nah! Cohn knew the law and how to subvert it! Miller is an Eichmann wannabe, the only thing missing is the gas chambers in the concentration camps miller created in warehouses! He’s a sniveling suck up reveling in his perverted fantasies in service to the criminally insane Trump!
God so many empty, headed irrational people here it’s amazing just amazing. Have you guys been living in caves for the last 50 years? This country has gone over backwards to end racism, and it did so time and time and time again to the point where it got over the top nuts. I’ll give you one perfect example you’re ready. We have in this country in Congress, a black caucus. Now, what the hell is a black caucus and why are they there? We don’t have a Hispanic caucus. We don’t have an Asian caucus. We don’t have a Haitian caucus. We don’t have a white caucus. Why do we have a black caucus? That’s called special Treatment.
I think they are different in many ways
And you are the full on front cover of Mad Magazine
Once again Rick edit!!! People will think you are a fool!!! :)
I was wondering if the most recent immigrants from South Africa were admitted under TPS? Will they be sent back to their 'dangerous' country?
Nope. They’re preparing welcome bags for them (honestly).
That decision is blood chillingly appalling.
Apparently we are not 'so much better than this' Merrill.
Merrill, I disagree with your last sentence. As HCR's Letter reminds us, "we" are and always have been pretty awful, with only brief, shining moments of decency.
Our aspirations are "better than this," but our lived history falls spectacularly short of what some of us imagine.
Do you find it odd that we discuss Miller this way on this site? I am not countering your analysis in any way, I just find it odd when he comes up in this way on this site, given the connections. I see it daily and I am starting to realize I may be the only person it kind of weirds out [for lack of a better way to put it].
What is it about the Miller comments that trouble you?
Well, many of us are some of the time. And many of us are trying hard to be better.
RICK, don’t forget to respond to Merrill tomorrow
I didn’t forget, but surprisingly I haven’t heard back from her lol
Did you just use the word Auschwitz oven? Well it’s too late to respond, but I’m going to keep this alert for myself so that I respond to you tomorrow. Don’t ever use that word again don’t ever use that phrase again because there’s nothing today that even resembles those words. And to say that to another human being, well I’m not gonna let you get away with it. How’s that?
Well technically there are no ovens but people are getting extinguished as we speak. Including the followers of Islam in China that the Arab followers of Islam could care less about because I guess they are not from the middle east. Also in the Sudan Black Africans who practice Christianity are being extinguished by the Islamic peoples in the North. Nobody seems to care much about either of these atrocities but they are happening right now.
I think you’re missing the biggest point Atlanta. The single most group of persons created individuals on this planet, since the beginning of recorded history, have been the JEWS.
...you might want to rewrite this Rick--- not clear and maybe not correct either...
Yes he sounds ever so slightly insane? He certainly needs help of some sort.
You do know that Miller’s family (which has disowned him) is Jewish and came here a generation before Hitleridm to escape pogroms?
And your point? Yea i knew
And your point?
Well, there may not be any ovens today, but any reference to the Nazis has no business being in the lethargy today. Where it should be verboten so to speak. And the only reason I say that Elena is because people use it out of ignorance because they don’t know the whole story or they don’t care, but usually it’s because they don’t know.
I could stop them from saying that by saying look every time you use the word Nazi here’s what we’re gonna do we’re gonna pretend you’re Jewish we’re gonna send a Nazi to you and we’re gonna pardon him in advance for anything he does to you that sound fair to you that OK ? Good
It was not only Jews that were killed. They killed homosexuals and people considered to have mental defects, some with physical defects, and gypsies and Roma and Communists. When One is not Safe, NOONE is Safe!
And your point?
I am not here to teach you how to be smart!
RS---Pls edit. lethargy? use of periods and commas--- how old are you???
That is NOT what people mean when they call someone a Nazi!
It would be more accurate (c Wiki) to use the term neo-Nazi.
However, let me suggest you try that sentence again with the word “Hispanic” or “Haitian.” People ARE dying and they have just gotten started - and getting more money from Congress.
The word Nazi has no applicability to today and should never be seen or heard by somebody here. Now, if you want to use it in a demeaning fashion, that’s fine but to call somebody that name today my wish for them is to be a Jew and to meet a Nazi and let them be treated the way Nazi would treat the Jews back then and then we would never hear from these people would be very appropriate
And you are fairly ignorant when you come to trying to compare a Nazi or the use of the word to Hispanic or Haitian.
