All of this gerrymandering is awful but it can often be thwarted by overwhelming Democratic turnout augmented by Independents and disillusioned Republicans. The midterms are no longer just a contest between Republicans and Democrats. It's a fight to determine whether we want to continue as a constitutional republic or if we prefer an autocracy ruled by a strongman.
The hidden threat to the midterms may be corrupted election software, something that is receiving little attention. Both companies that manufacture most of the election equipment and write the election software are now owned by Trump supporters. The Election Assistance Commission, like most federal agencies and commissions, has been stacked with Trump supporters and as recently noted by Mark Elias' "Democracy Docket," its technical committee that oversees election software has been gutted by Trump. The vendors contracted by the Election Assistance Commission to certify that the election software works correctly are owned by Trump supporters.
It is not inconceivable that the election software could be written to tweak close votes without detection to favor desired candidates. Election Truth Alliance conducted numerous studies of data from the 2024 presidential election and found numerous unexplainable statistical anomalies in an election where Trump improbably won all swing states yet Democrats failed to insist on any recounts. Paper ballots are an effective tool only if they are used to verify results of the computer tabulated vote. Local election officials test voting equipment on election day, but computer code can be written to deceive tests much as Volkswagen wrote their diesel engine management software to deceive emissions tests for years. So called "risk limiting audits" are so hit or miss they are a joke. For instance, in the 2024 election in Pennsylvania where there were questions about the presidential vote count, the risk limiting audit was conducted on the state treasurer race!
Trump must corrupt the midterms to keep Republicans in control of the House and Senate to complete his authoritarian takeover and protect himself and his cronies. We know he has no ethical or moral limits. He will do anything, legal and illegal, to achieve his goals. He and his sycophants are constantly surprising us with their ingenuity and brazzeness. While enormous attention is being paid to Trump's attempts to suppress the vote, no attention is being paid to whether or not he and his operatives are attempting to manipulate the vote count. Someone in authority must conduct a line by line forensic analysis of the computer code in our election software before the midterms. Democrats must challenge improbable wins by Republicans and stand firm if Trump tries to seize ballots and equipment in districts being challenged.
Australia does just fine with rigorously supervised paper ballots. There is no "election equipment" to fail or be fiddled. And we get sausages on election days (held on weekends of course).
It's not a technical issue. I'm sorry, but focusing on technical issues is avoiding the issue. Chris Murphy is close but not quite there when he says that it's not a left-right (progressive-conservative) issue.
It's an up-down (moral-immoral) issue. Down is literally believing that some people need to behave immorally toward some people because it is how the world works. Up is literally believing that the intrinsic value of every human is equal to the intrinsic value of every human because we've otherwise learned how to work at cross purposes with our genetically inherited human nature. And either way, our actions speak louder than our words.
Chris Murphy can't say that. He's a politician. He wants people to vote for him. I don't care if people don't want to vote for me. I'm not a politician. Chris ... you're welcome.
People frequently confuse these two words, but they have distinct differences in philosophy and linguistics:
Amoral: Having no concern for whether an action is right or wrong, or pertaining to things that are morally neutral.
Immoral: Knowing or believing an action is wrong, but deliberately violating that moral code anyway.
trump, himself, is amoral. He simply does not have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. Republicans, on the other hand, know damn well the difference between right and wrong but are acting immorally anyway.
Sorry, but I can't let Trump off the hook; Trump IS immoral. He's a rapist, a protector of pedophiles (if not a pedophile himself), he could have prevented the needless deaths of millions of children by not allowing USAID to be terminated, and so on and so on. This is immorality on stilts.
(And you are new to the comment section, to me at least. I see you are 4 months paying subscriber. Thanks for being here! As the self-appointed Walmart greeter of the forum, WELCOME! 👋🏼I am grateful to each person who helps grow this community, especially since it seems the next NO KINGS--on June 14th--is poorly publicized, and all my friends who have joined me at the other ones are all claiming unavailability this time. 😟)
Christine … I stand corrected. To me, your comment makes perfect sense. I’m going to put your message in my language but let me know if you disagree.
McConnell, Thune, Roberts, Speaker Kevin, and others are “immoral” malignant narcissists. They need to keep telling themselves “I’m bad” or they might slip up and be good.
Trump is an “amoral” sociopath due to childhood trauma. He can’t help himself.
To me, Speaker Mike is closer to Trump. They both seem far too confused about the consequences of their actions to be mere narcissists.
James, you note: "Trump is an “amoral” sociopath due to childhood trauma. He can’t help himself." So, let's do the humane thing and confine Trump to a mental institution for the malignantly evil personalities. PS - I could have said "lock him up" but you make the case that it is not entirely Trump's fault that he is a malignant, evil narcissist.
I am committed as a proud protesting American that in the soon to be moment of his majesty the queen’s passing, Donald Trump, I shall without inhibition, poop on his golden tomb. And I shall return over and over again to poop on the hallowed grounds all the while promoting my insightful book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums.” . And I will announce an annual Three Day Peace and Love Woodstock Poop Festival in which the only shared experience will be to come and poop and pee on this grave.
We need sponsors. The National Endowment for the Arts being one as well as the Kennedy Center. And fund will be available to all citizens and immigrants to funds this fun event.
Bill Katz, You don’t have to wait! Trump has a star on the sidewalk of Hollywood Blvd. It has become a focal point for expressions of people’s disgust.
I wanted to go to Woodstock but that year I was recovering from paranoia and couldn’t stand to be around a lot of people. Imagine that I had to get paranoid at the wrong time and miss the best music festival of my generation.
Really interesting about Woodstock - I had absolutely NO clue! At that time with 2 little kids & a marriage that was disintegrating? I'm sure I read about it but probably nothing the least bit "good"! I had way too many other issues right then.
Highlighting the many moral issues raised by Trump and the MAGAteers does not eliminate the technical issue. Do not get bamboozled, both can occur. Morals are important, but if software hacks prevent the morally right person from winning, all is for naught. There are, as Urban Hermit points out, very serious unresolved questions about the vote counting software used in the 2024 election. There is also, as noted, a disturbing confluence of Trump supporters placed in positions of access and influence over the election hardware and software. Tina Peters, the recently pardoned poll worker in Colorado, gave away the election software code in 2020 as part of the effort to prove Democratic cheating. That was pretty much the game right there. Once that software got out and became available for analysis, people with access can insert any code they like to manipulate outcomes. The questions raised by 2024 indicate its been done. Without extremely high level technical examination of the software code, and rigorous election security procedures, the results are not trustworthy. The fox is now guarding the henhouse.
Solving The One simple moral problem does not solve the many complicated technical problems. Nor does it make the many complicated technical problems simple.
Instead, failing to solve The One simple moral problem makes solving the technical problems impossible.
I admire Andrew Weismann … a lot, but if I understand his new book, Liar’s Kingdom, he doesn’t get it. To me, it’s as if he thinks the system is the sum of its parts. If the system isn’t working, identify and fix a part that isn’t working, and then the system works. Except that’s not how systems work.
Chris Murphy gets it. The parts of the system matter, but not nearly as much as the system. The system matters more because the system is greater than the sum of its parts because the parts subordinate themselves to the system. That’s how the Davids of the world beat the Goliaths. That’s why organizations are surprized to discover that improving a part just made the system worse. That’s why solving The One simple moral problem of getting everyone to sing “all for one and one for all” like three musketeers is Problem One. Otherwise, by default, everyone is singing “all for one but only when the one is me” like three stooges.
Don’t just believe me. Find 51 minutes to listen to American historian Vincent Harding, but listen to the end (especially the end): https://onbeing.org/author/vincent-harding/
At this time in the U.S., it is "up or down," or "democracy vs. fascism," the latter facilitated in part by ignorance on the part of some voters as well as racism/misogyny/xenophobia/homophobia. Barbara McQuade's recent book (2024) "Attack from Within" explores and identifies the current situation. Also relevant is HCR's book, 'How the South Won the Civil War" [2020] postulating that while the South lost the Civil War, its foundational ideology--which favored oligarchy, racial hierarchy and minority rule ultimately survived and came to dominate American politics in many parts of the country. Another worthwhile read is Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland," [2023] about the rise of the KKK in the Midwest (Indiana and Ohio) in the 1920's. I read it and had zero problem equating MAGA as the 21st century version of the KKK.
Mr. Sutherland...With applause and respect for your open-mindedness, an enlarged reading list should include Jeff Sharlet's "The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" (Harper: 2008), which documents the modern omnipotence of the Christian-Aryan-male supremacist cabal that -- save for the Civil War and New Deal interludes -- has ruled this criminal, pro-slavery enterprise since its beginning.
There's also this bibliography, equally vital to understanding the irremediable Evil that is the (true) core of USian reality:
“Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution,” Alfred Blumrosen and Ruth Blumrosen; Sourcebooks, Inc.: 2006. (No PDF available; readily obtainable only through BookFinder.com due to decades of relentless USian censorship. BF price [31/5/26] starts at around $8, with many new-condition, library-suppressed copies available.)
Okay, but challenge my idea that there are two (only) biases. Specifically, I am biased, and I am either moral and therefore biased in favor of getting to the truth, or I am not moral and therefore biased in favor of getting my way.
If I'm heading in the moral direction, then I need to focus on the technical details to create something of lasting value. If I'm heading in the not-moral direction, then I need to focus on the technical details to destroy something of lasting value that got in my way.
Murphy, Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Biden, the Obamas, and other wise individuals often express this message.
Please stop the irrational Dem-bashing by implying that those individuals don't know what they're talking about. It's precisely this kind of cynicism on the left that put MAGA in charge in 2016 and 2024. And the sooner the better. November is coming.
You seem to have merely copy-pasted my reply to your message?
My post was a reply to what you wrote above, namely:
"Chris Murphy can't say that. He's a politician. He wants people to vote for him."
My point: people really have to choose. Do they want a democracy or not? If yes, we need to learn that "politician", "politics", "compromise" etc are NOT dirty words. We need to apply EXACTLY what you say about "up", namely the idea that all human beings have intrinsic value, to politicians, especially Democrats.
The worst thing that ever happened to the left is its belief that "politics is bad" and that Representatives/Senators/Presidents are individuals who cannot but be in it for selfish reasons.
The legacy media actively created this image (including the NYT) by focusing on the horse race only, and limiting their coverage of political campaigns to guessing what the personal ambitions and psychological character traits of candidates may be, rather than doing their job and telling us what their track record is, how democratic compromise works, what their political philosophy is, and what the arguments pro and contra that philosophy are.
So PLEASE stop it. In a democracy, politicians are as perfect or imperfect as any other ordinary citizen. And they too have intrinsic value. If we can't see that, then it's we who are destroying democracy ourselves, regardless of what fascists do.
You are comparing orders of magnitude. Australia has a population of 28 million. Canada about 40 million. The US has 350 million. The time and cost of counting paper ballots across the US would make it impossible to have elections with results mostly reported within a few days or even weeks. The cost would be prohibitive.
And machine counting is far less subject to error than paper ballot counting. It is easier to mess with paper ballots. The fact is that the US has a mostly fine system. It has some probable errors in it, but no finagle that was not easily detectable could have accounted for Trump winning by 750,000 votes in 7 swing states. I am a passionate anti-Trumper but I am also a rational person who has spent 50+ years in computer software and there is simply no possible way that there was that much cheating going on in the 2024 election.
The only Presidential election in my lifetime that MIGHT have been subject to chicanery was the 2000 election where a few thousand ballots in Florida was the difference between Gore and Bush being elected.
I am fine with each state having its own way to count ballots. I think that actually provides a level of protection, because there isn't just ONE way that would be available to try to steal an election across the country, the alleged stealer would have to figure out different ways to do it in each of the potential swing states. That is MUCH HARDER with different systems beiung used.
My significant other, a senior at NSA, would disagree with you.
There are oddities in each of the swing states, and enough corruption in the UPS backup for the tabulation machines and their live software update connections to have introduced malware. A former MAGAt colleague of his, he thinks, is quite capable of pulling this sort of stunt off. And probably elons twinks could figure it out too.
Hand counting paper ballots is a tiresome but accurate way to verify a vote. But on the scale of this fraud, not in time.
The most credible stolen-election hypotheses I've read -- my apology for not now having time to ferret out the links -- all blame Elon the Egregious and his ultra-high-tech, wealth-perpetuated omnipotence.
(I suspect these accounts are at least partially true. But the pivotal truth is the Egregious is so powerful, there is no one in this failed nation who dares investigate or prosecute him, nor will there ever be (unless it is liberated from without.)
I'm not suggesting that every ballot in America be counted by hand. I am suggesting that there are vulnerabilities that need to be investigated. I also think that when candidates of either party suffer an improbable loss they need to challenge the result. In addition, security protocols need to be tightened up, especially risk-limiting audits that are so hit or miss as to be laughable. Here's a good point of reference; https://electiontruthalliance.substack.com/p/are-us-election-systems-secure?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18auiy
Indus has 1.3 billion people and if I’m not mistaken, the whole country votes by paper ballot — and always has. National elections take place over four days. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says CNN and NBC HAVE to find out the results within an hour…
I am guessing that there are many more locations where counting takes place in the US. How does the number of voters per counting location compare with those in Canada and Australia?
I expect that the local levels (precincts or whatever they call them in Canada and Australia) are fairly similar in all places. But to swing an election across the US as some thing happened in 2024 would require first knowing which states it might be needed to be deployed, and THEN you would need to deploy your cheating mechanisms across a HUGE range of systems (many different ones) in order to try to swing a national election.
But we count them by machine. At least in Ontario.
And in Ontario there is a "declined ballot," i.e. "none of these clowns," which goes in a special envelope, so it's not confused with a spoiled ballot.
According to the ME Secretary of State over 98% of all votes are cast on paper or have a paper audit trail. In many states it's 100%. In ME the ballots are stored under the supervision of the Secretary of State's office for 22 months after the election date and then destroyed. This is to avoid co-mingling of old ballots with the new ballots.
Washington state, where I live, has been successfully using paper mail in ballots for decades. I believe Oregon & Colorado have, as well. Our elections have been absolutely safe & secure, too, which I am thankful for. I wish the rest of the country could also use that system for voting.
Sunni, I confirm (from Eugene, OR) that Oregon does have paper mail in ballots. We have 100% paper mail in ballots, although people have the option to vote in person on election day at the County Clerk's office; each county must offer one booth for every 20,000 of population.
Ally, I love our system here in Marion County. I receive a message that my ballot is on its way. Once I have voted, put it in the signed postage paid envelope, and either mailed it or put it in a drop box, the county messages me when it has been received and accepted for counting. This system has worked well for years with few glitches.
Wish that were true; as physically disabled as I am, it is only mail-in voting that prevents my disenfranchisement. But as part of the ChristoNazis' all-out effort to restore Dredd Scot, I don't doubt the Robbers' Court will uphold Trump's edict to end all mail-in voting, which the MAGAstapo will then violently enforce in any state that refuses to comply.
