THIS! “…this is never about government efficiency. In fact, an efficient government, a government that capably serves the American people and proves good government is achievable is what you fear the most. You want a government so broken, so dysfunctional, so starved of resources, so full of incompetent political lackeys and bereft of experts and professionals that its departments and agencies cannot feasibly achieve the goals and the missions to which they are lawfully directed. Your goal is privatization, for the biggest companies to have unchecked power, for an economy that does not work for the middle class, for working and vulnerable families. You want the American people to have no one to turn to, but to the billionaires and the corporations this administration has put in charge. Waste, fraud, and abuse are not the targets of this administration. They are your primary objectives.”
THIS is what Project 2025 was designed to accomplish.
To testify at a Congressional hearing that, under Biden, "every agency was a tool of the Left" is a statement so breathtakingly ridiculous and untrue it almost defies belief. To paraphrase Churchill, it's an absolute inanity inside a delusion wrapped in a fundamental misstatement (deliberate, not accidental) about what government actually does. "The Left" is a concocted hobgoblin Vought and other extreme-right "thinkers" use to justify what they do. It does not exist, and it is being used as a silly justification for things that have no basis in our founding laws and principles.
The Constitution says government shall provide for the "General Welfare." Since the New Deal and before, that has included not just the regulation of interstate commerce and trade, but the larger economy, with the goal of promoting the health and safety of the people, not corporations (which are not even mentioned in the Constitution). Such principles are not unique ---they are practiced by every OECD member country on earth, and have brought each one not just prosperity, but a network of civilized countries operating interdependently with other civilized countries.
To say you want to withdraw from all this means you've learned nothing from history, don't understand the concept of interdependence, don't recognize that economic growth is connected with the quality of life and political institutions. Whatever that ideology even is, it's based on absurd, easily disprovable precepts that don't exist, and could never possibly benefit more than just a sliver of society. There are good reasons we have chosen no longer to live in the 1800s.
But I'm sure Fox News is busy patiently explaining all this to its intellectually curious, open-minded listeners who simply want to understand more..... 🤪
Closer to 50 years Jerri. I posted in this vein, a day or so ago. I'll copy and paste if you didn't see it. Btw; I'm having some very peculiar things happening with my email. I suspect a 'bug' of some nefarious origin, so I'll be doing a deep dive into my hard drive for 'bugs.' "Out of the blue" comments and likes from my friends here are disappearing into a 'known spam' folder, so if some of my friends have written to me in the past few days and I've not responded, be a bit patient (I always write back when addressed). I will have this straightened out in about a day or so; I've had this before.
Indeed, I’m old and still have a decent memory. I think the Carter presidency was the first one that I remember being Shanghaied.. Reagan was the guilty perp.
Me, too, on email and Internet behavior. I think we'll eventually have to go dark, totally disconnect from the infrastructure that's been put in place to cut off Project 2025 and its hobgoblins. Then, after we've starved them out electronically, we can start the process of dismantling their machinery and replacing or rebuilding it. They've had too long to infiltrate everything on every level. Burn it down, shut it off, replace it with something better and more tamper resistant.
Well, for the record I'm not too excited about it; I've had this happen a number of times personally. I'm just going to do some routine maint. and it will all wash out. However, I don't mean to take anything away or minimize the threats we're all somewhat exposed to in light of what we do know. I'm rather surprised that 'Joe and Jane' average American citizen is not all up in arms about the intrusions and exposure.
Patricia, and now they are going to investigate Biden and his aides. So another waste of taxpayer dollars while they destroy help for ordinary people and do nothing to improve the general welfare.
My doctor thinks I'm too thin - however - I'm going to get thinner - my cheekbones, nose and jaws will become more prominent - just worrying about all this.....
To add to my comment above - I will have to dress more fashionably to keep up morale because every day of the week will be a bad news day, increasing anxiety and dismay.
The ones about a failing economy, a dysfunctional government, Haitians eating cats and dogs, the Stolen Election Lie, "I had nothing to do with January 6", Biden being executed and replaced by a robot, that the middle class will be better off because of the "Big Beautiful Bill", and on and on.
It's so sad that any folks could buy it or even entertain themselves with all that crap, isn't it. I for one am guilty of presuming far more mental acuity in general around the country.
We all suffer from a mental decline. How about your fearless leader? Accuses Biden of being an automoton!
"On May 31, the President shared another user's Truth Social post claiming Biden was executed five years ago and what we are seeing now are clones, doubles, and "robotic engineered soulless mindless entities."
"The White House has not responded to media requests for comment on the post."
And this morning MSM is reporting that Trump has directed the DOJ to investigate Biden? Well, that investigation should be wrapped up pretty quick, if he is dead.
These people are insane, that's where the investigation should be.
The Atlantic reports that $2 million (not counting inevitable “overages) will be spent to “investigate” whether DEI is resulting in plane crashes. Because Trump has a very strong feeling….
Russell Vought is a power hungry ideologue. If you don’t share his Christian Nationalism or buy into Project 2025, you are a “left wing” ideologue by his peculiar definition. Who does the Heritage Foundation think it is trying to dictate what government we should have?
Isn’t it interesting that God’s goals are the same as Vought’s? God wants “natural resources” to be sold to His Christian Nationalists so they can be ripped up for profit? God wants His country to hoard food and money, letting Christians and other People if the Book to starve and die of disease? Maybe God will eventually want His country to convert the heretics everywhere - or stone them? It must be nice to be the leader of such a movement. Not to mention lucrative.
Marge, I am currently reading a book about early Islam and its conquests around the Mediterranean and then on to the European continent. This was all under the idea of spreading Islam, jihad, but as far as I can tell, it was really about increasing the tax base, booty and women, and sending a lot of this back to the Caliph in Damascus. The Christians arrayed against this do not get a pass. They were busy fighting amongst themselves over theology and of course, power and wealth. Charles Martel was about as vicious a person as you could find.
True. Susan B. Anthony, who was born a Quaker, made a statement that she found it rather curious that people often thought God agreed with them in expressing their views.
Yes; That has always amused me. Never mind the bible mentions regarding the last of the prophets. Hey, what's a few small details when there's so much self serving material to use and abuse.
"Messengers"... from some 'god' one supposes, or so they say. The 'new' or neo prophets, despite biblical statements regarding 'the last of the prophets' ; Smallish details they don't pass around with their self serving pablum.