You do realize that Joe Biden flew Haitians in here regardless of previous criminal record etc.
have you ever heard or read the book suicidal empath. ? Pick up a copy
America first everybody else next Mary
I have you a chance to show you were erudite - you flunked. Ciao.
What’s the matter you don’t like the Supreme Court anymore? You sure did like it when they came out with the abortion really did didn’t you? But now Trump actually made it a democratic event rather than controlled by nine elites in Washington that you currently hate. Isn’t that amazing why don’t you thank Trump for doing that because he did.
See now it’s a democracy again
Why don't you go fuck yourself in your face you worthless Trumper DNA failure, you failure as a member of the species.
Well, actually, because my member is large enough and long enough, I could actually fuck myself in my face while you go have to look for yours even when you go to the bathroom to pee. I hope you’re enjoying that new increase in sales tax in California as if it wasn’t enough that they’re the highest tax state with gasoline property personal income tax. Now they’re increasing the sales tax to 10% and in Florida as an example, the sales tax is 4% and they’re ready to put it on the ballot and initiative to eliminate property tax entirely.
The Supreme Court was never democratic. That is the job of Congress. The Supreme Court should only invalidate laws that conflict with the US Constitution. Congress can overrule any Supreme Court decision if they get enough votes, but they rarely do this, still they have the right to do it.
Elena, you just made my point for me, but you were thrilled to death with the abortion ruling weren't you by the what did you call them a undemocratic bunch?
But now the issue of abortion is up to the voters is it not?
Oh, and by the way, here's another thought for you
INEPTOCRACY
IN-ep-toc'-ra-cyl
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services aid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Yes it is up to the voters. We are a democracy. If you do not rule by the people you should move to Russia or somewhere else where the people's opinions do not count.
That's exactly what my point is Elena. Exactly my point the voters and the voters spoke twice
There has never been a national vote on abortion, so how can you make the above statement. Unless everyone has a chance to vote on this issue, then the vote is NOT legitimate?
The Supreme Court today is exact doing exactly what the Supreme Court has done for years. Wow I get to. I get to respond to Merrill again. This is cool. Hey Merrill, you’re outside your fucking mind House that I can’t get any clearer. And guess what TPS just got defeated today. You ever hear the book suicidal empathy you should read it.
Steffen Miller is a full on support of Israel and his Jewish are you living on Mars or Pluto or where these days? Steven Millie doesn’t give a shit if they’re white or black or green or purple. If they’re here illegally they’re here illegally. End of sentence. And I didn’t know that you were such a raving racist but now I do and so does the public here because everybody should be treated equally not specially equally got that word equally equally think of that equally no special treatment for anybody
The only case you can make is a nutcase, which fits you perfectly oh, and by the way
The war is OVER….WE WON… Let me see if I can help you here. Their entire military fleet is underwater or 48 warships but they process. Billions of dollars of warships
All their military aircraft is gone..billions of dollars Their industrial military complex and infrastructure is gone Their uranium is buried under grounds of disaster and rubble for now, but that will end soon enough Allow me to continue
In the suite was closed. They were losing $500 million a day of revenue.which is 80% of their economy Therefore they have a 50% unemployment rate right now approximately an 85% estimated inflation rate which something is over 300%
All of your original leaders, including the ayatollah, and alter, military leaders were destroyed in a bombing ..The secondary replacements who took their place was destroyed, in a bombing….Derek third tier of leader ship replacements were destroyedIn a bombing…they are trying to find new leaders who are willing to soon look like the previous three regimes, which are dead…
They recently killed 45,000 protesters in a big march because the populace is becoming a little bit less supportive with women walking around without heat jobs in miniskirts Which used to be punishable by stoning
And any and all money that’s going to be paid to them it’s going to come through American coppers, American companies, American suppliers, American banks, etc.
So please awaken from your truck induced delusion, evaluate what I printed up here because if this is any way to win a war I’m sure glad you’re not anywhere near a leadership position
They recently killed 45,000 protesters in a big march because the populace is becoming a little bit less supportive with women walking around without heat jobs in miniskirts Which used to be punishable by stoning--- Rick, this should be deleted since it is FALSE.