New Hampshire also does paper ballots and I prefer that. Even though we haven’t heard much from the muskrat, I still believe he manipulated the data in the 2024 election. Who is to say that he won’t do the same for the midterms?
Thankfully Australia is a democracy. Not so much here in the US these days with state sponsored violent thugs while fascistic elements are ready to “stand back and stand by” for the midterms.
We are a democracy here in the United States. We do not get to keep the good parts without going through the bad parts of democracy - like today's times. So buckle up, put the crabbiness aside and fight like hell to keep this democracy alive
Uh... nope. Under Biden, the government didn't do anything fascist or anti-constitutional. That only started when "we the people" gave full control over DC to a by then neofascist GOP, in 2024.
Of course, the transformation of the GOP into a neofascist party took decades. But that doesn't mean that during that time, democracy would have been "on life support".
If you think it was, what would your arguments be?
Rhonda, yes, the U.S. is a democracy, but the Democracy Index designates the U.S. as a "flawed democracy." Based on numerous legitimate, measurable criteria, we fall well behind many other democratic nations.
Here's a little irony for the "No Kings" folks: Several of the best democracies are ... gasp! ... monarchies!
Stealing a little thunder from Phil Balla, I note that the best democracies are all Scandinavian nations, also home to the best public education systems. Hmm ... one might think there's some kind of correlation there. But what do I know?
well since I live in the us - this flawed democracy is what I’m stuck with right now - but believe me I will work hard , as will everyone else that knows me, to ensure that we correct this “flawed democracy”
Yes, the US is still a democracy, on paper. But the GOP has become neofascist, actively supports fascists around the world and tries to undermine democracies, and it is installing fascism in the US step by step. So imho, Mike is right.
At the same time, because the US is still a democracy on paper and because it will take years to dismantle it entirely, yes, NOW is the time to fight like hell to keep it alive!
To be a democracy you need to act as a democracy, we no longer do. We are an anocracy. There is still time to revert to being a democracy but that will not happen under Project 2025, the Maga miscreants, and the Jim Crow states. November is looking mighty important to preserving and strengthening the founders aspirational ideas.
Many historians and psychologists will agree that fascism is more of an emotional or cultural movement than a strictly political ideology. There’s plenty of fear and terror here.
Fascism is defined as a political REGIME in which the three branches of government are no longer constitutionally separate and coequal, as is the case in a constitutional democracy (including the US Constitution), but where the legislative and judiciary branches are "bundled" into the power of the executive ("fasces" = "bundle", in Latin, so that's where Mussolini got the idea from).
It can only be installed and maintained when many powerful people adopt its ideology, and when pro-democracy civic forces are silenced through fear, terror and violence.
What experts of fascism have shown is that before a fascist party can win democratic elections, first a shift on the level of culture as a whole needs to take place (a lot of fake news, much cynicism both left and right, a collapse of moral values).
But fascism itself is definitely a political regime powered by a political ideology. That's why debating and defeating the ideology is so important.
In the meantime, for now the US is still a democracy, but the GOP is changing it step by step.
Alec, in my time, as a post WWII Boomer, our nation has been the most war hungry nation on earth. Who are we kidding. Every generation it has become a new cause. We must replace the French and stop communism so we falsified the Tonkin Golf. We must overthrow the legit government of Iran in the year of my birth, 1953. We must invade Iraq cause Sadam said bad things about W. bush daddy. And Ddsy Bush had to invade Iraq the first time for fucking nothing. There were no WMD. We must invade Granada. Attaching the latest Iran was necessary to end stories of The Epstein Files. War Fucking Wr War. Ever ends. We are the most dangerous nation on earth bar none. I know I’m forgetting a few.
JFK wanted to shut down the VN war. That’s one of the reasons the CIA had him killed. “JFK and the Unspeakable,” James Douglass. (Ongoing correspondence with Kruschev about establishing peace between our countries was also unacceptable to the military; we had to “win” the Cold War.)
As an elderly voter I get to vote absentee in Georgia. They send me a paper ballot in the mail laid out as a mark sense form. I fill it in and return it (these days by drop box rather than the mail) and the Secretary of State's office tells me I voted in the current election.
Voting machines could produce this same sort of ballot at the polls so the voter could visually verify the ballot before placing it in the ballot box. Much simpler machines can count this sort of ballot and no electronic device has the ability to modify what the voter chose. The paper ballot remains for recounts. These could be captured as images (like checks at the bank) for long term storage.
Much more difficult to manipulate or deny the outcome of an election held this way.
I am writing again for Florida VBM county by county. It gets more expensive year by year (postcard stamps $.61 apiece, as of 14 July $.65), but the state is getting bluer as hurricanes make it more expensive for all but the super rich.
Make sure to campaign for Alex Vindman, the Democratic Senate candidate who is now in a tie with the Republican pro-Trump won. Winning this seat is crucial!
Agreed that Vindeman must win. He is an American hero in my list. A non-TV person, I was watching MSNBC to see his calling out Trump about Ukraine. What a moment for an American who knew both American and Ukrainian history enough to appreciate the stakes!
Americans vote with paper ballots, too. It’s almost like if you vote by mail you have to mail in a paper ballot… Shocking but true! Americans vote on paper ballots no matter how they vote, but the ballots are then counted by tabulating machines. Which is way more accurate than human hand counting.
Americans vote by paper ballots, too. They are just tabulated by machine, which is far more accurate than human hand counting. I bet that’s how Australia works, too.
It is not just the voting machines that are at risk of tampering. It is the electronic voter registration rolls that are used to check voters in. Scott Leiendecker, a Trumper who bought Dominion Voting Systems, which he rebranded as Liberty Votes, also owns a company, KNOWiNK, that provides the electronic roll books in many jurisdictions. Remember that the regime has been trying to get the states to provide their voter registration data to "purge" the rolls of illegal voters. That is the database that the KNOWiNK accesses.
The simplest to execute hack would be to download a virus that would shut down the electronic roll books at some point on election day after the operational checks had been completed. If the precinct did not have backup paper rolls, every voter who went to vote on election day would then have to submit the paperwork and show ID to cast a provisional ballot. They could run out of provisional ballots. They could bog down the lines, forcing people to leave for work or child care. The hack could be applied down to the precinct level. If you can't vote early by mail, and the ballots have to be received on election day if SCOTUS so rules this month, there could be chaos.
The Trump regime would see chaos as good. It would be proof of election interference. The election could be declared invalid. There would have to be an investigation. There couldn't be another election until they could guarantee free and fair elections, but they have already staffed those agencies with MAGA supporters. The status quo with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, thin as they are, would be maintained...
The point of maximum vulnerability to election interference is not the vote count. It is whether you are allowed into the voting booth or not. That is controlled by the electronic voter rolls. That is why the Republicans have been trying so hard to get that data from the states. There are a lot more sophisticated potential hacks if you can see the data ahead of time. But simple election day chaos could work as well.
Tampering with election hardware and/or software; tampering with electronic poll books (excellent point) AND suppressing voter registration — how is it that a large state like California can allow and process same day voter registration, but in Texas you must be registered at least 30 days in advance!
Everyone (media, activists, voting organizations, etc.) must shine a spotlight on all three areas and protect our vote from registration through ballot counting.
Every state COULD do it the same. They just have different laws. This is in FACT one of the "fail safes" of our election system even though it might seem weird. Having a variety of different rules in place all over the country, while it is cumbersome and may even impact some voters, does one thing for sure: it makes it VERY difficult for a nationwide conspiracy to steal an election almost impossible, because juggling all the different requirements to do that across 50 states (or even half a dozen swing states) would be so vulnerable to whistleblowers who decided to inform on any shenanigans that it is simply unthinkable that such nonsense can actually happen.
This is why I check my electronic voter record that the state maintains every month or so. And will definitely before an election. I make my own copy of that record. Just in case something happens to it.
Agreed 111% with Ivy.6677. I figured that Trump would muck up things, but they could be repaired. That optimism is gone. We have to get car-pools set up; help get others who are less resourced to get to polling stations far away. Alabama excluding Terri Sewell is a big loss, though primarily symbolic.
Recently, I have been reading the Federalist and, if I understand his tangled prose, Alexander Hamiltion would be a big proponent of Section II of the Voting Rights Act. Mr Hamilton opposed state control of national elections. EDIT P.S., the Federalist essay to which I refer is #59 by Mr Hamilton dated 20feb1788.
I'm not sure anymore who is typing Trump's rants. I don't think he's mentally capable to do this anymore. Since it gets posted only on Truth Social, I suspect someone has the ability to edit most of the crap that he posts.
Agreed. Only the most confused midnight postings read like he wrote them. Any others, especially longer ones, have accurate grammar, commas, and even 4-5 syllable words. Far beyond his illiterate demented brain.
I agree, GJ. In fact, I'm convinced that Donald is not the actual author of most of his social media posts. I'm skeptical that he even sees/approves some of the posts before they are published. In the post HCR quoted in today's Letter, there are several words, such as "entity," that are outside Donald's current vocabulary.
Natalie Harp, is a stalker-girl who is the type fan who would mimic Donald's verbal patterns out of creepy adoration. Some of the bizarro memes posted by the account reflect the sort of worship exhibited by Natalie, who unlike her boss/daddy/god, has the ability to work with AI image generators.
That's possible in many cases, and Natalie could be editing on the fly. But some of the posts seem too complex in structure to come from Donald's enfeebled mind, even with helpful insertion of the right words. He can't stay on topic from the beginning of a sentence all the way to the end.
I suppose he could babble a general theme, then Natalie must actually compose it into an actual statement.
…that rant of dumps at the end quoted is his own destiny. Everything he criticizes or casts on others is deflection from himself. Sleepy Don…not Joe. Drain the swamp…his administration is the swamp. We should know his moves by now. His hype group is fading as is his health. Soon…
It’s just occurred to me that because of the unending incredulous bs this administration has done, that if dump dies, will they pull a “Weekend at Bernies?”
STATE control of national elections is the foundation of protecting & preserving "Early Voting" & "Mail-In voting" which is exactly why 22 Attorney Generals across the United States led by California's ROB BONTA filed a lawsuit now pending in Massachusetts to protect all Americans' essential voting rights.
Yesterday on 6/3, my calendar said it was exactly 6 months before the national Midterms.
For the legal context of the 22 AG's Massachusetts case click-on my LFAA Bio as I filed a "verified complaint" under oath with my CA Attorney Genera ROB BONTA six days before the 22 AG's Massachusetts' case to preserve "Early Voting" & "Mail-in Voting in California.
In November, I am expecting USPS interference on Mail-In & Absentee Ballots. I just voted in California & the CA Secretary of State not the CA Registrar of Voters sent me CONFIRMATION that my ballot was received & COUNTED.
Yep! I got the same email 😉 I also worked four days as election clerk in LA County and 'twas a joy to see democracy keep on keepin' on. And if ya tune in to the live cams at the vote processing center, it's still keepin' on til every vote is verified and counted.
Tha Constitution delegates implementation of voting procedures not determination of the franchise; the national government can interevene.
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."
I've read the Federalist Papers several times. People may be surprised what the founders had in mind, not a democracy but a republic. Hamilton and the boys understood democracy would lead to populism and a ideologue or celebrity would then come to power. They predicted a Trump like figure should there be too much democracy. They had a very different understanding of what we the people meant; not what we often read here or on the fringe right. If one wants an understanding of their perspective one needs to also read Publius. They based much of their thinking on his writings.
Most of the Founding Fathers were slave holding white supremacists who didn't believe "the people" had the intelligence to rule themselves -- thus the Republic form of government. Which results in government by the wealthy elites. America has become what it is not because of its system of government but rather because of its vast natural resources and the immense ingenuity created by the mixing of very different ideas and ways of thinking (our immigrant melting pot). Our system of government -- created 250 years ago -- is broken and really not worth repairing. We need something new, where the will of the majority is actually heeded, ALL people are treated as equal, and Justice can't be purchased. A person can dream.
That's become a popular revisionist version of history, well debunked by scholarship.
A version usually espoused by those who have yet to study the constitutional debates, the Federalists Papers, the writings of the Enlightenment thinkers, and Publius.
It's indicative of the neo-belief everyone is an expert on everything because they heard it on a podcast. An affliction of both extremes.
"... well debunked by scholarship." To what scholarship are you referring? George Washington was a slave holder. Slave holding equals white supremacy. Did Washington free his slaves? Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder. Did he free his slaves? Granted, not the most scholarly source, but I watched the Netflix doc about TJ last night. They site in his writings where he argues that blacks are inferior to whites in body and intellect. Did Thomas Jefferson truly write that or did he not?
Our political system doesn't suffer from too much democracy, and trump wasn't elected because of too much democracy.
Our democracy is rigged and has been all along. The founding fathers clearly wanted to make sure that the economic elite were the only ones to have any say in who wields power. Lincoln's description of government of the people, by the people, for the people is an interpretation that I subscribe to, and I believe that we need to overhaul the system to be more democratic and designed to keep power with the majority of citizens. And to regulate capitalism in the interest of the majority making sure the wealthy elite can not hold sway by keeping money out of every level of politics and every branch of government.
The Supreme Court has now proven it cannot be trusted to interpret the Constitution in a non-partisan fashion while protecting the rights of all citizens equally. It must be reformed and expanded with term limits and strong, enforceable ethics rules.
If only voters would wake up and understand how the current GOP has diminished our country, the outrageous corruption perpetrated by the party as a whole and trump in particular through his administration, we would have a big enough majority to reform the federal government in the best interests of the majority of Americans.
The franchise was limited basically to *White, male, adult, property owners. I re-read the Federalist this week for a class. Third or fourth time.
EDIT P.S., though in London when the Constitutional convention occurred, President Adams had previously discussed eight balancing checks (e.g., states and territories checking the national government) to mitigate tyranny or anarchy.
Many layers to the fabric. Most interesting to me was how SecTreasury Hamilton really thought like a lawyer in trying to think up every reason one might oppose the Constitution and answering it.
President Madison, as a non-att'y, dealt more on the theoretical / struxural side. To be sure, both were struxuralists and pragmatists, but SecTreasury Hamiltion leaned toward pragmatism while President Madison leaned toward the thetheoretical.
President Madison's idea of dispersed faxions cancelling each other out reminds me of modern portfolio theory of diversifying away idiosyncratic risks. Leibniz was along the same lines in the best of all plausible worlds in the face of free-will.
The two big bugabooes were dissolution or a tyranny of the majority.
And that is my point. It is not and has not for gone well for some time.
If we are to build a new system and not just spruce up the existing, then the search for solutions is to venture into a brave new world.
At this point all ideas should be considered, though I'm not at all sure AI is the answer. We already have too many of the electorate who can't or won't think for themselves. Turning that over to a bot is not the right direction to go. I think AI could be a useful resource for helping with research, but the the thinking part, the evaluation of the information gathered should be province of flesh and blood humans.
There comes a point in every authoritarian melodrama when Caesar starts looking less like Caesar and more like a lawn ornament with grievance issues. Donald Trump, once sold to America as the immovable strongman of history, now appears to be entering his garden gnome era.