I’m speechless, but beyond that sliteyed with anger at the lies from maggots, their fashion worn with thorns and spite. Vought = polluted slime. There’s no bottom to the cruelty and greed. No 12th step program to curb the addiction to $$ & power. They make other addicts look almost angelic.
Heather once again spotlights the essentials as this day opens with blooming peonies seemingly innocent of the lurking evil of this maladministrations
My garden is also thriving because i care for it along with my garden helper and we both have the same philosophy about gardening. Tomorrow is she is going to spray downy mildew with milk. I hope this works and she told us, it had to be full fat. She has also hosed aphids off the roses with water.
Well... how do you like Schumer claiming his admiration for Musk because Musk doesn't really like the big beautiful bill? Schumer needs to sit down and let people like Jasmine Crockett or Tammy Duckworth speak on behalf of us and the other less spineless democrats. At this point the dems approval rating is extremely low, because they are not trusted messengers!!!
"To say you want to withdraw from all this means you don't believe in civilized society ..."
The ideologues currently running the government (Donald isn't one of them) have differing models of "the ideal society." All of those models exist in the past, from 50 to 125 to 500 to 2,000 years ago.
I suspect Russell Vought's model is the biblical era, when "Jesus walked the earth." The Judeo-Christian scriptures and the religious art based on those scriptures glamorize the period and give the false impression that life in the Middle East was civilized. Prosperous men controlled their destinies; women and slaves knew their place. This is the society Vought and his cronies aspire to.
The biblical stories downplay the reality that a few autocrats ruled barbarically, and their sycophantic courtiers lived in luxury. For everyone else, life was a miserable struggle for survival, with constant wars or threats of wars.
Although modern technology has altered the appearance of Middle East culture, little of its underlying substance has changed in 2,000 years.
Dale, this has been the fate of the peons throughout most of history no matter what the religion or beliefs were. My last read was about Assyria and I am now in the middle of a book which starts just before Mohammed and then tracks the growth of Islam and its encounters with Europe. Nothing here to inspire people to be better or care for ordinary folks. Just power, glory, booty, women with a lot of rape, looting, and destruction when capturing various cities. The author mentions each time the necessity for increasing the tax base and sending the loot and women back to Damascus. On the Christian side in Iberia a lot of fighting about theology while increasing power at the expense of others. Visigoths, Franks, etc.
Yes, indeed, Michele! I omitted global history in my comment because I suspect Vought ignores it in his obsession with Christianity as he frames it.
In patriarchal cultures, which is virtually all of them, men claim to have all the answers. What to do when someone asks a question to which there is no answer? Quick! Invent a deity! Thus, we get Odin and all his Nordic crew, Jupiter and the Roman celestials, Zeus and all the Greek gods, Allah, and Yahweh (aka Jehovah, aka God), who in a deft move of one-upmanship, was later endowed with the inexplicable ability to be three persons in one.
It goes without saying that men would be prima persona in those fanciful stories they told around their fires, later transcribed into "sacred text."
It boggles my mind that modern, educated, intelligent people accept without question that all the Norse, Roman, Greek and other gods are mythical, but cling to the notion that the Judeo-Christian god is not a figment of old men's imaginations.
Dale, in the book about Islam and Europe, part of the fight among Christians centered around accepting the Trinity as proclaimed by the Nicene Creed or not. I did not know much about this fight or the bringing of Islam to Europe. None of what I am reading convinces me that this was for anything but power and loot and women. I will defend good people of faith always even if i do not believe as they do rather than a blanket condemnation of believers. I have my own approach to the universe which does not involve organized religion.
We agree that “to say you want to withdraw from all this means you don't believe in civilized society,” but do we agree about civilized society?
I agree with General Stanley McCrystal who, in a recent conversation with Nicholle Wallace on Deadline White House, said, “What we really need in the United States right now is a national conversation on character. What I mean is, we need to start individually. We need to think about what character is to us.” The conversation begins at about 27 minutes into the podcast. Here’s the link:
If you want to understand the problem, observe Pope Donald the Infallible. He always criticizes people who disagree with him and treats them like a problem with a one-step “neutralize threat” solution.
In every society, people draw conflicting conclusions. A society is civilized when and because people resolve the conflict by openly sharing and challenging the assumptions underlying the conflict.
To “think global and act local” is to keep one eye on the big picture while acting on one’s own direct personal relationships.
Disagree with President Dick Tator, and you will be ignored, but that is only part of the problem. If someone with a reasoned argument disagrees with “me” and “I” ignore that person, then “I” am not part of the solution and “I” am instead part of the problem.
If anyone wants to disagree with me, they will not be ignored. You can do it here, or you can comment on my fee-free newsletter. Here’s a link to the latest edition, which is the tenth in a series of essays that are implicitly about the "character" concept:
A general welfare tax on all forms of income over $2,000,000 per year…there are way too many ‘loop-holes’ written in that benefit the very few. And a top rate of 50%. And I would also suggest that 50% of this welfare tax be dedicated to paying off investments, deficits.
The Left is largely responsible for creating the quality of life that most of Trump’s supporters enjoy. Yet tragically, many of them have swallowed whole the hatred aimed at immigrants, government, and transgender people—resentments tailor-made for demagogues to exploit. The bitter irony? Almost nothing Trump is doing actually benefits the very people who voted for him.
Wondering when, if ever, those who voted for Trump and who are actually paying some attention (not on Fox of course) to what is being done to the social safety net will get it that they were duped and they will suffer from his agenda.
You are what we need. We are all literally looking for a parent to make things right.
What would make the NYT and the Washington Post real newspapers is if they put your comments on the front page.
We are literally ( over used), being raised without parents. Our government ,running the way you have stated , is set up to do the parenting . In the New Deal that “parenting” system was set up. It included REGULATIONS, Boundaries, purpose for being, public not “private”, and a system where every good parent could support their favorite child ,America) called paying taxes in so all could enjoy health, safety, education and the peace of coming together for a pure purpose. That is called a Democracy.
Now we accept the ugly step sister to make our rules, pay themselves from our taxes, and flip us off . Really America?????????? When are you going to demand that those who don’t pay taxes quit flying their ugly private planes into our airports????