Heat? miniskirts? --- shame on you!!! You know nada. I am done with you as I wrote... too off and out of control and wrong.
We colonizers have been viciously brutal since day one. The native population may appear to have been "beaten," but I believe Mother Nature keeps score... and that's why we have a concept called "karma". In my bones, I feel a reckoning is coming. (see: the lack of water in many parts of our country... and how many stupid people think it's more important to use it for AI data centers than for people for example) And the native population maybe be all that's left. Just thinking out loud.
I worry too and our human karma is veryyyy bad!!!
Thank you for saying you share my concern. We as a species are so f-ing self-centered. I fear this isn’t going to end well. Look at the heat wave in Europe! 😱
When homo sapiens go extinct...which we will...it will be so richly deserved.
So sad... Ted Turner complained that God did not make humans smarter and nicer. War itself since Day 1 has to be the dumbest activity ever... and exterminating species as we have done is veryyyy bad karma!!! Also, see Mara Cohen on Facebook, Indian Jewish! :)
And it never stopped. The poorest people in this country TODAY are the ones who were here first. We and the US government have always treated them like the enemy and it still continues. In a technologically superior 21st century, only 80% of indigenous people have access to electricity. We, as a nation should be ashamed and do something about it.
How about the Indian casinos... some are rich, yes???
No. Profits from casinos are turned over to the tribes whose members run the casinos. No Native American casino operators are getting "rich" from casinos.
OK--- but why not??? I just lost $300 at the Queens casino... CT too... and in Florida... Casinos make $$$$$.
Because turning a profit is not the same as "getting rich." Casino profits are turned over to tribal leadership to be invested in infrastructure and assistance to the tribal population. The tribal people being helped by casino profits are not getting rich. In fact, most residents of reservations live below poverty levels. Without the aid of casino revenues, they'd be destitute.
I'm editing to add that casinos have to pay extraordinary taxes to the states and/or communities where they're located.
Thanks! I did not know.
FYI, in Arkansas, Baptists blocked casinos, claiming gambling is "against God's will." Legislators finally ignored the Bible-thumpers and legalized casinos when tribal casino organizers promised to pay massive taxes to the state. The tax revenue would be redistributed to college students as scholarships and also, fund the gaming commission. The chance of an Indigenous student receiving a scholarship is nearly zero.
I wonder...does absence of mineral assets and electricity really make the First Americans poorer than those of us who over-consume are?
I was at a res in NM--- very sad... so much drinking... women suffer... etc.
You're right, Neal. One of the worst "gifts" we gave the tribes we wanted to subdue was alcohol. Contagious diseases weren't far behind. A forever shame.
Wait for today's Supreme Court to rule that birthright citizenship doesn't include those still living on ancestral lands on top of oil, gold, natural gas, cobalt, uranium and rare earth metal deposits that mysteriously keep ending up in the Republican Party's bank accounts.
I seriously can’t; I really need them to do us this one solid and just tell trump no in one sentence on this one. I am going to need to invest in pepcid if this keeps up.
Though I had a good public school education and then earned a bachelor’s and two masters degrees, I knew almost nothing about America’s indigenous peoples. Now that I’m retired, I’ve had the time to take classes and read about how Americans “conquered” the Indians who were here first. That history should have been part of my early education. When we’ve gotten our country’s leadership restored, I hope that American history is provided in more truth and detail to all our children. Knowing about the past makes more sense of the present.
Every generation inherits not only a history, but also its silences.
so well said.
Ohhh loaded in several directions at once. I have never heard someone put that so succinct before; so true.
In 7th grade, one of our teachers had us keep a journal for the year, “pretending” we were on the trail of tears. That has really stuck with me for the almost 4 decades since. We have to teach history; I fully believe the failure to do so is why we are in this situation today.
I think that in red states nowadays, kids are taught that the “pure” white man was first in America, and those nasty savage Indians came later to take their jobs…
Laurie, I agree with you. I am truly aggravated about all the days I was forced to sit in school listening to all this white washed bull sh-t. Like you I am like a sponge to learning the truth.