The signs are not exactly subtle. The man who promised dominance disappears from public view, comes back looking tired and foggy, then fills the silence with the usual carnival of flags, insults, weird spectacle, and personal complaint. When governing gets hard, apparently the answer is cage fighting, paint samples, and shouting at democracy like it owes him money.
Meanwhile, Republicans are doing what Republicans do best when a leader starts wobbling. They are pretending everything is fine while quietly checking the exits. House members do not want to vote against Trump, because they fear the cult. They do not want to vote for him, because they fear the voters. So they hover in the hallway like middle schoolers avoiding both the principal and their parents.
The real punchline is that Trump’s fading power has not made the MAGA machine less dangerous. It has made it more frantic. The courtiers know the king is losing his grip, so they are stuffing the silverware into their pockets before the lights come on.
Trump still has volume. He still has menace. He still has the vocabulary of a malfunctioning bumper sticker. But power is not just noise. Power is control. And right now, the man who once claimed he alone could fix it looks increasingly like someone who cannot find the remote.
The strongman is shrinking. The tantrum remains full-size.
"Communists [insert 'Trumpists' here] always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years! But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL!"
Funny, how tRump gets it so right when he looks in the mirror.
Thanks, Urban Hermit, for your excellent analysis of the threat to elections via tabulation software. I just hope it’s not too late for the blue states at least to do the right thing starting now. There’s not a moment to lose!
This is all rubbish. Our election system is one of the safest in the world. There is simply no practical way to corrupt it without bringing "into the fold" literally hundreds or even thousands of people across the country. You can't even pay that many people off and keep a secret. Especially when there are reporters all over the country who would fall all over themselves to get an exclusive on such nonsense.
We lost a freaking election people. The easiest way to solve that problem is to make sure people vote in the next one. Until there is REAL EVIDENCE, not just conspiratorial nonsense, that something like a stolen election occurred, everyone should focus on the IMPORTANT stuff, like getting out the Democratic vote EVERYWHERE.
Jon, I wish more people would listen to your common sense posts. You make such a good point about how the diversity of voting methods across this vast country make it less prone to meaningful tampering. Our focus needs to be on all efforts related to getting out the vote!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you might also want to focus on getting EVERYONE out to vote- Dems, Inds, disaffects Reps all count. EVERY VOTE MATTERS.
I have worked as a Voting inspector in Massachusetts where I live. It is untrue that the “computer code“could alter results. Here’s why: 1) We have an accurate list of people who are allowed to vote in our district. 2) We record them as they enter to vote, and we count their name as voting, and give a paper ballot. 3) At a private voting carrol, they individually mark the ballot. 4) Then they take the marked ballot to an optical vision Voting machine that counts these marked paper ballots that are automatically locked in the Machine. 5) After the polls close, we count the marked paper ballots, and compare that total to the numbers of ballots issued, and the number of voters recorded. All three numbers must match.
Ed, those challenging the election are not saying it happened at the level of voting machines, but where the votes were tallied. It would have been helpful if in the swing states (MA is not one of those), some random recounts had been done and matched with the tallies. It's too late to do anything about the last election now, but we can be better prepared this time because it is a guarantee that Trump and his cronies will try to mess with the election even beyond getting the Supreme Court to declare racist maps OK. They know what Musk and other AIers can do and will try to use it again since it worked so well last time.
Why not lobby for a 'practice run' with the results of the just-held primaries? Maybe in NJ, where there was decent turnout, results were fairly close, and the results could be used as a baseline against any possible manipulation? Or Iowa?
That sounds like my local voting place. It “feels” safe too. The local ladies add to the sense of safety too. But we are under ICE terror. Will Brown Shirts or ICE be in my local polling place? That is what I believe Vought and Co. are planning. Will those already in hiding dare come out to vote?
Urban, that is what happened in 2024 in the swing states, putting "Rs" in power who were not well-known, supposedly defeated popular senators, reps, and other officials. It was cleverly done, just enough above the number of votes needed to keep from requiring automatic recounts, and only in federal elections. That should have made a lot of folks wary and wanting to check it out. Instead, Democrats have been blaming other Democrats and Harris and Walls for what happened. That is stupid, but just what one would expect from folks who can so easily be steered away from what actually happened. Musk and his what I call, "pre-DOGE crew did the deed and were never even investigated. I suspect as I have said that they practiced in red states in 2022 to get it down to a "science." No one checks votes in red states assuming they will be "R" victories. We know this can be done and has been done, now we need to protect our votes from Trumplandia!
Another propagandist. This is so So SO stupid! I can't believe all the smart people here who when they get into the conspiratorial garb leave reality behind.
Our elections have always been the safest on the planet. And that hasn't changed and isn't likely to change. So get over it. PLEASE.
Jon, for years, travel experts have told people who are afraid of flying to just get over it. Flying, they assure us, is the safest mode of transportation. And yes, one can look at statistics and conclude that flying is safer than driving.
However, travel safety depends on who is controlling the mode of travel. I have acquaintances whom I will not ride with because they're terrible drivers.
The Aviation Safety Network maintains a database of aviation safety "incidents." In 2025, numerous nations with airports reported accidents. By nation, all reported accidents were in the single digits ... except one. The United States reported 77 accidents. The U.S. is on track to maintain the same ratio in 2026. And before you jump on me, yes, I know other factors cause the U.S. numbers to be high.
But my point is that just because U.S. elections have always been safe (I question whether they've been the "safest"), there is no guarantee that they will continue to be safe. People who pay attention have legitimate cause to worry about election integrity in the U.S.
As with travel, election safety depends on who is controlling the elections. In several states, the electoral process is being taken away from nonpartisans and put into the hands of election-denying Trump supporters. Will they be able to monkey with elections? It remains to be seen.
As investment operators always disclaim, "past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance."
Now, gerrymandering is a completely different story. I absolutely agree that gerrymandering is a serious problem and it is EASY to pull off, especially since the Supreme Court has decided its okay to look the other way when it is happening.
But remember, gerrymandering has NOTHING TO DO with the Presidential election as that is decided in 48 out of 50 states on a statewide basis. There is no possible way to gerrymander the Presidential election. None.
You are most likely correct in this regard, Jon. What we are witnessing on a national level is the importance of local and state elections that have an impact on the national elections. That evidence is a spinless, huevos-less congress that has abandoned its constitutional duty as one of the three systems of our alleged "checks and balances" system.
Thank you, Urban Hermit, for stating this so clearly. The reason Dump says he doesn't care about the midterms is because he knows it will be stolen for the republicans regardless of dem voter turnout, just as the 2024 election was. This is the greatest danger we face right now. More people need to be talking about it and raising its profile.
While many (most?) states’ voting machines are not connected to the internet, the vote reporting is connected, right? Also, I believe voting machine software updates are installed via flashdrives that are not scrutinized for pre-loaded malware? If this is all true, it would explain not only 2024 but also our upcoming midterms….
You state the following: ''Both companies that manufacture most of the election equipment and write the election software are now owned by Trump supporters. The Election Assistance Commission, like most federal agencies and commissions, has been stacked with Trump supporters and as recently noted by Mark Elias' "Democracy Docket," its technical committee that oversees election software has been gutted by Trump. The vendors contracted by the Election Assistance Commission to certify that the election software works correctly are owned by Trump supporters.'' Do you have sources for these assertions?
Why is it that skeptics always demand that someone else do their homework? If you disbelieve Urban Hermit, do your own research. It's not difficult. If you find that the hermit is mistaken, then come back and rebut their assertions.
This will hold, here on substack has been writing (and to my mind, justifying) that this is already happening. They explain the anomalies in the voting data from 2024. Things already do not add up. An overwhelming voter turnout can help overcome some voter manipulation but there needs to be a large scale address of this in advance of this November's election.
Take your head out of the sand. It didn't happen in 2024. And it will not happen in 2028. It is too difficult to do, there isn't enough money, not even in Musk's bank account, to pay off enough people to corrupt a Presidential election. And there are so many other ways to just scare people into not voting. Why risk going to prison when it isn't necessary?
Jon, says you? You don't know that! We already know the damage Musk and his DOGErs did and in a really short time. The weird election results should make a whole lot of people concerned about this particular election. One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to know something was off about it. The results in the swing states were what one could expect if algorithms were used to change just enough votes in just the right places. Assuming you are the only "brilliant" knowledgeable person on this thread is rather arrogant, don't you think!
"One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to know something was off about it."
SERIOUSLY? Because you didn't like the result? That is such poppycock, Ruth! You should be ashamed of yourself for allowing yourself to be swayed by nonsense like that. Because of a bare suspicion and NO proof, nothing, nada after 18 months, and you STILL hold to some nonsense about conspiracies to steal the election.
Un-f-ing-believable that people who are smart enough to read someone like Heather, can still spout nonsense like this.
You might have noticed that Heather has NOT ONCE suggested that the 2024 election was stolen. Why? Because it wasn't, anymore than the 2020 election was stolen for Biden.
And by the way, you are technically "right", I don't KNOW that, but then neither do you. The difference is that I do NOT put forth stuff that I do NOT know for sure out into the public because I understand how dangerous that is. You obviously don't.
You are not being alarmist, Urban Hermit. The results of the last presidential race stank to high heaven. No way this Orange Idiot and his filthy rich, greedy, conniving enablers achieved power honestly. I do hope progressives find a way to thwart this continued power grab by this congregation of Keystone Kops.
An aside: I wonder who dropped out of the House vote to support Ukraine against Russia (218-204). The count in the earlier vote to limit Trump’s power over when to strike at Iran was 215-208.
Once again, the Supreme Court’s majority has cast its lot with the very worst of America, not its best. It didn’t just rule that the foxes have the legal right to guard the henhouses, but encouraged them to give their favorite ones pet names like “Giblets” “Fricassee” and “Finger-Lickin’ Good.” As well as single out the dark-feathered ones for extra retribution.
Using an unsigned “emergency docket” order to undo 60 pages of careful reasoning by a 3-judge Appellate panel which explicitly stated Alabama was using “partisanship” to destroy black voting districts outright, 5 Justices cast their lot with everything that’s bad and degrading about our past (and present), rather than with its 18th century aspirations about “a more perfect Union.” Some weird version of “originalism” indeed.
It leaves us with the one recourse we still have and the only one which has to work this November. In Joyce Vance’s words, “nothing defeats a gerrymander like unexpected turnout. Let’s go….”
Rhonda, you answered your own question with your first sentence. When someone is conferred the privilege of deciding what is right and wrong, it should come as no surprise that they come to believe they are always right. Therefore, preconceived biases must be right.
It also helps to be steeped in conservative religion, where one learns to cherrypick the guiding document and bend it to one's will.
Question ... When will media outlets interview Senator Turtle Man Mitch as he retires about his legacy in the Senate? I know I'm "looking through the rear view mirror", his actions are tough to forget, forgive, etc ....
He'll just get softball questions and blah blah blah his way to saying he did it all for the good the country. Give him hard hitting, embarrasing questions from a good investigative reporter then maybe I'd read it. Otherwise it'll all be bs anyways. He, Paul Ryan and the entire GOP are to blame for the mess America is in. They want a kleptocracy, a theocracy and a fascist regime. They all signed up for it.
But they helped set up conditions that made electing him possible. The real villain is Reagan’s trickle down, however. That’s what hollowed out the middle class.
TJB, media outlets get interviews only when the subject agrees to be interviewed. I doubt very much that Senator Turtle Man will be granting any interviews as he walks away from the carnage he created.
The Republican judges on SCOTUS have already stated that there is nothing they can/will do about partisan gerrymanders. Obviously they have their fingers on the scale trying to ensure a Republican majority.
That’s why I write 10 GOTV postcards every day. The more Dems in place from dog catcher to governor, the better our chances of staring down whatever hostile sources show up.
I would like to see John Roberts explain how when earlier redistricting decisions they made decisions that would uphold voting rights, but refused to order the State to use a map that would comply with their decision and leave the unconstitutional map because it was too close to the election. Yet now, in the middle of primary elections now they rule that the States can implement new maps.
Every accusation is a confession. The Trump post quoted in the final paragraph is a dog whistle to his most violent followers. Taken together with his prediction for a "wild" time at his birthday brawl, there is a distinct Kristallnacht chill in the air.
We already had Kristallnacht when ICE CBP and other Federal personnel stormed the apartment building in Chicago forcing residents including naked women and children into the cold to be arrested and processed. They broke down locked doors in their masks and riot gear and dropped onto the building from helicopters.
The Chicago Tribune ignored the raid. Fortunately, the Chicago Sun Times was on top of the story and most of the antics of ICE.
I wonder who actually wrote that quote? Stephen Miller maybe? Someone or more than one, are running the White House, but Trump doesn’t seem to know who did what. It sometimes comes out in hearings that the staffers came up with things “in the parameters” of what Trump would want.
Or Natalie Harp, with or without Miller. She writes all the overnight posts, I’ve read, and gives them to the demented devil for “approval” (one eye open is yes, no eyes open is yes, both eyes open never happens?).
My daughter used to place my then-infant granddaughter on a small quilt to which was attached dangling toys she would watch. The toys were attached to a crossed arch just like the UFC cage. Symbolism is spot on.
There’s a god-awful photo of Pulte on the pages of the Washington Post, taken on January 6,2021, showing a twerpy 19-year-old jerk in a MAGA ballcap outside peering over a wall in Congress, while chaos envelops the scene around him.
As Adam Kinzinger says, the people who plotted to hang Mike Pence and kill Nancy Pelosi that day are now the ones he’s naming to run our Justice and Intelligence agencies. Adam described a wave of sudden nausea that hit him on his last trip to DC.
ICYMI: (1) Retired Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, who testified at the House J6th investigation and Andreas Romero, lawyer for the plaintiffs are interviewed by Michael Popok of Legal AF and comment on “;Why Federal Judge Williams is concerned that Trump defrauded the Court” in the $1.776 billion Reparations case with the added Trump family tax liability immunity order. They discussed the 2-300 retired federal and state judges who have come together to speak out against the assault on the rule of law, the 35 retired Federal judges who wrote a letter to Judge Williams about their concerns of fraud in the case that is before her, the ruling by Judge Williams that the DOJ must file briefs with her by 6/19 that their case was not a deception of the Court and why the Court hasn’t been a victim of fraud because of collusion and that they hid the settlement they made, Judge Luttig said that Trump is waging war on the Federal Court and the “rule of law”. And he feels it will bring down the Trump Administration.
(3) The beginning of the end of the “presumption of regularity” (at least for the Trump DOJ) is supported by a recent (5/22/26) survey of Federal judges by Bright Line Watch and UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project: 94% of legal experts (Federal Judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law. https://brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-the-rule-of-law-in-trumps-second-term/ Lots of data and charts. “94% of legal experts (Federal judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law”
(4) The NYT Editorial Board was so upset by Trump’s pervasive corruption of the U.S. government that they wrote an oped on it (5/20/26):
It was Judge Luttig months ago who first raised the dreaded issue of what happens if Courts rule against him and he simply disobeys. The key officers of the Court are paid by DOJ, not by the judge. Who’s going to arm the Bailiffs and watch their backs when they arrive at the White House with handcuffs to carry out an arrest or contempt order?