Once again, the 'leading' people in our government haven't a clue what is in our Constitution. We should send copies to all the offices of Republicans in DC. To the left, left, left. Gee whiz! I keep looking around to find all of the 'lefties' damage. Shame on Vought. I think there is a very warm place for him!
I worked in New Haven, CT for the Knights of Columbus for 15 years most of them remote. I'm not sure why, but she included me in her correspondence so I got to know about her and her efforts. Her efforts in Congress are very impressive.
I agree, Kari! Amplify this--the most succinct and devastating description I have read in all of these months of blather. And who said it? Congresswoman Rosa deLauro. As usual these days the only people with "balls" actually have vaginas.
Indeed! Once more proof that men invented god and wrote the bible with the intent to control woman who men realized were smarter than "them." Congresswoman Rosa deLauro you have described Russell Vought correctly and rightly! Thank you.
She is a hero and a role model for pushing back against these hateful people. Even if it doesn't stop these men from destroying our country and the lives of people who aren't them. The word fascism isn't scary enough to describe what they are doing.
Actually it’s to give men the right to rule over women and children. To ‘home school’ to the lowest common denominator, ie. Ignorance is bliss. To strip FREEDOM of thought, movement around our country and the world and force everyone to toe the line these men set .. everyone else is left to die … from lack of safety in our food distribution, medical attention now taken for granted as HUMAN RIGHTS, no more public schooling or public libraries, etc etc.
My experience of home schoolers is a next door neighbor who had two little girls, about 5 and 7 I think. The street was a cul de sac, and one day when I was out in the yard I saw a battered old Chevy drive around the turnaround several times, as if lost. It was an odd neighborhood with streets carrying the same name but with Lane, Road, and Trail at the end, so not uncommon to see people lost. The 5 yo was in the back yard, and came up to me at the fence very alarmed.
"Make those men go away!"
"Why, honey?"
"Because they're going to rape me!"
Where the bloody hell would a child get something like that?
I always wonder how a world like this would actually be to live in. For that reason, I tell me son he should move out of this country while he has the chance.
Instead of eggs, flowers are being tossed at Voight, while his craven behavior is being rewarded with applause from trump et al. The escalating behavior by the cabinet and other republicans can only cause trump to rub his hands. He is more and more assured of the fecklessness of his opponents (dems) who have proved to have nothing but the horns of a snail.....
The Treaty of Versailles, and the Depression set the stage for Hitler's fascism. He didn't have to do much groundwork. This regime is working hard and to me it seems congress and an undependable court system are helping the fascists succeed.
I’m going to cut and paste her quote also, it was spot on 🎯. They don’t care, this is the chance they have long dreamed of, they are hellbent on accomplishing that dream. The rest of us be damned. That is what we are facing 🤬🤬🤬
To fight back, start mini gardens at your home or rental. We Americans need to be healthy, and the way to eat nutritious food is to grow some plants thru personal garden boxes.
And HCR, thank you for spreading the good news about Rep. Rosa DeLaur0 (D-CT) telling Vought what crappy disinformation he’s spreading. 🔥Protest daily by cutting and pasting Heather’s Substack & Olga’s daily Trump Tyranny’s Substack and Steve Balmer’s FactCheckUSA postings. ✊
Yes JaKsaa, we have to thank HCR for the clarity and scope of the information provided but at the same time, Fox News would and will ignore all of it and instead distract their viewers with fantasized stories. No wonder there are so many stupid voters still supporting this cruel and corrupted regime.
"The VA has cut just a few thousand staffers this year. But the administration has said it plans to eliminate at least 70,000 through layoffs and voluntary buyouts within the coming months. The agency, which is the largest integrated health care system in the U.S., currentlyhas nearly 500,000 employees, most of whom work in one of the VA’s 170 hospitals and nearly 1,200 clinics."
And Veterans are also the largest group targeted by the DOGE personnel cuts.
I am a disabled veteran who understands the devastating consequences of the current cuts to the VA health system. I resent the implication that all veterans stupidity follow and vote the MAGA directives. Absent statistical evidence, I am inclined to believe most MAGA types are not veterans.
Ron, I have a dear friend who is 100% total from both head injuries and MST from her USCG tenure as a GM2. I am well aware that there is a vast representation of Veterans; sadly, many of my former work cohort of retired cops represent the opposite viewpoint. It is people like you, her, and a handful of others that keep me from falling into that trap.
GJ, I fail to understand many veterans. I guess he appeals to their beliefs about how males should dominate and walk around with guns in camo or full battlefield gear. Btw, all the veterans I know cannot stand him and some are at protests regularly.
GJ, if we ever can answer the question regarding why people vote against their own interests, I guarantee we will be the winner on every election form that point on .
It is a challenge, Ricardo, but we have to stay strong and spread the good word—not the mis- and disinformation from Rupert Murdoch et al. Rosa DeLauro for the win!
the pain and suffering to follow will change minds. When you watch your loved ones cry from hunger, there is nothing more powerful. It boggles the senses to think those in charge don't care.
Celeste,don't you think that the ideological "inventors" of this regime don't know that minds are going to change because of the effects of those policies? The fact that they plow without caring makes me think they, for one reason or another won't allow elections to be run fairly 🤔
One reason for this is because Christian Nationalists and secular Republican ideologues have developed this ideology they have some divine mandate to hold power forever. The Democratic leadership has not been effectively countering them, although some Senate and House Democrats have been fairly effective. Jasmine Crockett gladly calls some of the GQP officials out for the fools and tools they are. Maggie Hassan showed how ignorant Kristi Noem was of basic constitutional concepts, like that of habeas corpus.
You're comment only makes me say again that we have to do everything we can to protect the integrity of our elections.
I got two more young women registered to vote, cautioned them to retain their birthnames for identification, and stressed what is at stake for them and their childrens' lives. Today, I'll do it again.
I don't really care if it's hard, it is our job to protect this country and the Constitution that let's us live free lives. This is the message I relate to everyone I talk to. And I will never give up. Our courts have held the line so far, and I support them and their work. I stay loud about it. And I encourage everyone I meet, no matter where I meet them, to do the same.
The current regime has no place in this country, and I'll do whatever I can to see to it they are voted out. I hope every American realizes what's at stake and does what they can to stop it. too.
There is strength in great numbers, and I'm hoping every American does what they can to protect their vote, and gets out to the polls to cast it.