“Back on May 1, my friend Katie Phang joined us for Five Questions. Four days earlier, she had sued Todd Blanche over DOJ’s failure to fully release the Epstein Files in compliance with the Transparency Act. At the time, I called it “a novel theory, but one that’s very elegant.” And tonight, I can add successful. Late this afternoon, the Judge entered an injunction in her favor.
Katie explained her lawsuit like this in Five Questions: “This lawsuit is about making lawyers actually obey the law. Since December 19, 2025 [the date Congress set for full release of the files], the Trump DOJ has violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act and, in doing so, it has prevented me from being able to do my job as an independent journalist.”
*See link for full story on Substack. And we are grateful to United States District Judge Emmet G Sullivan.
DOJ has until July 2 to comply with the order. Tick Tock.
We’re in this together, Joyce”
…
‘Finally: A Judge Orders the Government to Release the Rest of the Epstein Files in a Lawsuit Filed by Katie Phang’
JOYCE VANCE from CIVIL DISCOURSE
JUN 26 2026 | Substack
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/finally-a-judge-orders-the-government?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for the link and info regarding Katie Phang's lawsuit. I read (diagonally) through the material and ended up with the feeling that DOJ's intent is to keep kicking the can down the road past the elections this fall. If Trump and company prevail, then all of this is for naught.
Well Ed (Iowa) let's hope we don't see this cover-up go on and on while we pay wages to the Republican congress while they treat this free PTO time as a game. .
Custer was a fool and paid the price. My ancestor was Cheyenne/Sioux after the Last Stand.
The Indians were screwed by the US government, always!!!
A book from the 1970’s rocked my world when I was in my 20’s. It is “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown. We are so fortunate to have Heather introduce history into today’s political landscape. There is much that has been forgotten and she brings the goods every time.
Notable Apache chiefs include Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, Mangas Coloradas, Juh, Nana, and Lozen, among others.
The Apache people, native to the southwestern United States, were organized into various bands, each with its own leaders. Some of the most prominent Apache chiefs and leaders include:
Geronimo (Goyathlay) – A Chiricahua Apache medicine man and warrior, Geronimo became famous for his resistance against Mexican and U.S. forces in the late 19th century. He led raids across Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico, eventually surrendering in 1886 and later living on reservations in Florida and Oklahoma
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Cochise – A Chiricahua Apache chief known for defending Apache lands in southeastern Arizona. Cochise resisted American expansion and formed alliances with other Apache leaders, maintaining autonomy for his people until his death
Access Genealogy
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Victorio – Chief of the Chiricahua Apache, Victorio led his band in numerous raids and evaded U.S. forces for over a decade. He was killed in 1880 in Mexico after being surrounded by troops
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Mangas Coloradas – A Mimbreno Apache chief and father-in-law to Cochise, Mangas Coloradas was a key figure in Apache resistance against settlers and military forces in Arizona and New Mexico
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Juh – A Chiricahua Apache leader who often collaborated with Geronimo and Victorio in military campaigns against U.S. and Mexican forces
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Nana – An elder Apache warrior who fought alongside Victorio and continued to lead raids well into his later years
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Lozen – Sister of Victorio, Lozen was a warrior and prophet who participated in battles and was known for her spiritual abilities and strategic insight
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Other notable chiefs include Santos, Nahche, Nakaidoklini, Bonito, and Eskiminzin, who played important roles in negotiations, warfare, and maintaining Apache culture across different bands
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These leaders are remembered for their bravery, strategic leadership, and resistance to colonization, and they remain central figures in Apache history and cultural heritage.
Thank you for these in depth details. It is so obvious that we are ignorant of this part of our country’s history.
Another great read is *Black Elk Speaks*. It is moving and heartbreaking.
Dickon Among the Indians, 1949, Puffin, by M R Harrington
Thank you, I will read it.
and Dicken Among the Indians I read in 1959... and see Mara Cohen on Facebook. I am there too--- Neal Hugh Hurwitz, NY NY, Medellin, and ISR
The Battle of Little Bighorn should be remembered as one of the greatest military screw-ups in our history. I can think of no other failed military operation that resulted in 100% casualties.
In histories I’ve read, Custer had big political ambitions he no doubt believed would be boosted by glorious military victories against “hostile” western natives. In his arrogance he vastly underestimated the strength and spirit of his Lakota adversaries. He shouldn’t be remembered as some kind of hero.