We’d have to ask Heather but what I have read says that there is no clear evidence Andrew Jackson ever clearly defied a SCOTUS ruling. He was censured by the Senate over a financial maneuver but it was later expunged. The U.S. Marshalls Service (USMS) is used by the courts for security, prisoner transport and executing court orders. The agency operates as a bureau within the DOJ. It isn’t clear what would happen if Trump openly defied the court. It has never happen before. But nothing is impossible with Trump. It would be prima facie evidence of violation of the U.S. Constitution and grounds for impeachment.
We already have way more grounds for the impeachment of Trump than we could process in a year. I sadly fear that one more makes little difference. And expect many more impeachable actions in the coming days.
It’s the Republicans in Congress that are the roadblock to holding Trump accountable and getting our nation back on track. I’d focus on them, not Trump.
I still wonder about the role of the Military and their oath to protect the U.S. from threats foreign and domestic. If all tRump's actions are not a domestic threat, what is????
Judge Luttig, not me, wrote a piece about what the Marshalls service is and the unresolved issues connected with it. Bottom line — conflict of interest that’s massive. Bailiffs go out and arrest people, too. Think of the implications.
In the Alabama case, SCOTUS did not respond to the lower court's finding of fact that racial discrimination was real and determinative. They just said that they should rule in concordance with Callais.
They disregarded their own prior instructions re racial discrimination,
To be granted, a petition for rehearing must be grounded in substantial, focused reasons:Intervening Circumstances:
The petition can cite significant new developments, such as a major change in the law, a new statute, or a newly issued judicial decision that occurred after the case was submitted.
Substantial Substantial Grounds: It can raise "other substantial grounds not previously presented," provided there is a valid reason why this information could not have been provided earlier.
Overlooked or Misapprehended Facts/Law: While generally discouraged, if the Court clearly misunderstood or entirely overlooked a completely dispositive fact in the record or a critical question of law.
Thank you for the reply. The Roberts court is fully rogue, composing Constitutional law out of whole cloth. Please read Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent to the ruling you are citing. Michael Popok read it aloud on Legal AF 6/3/26. You may also be interested in this discussion: NYU School of Law Professor Melissa Murray, author of a recent book “The U.S. Constitution”, was interviewed by legal experts Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz of LegalAF The Court of History on 5/31/26: “Supreme Court Justice Roberts and the monster he created”. https://michaelpopok.substack.com/p/justice-roberts-runs-scared-from?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios They feel John Roberts is a Dr. Frankenstein who created the monstrous and unconstitutional Trump presidency. They discuss the fallacy of “originalism”, the history of the Reconstruction Amendments, how Roberts replaced the Constitution with a neo-Confederate vision by wrecking the 14th and 15th Civil War Amendments, etc.. A very informative discussion. Their opinions are supported by a recent (5/22/26) survey of Federal judges by Bright Line Watch and UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project: 94% of legal experts (Federal Judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law. https://brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-the-rule-of-law-in-trumps-second-term/ Lots of data.
"Fully rogue" indeed. White the Court's mandate is to rule on questions of law, this Court has ruled on factual questions they had no business addressing.
"the Trump administration is also tearing out a $368 million deep-ocean observation system along the Pacific Coast that monitors marine ecosystems, coastal environments, and the ocean currents that affect climate change"
How evil is that?! Not just defunding, but spending more taxpayer money to rip it out. This is not just treasonous for the harm to the country, it is a crime against humanity.
Trump just diverted over $65 billion from the National Parks that was to be used to maintain the facilities and access to the Parks. Acadia National Park receives over 4 million visitors each year and adds over a billion dollars to the state's economy. That's a lot of wear and tear that the state isn't allowed to fix. And there are hundreds of parks, national monuments and forests affected.
But, what do you expect from someone who though we could prevent forest fires by using rakes to clear out litter and leaves?
She starts with that proto-fascist Long Dong Clarence court, ever seeking new ways to kill democracy and rig elections for (white) Republicans -- this court out-criminalizing criminal Donald in its zeal for its own criminality.
She ends with criminal Donald mouthing more smears, as if going down in his decrepitude as loudly as he can. Must still take center stage. Must still take center stage.
And in the middle just one instance after another of insanity -- such as the criminal Donald administration "tearing out a $368 million deep-ocean observation system along the Pacific Coast that monitors marine ecosystems, coastal environments, and the ocean currents that affect climate change." The reason? The Donald crew and the Project 2025 insidious don't believe in climate change -- cannot abide science having research tools to track reality they ever deny.
It's all a madness Heather tabs here as high, mad comedy, insanity, depravity -- special mixture.
Hello Phil... Read Paul Krugman's Substack Posting today 3-June-2026, 'Trump Has Given Up'... DJT has little knowledge, and limited Attention Span, maybe 2-3 Days... With the Resistance firming up in the Courts, and Internationally... DJT will indulge his worst impulses, and let Iran fester, like he has Gaza... We haven't seen the Worst from the Iran Crisis yet... DJT may move on Cuba, or Greenland as further distractions... Pray For Divine Intervention Soon... Very Soon...
Why can the Supreme Court deny the right of Alabama to redistrict to ensure fair Black representation, but says that it is okay for Texas to redistrict to increase representation based on political party? I know SCOTUS said the political aspect was beyond its jurisdiction and the racial aspect was not, but I still don't understand how their decisions can stand. They seem clearly contradictory.
Jim, it's actually a both/and situation. Six of the "justices" are partisan and most of them are compromised. Due to their history of misconduct against women, Clarence and Brett cannot make impartial decisions regarding women's issues. Due to religious beliefs that conflict with secular justice, John, Clarence, Sam, Neil and Amy can't make impartial decisions about social issues. Due to receipt of significant largesse from persons having business before The Court, John, Clarence and Sam cannot make impartial decisions about anything.
Gerrymandering for any reason should be prohibited. This Supreme Court is shockingly partisan. Their argument would be thrown out in a Law School Moot Court.
He flooded the zone to distract us from the pedophile past. Trump raped underage girls and we have gone to war twice so far on account of him flooding the zone. And now we must flood his zone with all manor of protest. I agree with Heather that it will get worse before it gets better.
Let me post the correct link to the comment page where you can submit your opposition to changing the law that currently has peer review and the NIH making decisions for funding scientific research to one where the funding would be decided by politicians and political appointees:
When I first heard about this threat to funding science research, I was given the wrong link, which I then passed on, to the frustration and consternation of people who wanted to state their pro-science position.. If you haven't already done so, please add your voice now, and please share this information widely. It is one small thing that we can each do to make a potentially big difference.
Who voted for Russell Voight? Politicizing science kills critical thinking. Something Trump and the Republicans will never be accused of. In fact think and Republican or more correctly I should say MAGA is an oxymoron. Little Marco has become a joke. What's his position anyway? Oh yes sweeper. He goes around cleaning up after Trump. How is it that we're in a war and trying to negotiate a truce and the Secretary of State is not involved. I'm in Indonesia right now and while people still like Americans and respect America, when you mention Trump a scowl comes over their faces followed by "no, bad". But they still like Obama. Me too. Bill
well, a number of Democrats from Harris on down warned voters of Project 2025, written largely by Vought. Trump said 'never heard of it' and the press let him get away with that (as with so much more). So voters had their chance but preferred Trump's lies to the prospect of a woman of color in the White House.
No one elected Russell Vought as you implied - instead he is a zealot. Like most zealots who try to impose their beliefs onto a multitude - Russell Vought will end up being hated by millions of people for the damage he has done to their lives, this country and others. When Russell Vought dies - he will have to answer to the Almighty, he apparently believes in - for why he, Russell Vought, willfully ignored the instructions laid down by Jesus Christ.
He's a theocrat as well Kay. Him and Leonard Leo are buddies which explains a lot. ALL of the Republicans hide behind each of his illegal impoundment of appropriated funds privately cheering him on. Publicly - see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Revelation 17:14 They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will Triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings - and with Him will be His called, chosen and faithful followers.
The Seven hills on which the woman of Revelation 17:4 sits are the Seven Mountains. They will be defeated by Revelation 17:14. The kings will all be defeated by the King of kings in Revelation 17:14.
Among the chosen are those described in John 10:9. The sheep of the Shepherd who will come in and go out and find pasture.
As described in John 10 thieves and robbers abandon the flock when danger strikes because they care nothing for those under their care.
Where does the Project 2025 agenda fit in with the actual New Testament??
There are millions of John 10:9 in the United States - especially since Covid -
Vought is one of the ones who spent the 4-year interregnum planning the details of P2025 and this administration, planning on it being so. Miller did the same.
That creep has the audacity to call us Communists? He has already put this country in hell, and the great violence is his doing thanks to his repulsive nazi tactics putting people in concentration camps all over the country. Poverty and crime are worsening exponentially as people are trying to eke out a living, while he squanders our tax money on foolish decorations and stealing what he can.
This November, every citizen must do their part and vote out the republicans who have allowed trump to destroy the framework of our government. Those democrats who have gone along with them need to go as well. We really need to use our voice, our vote, and shout out these people who use their power to silence us. They can't if we don't let them. Our vote counts more than ever now.
Rubio did not acknowledge that trump was sleeping despite seeing the photo. He just ignored it. He did not admit lying to congress. Theres no effective meaningful communication
It now appears that this UFC fight is going to go ahead at the White House but there has been some unhappiness that the card for this event is not quite as spectacular as promised (another damp squib like Trump's Freedom 250 concert).
All of this gerrymandering is awful but it can often be thwarted by overwhelming Democratic turnout augmented by Independents and disillusioned Republicans. The midterms are no longer just a contest between Republicans and Democrats. It's a fight to determine whether we want to continue as a constitutional republic or if we prefer an autocracy ruled by a strongman.
The hidden threat to the midterms may be corrupted election software, something that is receiving little attention. Both companies that manufacture most of the election equipment and write the election software are now owned by Trump supporters. The Election Assistance Commission, like most federal agencies and commissions, has been stacked with Trump supporters and as recently noted by Mark Elias' "Democracy Docket," its technical committee that oversees election software has been gutted by Trump. The vendors contracted by the Election Assistance Commission to certify that the election software works correctly are owned by Trump supporters.
It is not inconceivable that the election software could be written to tweak close votes without detection to favor desired candidates. Election Truth Alliance conducted numerous studies of data from the 2024 presidential election and found numerous unexplainable statistical anomalies in an election where Trump improbably won all swing states yet Democrats failed to insist on any recounts. Paper ballots are an effective tool only if they are used to verify results of the computer tabulated vote. Local election officials test voting equipment on election day, but computer code can be written to deceive tests much as Volkswagen wrote their diesel engine management software to deceive emissions tests for years. So called "risk limiting audits" are so hit or miss they are a joke. For instance, in the 2024 election in Pennsylvania where there were questions about the presidential vote count, the risk limiting audit was conducted on the state treasurer race!
Trump must corrupt the midterms to keep Republicans in control of the House and Senate to complete his authoritarian takeover and protect himself and his cronies. We know he has no ethical or moral limits. He will do anything, legal and illegal, to achieve his goals. He and his sycophants are constantly surprising us with their ingenuity and brazzeness. While enormous attention is being paid to Trump's attempts to suppress the vote, no attention is being paid to whether or not he and his operatives are attempting to manipulate the vote count. Someone in authority must conduct a line by line forensic analysis of the computer code in our election software before the midterms. Democrats must challenge improbable wins by Republicans and stand firm if Trump tries to seize ballots and equipment in districts being challenged.
Australia does just fine with rigorously supervised paper ballots. There is no "election equipment" to fail or be fiddled. And we get sausages on election days (held on weekends of course).
We vote by paper ballots in Canada too.
It's not a technical issue. I'm sorry, but focusing on technical issues is avoiding the issue. Chris Murphy is close but not quite there when he says that it's not a left-right (progressive-conservative) issue.
Ref: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/26/nx-s1-5692730/sen-chris-murphy-d-conn-talks-about-his-new-book-crisis-of-the-common-good.
It's an up-down (moral-immoral) issue. Down is literally believing that some people need to behave immorally toward some people because it is how the world works. Up is literally believing that the intrinsic value of every human is equal to the intrinsic value of every human because we've otherwise learned how to work at cross purposes with our genetically inherited human nature. And either way, our actions speak louder than our words.
Chris Murphy can't say that. He's a politician. He wants people to vote for him. I don't care if people don't want to vote for me. I'm not a politician. Chris ... you're welcome.
People frequently confuse these two words, but they have distinct differences in philosophy and linguistics:
Amoral: Having no concern for whether an action is right or wrong, or pertaining to things that are morally neutral.
Immoral: Knowing or believing an action is wrong, but deliberately violating that moral code anyway.
trump, himself, is amoral. He simply does not have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong. Republicans, on the other hand, know damn well the difference between right and wrong but are acting immorally anyway.
Just my opinion.
Sorry, but I can't let Trump off the hook; Trump IS immoral. He's a rapist, a protector of pedophiles (if not a pedophile himself), he could have prevented the needless deaths of millions of children by not allowing USAID to be terminated, and so on and so on. This is immorality on stilts.
Amoral on many issues, immoral on others, deeply inhumane on every issue.
👏🏼👏🏼
Agree with you 100%, Thomas.
(And you are new to the comment section, to me at least. I see you are 4 months paying subscriber. Thanks for being here! As the self-appointed Walmart greeter of the forum, WELCOME! 👋🏼I am grateful to each person who helps grow this community, especially since it seems the next NO KINGS--on June 14th--is poorly publicized, and all my friends who have joined me at the other ones are all claiming unavailability this time. 😟)
Christine … I stand corrected. To me, your comment makes perfect sense. I’m going to put your message in my language but let me know if you disagree.
McConnell, Thune, Roberts, Speaker Kevin, and others are “immoral” malignant narcissists. They need to keep telling themselves “I’m bad” or they might slip up and be good.
Trump is an “amoral” sociopath due to childhood trauma. He can’t help himself.
To me, Speaker Mike is closer to Trump. They both seem far too confused about the consequences of their actions to be mere narcissists.
I was aware of the distinction but Googled and did a copy/paste so the language would be reader friendly.
We need to stop giving trump a pass by citing 'childhood trauma'. He had three siblings and none of them even came close to his level of evil.
If there ever was such a thing as a bad seed, trump is it bigly.
James, you note: "Trump is an “amoral” sociopath due to childhood trauma. He can’t help himself." So, let's do the humane thing and confine Trump to a mental institution for the malignantly evil personalities. PS - I could have said "lock him up" but you make the case that it is not entirely Trump's fault that he is a malignant, evil narcissist.
Amoral vs Immoral: Exactly right. Words…have meanings!
And amoral people’s behavior can often be immoral, Christine.