It's never too late. I am sure it felt hopeless when it seemed we were losing our war of Independence. It probably felt too late and hopeless in the middle of the Civil War as McClellan bungled along and the South won battle after battle.
But Washington and Grant led us to victories.
There are WAY more of US than THEM. The misinformed and dedicated MAGAs voted for change, but many of them didn't think their friends and workers would be kidnapped. They didn't think they or their family members would lose healthcare and food assistance - Of 77 million, I bet there are a few million who are already having quiet second thoughts. They thought eggs would be cheaper.
We had 75 million voters and 89 million didn't show up to vote. My math says that the worse this war on people gets, the more we are headed for a flip of Congress and subsequent impeachment.
The Republican Party no longer exists. It is MAGAs, Miller, Vought and their ilk against the world.
It's going to get much, much worse before order and decency restored. My guess is that we are only 10% in when it comes to feeling the damage. But IMO, June 14th protests will be the largest in our history. And that will only be the beginning.
Veterans are protesting tomorrow. And their pain has only begun. Folks in military families will be waiting longer for those who served to get appointments, care will be delayed. And Trump spends $45 million + on a vanity parade. This is not going to play well.
I could be wrong. It happens all the time. But I believe the Karma Cops are running slow...but they ARE on the way.
Your assessment is 100% in evidence in my cadre of former coworkers. There is NO way to get that information to them that they do not dismiss out of hand.
We grow way too much food in our little plot - so we can distribute it to neighbors and friends. Over a month of asparagus, now lettuce. Next will be kale, sugar snaps. And soon the summer harvest.
Great idea and comment JaKsaa! Much like the WW 2 victory gardens, we’re fighting fascists and Nazis. But now we’re fighting them to “keep our republic if we can”. Grow liberty gardens for fresh nutritious food but also for the health of our democracy and in solidarity, share with friends and neighbors. Freedom gardens for connecting more with nature, meditating, visualizing, a way of resisting the regime, a protestation of the tariffization, knowing what matters and true peace. ☮️🪷🌻🌗🌞🌎
Yes JaKasa! Mini gardens and sprouts, too -- amazing what potent food can come from a kitchen. I love "Sproutpeople" for supplies and informative videos: https://sproutpeople.org/
JaKsaa--may I add onto your first line there? You can pick up a 5 gallon bucket for about $3 at the big home centers. Drill a few holes in the bottom for drainage, and fill 2/3rds full with soil for plants or seeds. If you have a lot of sticks on your land, you can fill the bottom 1/3rd with them. Also, reuse any larger plastic pots from any plants you purchase, by placing them in the bottom, upside down.
If you have plenty of sun, you can easily grow tomatoes and peppers, from seeds or from plants. I have grown an abundance of beens in these containers. Look for seeds that say "bush" variety. Retain some seeds and plant those among the plants in mid summer to keep producing into the fall.
If you have limited sun, you can easily grown lettuces, spinach and kale in these pots.
You can even grow some veggies in jars of water inside your home, from scrap from veggies. I've done with with the butt of Romaine I've purchased.
Also, a chain fast food place by me used to (may still) offer their pickle buckets for free or a few bucks. They are a few gallons large, and work like the home center buckets. You could check with any places near you.
Yes. Home gardens to feed ourselves and our neighbors.
Here's a post on our site, Small Steps Matter, encouraging anyone who can to plant an extra row to share with others. We are seeking collaborators to help spread the word.
The interesting feature in all of this is Trump’s expressed desire to have Qatar’s government give him that white elephant of a plane. It’s so obviously a flagrant violation of the Emoluments Clause.
I agree with the Professor, "Finally ... a distraction". Also Hat Tip to Lawrence O'Donnell tonight on the details of Trump's distraction after MUSK launchd his social media drones at Trump's [Big Bad] "Disgusting Abomination".
Musk's attack started at 1:30PM on Tuesday 6/3/25. That's exactly when Billionaire Musk jumped the sinking 🛳 orange budget ship.
What to do? Oh, what to do? You can see the memes coming "Kill the Bill" , "Kill-the-Bill Gang. Hmmm .... let me see let's look at the Playbook under "Distractions, ... distractions ... got it "Distractions" & subtopic "Major" -- major distractions.
Yeah, yeah, who hoo -- go with the trusty "Travel Ban" --- how about a Travel against citizens from Afghanistan all the way down to Yemen? More specifically that's A to Y:
Afghans
Burma
China
C again to cover 'Congo the Republic of' for more distraction
EG -- Equitorrial Guinea somewhere in the middle of Atlantic (maybe)
Eritrea -- why not
Haiti ... the orange Floridian hates them
I ... yup that's Iran ... "I ran so far away -- couldn't get away"
Libya -- always handy to trash
Somalia -- always, always, always (repeat smear as needed)
S again? Yes, got to get Sudan ---absolutely a purrrffect distraction, Who's ELON?
Y & that brings us to Yemen but, which side of that split country? Who knows, regardless certainly not Tump.
H/t Lawrence O'Donnell as well, thanks Lawrence but, I must say you are brilliant.
Counsellor, I record him on rehearsal nights so I can watch later. His monologues are simply brilliant. He was masterful two nights ago when discussing the deaths from USAID and held his emotions in check, yet communicated the seriousness of that particular abomination.
Sheriff, I record everything Lawrence broadcasts. I often take screenshots of his Team's charts & data, all the way from 'A' to 'Y' last night -- otherwise I could not have done the above rant.
Deborah...speaking of SA and Qatar...how does all this foreign (not just SA and Q) investment in America. MAGA? What happens when they get crossways with us and pull all their money out?
Not so curious....Trump's daughter is married to an Egyptian whose father holds a position within its government. She and her husband are expecting their first child.
Regarding Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Trump was gifted with an airplane ie, his sons have business connections.
In other words, "You rub my back; I'll rub yours".
They obviously bought enough of his crypto to stay off the list. Just call it the graft and gift administration. What else would you expect from a criminal?
Thanks professor. We’re in the hands of a professional bancruptor. (Sp. if even a word?) Vought is pure evil. I seriously don’t understand these people. No disrespect to people. Thank you for giving us strength to bear this insanity and to understand the ramifications and hopefully giving us the strength to stand up to it and fight back. Peace and love everybody.