I always liked how Richard Mulligan portrayed Custer in the movie 'Little Big Man' starring a young Dustin Hoffman as the title character in 1970.
And a big part of the reason he is remembered as such is because of the PR campaign that his widow did. There’s a big statue of Custer on horseback in Monroe, Michigan.
Very likely Ms. Custer had ambitions similar to her husband’s that were dashed that day at the Little Bighorn. She was going to get what she could from his memory.
Custer died at age 36 and his wife spent the rest of her life writing books to glorify him.
I read that Custer had presidential aspirations. Given the rashness and lack of strategic thinking he demonstrated at Little Bighorn, it’s probably a good thing he never made it. Mrs. Custer no doubt had detailed plans in mind for re-decorating the White House. Alas, we’ll never know what curtain material she had picked out.
TY
Sadly, at least since the dawn of the Holocene, prolonged episodes of brutal conquest have been recurrent themes in our history, and on every continent. One can only hope that Carney is wrong, and that the current mess is but a temporary departure from the new path we have been trying to set for humanity since the end of the second world war. Maybe with the help of leadership from the Canadians and Europeans we can get past this sort of horrific behavior.
Right now--- humanity looks like a failed species.
I choose to be an optimist. Of course, I grew up with Kennedy's inaugural address ringing in my ears.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-f-kennedys-inaugural-address
Just because Johnson, Nixon, both Bushes, and Trump led military engagements that violated the principles set forth in Kennedy's speech, the course he proposed was the right one. The thing about positive values is that it is a daily task to both remind ourselves of what they are, and then attempt to follow through and live up to them. Philosophers down through the ages, in many corners of the earth have understood this. It was perhaps most clearly expressed in the ideals of Shinto, Buddhism, and the concept of a liturgy developed by the medieval church. The structural idea is much less about some specific dogma than it is the notion that for us to have a chance to live up to whatever we believe, we have to work at it. Routine recitation of our principles is a powerful tool for giving us that chance.
Laziness in general, and mental laziness in particular are perhaps our worst enemies. Being a critical thinker takes work. Being honest takes work. Those are alien concepts to Trump simply because he is one of the mentally laziest persons to ever walk across a political stage. Plus, he feeds his demons instead of the better angels of his nature. He is his own Iago. But as JFK insisted, we can all do better. All we have to do is make that commitment to ourselves, and that is a commitment we can all make. So yes, I choose to be an optimist.
Anyone who has read biographies of George Armstrong Custer knows he was a character. Self aggrandizing egomaniac. Headstrong, energetic young man who rankled at authority. He knew better than all the generals. Rushing to murder indigenous women and children, his career and life were over at age 36.
America has had some characters. Senator Joe McCarthy and his lead attorney Roy Cohn, for example. Two characters who held the nation, the Press and the opposition spellbound with fear and hate. Their talent was complete devotion to immorality. To attack innocents with hell fire and vengeance, without scruples for their historically dishonorable acts. Few in the nation had the balls, the guts to stand up to them. For fear they would be branded "red commies".
Interestingly, neither Joe or Roy were motivated by money. Just the thrill of power over others. The "Army-McCarthy" investigations and hearings that grabbed the attention of America for months, were touted as scouring the Army for red commie Russian spies. In reality, the cause of the attacks and accusations about the Army was Cohn's petulent anger at the Army Generals for insulting Roy's boyfriend. Of course, no one in the Press who knew this truth had the courage to blow the whistle.
Today we have a President who trained and learned about law breaking from Roy Cohn. This time the power character is motivated not by power but by money. Governing with competence has never held Donald's attention. But offer him gold trophies he didn't earn. Offer him luxury airplanes and golf resorts and cash. Now you have his attention.
The opposition and the Press are so easily fooled and distracted. Read about Roy Cohn in depth. Understand the power of breaking laws so big and so fast the cops can't keep up. Track the schemes and cons and scams the Trump Family are perpetrating on Americans. Acknowledge that the "fix is in". Donald and his family control the military, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, half the Congress and two thirds of the Supreme Court. They are free to loot us citizens without fear of prosecution. And they are doing it.
They are looting. You’re right.
Like a mob boss, the spoils of the crimes and cons trickle down to the Reps and Senators and judges and paid public officials who enable the looting. The GOP Senators are working for the Trump Family now. Not us.