I am committed as a proud protesting American that in the soon to be moment of his majesty the queen’s passing, Donald Trump, I shall without inhibition, poop on his golden tomb. And I shall return over and over again to poop on the hallowed grounds all the while promoting my insightful book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums.” . And I will announce an annual Three Day Peace and Love Woodstock Poop Festival in which the only shared experience will be to come and poop and pee on this grave.
We need sponsors. The National Endowment for the Arts being one as well as the Kennedy Center. And fund will be available to all citizens and immigrants to funds this fun event.
Bill Katz, You don’t have to wait! Trump has a star on the sidewalk of Hollywood Blvd. It has become a focal point for expressions of people’s disgust.
Nah. I’m in CT but I will travel to his death place.
Someone call Wavy Gravy to reinstate the "Please Force" to draw some "please do not cross this line" rules.
https://48hills.org/2019/05/wavy-gravy-woodstock/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixaOIn1-ups
I wanted to go to Woodstock but that year I was recovering from paranoia and couldn’t stand to be around a lot of people. Imagine that I had to get paranoid at the wrong time and miss the best music festival of my generation.
Wavy Gravy was in charge of the health areas or had some solid involvement at Woodstock. No one died !!!
Really interesting about Woodstock - I had absolutely NO clue! At that time with 2 little kids & a marriage that was disintegrating? I'm sure I read about it but probably nothing the least bit "good"! I had way too many other issues right then.
Highlighting the many moral issues raised by Trump and the MAGAteers does not eliminate the technical issue. Do not get bamboozled, both can occur. Morals are important, but if software hacks prevent the morally right person from winning, all is for naught. There are, as Urban Hermit points out, very serious unresolved questions about the vote counting software used in the 2024 election. There is also, as noted, a disturbing confluence of Trump supporters placed in positions of access and influence over the election hardware and software. Tina Peters, the recently pardoned poll worker in Colorado, gave away the election software code in 2020 as part of the effort to prove Democratic cheating. That was pretty much the game right there. Once that software got out and became available for analysis, people with access can insert any code they like to manipulate outcomes. The questions raised by 2024 indicate its been done. Without extremely high level technical examination of the software code, and rigorous election security procedures, the results are not trustworthy. The fox is now guarding the henhouse.
Solving The One simple moral problem does not solve the many complicated technical problems. Nor does it make the many complicated technical problems simple.
Instead, failing to solve The One simple moral problem makes solving the technical problems impossible.
I admire Andrew Weismann … a lot, but if I understand his new book, Liar’s Kingdom, he doesn’t get it. To me, it’s as if he thinks the system is the sum of its parts. If the system isn’t working, identify and fix a part that isn’t working, and then the system works. Except that’s not how systems work.
Chris Murphy gets it. The parts of the system matter, but not nearly as much as the system. The system matters more because the system is greater than the sum of its parts because the parts subordinate themselves to the system. That’s how the Davids of the world beat the Goliaths. That’s why organizations are surprized to discover that improving a part just made the system worse. That’s why solving The One simple moral problem of getting everyone to sing “all for one and one for all” like three musketeers is Problem One. Otherwise, by default, everyone is singing “all for one but only when the one is me” like three stooges.
Don’t just believe me. Find 51 minutes to listen to American historian Vincent Harding, but listen to the end (especially the end): https://onbeing.org/author/vincent-harding/
At this time in the U.S., it is "up or down," or "democracy vs. fascism," the latter facilitated in part by ignorance on the part of some voters as well as racism/misogyny/xenophobia/homophobia. Barbara McQuade's recent book (2024) "Attack from Within" explores and identifies the current situation. Also relevant is HCR's book, 'How the South Won the Civil War" [2020] postulating that while the South lost the Civil War, its foundational ideology--which favored oligarchy, racial hierarchy and minority rule ultimately survived and came to dominate American politics in many parts of the country. Another worthwhile read is Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland," [2023] about the rise of the KKK in the Midwest (Indiana and Ohio) in the 1920's. I read it and had zero problem equating MAGA as the 21st century version of the KKK.
Mr. Sutherland...With applause and respect for your open-mindedness, an enlarged reading list should include Jeff Sharlet's "The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" (Harper: 2008), which documents the modern omnipotence of the Christian-Aryan-male supremacist cabal that -- save for the Civil War and New Deal interludes -- has ruled this criminal, pro-slavery enterprise since its beginning.
There's also this bibliography, equally vital to understanding the irremediable Evil that is the (true) core of USian reality:
“The Invisible Doctrine: the Secret History of Neoliberalism & How It Came to Control Your Life,” George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison [correct spelling]; Allen Lane: 2024. PDF: https://cdn.penguin.co.uk/dam-assets/books/9780241635902/9780241635902-sample.pdf
“Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution,” Alfred Blumrosen and Ruth Blumrosen; Sourcebooks, Inc.: 2006. (No PDF available; readily obtainable only through BookFinder.com due to decades of relentless USian censorship. BF price [31/5/26] starts at around $8, with many new-condition, library-suppressed copies available.)
“A People’s History of the United States,” Howard Zinn; Harper-Collins: 1980. PDF: https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf
“An Indigenous People’s History of the United States,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz; Beacon Press: 2014. PDF: https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/dunbar-ortiz-2014.pdf
“Hitler’s American Model: the United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law,” James Q. Whitman; Princeton University Press: 2016. PDF: https://dn710006.ca.archive.org/0/items/adolf-hitler-archive/Hitler%27s%20American%20Model%20The%20United%20States%20And%20The%20making%20of%20nazi%20race%20law.pdf
Okay, but challenge my idea that there are two (only) biases. Specifically, I am biased, and I am either moral and therefore biased in favor of getting to the truth, or I am not moral and therefore biased in favor of getting my way.
If I'm heading in the moral direction, then I need to focus on the technical details to create something of lasting value. If I'm heading in the not-moral direction, then I need to focus on the technical details to destroy something of lasting value that got in my way.
Murphy often says things like this. As do Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Biden, the Obamas etc.
Please stop the irrational Dem-bashing. It's precisely this kind of cynicism on the left that brought us here in the first place.
Murphy, Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Biden, the Obamas, and other wise individuals often express this message.
Please stop the irrational Dem-bashing by implying that those individuals don't know what they're talking about. It's precisely this kind of cynicism on the left that put MAGA in charge in 2016 and 2024. And the sooner the better. November is coming.
You seem to have merely copy-pasted my reply to your message?
My post was a reply to what you wrote above, namely:
"Chris Murphy can't say that. He's a politician. He wants people to vote for him."
My point: people really have to choose. Do they want a democracy or not? If yes, we need to learn that "politician", "politics", "compromise" etc are NOT dirty words. We need to apply EXACTLY what you say about "up", namely the idea that all human beings have intrinsic value, to politicians, especially Democrats.
The worst thing that ever happened to the left is its belief that "politics is bad" and that Representatives/Senators/Presidents are individuals who cannot but be in it for selfish reasons.
The legacy media actively created this image (including the NYT) by focusing on the horse race only, and limiting their coverage of political campaigns to guessing what the personal ambitions and psychological character traits of candidates may be, rather than doing their job and telling us what their track record is, how democratic compromise works, what their political philosophy is, and what the arguments pro and contra that philosophy are.
So PLEASE stop it. In a democracy, politicians are as perfect or imperfect as any other ordinary citizen. And they too have intrinsic value. If we can't see that, then it's we who are destroying democracy ourselves, regardless of what fascists do.
You are comparing orders of magnitude. Australia has a population of 28 million. Canada about 40 million. The US has 350 million. The time and cost of counting paper ballots across the US would make it impossible to have elections with results mostly reported within a few days or even weeks. The cost would be prohibitive.
And machine counting is far less subject to error than paper ballot counting. It is easier to mess with paper ballots. The fact is that the US has a mostly fine system. It has some probable errors in it, but no finagle that was not easily detectable could have accounted for Trump winning by 750,000 votes in 7 swing states. I am a passionate anti-Trumper but I am also a rational person who has spent 50+ years in computer software and there is simply no possible way that there was that much cheating going on in the 2024 election.
The only Presidential election in my lifetime that MIGHT have been subject to chicanery was the 2000 election where a few thousand ballots in Florida was the difference between Gore and Bush being elected.
And I still doubt that even that happened.
Paper ballots with electronic ballot counters work fine for our district. We have four checks for accuracy.
I am fine with each state having its own way to count ballots. I think that actually provides a level of protection, because there isn't just ONE way that would be available to try to steal an election across the country, the alleged stealer would have to figure out different ways to do it in each of the potential swing states. That is MUCH HARDER with different systems beiung used.
My significant other, a senior at NSA, would disagree with you.
There are oddities in each of the swing states, and enough corruption in the UPS backup for the tabulation machines and their live software update connections to have introduced malware. A former MAGAt colleague of his, he thinks, is quite capable of pulling this sort of stunt off. And probably elons twinks could figure it out too.
Hand counting paper ballots is a tiresome but accurate way to verify a vote. But on the scale of this fraud, not in time.
The most credible stolen-election hypotheses I've read -- my apology for not now having time to ferret out the links -- all blame Elon the Egregious and his ultra-high-tech, wealth-perpetuated omnipotence.
(I suspect these accounts are at least partially true. But the pivotal truth is the Egregious is so powerful, there is no one in this failed nation who dares investigate or prosecute him, nor will there ever be (unless it is liberated from without.)
I'm not suggesting that every ballot in America be counted by hand. I am suggesting that there are vulnerabilities that need to be investigated. I also think that when candidates of either party suffer an improbable loss they need to challenge the result. In addition, security protocols need to be tightened up, especially risk-limiting audits that are so hit or miss as to be laughable. Here's a good point of reference; https://electiontruthalliance.substack.com/p/are-us-election-systems-secure?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18auiy
You do go on a lot about very little sometimes.
Indus has 1.3 billion people and if I’m not mistaken, the whole country votes by paper ballot — and always has. National elections take place over four days. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says CNN and NBC HAVE to find out the results within an hour…
I am guessing that there are many more locations where counting takes place in the US. How does the number of voters per counting location compare with those in Canada and Australia?
They’re counted by hand in Canada. In the presence of “scrutineers” — people from each party who watch the counting.
I expect that the local levels (precincts or whatever they call them in Canada and Australia) are fairly similar in all places. But to swing an election across the US as some thing happened in 2024 would require first knowing which states it might be needed to be deployed, and THEN you would need to deploy your cheating mechanisms across a HUGE range of systems (many different ones) in order to try to swing a national election.
Jon -- I respect your writing and your views. Have you read the This Will Hold and Election Truth Alliance Substacks?
We vote with paper ballots in Charlottesville, Virginia at polling places supervised by our neighbors, not by masked and armed ICE agents.
As does Maine and other states here in the US
I didn't see your post until I'd written mine, Mike!
But we count them by machine. At least in Ontario.
And in Ontario there is a "declined ballot," i.e. "none of these clowns," which goes in a special envelope, so it's not confused with a spoiled ballot.
though they are often counted by machine.
According to the ME Secretary of State over 98% of all votes are cast on paper or have a paper audit trail. In many states it's 100%. In ME the ballots are stored under the supervision of the Secretary of State's office for 22 months after the election date and then destroyed. This is to avoid co-mingling of old ballots with the new ballots.
https://www.eac.gov/news/2025/06/30/us-election-assistance-commission-releases-2024-election-administration-and-voting
Washington state, where I live, has been successfully using paper mail in ballots for decades. I believe Oregon & Colorado have, as well. Our elections have been absolutely safe & secure, too, which I am thankful for. I wish the rest of the country could also use that system for voting.
Most of the states do. These use the machines to tabulate the votes and then double check the numbers against the paper votes.
Sunni, I confirm (from Eugene, OR) that Oregon does have paper mail in ballots. We have 100% paper mail in ballots, although people have the option to vote in person on election day at the County Clerk's office; each county must offer one booth for every 20,000 of population.
Ally, I love our system here in Marion County. I receive a message that my ballot is on its way. Once I have voted, put it in the signed postage paid envelope, and either mailed it or put it in a drop box, the county messages me when it has been received and accepted for counting. This system has worked well for years with few glitches.
Same in Lane Ccounty.
Fellow WA voter here. I can confirm and agree.
Trumpty's move to impose restrictions on that ain't gonna fly here.
Wish that were true; as physically disabled as I am, it is only mail-in voting that prevents my disenfranchisement. But as part of the ChristoNazis' all-out effort to restore Dredd Scot, I don't doubt the Robbers' Court will uphold Trump's edict to end all mail-in voting, which the MAGAstapo will then violently enforce in any state that refuses to comply.
Also Arizona
In TN the locked ballot bags returned from every polling place are not opened unless a challenge is made and are stored for something like 18 months.
New Hampshire also does paper ballots and I prefer that. Even though we haven’t heard much from the muskrat, I still believe he manipulated the data in the 2024 election. Who is to say that he won’t do the same for the midterms?
But if they are not audited?
Thankfully Australia is a democracy. Not so much here in the US these days with state sponsored violent thugs while fascistic elements are ready to “stand back and stand by” for the midterms.
We are a democracy here in the United States. We do not get to keep the good parts without going through the bad parts of democracy - like today's times. So buckle up, put the crabbiness aside and fight like hell to keep this democracy alive
It’s on life support and has been for a long time to be honest.
take a day off - seriously
Yes ma’am thank you for your blessed reminder. Now have a second cup of coffee.
Uh... nope. Under Biden, the government didn't do anything fascist or anti-constitutional. That only started when "we the people" gave full control over DC to a by then neofascist GOP, in 2024.
Of course, the transformation of the GOP into a neofascist party took decades. But that doesn't mean that during that time, democracy would have been "on life support".
If you think it was, what would your arguments be?
Rhonda, yes, the U.S. is a democracy, but the Democracy Index designates the U.S. as a "flawed democracy." Based on numerous legitimate, measurable criteria, we fall well behind many other democratic nations.
Here's a little irony for the "No Kings" folks: Several of the best democracies are ... gasp! ... monarchies!
Stealing a little thunder from Phil Balla, I note that the best democracies are all Scandinavian nations, also home to the best public education systems. Hmm ... one might think there's some kind of correlation there. But what do I know?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy-index-by-country
well since I live in the us - this flawed democracy is what I’m stuck with right now - but believe me I will work hard , as will everyone else that knows me, to ensure that we correct this “flawed democracy”
Yes, the US is still a democracy, on paper. But the GOP has become neofascist, actively supports fascists around the world and tries to undermine democracies, and it is installing fascism in the US step by step. So imho, Mike is right.
At the same time, because the US is still a democracy on paper and because it will take years to dismantle it entirely, yes, NOW is the time to fight like hell to keep it alive!
To be a democracy you need to act as a democracy, we no longer do. We are an anocracy. There is still time to revert to being a democracy but that will not happen under Project 2025, the Maga miscreants, and the Jim Crow states. November is looking mighty important to preserving and strengthening the founders aspirational ideas.
that is why it is up to US who WANT a democracy to step up in November and before then …. no one said it was going to be easy
to that I add, amen
Many historians and psychologists will agree that fascism is more of an emotional or cultural movement than a strictly political ideology. There’s plenty of fear and terror here.