Just because someone doesn't officially declare bankruptcy doesn't mean their business didn't fail. Whatever happened to Trump's wine or his football team or his airline or his myriad other businesses that have failed.
That is what concerns me. We saw what happened when Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced they were going to borrow money to cut the taxes of Britain’s wealthiest citizens. The announcement imploded the British economy (still reeling from Brexit,) and Mr. Kwarteng resigned first, followed soon after by Ms. Truss.
Muskrat’s objection to Trump’s bill is not due to some new found belief in the common good. He objects because there are not bigger cuts to social services and bigger tax cuts for the wealthy.
Vought’s Project 2025 is abuse, out in full sight for all to see. His behavior mirrors the behavior of an abusive partner in a relationship. The same thing is true of 45-47. They are abusing this country for their own selfish ends.
I’ve thought Vought is a more malicious combination of all of Nixon ‘s chiefs of staff and aides like Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Liddy, and Colson. Colson became an Evangelical Christian after he got out of prison, and was allied with people like the late Jerry Falwell, sr. By contrast, Vought was raised as an Evangelical Christian, and he’s now a Christian Nationalist.
Pontius Pilate wasn’t kind to the people of Israel in that time. He had little respect for Jewish religious sensitivities or their religious practices.
The Trump regime has abruptly cut off funding to nearly all Job Corps centers around the US. This is a decades-old Dept. of Labor program that helps at-risk students, many coming from homelessness, abuse, and neglect. Students can earn GEDs and get valuable training in a variety of fields, including union-wage certification and jobs in building trades. As of this Friday, about 150 staff at the Job Corps center here have no jobs, and dozens of students and staff who've lived on the Job Corps campus have no homes. Fortunately, our small town is rallying to provide shelter, food, and safety for them.
These Job Corps closures will hit rural areas and small towns especially hard. Here's yet another reason to attend a NO KINGS! protest on Saturday, June 14. Find one near you at www.nokings.org, or get tips on how to organize one yourself. We must speak out against the cruelty, corruption, and lawlessness of the Trump regime and Congressional Republicans who enable it.
David French’s article in yesterday’s NYTimes explains in detail how the right-wing American “Christian” mind works when it comes empathy for the rest of society. Getting right with god is paramount, love thy neighbor as thyself, not so much. In fact, no love for thy neighbor is necessary, as long as things are hunky dorky with the almighty. They’ve perverted and turned upside down the teachings of the Jesus they claim to adore. Hypocrites, all of them.
John, I haven't read the NYT article and probably can't because of paywall, but I can confirm your summary, with one qualification. It is important to note that two groups of "believers" claim the title of "Christian."
Mainline denominations, such as Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians, consider themselves to be Christians but do not subscribe to Christian Nationalist thought. However, those denominations have split into two or more denominations each. Some of those offshoots are very conservative and will probably lapse into Christian Nationalism, if they haven't already. The "liberal" branches of these denominations engage in a lot of charitable work with various underprivileged populations and others in need.
The other group of believers typically regard themselves as "evangelicals," and usually prefer not to describe their segments as denominations. The many strains of Baptists refer to their segments as "conventions." In general, evangelicals do not engage in charitable activities. When they do, strings are attached. In order to receive charitable services, clients must at the very least stop doing whatever that church disapproves of, and preferably, "accept Jesus as their personal savior."
I was born into and reared in an evangelical pastor's home. Over the course of his career, my dad served at least a dozen congregations. Not a single one of them engaged in any charitable work in the communities where they were located. In fact, of income over and above local church operating expenses, every penny was sent to missionaries overseas. These missionaries operated schools and medical clinics as vehicles to erase indigenous spirituality and "convert" the beneficiaries of their services to evangelicalism.
When I became an adult and left evangelicalism, upon reflecting on my experience in that tradition, I was stunned by their profound indifference to needs down the street as they poured millions into proselytizing entire cultures in faraway lands. In light of the teachings of Jesus they claimed to follow, their lack of empathy for their neighbors was and is mind boggling.
Rather than castigating people like Vought with logic, it might be more revealing (if equally ineffective) to quote the Bible to him, and ask how his policies support such teachings as Matthew 25:40-45 -
Matthew 25:40-45
New International Version
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
And 600 Great Lakes scientists are having their annual meeting in Milwaukee to talk about resilience in the face of drastic cuts to their research. As the lakes warm, it seems like the perfect time to gut funding.
Is there any press agency keeping track of the number of women nationwide who have died because of the neglect by hospitals and emergency rooms? Have we become a third-world nation in the number of women dying because of complications of childbirth?
Women are property—if you understand the constitution AND the concept of COVERTURE. It has been rather successfully hidden for centuries. COVERTURE means that the woman is “covered” by the man. Ah, so many many examples are there now if you only look for them. Just one: do women get equal medical treatment and attention as men? Absolutely not. I have a zillion examples of how coverture affects all women NOW, TODAY, and also coming to a country near you (HERE). How long did it take for all the rights of women in Afghanistan to lose all the gains that had been made? Two years to become property again? Think it’s NOT coming here? Think again. >>>
“You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution.”
Indeed. Trump cozies up to a Saudi Arabian prince who murders his critics. A country where every woman must have a "male guardian" who determines her actions. To rebel means women's prisons where "rehabilitation" takes place. AKA torture.
This is the sort of man and society Donald J. Trump admires. Of course, he has installed another con artist in the WH. Paula White-Cain. Need a $1000 Waterford Crystal 10" Cross? Send her a check. I wonder what the Trump "organization" cut is.
British law distinguished between married women, who were under the coverture of their husbands and were part of a legal whole represented by the husband. The femme (or feme) sole, who was often a widow and could carry out legal acts a married women could not. Married women’s property became property of the husband upon marriage, and some husbands could and often did squander money or gamble it away.
Coverture survived in American law and in the 19th century, laws were changed to allow women to own their own property. The problem was that vestiges of coverture survived because it wasn’t until about 50 years ago that married women often couldn’t get separate credit or bank accounts in their own names.
Thank you for the additional information. I have been trying to get attention on this subject for years. And been largely ignored. The more it can be magnified, and more people understand, maybe, just maybe, we can prevent history from repeating? COVERTURE is imbedded in Project 2025. Scary.
Exactly, and the men always know best. How to wage war, subjugate, and rule with no opposition. Women on a lower rung as are any others. The difference with women is that the pretense of “for their own good” is palpable for many. I have been so lucky to have known men who didn’t treat women as “lessers.”
We never did that in my family, and my brother and brother in law love and respect their wives. They consider them full equals and respect their judgment.
Barbara, complete sidebar here: early in my law enforcement career (we're talking late1980's) the department started ordering and issuing body armor for all its weapons qualified staff, not just the squeaky wheels (raises hand) who demanded it. About the second or third order (8 years in, so mid 1990's) I got my first "women's" vest. It came with the statement "due to the unique contours of the female body" and had, I kid you not, boob darts. Body armor works best with a "pliable surface" behind it (read: torso). Darts leave the center of the chest with no pliable surface behind it. Their solution? An angled "chest plate" to cover that area (which would send a fragmented bullet directly into the neck of the wearer). I only ordered that vest ONCE. A mastectomy a few years later made a men's vest a much better fit.
Wow. But today, there are still many issues with garments for women…they still don’t get it. Did you know that men’s belts are measured in inches? Quaint idea. I have photos of racks of belts for women in stores labeled as small, medium and large. Those terms are meaningless. Why not actual measurements like men? “It’s too hard”.
I know only one woman who died in childbirth, my goddaughter. She died because she lived in Haiti, and they couldn’t get her to the proper care in time. One is too many, anywhere in the world, and I fear it will be happening here more often. 😢
I too am so sorry to hear this. One of the most disturbing things is the number of African American women who die in childbirth. This is something that should not be happening in an affluent nation.
Ally, thanks for mentioning that. They weren’t listening to Serena Williams when she told them she was experiencing pain, and it turned out she had a massive embolism that could have killed her.
Not along the exact route of the military (birthday) procession, I trust? I want him to feel somewhat alone then. And very stupid, like wearing a costume when it turns out not to be a fancy dress party.
Definitely not! I agree the fewer people watching him burn up our tax dollars the better. I hope the number of cities and towns with demonstrations continues to grow. I read 1400 are scheduled now.
It won't matter how many people show up since Trump will cite whatever "statistics" he chooses. Will he understand on some level how small the crowd is, and will it hurt him? He certainly won't show any understanding or hurt publicly.
I’m afraid those brown shirts will employ arson, assaults and looting, just like they did during the George Floyd protests, turning them into riots. I suspect this is what trump/Vought want. Martial law declaration and the U.S. military will be unleashed. I wouldn’t advise anyone to be within a mile of the parade. Let the MAGAs face the consequences.
I fully expect Trump to either shut down the Congressional Budget Office or fire so many of its staff people as to make it nonfunctional. His entire mindset is that no one can challenge him and survive that challenge. Extending that philosophy to the CBO is completely on brand for Trump. 
Vought is involved with the CBO as well, although he is Trump’s Chief of Staff and not in Congress. He knows how government works well enough to wreck it.
Yesterday, the Fascist regime announced a new Federal government hiring requirement. Every applicant must write an essay praising King DonOld and his accomplishments.
Reality is stranger than fiction in this TACO administration.
It will be yet another illegal action. The CBO does not belong to the Executive Branch but to the Legislative. I have no idea how Trump's idiot lawyers would even try to spin that before the Supreme Court.
He’ll do his best to kill it and let the courts try to stop him after the fact. Thats his approach to life. And that’s why I hated that the Democrats said they had an army of lawyers ready to act the minute there were election problems last November. Meanwhile, Trump and Musk did things that no lawyer working after the fact could ever make right. Lawyers are all defense. Trump is all offense.
He wants to make the executive superior to the coequal legislative and judicial branches of government, and it’s a blatant violation of the Constitution. Unfortunately, the 6 GQP members on SCOTUS are willing to enable him.
The last newsflash on my phone, to add to the list of horrid issues by the Rtump administration is an investigation into the “cover-up” of Biden’s health. Rtump forgets he is the current president—he won the election of 2024. He is hell-bent on revenge. How pitiful.
I believe his investigation is aimed at proving that Biden was not in charge and that other people were running the government and using an auto pen to make it look like Biden was in charge. He might as well be investigating the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. This is all totally bonkers stuff.
Trump has always been prone to accept nutty conspiracy theories, and this shows just how out of touch he is with reality. The other part of this that he hopes to distract the public from his own crimes.
Yet T---p doesn't know half of what's going on in his regime and blanket-pardoned the J6 when it became too difficult to review them individually. But I guess I'm just trying to apply logic where logic doesn't apply.
Well, the SC has ruled that a president can’t be prosecuted for anything relating to his/her official duties. So, if President Biden came in every day and just turned on an auto-pen, then left, it would still be related to his official duties.
On Fox News, somebody recently counted that in an entire evening, a broadcaster spoke the word "Medicaid" once, while Joe Biden's name was mentioned over 90 times.
Yes, various people and organizations are counting every Fox show. Obviously, their producers have only one go to strategy. And that's to attack Biden and the "Biden crime family."
And where are the Christians. Do they condone all of this hate?
You have to distinguish Christians and Christian Nationalists. Christians are willing to live and let live, and a lot of them are opposed to what Trump and his enablers are doing. Christian Nationalists think they are entitled to use their faith as an excuse for a power grab and to force everyone else to follow it.
Agree. Christian Nationalism is a political movement. I don't consider them Christians. You are correct - they twist the words of the Bible to make their prejudices look righteous.
I hope priests and pastors everywhere are making sure their congregations know the difference.
No. I'm a christian and as frustrated as all of you. I'm protesting about 1x/week with a Bridge Brigade and singing with a Raging Grannies gaggle-we are BUSY! My heart hurts. All this needless destruction and hate. I don't get the money part....when is enough, enough?? Even the descendants can't spend all the $$ billionaires accumulate at out expense! They couldnt have accumulated $ without us buying or working for them. 🤬
Melissa, my rallying cry echoes yours: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I have emailed those exact words to Congress, followed by "enough of the greed, the stripping of rights, the kidnapping of immigrants, the frivolous lawsuits, the cutting of social programs" etc.
Trump is intentionally trying to disempower the American people. His handlers gave him this mission. It is easier to assume control of the USA's natural, mineral, military, and financial resources if the democracy that citizens trust is laid to rest, if due process is rendered assailable, and if the majority of us are sick and struggling to get by. We must find a way to convince Trump supporters that they have put our country into the hands of corrupt oligarchs and fascist Trumpians.