No.
Fascism is defined as a political REGIME in which the three branches of government are no longer constitutionally separate and coequal, as is the case in a constitutional democracy (including the US Constitution), but where the legislative and judiciary branches are "bundled" into the power of the executive ("fasces" = "bundle", in Latin, so that's where Mussolini got the idea from).
It can only be installed and maintained when many powerful people adopt its ideology, and when pro-democracy civic forces are silenced through fear, terror and violence.
What experts of fascism have shown is that before a fascist party can win democratic elections, first a shift on the level of culture as a whole needs to take place (a lot of fake news, much cynicism both left and right, a collapse of moral values).
But fascism itself is definitely a political regime powered by a political ideology. That's why debating and defeating the ideology is so important.
In the meantime, for now the US is still a democracy, but the GOP is changing it step by step.
We have been an empire since 11/22/63.
says one person
Says most of the world. Trouble is, most USians' in-bred closed-mindedness also renders them too deaf to hear it.
Just what parts of the world does the US own? The British once had an empire.
Body count of the Cuban Missile Crisis was 2. Body count of the Vietnam War was at least 3,000,000. Do the math.
Alec, in my time, as a post WWII Boomer, our nation has been the most war hungry nation on earth. Who are we kidding. Every generation it has become a new cause. We must replace the French and stop communism so we falsified the Tonkin Golf. We must overthrow the legit government of Iran in the year of my birth, 1953. We must invade Iraq cause Sadam said bad things about W. bush daddy. And Ddsy Bush had to invade Iraq the first time for fucking nothing. There were no WMD. We must invade Granada. Attaching the latest Iran was necessary to end stories of The Epstein Files. War Fucking Wr War. Ever ends. We are the most dangerous nation on earth bar none. I know I’m forgetting a few.
JFK wanted to shut down the VN war. That’s one of the reasons the CIA had him killed. “JFK and the Unspeakable,” James Douglass. (Ongoing correspondence with Kruschev about establishing peace between our countries was also unacceptable to the military; we had to “win” the Cold War.)
Same in Canada, Talia.
As an elderly voter I get to vote absentee in Georgia. They send me a paper ballot in the mail laid out as a mark sense form. I fill it in and return it (these days by drop box rather than the mail) and the Secretary of State's office tells me I voted in the current election.
Voting machines could produce this same sort of ballot at the polls so the voter could visually verify the ballot before placing it in the ballot box. Much simpler machines can count this sort of ballot and no electronic device has the ability to modify what the voter chose. The paper ballot remains for recounts. These could be captured as images (like checks at the bank) for long term storage.
Much more difficult to manipulate or deny the outcome of an election held this way.
That is in fact the way a LOT of states do it.
I am writing again for Florida VBM county by county. It gets more expensive year by year (postcard stamps $.61 apiece, as of 14 July $.65), but the state is getting bluer as hurricanes make it more expensive for all but the super rich.
Make sure to campaign for Alex Vindman, the Democratic Senate candidate who is now in a tie with the Republican pro-Trump won. Winning this seat is crucial!
Agreed that Vindeman must win. He is an American hero in my list. A non-TV person, I was watching MSNBC to see his calling out Trump about Ukraine. What a moment for an American who knew both American and Ukrainian history enough to appreciate the stakes!
Wait... you get actual sausages??! I mean... why can't WE have sausages??!
Aussies love their sausages on the barbie.
Wonder who foots the bill, what the cost is, and how many people are hired to manage and watch over those paper ballots.....just curious.
Americans vote with paper ballots, too. It’s almost like if you vote by mail you have to mail in a paper ballot… Shocking but true! Americans vote on paper ballots no matter how they vote, but the ballots are then counted by tabulating machines. Which is way more accurate than human hand counting.
Americans vote by paper ballots, too. They are just tabulated by machine, which is far more accurate than human hand counting. I bet that’s how Australia works, too.
It is not just the voting machines that are at risk of tampering. It is the electronic voter registration rolls that are used to check voters in. Scott Leiendecker, a Trumper who bought Dominion Voting Systems, which he rebranded as Liberty Votes, also owns a company, KNOWiNK, that provides the electronic roll books in many jurisdictions. Remember that the regime has been trying to get the states to provide their voter registration data to "purge" the rolls of illegal voters. That is the database that the KNOWiNK accesses.
The simplest to execute hack would be to download a virus that would shut down the electronic roll books at some point on election day after the operational checks had been completed. If the precinct did not have backup paper rolls, every voter who went to vote on election day would then have to submit the paperwork and show ID to cast a provisional ballot. They could run out of provisional ballots. They could bog down the lines, forcing people to leave for work or child care. The hack could be applied down to the precinct level. If you can't vote early by mail, and the ballots have to be received on election day if SCOTUS so rules this month, there could be chaos.
The Trump regime would see chaos as good. It would be proof of election interference. The election could be declared invalid. There would have to be an investigation. There couldn't be another election until they could guarantee free and fair elections, but they have already staffed those agencies with MAGA supporters. The status quo with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, thin as they are, would be maintained...
The point of maximum vulnerability to election interference is not the vote count. It is whether you are allowed into the voting booth or not. That is controlled by the electronic voter rolls. That is why the Republicans have been trying so hard to get that data from the states. There are a lot more sophisticated potential hacks if you can see the data ahead of time. But simple election day chaos could work as well.
https://www.votebeat.org/2026/02/12/dominion-liberty-vote-scott-leiendecker-voting-systems-machines-election-equipment/
Tampering with election hardware and/or software; tampering with electronic poll books (excellent point) AND suppressing voter registration — how is it that a large state like California can allow and process same day voter registration, but in Texas you must be registered at least 30 days in advance!
Everyone (media, activists, voting organizations, etc.) must shine a spotlight on all three areas and protect our vote from registration through ballot counting.
Every state COULD do it the same. They just have different laws. This is in FACT one of the "fail safes" of our election system even though it might seem weird. Having a variety of different rules in place all over the country, while it is cumbersome and may even impact some voters, does one thing for sure: it makes it VERY difficult for a nationwide conspiracy to steal an election almost impossible, because juggling all the different requirements to do that across 50 states (or even half a dozen swing states) would be so vulnerable to whistleblowers who decided to inform on any shenanigans that it is simply unthinkable that such nonsense can actually happen.
This is why I check my electronic voter record that the state maintains every month or so. And will definitely before an election. I make my own copy of that record. Just in case something happens to it.
How do you do this?
go to https://www.vote411.org/check-registration
Select your state. That will take to your state vote registration search site.
Agreed 111% with Ivy.6677. I figured that Trump would muck up things, but they could be repaired. That optimism is gone. We have to get car-pools set up; help get others who are less resourced to get to polling stations far away. Alabama excluding Terri Sewell is a big loss, though primarily symbolic.
Recently, I have been reading the Federalist and, if I understand his tangled prose, Alexander Hamiltion would be a big proponent of Section II of the Voting Rights Act. Mr Hamilton opposed state control of national elections. EDIT P.S., the Federalist essay to which I refer is #59 by Mr Hamilton dated 20feb1788.
Hi Ned
I fear in his own words Trump is summing up his own story in the coming elections:
"Remember, breathtaking ‘Popularity’ first, and then, guaranteed DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
I'm not sure anymore who is typing Trump's rants. I don't think he's mentally capable to do this anymore. Since it gets posted only on Truth Social, I suspect someone has the ability to edit most of the crap that he posts.
Natalie Harp and Stephen Miller
I don’t even understand what he’s saying, even when he speaks.
Agreed. Only the most confused midnight postings read like he wrote them. Any others, especially longer ones, have accurate grammar, commas, and even 4-5 syllable words. Far beyond his illiterate demented brain.
I agree, GJ. In fact, I'm convinced that Donald is not the actual author of most of his social media posts. I'm skeptical that he even sees/approves some of the posts before they are published. In the post HCR quoted in today's Letter, there are several words, such as "entity," that are outside Donald's current vocabulary.
Natalie Harp, is a stalker-girl who is the type fan who would mimic Donald's verbal patterns out of creepy adoration. Some of the bizarro memes posted by the account reflect the sort of worship exhibited by Natalie, who unlike her boss/daddy/god, has the ability to work with AI image generators.
He might be dictating them.
That's possible in many cases, and Natalie could be editing on the fly. But some of the posts seem too complex in structure to come from Donald's enfeebled mind, even with helpful insertion of the right words. He can't stay on topic from the beginning of a sentence all the way to the end.
I suppose he could babble a general theme, then Natalie must actually compose it into an actual statement.
Scarey, all right, Stephen. ¿Could this be Trump's 'breath-taking' popularity, through a rigged vote, wrecking, our republic?
…that rant of dumps at the end quoted is his own destiny. Everything he criticizes or casts on others is deflection from himself. Sleepy Don…not Joe. Drain the swamp…his administration is the swamp. We should know his moves by now. His hype group is fading as is his health. Soon…
It’s just occurred to me that because of the unending incredulous bs this administration has done, that if dump dies, will they pull a “Weekend at Bernies?”
That might already be the case.
A w / e at Bernie's scenario would be Trump's only display of humor . . . ever.
WE the PEOPLE can make that happen.
STATE control of national elections is the foundation of protecting & preserving "Early Voting" & "Mail-In voting" which is exactly why 22 Attorney Generals across the United States led by California's ROB BONTA filed a lawsuit now pending in Massachusetts to protect all Americans' essential voting rights.
Yesterday on 6/3, my calendar said it was exactly 6 months before the national Midterms.
For the legal context of the 22 AG's Massachusetts case click-on my LFAA Bio as I filed a "verified complaint" under oath with my CA Attorney Genera ROB BONTA six days before the 22 AG's Massachusetts' case to preserve "Early Voting" & "Mail-in Voting in California.
In November, I am expecting USPS interference on Mail-In & Absentee Ballots. I just voted in California & the CA Secretary of State not the CA Registrar of Voters sent me CONFIRMATION that my ballot was received & COUNTED.
5 months before the midterms.
Yep! I got the same email 😉 I also worked four days as election clerk in LA County and 'twas a joy to see democracy keep on keepin' on. And if ya tune in to the live cams at the vote processing center, it's still keepin' on til every vote is verified and counted.
Tha Constitution delegates implementation of voting procedures not determination of the franchise; the national government can interevene.
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."
I've read the Federalist Papers several times. People may be surprised what the founders had in mind, not a democracy but a republic. Hamilton and the boys understood democracy would lead to populism and a ideologue or celebrity would then come to power. They predicted a Trump like figure should there be too much democracy. They had a very different understanding of what we the people meant; not what we often read here or on the fringe right. If one wants an understanding of their perspective one needs to also read Publius. They based much of their thinking on his writings.
Most of the Founding Fathers were slave holding white supremacists who didn't believe "the people" had the intelligence to rule themselves -- thus the Republic form of government. Which results in government by the wealthy elites. America has become what it is not because of its system of government but rather because of its vast natural resources and the immense ingenuity created by the mixing of very different ideas and ways of thinking (our immigrant melting pot). Our system of government -- created 250 years ago -- is broken and really not worth repairing. We need something new, where the will of the majority is actually heeded, ALL people are treated as equal, and Justice can't be purchased. A person can dream.
That's become a popular revisionist version of history, well debunked by scholarship.
A version usually espoused by those who have yet to study the constitutional debates, the Federalists Papers, the writings of the Enlightenment thinkers, and Publius.
It's indicative of the neo-belief everyone is an expert on everything because they heard it on a podcast. An affliction of both extremes.
You know you come across as a self-righteous prick, right, Gary?
"... well debunked by scholarship." To what scholarship are you referring? George Washington was a slave holder. Slave holding equals white supremacy. Did Washington free his slaves? Thomas Jefferson was a slave holder. Did he free his slaves? Granted, not the most scholarly source, but I watched the Netflix doc about TJ last night. They site in his writings where he argues that blacks are inferior to whites in body and intellect. Did Thomas Jefferson truly write that or did he not?
Our political system doesn't suffer from too much democracy, and trump wasn't elected because of too much democracy.
Our democracy is rigged and has been all along. The founding fathers clearly wanted to make sure that the economic elite were the only ones to have any say in who wields power. Lincoln's description of government of the people, by the people, for the people is an interpretation that I subscribe to, and I believe that we need to overhaul the system to be more democratic and designed to keep power with the majority of citizens. And to regulate capitalism in the interest of the majority making sure the wealthy elite can not hold sway by keeping money out of every level of politics and every branch of government.
The Supreme Court has now proven it cannot be trusted to interpret the Constitution in a non-partisan fashion while protecting the rights of all citizens equally. It must be reformed and expanded with term limits and strong, enforceable ethics rules.
If only voters would wake up and understand how the current GOP has diminished our country, the outrageous corruption perpetrated by the party as a whole and trump in particular through his administration, we would have a big enough majority to reform the federal government in the best interests of the majority of Americans.
The franchise was limited basically to *White, male, adult, property owners. I re-read the Federalist this week for a class. Third or fourth time.
EDIT P.S., though in London when the Constitutional convention occurred, President Adams had previously discussed eight balancing checks (e.g., states and territories checking the national government) to mitigate tyranny or anarchy.
Many layers to the fabric. Most interesting to me was how SecTreasury Hamilton really thought like a lawyer in trying to think up every reason one might oppose the Constitution and answering it.
President Madison, as a non-att'y, dealt more on the theoretical / struxural side. To be sure, both were struxuralists and pragmatists, but SecTreasury Hamiltion leaned toward pragmatism while President Madison leaned toward the thetheoretical.
President Madison's idea of dispersed faxions cancelling each other out reminds me of modern portfolio theory of diversifying away idiosyncratic risks. Leibniz was along the same lines in the best of all plausible worlds in the face of free-will.
The two big bugabooes were dissolution or a tyranny of the majority.
And, by the same token, state control over redistricting.
Well, that doesn’t seem to be going so well. How about a law requiring redistricting be done by neutral panel? Or nonpartisan AI?
And that is my point. It is not and has not for gone well for some time.
If we are to build a new system and not just spruce up the existing, then the search for solutions is to venture into a brave new world.
At this point all ideas should be considered, though I'm not at all sure AI is the answer. We already have too many of the electorate who can't or won't think for themselves. Turning that over to a bot is not the right direction to go. I think AI could be a useful resource for helping with research, but the the thinking part, the evaluation of the information gathered should be province of flesh and blood humans.
This is my biggest fear. Thanks for bringing us up to date
The Incredible Shrinking Strongman
There comes a point in every authoritarian melodrama when Caesar starts looking less like Caesar and more like a lawn ornament with grievance issues. Donald Trump, once sold to America as the immovable strongman of history, now appears to be entering his garden gnome era.
The signs are not exactly subtle. The man who promised dominance disappears from public view, comes back looking tired and foggy, then fills the silence with the usual carnival of flags, insults, weird spectacle, and personal complaint. When governing gets hard, apparently the answer is cage fighting, paint samples, and shouting at democracy like it owes him money.