How is FOX News still broadcasting? The discourse and tension bubbling over in our society is due to “alternate facts”. Truth, where is the truth? Lies/headlines for profit is ruining our society. Everything for Profit is overwhelming.
I think the projection is based on the tax revenue of the tariffs over ten years. But that optimism flies in the face of the so-called purpose of the tariffs — to move the manufacturing back to the usa. If that should succeed then tariff revenue would sink to zero! So who’s lying?
Actually it is not an error. That is the projection. But it is not their job to determine the affects of inflation and the reciprocal tariffs these companies are going to impose. Plus the tariffs have theoretically been paused for 90 days so if they are using the "paused" numbers, do they really mean anything?
We are in a Trump recession in many parts of the country. Many states are already suffering from the loss of income from foreign travelers and it's only going to get worse.
There was a Chinese lady and her 12 year old daughter that ICE arrested in NYC who was there visiting the US. They arrested her and left her 12 year old daughter unattended on the street.
The whole thing is just idiotic. Tariffs don't lead to domestic investment, especially these yo-yo diet tariffs. They create an atmosphere of complete uncertainty, unreliability and non-enforcement. There's a reason bond markets are RISING right now. No investor will start building steel mills in Indiana because of them. That's the thinking of a demented child who believes the world really does look like it did in 1898, and should look that way, too.
Some may be convinceable, but there are several million people who won’t budge. They’ve been around since the beginning. See: Joseph McCarthy. Plus many others over the years.
Yes. Yes. Crater Lake in Oregon is short-staffed, already months behind in hiring, and is using volunteers to maintain services to visitors, per a report on Oregon Public Broadcasting today.
The biggest crime among today’s roster of insults to democracy is the fact that the Regime is already deep into manipulating federal data to magically produce the numbers they want: Within a couple of months, Inflation will vanish, unemployment will cease, the stock market will only go up, and tariffs will be paid by exporting countries….
It is essential that Congress establish a watchdog network that can still amass actual data to quantify real economic trends in order to counter the Regime’s nonsense.
Right on Jean Peters when you said “Congress establish a watchdog network that can still amass actual data to quantify real economic trends in order to counter the Regime’s nonsense.”
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to your own reps, as well as those in other states on a specific committee important to a topic you’re sharing. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
Smoke and mirrors. Why is FOX News allowed to exist. Truth needs to prevail so the general public can make rational decisions and understand what is happening.
Susan, I was appalled at the “follow up” vid of her doubling down on her “we’re all going to die” statement…suggesting folks don’t understand it (that we’re all mortal)…chances are they know it more viscerally than she, especially if they struggle financially & with health issues and lack of care. Struck me as a “let them eat cake” moment. Truly heartless & not a good look and I hope voters hold her to account.
At an age when serious illness and (inevitable) death becomes increasingly likely, or at any age, there is a lot of comfort to be drawn from access to high quality medical care (which I do) as opposed to lacking it. And we know many people lack it.
It wasn’t Marie Antoinette who said this. It came from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote this some years before Marie Antoinette came from Austria to France. She could not see the larger picture of what was happening in the country, and Louis XVI was not willing to grasp the nettle and impose taxes on the nobility. It was easy to dislike Marie Antoinette as she was a foreigner, and was not eager to participate in the system of etiquette that governed the French court. She only became a political force when the Revolution broke out.
In retrospect, I’ve come to believe that although Marie Antoinette was less than an ideal queen, the biggest overlooked issue that provoked the French Revolution was the expense of helping the American fight for independence and the failure of Louis XVI to reform the tax system in France. Court extravagance did have some role, but the costs of the American war were far greater than that. Conspiracy theorists love to blame the “hidden hand” but there really wasn’t one. Another feature of life at that time is that there was a growing middle class in France with educated people who were unable to obtain access to higher positions which were reserved for nobles. When the economy in France worsened because of deficits, it hurt the middle class the most.
Nothing new here Kathy, a woman was guilty of something she didn't say or do. That's the history I learned since I was a kid a few decades ago.😅
In any case, the moral to the story is, don't mess up with the basic needs of the people specially the middle class and make the richest among us, play a role at keeping a deficit under control.
Thanks for the historical correction, I know better now.🤗
Trump has no link to reality, and it's everyone's job in this administration, in between implementing Project 2025, to do everything in their power to convince Americans that what Trump says is the real reality.
Thank God cracks are appearing, but those fluffers at Fox and OAN are working hard to make this country into Gaslight Nation.
Write, call, protest, march and by all means VOTE! Do whatever you are able to do to change the ugly, nihilistic narrative that is currently being bullhorned by those in power. Regardless of what they’re saying and trying to do, don’t buy into their bullshit. Remember, “The power of the people is always greater than the people in power”. If they didn’t know that they wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep us down. If our vote wasn’t so threatening, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop us from voting. The time is now to fix the problem created in November.
That's the most likely scenario William, I've been warning about that possibility for months now. No sane administration would implement such cruel and corrupt policies expecting to winn elections. They are going to stay in power by other means, or at least they are going to try hard.
The tech oligarchy has used the Christian Nationalist to sow division and hatred to distract from what they have been doing
Too many by into this view, “Vought was a key author of Project 2025, whose aim is to disrupt and destroy the United States government order to center a Christian, heteronormative, male-dominated family as the primary element of society. To do so, the plan calls for destroying the administrative state, withdrawing the United States from global affairs, and ending environmental and business regulations.l
Please watch The Daily Show, season 30 episode 69
Jon Stewart's interview with Carole Cadwalladr who broke the Cambridge analytica story, 2018
Facebook lied, Cambridge did have 87million people's data from Facebook. Facebook got fined 5 billion dollars by the FDC, 100million by the SCC and 100s of thousands pounds by other countries around the world. But nobody was ever held to account. Gross illegality yet neither company nor the Trump or EU Leave campaign had any charges, Nothing changed. she was however the only one put on trial for discovering this very true thing.
Weaponizing that information was the blueprint for what we are seeing now
the dream of big data to use massive amts. of data to use algorithms to target people. Now we are seeing it weaponized to defang democratic processes.