Meanwhile, Republicans are doing what Republicans do best when a leader starts wobbling. They are pretending everything is fine while quietly checking the exits. House members do not want to vote against Trump, because they fear the cult. They do not want to vote for him, because they fear the voters. So they hover in the hallway like middle schoolers avoiding both the principal and their parents.
The real punchline is that Trump’s fading power has not made the MAGA machine less dangerous. It has made it more frantic. The courtiers know the king is losing his grip, so they are stuffing the silverware into their pockets before the lights come on.
Trump still has volume. He still has menace. He still has the vocabulary of a malfunctioning bumper sticker. But power is not just noise. Power is control. And right now, the man who once claimed he alone could fix it looks increasingly like someone who cannot find the remote.
The strongman is shrinking. The tantrum remains full-size.
Best analysis of the day about 'Dear Leader'. "garden gnome" "malfunctioning bumper sticker"
"Communists [insert 'Trumpists' here] always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years! But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL!"
Funny, how tRump gets it so right when he looks in the mirror.
Thanks, Urban Hermit, for your excellent analysis of the threat to elections via tabulation software. I just hope it’s not too late for the blue states at least to do the right thing starting now. There’s not a moment to lose!
This is all rubbish. Our election system is one of the safest in the world. There is simply no practical way to corrupt it without bringing "into the fold" literally hundreds or even thousands of people across the country. You can't even pay that many people off and keep a secret. Especially when there are reporters all over the country who would fall all over themselves to get an exclusive on such nonsense.
We lost a freaking election people. The easiest way to solve that problem is to make sure people vote in the next one. Until there is REAL EVIDENCE, not just conspiratorial nonsense, that something like a stolen election occurred, everyone should focus on the IMPORTANT stuff, like getting out the Democratic vote EVERYWHERE.
Jon, I wish more people would listen to your common sense posts. You make such a good point about how the diversity of voting methods across this vast country make it less prone to meaningful tampering. Our focus needs to be on all efforts related to getting out the vote!
And yet, Epstein was able to operate for how many years without his immense crimes being brought to light?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you might also want to focus on getting EVERYONE out to vote- Dems, Inds, disaffects Reps all count. EVERY VOTE MATTERS.
I have worked as a Voting inspector in Massachusetts where I live. It is untrue that the “computer code“could alter results. Here’s why: 1) We have an accurate list of people who are allowed to vote in our district. 2) We record them as they enter to vote, and we count their name as voting, and give a paper ballot. 3) At a private voting carrol, they individually mark the ballot. 4) Then they take the marked ballot to an optical vision Voting machine that counts these marked paper ballots that are automatically locked in the Machine. 5) After the polls close, we count the marked paper ballots, and compare that total to the numbers of ballots issued, and the number of voters recorded. All three numbers must match.
Ed, those challenging the election are not saying it happened at the level of voting machines, but where the votes were tallied. It would have been helpful if in the swing states (MA is not one of those), some random recounts had been done and matched with the tallies. It's too late to do anything about the last election now, but we can be better prepared this time because it is a guarantee that Trump and his cronies will try to mess with the election even beyond getting the Supreme Court to declare racist maps OK. They know what Musk and other AIers can do and will try to use it again since it worked so well last time.
Why not lobby for a 'practice run' with the results of the just-held primaries? Maybe in NJ, where there was decent turnout, results were fairly close, and the results could be used as a baseline against any possible manipulation? Or Iowa?
Daniel, what a great idea! A test run on checking election results!
That sounds like my local voting place. It “feels” safe too. The local ladies add to the sense of safety too. But we are under ICE terror. Will Brown Shirts or ICE be in my local polling place? That is what I believe Vought and Co. are planning. Will those already in hiding dare come out to vote?
Urban, that is what happened in 2024 in the swing states, putting "Rs" in power who were not well-known, supposedly defeated popular senators, reps, and other officials. It was cleverly done, just enough above the number of votes needed to keep from requiring automatic recounts, and only in federal elections. That should have made a lot of folks wary and wanting to check it out. Instead, Democrats have been blaming other Democrats and Harris and Walls for what happened. That is stupid, but just what one would expect from folks who can so easily be steered away from what actually happened. Musk and his what I call, "pre-DOGE crew did the deed and were never even investigated. I suspect as I have said that they practiced in red states in 2022 to get it down to a "science." No one checks votes in red states assuming they will be "R" victories. We know this can be done and has been done, now we need to protect our votes from Trumplandia!
Dotard acknowledged this happened in Pennsylvania...
Another propagandist. This is so So SO stupid! I can't believe all the smart people here who when they get into the conspiratorial garb leave reality behind.
Our elections have always been the safest on the planet. And that hasn't changed and isn't likely to change. So get over it. PLEASE.
Jon, for years, travel experts have told people who are afraid of flying to just get over it. Flying, they assure us, is the safest mode of transportation. And yes, one can look at statistics and conclude that flying is safer than driving.
However, travel safety depends on who is controlling the mode of travel. I have acquaintances whom I will not ride with because they're terrible drivers.
The Aviation Safety Network maintains a database of aviation safety "incidents." In 2025, numerous nations with airports reported accidents. By nation, all reported accidents were in the single digits ... except one. The United States reported 77 accidents. The U.S. is on track to maintain the same ratio in 2026. And before you jump on me, yes, I know other factors cause the U.S. numbers to be high.
But my point is that just because U.S. elections have always been safe (I question whether they've been the "safest"), there is no guarantee that they will continue to be safe. People who pay attention have legitimate cause to worry about election integrity in the U.S.
As with travel, election safety depends on who is controlling the elections. In several states, the electoral process is being taken away from nonpartisans and put into the hands of election-denying Trump supporters. Will they be able to monkey with elections? It remains to be seen.
As investment operators always disclaim, "past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance."
And we once thought the world was flat.
The Republicans' mad rush to gerrymander votes brings with a number of risks, especially given Trump's low approval rating.
https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-republicans-redistricting-power-grab-might-backfire-262553
Now, gerrymandering is a completely different story. I absolutely agree that gerrymandering is a serious problem and it is EASY to pull off, especially since the Supreme Court has decided its okay to look the other way when it is happening.
But remember, gerrymandering has NOTHING TO DO with the Presidential election as that is decided in 48 out of 50 states on a statewide basis. There is no possible way to gerrymander the Presidential election. None.
You are most likely correct in this regard, Jon. What we are witnessing on a national level is the importance of local and state elections that have an impact on the national elections. That evidence is a spinless, huevos-less congress that has abandoned its constitutional duty as one of the three systems of our alleged "checks and balances" system.
Thank you, Urban Hermit, for stating this so clearly. The reason Dump says he doesn't care about the midterms is because he knows it will be stolen for the republicans regardless of dem voter turnout, just as the 2024 election was. This is the greatest danger we face right now. More people need to be talking about it and raising its profile.
While many (most?) states’ voting machines are not connected to the internet, the vote reporting is connected, right? Also, I believe voting machine software updates are installed via flashdrives that are not scrutinized for pre-loaded malware? If this is all true, it would explain not only 2024 but also our upcoming midterms….
You state the following: ''Both companies that manufacture most of the election equipment and write the election software are now owned by Trump supporters. The Election Assistance Commission, like most federal agencies and commissions, has been stacked with Trump supporters and as recently noted by Mark Elias' "Democracy Docket," its technical committee that oversees election software has been gutted by Trump. The vendors contracted by the Election Assistance Commission to certify that the election software works correctly are owned by Trump supporters.'' Do you have sources for these assertions?
Why is it that skeptics always demand that someone else do their homework? If you disbelieve Urban Hermit, do your own research. It's not difficult. If you find that the hermit is mistaken, then come back and rebut their assertions.
I doubt it, thanks for bringing this up R.
This will hold, here on substack has been writing (and to my mind, justifying) that this is already happening. They explain the anomalies in the voting data from 2024. Things already do not add up. An overwhelming voter turnout can help overcome some voter manipulation but there needs to be a large scale address of this in advance of this November's election.
Take your head out of the sand. It didn't happen in 2024. And it will not happen in 2028. It is too difficult to do, there isn't enough money, not even in Musk's bank account, to pay off enough people to corrupt a Presidential election. And there are so many other ways to just scare people into not voting. Why risk going to prison when it isn't necessary?
Jon, says you? You don't know that! We already know the damage Musk and his DOGErs did and in a really short time. The weird election results should make a whole lot of people concerned about this particular election. One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to know something was off about it. The results in the swing states were what one could expect if algorithms were used to change just enough votes in just the right places. Assuming you are the only "brilliant" knowledgeable person on this thread is rather arrogant, don't you think!
"One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to know something was off about it."
SERIOUSLY? Because you didn't like the result? That is such poppycock, Ruth! You should be ashamed of yourself for allowing yourself to be swayed by nonsense like that. Because of a bare suspicion and NO proof, nothing, nada after 18 months, and you STILL hold to some nonsense about conspiracies to steal the election.
Un-f-ing-believable that people who are smart enough to read someone like Heather, can still spout nonsense like this.
You might have noticed that Heather has NOT ONCE suggested that the 2024 election was stolen. Why? Because it wasn't, anymore than the 2020 election was stolen for Biden.
And by the way, you are technically "right", I don't KNOW that, but then neither do you. The difference is that I do NOT put forth stuff that I do NOT know for sure out into the public because I understand how dangerous that is. You obviously don't.
Jon -- your condescension of other views is not winning any points for your argument.
This needs to be front and center headline in every news outlet
Please send your comments to the NY Times as an editorial.🇺🇸
You are not being alarmist, Urban Hermit. The results of the last presidential race stank to high heaven. No way this Orange Idiot and his filthy rich, greedy, conniving enablers achieved power honestly. I do hope progressives find a way to thwart this continued power grab by this congregation of Keystone Kops.
An aside: I wonder who dropped out of the House vote to support Ukraine against Russia (218-204). The count in the earlier vote to limit Trump’s power over when to strike at Iran was 215-208.
Abominable Alabama…
Once again, the Supreme Court’s majority has cast its lot with the very worst of America, not its best. It didn’t just rule that the foxes have the legal right to guard the henhouses, but encouraged them to give their favorite ones pet names like “Giblets” “Fricassee” and “Finger-Lickin’ Good.” As well as single out the dark-feathered ones for extra retribution.
Using an unsigned “emergency docket” order to undo 60 pages of careful reasoning by a 3-judge Appellate panel which explicitly stated Alabama was using “partisanship” to destroy black voting districts outright, 5 Justices cast their lot with everything that’s bad and degrading about our past (and present), rather than with its 18th century aspirations about “a more perfect Union.” Some weird version of “originalism” indeed.
It leaves us with the one recourse we still have and the only one which has to work this November. In Joyce Vance’s words, “nothing defeats a gerrymander like unexpected turnout. Let’s go….”
Those judges have no shame. Their blatant corruption is pure evil. How can they live with themselves???
Rhonda, you answered your own question with your first sentence. When someone is conferred the privilege of deciding what is right and wrong, it should come as no surprise that they come to believe they are always right. Therefore, preconceived biases must be right.
It also helps to be steeped in conservative religion, where one learns to cherrypick the guiding document and bend it to one's will.
Question ... When will media outlets interview Senator Turtle Man Mitch as he retires about his legacy in the Senate? I know I'm "looking through the rear view mirror", his actions are tough to forget, forgive, etc ....
He'll just get softball questions and blah blah blah his way to saying he did it all for the good the country. Give him hard hitting, embarrasing questions from a good investigative reporter then maybe I'd read it. Otherwise it'll all be bs anyways. He, Paul Ryan and the entire GOP are to blame for the mess America is in. They want a kleptocracy, a theocracy and a fascist regime. They all signed up for it.
McConnell and Ryan have not been fans of Trump.
Mitch McConnell cost us the Supreme Court.
But they helped set up conditions that made electing him possible. The real villain is Reagan’s trickle down, however. That’s what hollowed out the middle class.
TJB, media outlets get interviews only when the subject agrees to be interviewed. I doubt very much that Senator Turtle Man will be granting any interviews as he walks away from the carnage he created.
The Republican judges on SCOTUS have already stated that there is nothing they can/will do about partisan gerrymanders. Obviously they have their fingers on the scale trying to ensure a Republican majority.
That’s why I write 10 GOTV postcards every day. The more Dems in place from dog catcher to governor, the better our chances of staring down whatever hostile sources show up.
https://youtu.be/wfCvLMX-SAc?list=RDwfCvLMX-SAc&t=14
I would like to see John Roberts explain how when earlier redistricting decisions they made decisions that would uphold voting rights, but refused to order the State to use a map that would comply with their decision and leave the unconstitutional map because it was too close to the election. Yet now, in the middle of primary elections now they rule that the States can implement new maps.
What's up with that?
Yes, we need to keep sending GOTV postcards-especially to our African American friends who cannot understand why they are hated.
Every accusation is a confession. The Trump post quoted in the final paragraph is a dog whistle to his most violent followers. Taken together with his prediction for a "wild" time at his birthday brawl, there is a distinct Kristallnacht chill in the air.
We already had Kristallnacht when ICE CBP and other Federal personnel stormed the apartment building in Chicago forcing residents including naked women and children into the cold to be arrested and processed. They broke down locked doors in their masks and riot gear and dropped onto the building from helicopters.
The Chicago Tribune ignored the raid. Fortunately, the Chicago Sun Times was on top of the story and most of the antics of ICE.
Trump’s ICE world is modeled after hell with a golden, mad god.
I wonder who actually wrote that quote? Stephen Miller maybe? Someone or more than one, are running the White House, but Trump doesn’t seem to know who did what. It sometimes comes out in hearings that the staffers came up with things “in the parameters” of what Trump would want.
Or Natalie Harp, with or without Miller. She writes all the overnight posts, I’ve read, and gives them to the demented devil for “approval” (one eye open is yes, no eyes open is yes, both eyes open never happens?).
I totally agree Kay. Too many multiple syllable words for demented DonOld.
In a weird way, Trump's social media posts are too coherent to have been penned by him.
No one's going to complain if they smash up that monstrosity Trump is placing in front of the White House.
My daughter used to place my then-infant granddaughter on a small quilt to which was attached dangling toys she would watch. The toys were attached to a crossed arch just like the UFC cage. Symbolism is spot on.
Hey, ER. To be sure. Timothy Snyder's latest video tells us how he is banking on a military that will be loyal to him:
https://snyder.substack.com/p/trumps-military-dictatorship-budget?
Contact your representatives in Congress to tell them to oppose a 50% increase in our military budget.
There’s a god-awful photo of Pulte on the pages of the Washington Post, taken on January 6,2021, showing a twerpy 19-year-old jerk in a MAGA ballcap outside peering over a wall in Congress, while chaos envelops the scene around him.
As Adam Kinzinger says, the people who plotted to hang Mike Pence and kill Nancy Pelosi that day are now the ones he’s naming to run our Justice and Intelligence agencies. Adam described a wave of sudden nausea that hit him on his last trip to DC.
I wonder why.
Looks as though it’s a nutsy Nazi kakistocracy…
I'm not sure what a Nazi kakistocracy is.
Per Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy
Add "Nazi" to it and my flippant answer is "repetitiously redundant"
This here letter of memorandum from the Department of Redundancy Department confirms that you are both right and correct.
Rule by the worst.
ICYMI: (1) Retired Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, who testified at the House J6th investigation and Andreas Romero, lawyer for the plaintiffs are interviewed by Michael Popok of Legal AF and comment on “;Why Federal Judge Williams is concerned that Trump defrauded the Court” in the $1.776 billion Reparations case with the added Trump family tax liability immunity order. They discussed the 2-300 retired federal and state judges who have come together to speak out against the assault on the rule of law, the 35 retired Federal judges who wrote a letter to Judge Williams about their concerns of fraud in the case that is before her, the ruling by Judge Williams that the DOJ must file briefs with her by 6/19 that their case was not a deception of the Court and why the Court hasn’t been a victim of fraud because of collusion and that they hid the settlement they made, Judge Luttig said that Trump is waging war on the Federal Court and the “rule of law”. And he feels it will bring down the Trump Administration.
https://michaelpopok.substack.com/p/trump-panics-as-he-cant-stop-devastating?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios
(2) There is also a recent NYT article (6/1/26) on this topic: “Losing Trust in Justice Department, Judges Call Out Its Lawyer’s Behavior” by M. Schwartz, The federal courts have long assumed that the government’s lawyers are trustworthy. Now judges across the country are criticizing their lack of candor. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/us/justice-department-lawyers-judges-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nlA.1SOI.PmyYFJSqG29t&smid=em-share
(3) The beginning of the end of the “presumption of regularity” (at least for the Trump DOJ) is supported by a recent (5/22/26) survey of Federal judges by Bright Line Watch and UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project: 94% of legal experts (Federal Judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law. https://brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-the-rule-of-law-in-trumps-second-term/ Lots of data and charts. “94% of legal experts (Federal judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law”
(4) The NYT Editorial Board was so upset by Trump’s pervasive corruption of the U.S. government that they wrote an oped on it (5/20/26):
“NYTimes.com: There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This”. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/opinion/trump-doj-slush-fund-criminals-corruption.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mlA.rGTT.3bKSDAM5j_d7&smid=em-share
Enjoy, if you can.
NB: Trump with drew his most recent suit against E. Jean Carroll but appealed one of her judgements against him to SCOTUS to ask for immunity.
“if you can” indeed.
It was Judge Luttig months ago who first raised the dreaded issue of what happens if Courts rule against him and he simply disobeys. The key officers of the Court are paid by DOJ, not by the judge. Who’s going to arm the Bailiffs and watch their backs when they arrive at the White House with handcuffs to carry out an arrest or contempt order?
We’d have to ask Heather but what I have read says that there is no clear evidence Andrew Jackson ever clearly defied a SCOTUS ruling. He was censured by the Senate over a financial maneuver but it was later expunged. The U.S. Marshalls Service (USMS) is used by the courts for security, prisoner transport and executing court orders. The agency operates as a bureau within the DOJ. It isn’t clear what would happen if Trump openly defied the court. It has never happen before. But nothing is impossible with Trump. It would be prima facie evidence of violation of the U.S. Constitution and grounds for impeachment.
We already have way more grounds for the impeachment of Trump than we could process in a year. I sadly fear that one more makes little difference. And expect many more impeachable actions in the coming days.
It’s the Republicans in Congress that are the roadblock to holding Trump accountable and getting our nation back on track. I’d focus on them, not Trump.
In this year’s elections, vote.them.all.out.
I still wonder about the role of the Military and their oath to protect the U.S. from threats foreign and domestic. If all tRump's actions are not a domestic threat, what is????
I asked my senators and house members if all of the military is behind Trump???? We need this insane orange baffoon out of office democrats
Judge Luttig, not me, wrote a piece about what the Marshalls service is and the unresolved issues connected with it. Bottom line — conflict of interest that’s massive. Bailiffs go out and arrest people, too. Think of the implications.
He has real estate and bank accounts.
In the Alabama case, SCOTUS did not respond to the lower court's finding of fact that racial discrimination was real and determinative. They just said that they should rule in concordance with Callais.
They disregarded their own prior instructions re racial discrimination,
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/supct/rule_44
To be granted, a petition for rehearing must be grounded in substantial, focused reasons:Intervening Circumstances:
The petition can cite significant new developments, such as a major change in the law, a new statute, or a newly issued judicial decision that occurred after the case was submitted.
Substantial Substantial Grounds: It can raise "other substantial grounds not previously presented," provided there is a valid reason why this information could not have been provided earlier.
Overlooked or Misapprehended Facts/Law: While generally discouraged, if the Court clearly misunderstood or entirely overlooked a completely dispositive fact in the record or a critical question of law.
Thank you for the reply. The Roberts court is fully rogue, composing Constitutional law out of whole cloth. Please read Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent to the ruling you are citing. Michael Popok read it aloud on Legal AF 6/3/26. You may also be interested in this discussion: NYU School of Law Professor Melissa Murray, author of a recent book “The U.S. Constitution”, was interviewed by legal experts Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz of LegalAF The Court of History on 5/31/26: “Supreme Court Justice Roberts and the monster he created”. https://michaelpopok.substack.com/p/justice-roberts-runs-scared-from?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios They feel John Roberts is a Dr. Frankenstein who created the monstrous and unconstitutional Trump presidency. They discuss the fallacy of “originalism”, the history of the Reconstruction Amendments, how Roberts replaced the Constitution with a neo-Confederate vision by wrecking the 14th and 15th Civil War Amendments, etc.. A very informative discussion. Their opinions are supported by a recent (5/22/26) survey of Federal judges by Bright Line Watch and UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project: 94% of legal experts (Federal Judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law. https://brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-the-rule-of-law-in-trumps-second-term/ Lots of data.
"Fully rogue" indeed. White the Court's mandate is to rule on questions of law, this Court has ruled on factual questions they had no business addressing.
Sotomayor wrote the dissent in the Alabama case.
Thank you, Fred. I wish this forthright editorial would filter to some reporters who “sanewash” many of trump’s statements.
"the Trump administration is also tearing out a $368 million deep-ocean observation system along the Pacific Coast that monitors marine ecosystems, coastal environments, and the ocean currents that affect climate change"
How evil is that?! Not just defunding, but spending more taxpayer money to rip it out. This is not just treasonous for the harm to the country, it is a crime against humanity.
Trump just diverted over $65 billion from the National Parks that was to be used to maintain the facilities and access to the Parks. Acadia National Park receives over 4 million visitors each year and adds over a billion dollars to the state's economy. That's a lot of wear and tear that the state isn't allowed to fix. And there are hundreds of parks, national monuments and forests affected.
But, what do you expect from someone who though we could prevent forest fires by using rakes to clear out litter and leaves?
Totally evil. And why??? So they can live in a pretend world where business (and Trump) are kings.
They have done so much of this. Like the billion dollars they paid the wind companies to tear out the offshore windfarms they started.
That's the part to remember. It's bad enough that they are wasting all this money. But this was OUR money not theirs to waste.
I love Heather's organization here.
She starts with that proto-fascist Long Dong Clarence court, ever seeking new ways to kill democracy and rig elections for (white) Republicans -- this court out-criminalizing criminal Donald in its zeal for its own criminality.
She ends with criminal Donald mouthing more smears, as if going down in his decrepitude as loudly as he can. Must still take center stage. Must still take center stage.
And in the middle just one instance after another of insanity -- such as the criminal Donald administration "tearing out a $368 million deep-ocean observation system along the Pacific Coast that monitors marine ecosystems, coastal environments, and the ocean currents that affect climate change." The reason? The Donald crew and the Project 2025 insidious don't believe in climate change -- cannot abide science having research tools to track reality they ever deny.
It's all a madness Heather tabs here as high, mad comedy, insanity, depravity -- special mixture.
Hello Phil... Read Paul Krugman's Substack Posting today 3-June-2026, 'Trump Has Given Up'... DJT has little knowledge, and limited Attention Span, maybe 2-3 Days... With the Resistance firming up in the Courts, and Internationally... DJT will indulge his worst impulses, and let Iran fester, like he has Gaza... We haven't seen the Worst from the Iran Crisis yet... DJT may move on Cuba, or Greenland as further distractions... Pray For Divine Intervention Soon... Very Soon...
Paul, my impression: The horror sandwiched between depression and hope.
Why can the Supreme Court deny the right of Alabama to redistrict to ensure fair Black representation, but says that it is okay for Texas to redistrict to increase representation based on political party? I know SCOTUS said the political aspect was beyond its jurisdiction and the racial aspect was not, but I still don't understand how their decisions can stand. They seem clearly contradictory.
Because SCOTUS is compromised.
Exactly.
I think you meant "partisan."
Jim, it's actually a both/and situation. Six of the "justices" are partisan and most of them are compromised. Due to their history of misconduct against women, Clarence and Brett cannot make impartial decisions regarding women's issues. Due to religious beliefs that conflict with secular justice, John, Clarence, Sam, Neil and Amy can't make impartial decisions about social issues. Due to receipt of significant largesse from persons having business before The Court, John, Clarence and Sam cannot make impartial decisions about anything.
Let's just call it biased.
Gerrymandering for any reason should be prohibited. This Supreme Court is shockingly partisan. Their argument would be thrown out in a Law School Moot Court.
Their guiding principal is white supremacy, not consistency.
Great question. Let’s all ask Barf ‘n Boof Boy Brett Kavanaugh. I hear he likes beer. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer…
He flooded the zone to distract us from the pedophile past. Trump raped underage girls and we have gone to war twice so far on account of him flooding the zone. And now we must flood his zone with all manor of protest. I agree with Heather that it will get worse before it gets better.
I still don't think we should call anyone a pedophile until they've been convicted of that in court.
There are exceptions to the rule and this is one.
A pedophile is someone who has the psychiatric disorder called pedophilia, also spelled paedophilia.
What strange Constitutional loophole allows the Speaker of the House to act as a bottleneck, thwarting bills by recessing the House at will?
Re "...there’s not any kind of…financial threat to the credit card companies." Oh, heaven forbid!
If you don't have the means to bribe someone in the Trump administration don't expect to "win".
Almost all of the criminals pardoned by Trump for fraud and other white collar crimes, have "donated" big bucks to the Trump crime family.
Trump and the Republicans have literally done nothing for anyone that isn't worth at least a million dollars.
He's especially fond of trustifarians that are living off their families' welfare, er, inheritance.
Let me post the correct link to the comment page where you can submit your opposition to changing the law that currently has peer review and the NIH making decisions for funding scientific research to one where the funding would be decided by politicians and political appointees:
https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/OMB-2026-0034-0001
When I first heard about this threat to funding science research, I was given the wrong link, which I then passed on, to the frustration and consternation of people who wanted to state their pro-science position.. If you haven't already done so, please add your voice now, and please share this information widely. It is one small thing that we can each do to make a potentially big difference.
Thanks, Betsy Smith.
Done
Done, and thanks!
Who voted for Russell Voight? Politicizing science kills critical thinking. Something Trump and the Republicans will never be accused of. In fact think and Republican or more correctly I should say MAGA is an oxymoron. Little Marco has become a joke. What's his position anyway? Oh yes sweeper. He goes around cleaning up after Trump. How is it that we're in a war and trying to negotiate a truce and the Secretary of State is not involved. I'm in Indonesia right now and while people still like Americans and respect America, when you mention Trump a scowl comes over their faces followed by "no, bad". But they still like Obama. Me too. Bill
Every fucking Republican Senator voted to approve vote for Director of OMB.
He is evil incarnate and a white Christian Nationalist. He has illegally impounded billions of dollars of Congressionally approved appropriations.
EVERY Democratic and Independent US Senator voted against his confirmation.
The Republicans most be voted out of the Senate, every last one of them even if it take 6 years.
Chuck Grassley is 92 years old and will likely be re-elected in 2028 unless someone steps up to take him out.
well, a number of Democrats from Harris on down warned voters of Project 2025, written largely by Vought. Trump said 'never heard of it' and the press let him get away with that (as with so much more). So voters had their chance but preferred Trump's lies to the prospect of a woman of color in the White House.
so damn sad, ain’t it?
No one elected Russell Vought as you implied - instead he is a zealot. Like most zealots who try to impose their beliefs onto a multitude - Russell Vought will end up being hated by millions of people for the damage he has done to their lives, this country and others. When Russell Vought dies - he will have to answer to the Almighty, he apparently believes in - for why he, Russell Vought, willfully ignored the instructions laid down by Jesus Christ.
He's a theocrat as well Kay. Him and Leonard Leo are buddies which explains a lot. ALL of the Republicans hide behind each of his illegal impoundment of appropriated funds privately cheering him on. Publicly - see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Russell Vought - An American Judas
Revelation 17:14 They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will Triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings - and with Him will be His called, chosen and faithful followers.
The Seven hills on which the woman of Revelation 17:4 sits are the Seven Mountains. They will be defeated by Revelation 17:14. The kings will all be defeated by the King of kings in Revelation 17:14.
Among the chosen are those described in John 10:9. The sheep of the Shepherd who will come in and go out and find pasture.
As described in John 10 thieves and robbers abandon the flock when danger strikes because they care nothing for those under their care.
Where does the Project 2025 agenda fit in with the actual New Testament??
There are millions of John 10:9 in the United States - especially since Covid -
Vought is one of the ones who spent the 4-year interregnum planning the details of P2025 and this administration, planning on it being so. Miller did the same.
That last paragraph is not an accusation, but a confession.
It reads more to me like a description of the current regime than a condemnation of Communism.
Indeed!
Spot on, Dutch Mike.
That creep has the audacity to call us Communists? He has already put this country in hell, and the great violence is his doing thanks to his repulsive nazi tactics putting people in concentration camps all over the country. Poverty and crime are worsening exponentially as people are trying to eke out a living, while he squanders our tax money on foolish decorations and stealing what he can.
This November, every citizen must do their part and vote out the republicans who have allowed trump to destroy the framework of our government. Those democrats who have gone along with them need to go as well. We really need to use our voice, our vote, and shout out these people who use their power to silence us. They can't if we don't let them. Our vote counts more than ever now.
On ALL levels!!!
Rubio did not acknowledge that trump was sleeping despite seeing the photo. He just ignored it. He did not admit lying to congress. Theres no effective meaningful communication
He was blinking apparently.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/internet-mocks-white-house-as-officials-insist-trump-s-nap-was-just-blinking/ar-AA22W6Wn
It's seems to be happening a lot lately.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Dvc65-iBJEg
Blinking every 20 minutes. Orwellian double speak
It now appears that this UFC fight is going to go ahead at the White House but there has been some unhappiness that the card for this event is not quite as spectacular as promised (another damp squib like Trump's Freedom 250 concert).
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/11/ufc-white-house-donald-trump-event
I would suggest that a Bessent/Pulte fight would draw the crowds in.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XXu9w_elXh4