Now they are building a techno authoritarian surveillance state by DOGE accessing all data, now Palintir owned by Peter Thiel is merging all these databases via AI, This is a system of control and has no regulation protecting your data. We had all this time to do something about protecting data and we did not.
Trump's big beautiful bill has a section that states that for 10 years, congress will not be allowed to legislate or regulate AI in any way shape or form .
They can label anyone a domestic terrorist, It is a pathway to fascism.
It is based upon totally illegal behavior against copyright laws, privacy laws, and more,
In Europe the dangers of this are more recent, Germany is the main country who is most familiar with this,
chatGPT hallucinates, gets things wrong, and is this the system that is going to decide who gets Medicare or Social Security? How will anyone be able to challenge it?
She does think we can slow the inevitability of this.
tech bros are selling absolute BS. AI is not inevitable, it is based on illegal behavior,
Linda, I recently purchased a book “More Everything Forever…AI Overlords, space expired and Silicon Valley’s crusade to control the fate of humanity” by Adam Becket [edit: correction it’s Becker…dang clumsy-thumbsy!]—have not cracked it open yet, but was prompted to purchase it by the unfolding information/reporting on the tech-bros hubris in thinking they have “the answer” and should be in control of “the masses”. One of my thoughts on reading such info is that some dudes (and it’s mostly dudes) need to take a walk in a forest or a meadow or on a wild deserted beach…you know, the natural world that we call home.
I was one of the nerdy kids to who took to technology like a duck to water, but for the most part (big exceptions being commercial TV and atom bombs) I felt that every technological development served society and expanded my personal options. There are ways that was something of an illusion, I felt like the tools served my interests, society's interests. Now it feels to me that a technology is more and more rudely intrusive, and less under my control. It seems that tech is being used without public supervision and ways that do not serve my interests, or even those of society as a whole, like control being wrested from us, and the public too unfocused to respond.
Try teaching schools these days! My daughters are HS teachers, and they talk about the number of kids who use AI to cheat, or to do their work. The really sad part is often the AI is totally garbeled and nonsensical, and they don't even read THAT--they simply copy/paste it into their work. This is going to become worse when AI becomes better.
Oh the stories my daughters have related to me about today's students! I fear that smartphones are aiding Project 2025, as it's turning young people into the old "mudsills"--they are incapable of doing anything that requires their attention away from the phone in hand.
Miselle, reading these comments make me SO glad I grew up as a “free range” kid, along with my sibs & friends! We made our own adventures and were outdoors usually until dinner time…or even indoors during inclement weather or at night building forts from blankets or drawing or reading… The “latest” tech we had was one TV (B&W) where you had to get up and manually change the channel…what? maybe 3 or 4 options? I am very grateful NOT to have experienced the crushing thrill/obsession with social media and one’s own constant companion of a mini handheld computer (smartphone). I see so many reports that show folks, say at a concert or other notable event, with their cellphones held high to record the occasion….sigh, does no one just be “in the moment” and experience it anymore? Tho’ one plus, I guess, is that the ubiquity of being filmed has the potential to “show what really happened”.
I grew up SO free-range, first in the country, and then plying residential city sidewalks on my bicycle. My companions and I were out of direct adult supervision any chance we got, except for agreements to be available at certain meal times, and of course, go to school and complete certain tasks, including homework. Not everything we got into was safe, but somehow all in my circle survived. I doubt that that style of parenting was entirely wise, yet kids learn resilience from experience. It pains me so see so many of the opportunities I experienced now closing during my pretty ordinary middle class upbringing.
And of course in so many ways those were not the "good old days", for minorities and women, but rights were fitfully expanding, and the yoke of authoritarianism retreating. I recall, for example, when it became legal for stores to stay open on Sunday in my state. When the palette of jobs available to women and minorities expanded. My father was born before women could vote nationally, and in those days is was the Southern Democrats who were fanatically racist, though forms of statutory racism were pervasive, abuse of gays was "normal", and that all stuff really sucked. Now there are divide and conquer efforts to revive it.
At the root? The urge to bully, and the monomaniacal "love of money". The "same old serpent" that has filled history with avoidable sufferings and atrocities. And we are STILL no wiser?
I hear ya, JL, something lost and something gained….or as they say, you never stand in the same river twice. Where the flow of time and tide will take us next is, I guess, part of the adventure.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar aren’t on the list either-curioser and curioser
THIS! “…this is never about government efficiency. In fact, an efficient government, a government that capably serves the American people and proves good government is achievable is what you fear the most. You want a government so broken, so dysfunctional, so starved of resources, so full of incompetent political lackeys and bereft of experts and professionals that its departments and agencies cannot feasibly achieve the goals and the missions to which they are lawfully directed. Your goal is privatization, for the biggest companies to have unchecked power, for an economy that does not work for the middle class, for working and vulnerable families. You want the American people to have no one to turn to, but to the billionaires and the corporations this administration has put in charge. Waste, fraud, and abuse are not the targets of this administration. They are your primary objectives.”
THIS is what Project 2025 was designed to accomplish.
To testify at a Congressional hearing that, under Biden, "every agency was a tool of the Left" is a statement so breathtakingly ridiculous and untrue it almost defies belief. To paraphrase Churchill, it's an absolute inanity inside a delusion wrapped in a fundamental misstatement (deliberate, not accidental) about what government actually does. "The Left" is a concocted hobgoblin Vought and other extreme-right "thinkers" use to justify what they do. It does not exist, and it is being used as a silly justification for things that have no basis in our founding laws and principles.
The Constitution says government shall provide for the "General Welfare." Since the New Deal and before, that has included not just the regulation of interstate commerce and trade, but the larger economy, with the goal of promoting the health and safety of the people, not corporations (which are not even mentioned in the Constitution). Such principles are not unique ---they are practiced by every OECD member country on earth, and have brought each one not just prosperity, but a network of civilized countries operating interdependently with other civilized countries.
To say you want to withdraw from all this means you've learned nothing from history, don't understand the concept of interdependence, don't recognize that economic growth is connected with the quality of life and political institutions. Whatever that ideology even is, it's based on absurd, easily disprovable precepts that don't exist, and could never possibly benefit more than just a sliver of society. There are good reasons we have chosen no longer to live in the 1800s.
But I'm sure Fox News is busy patiently explaining all this to its intellectually curious, open-minded listeners who simply want to understand more..... 🤪
The left is a concocted hobgoblin… couldn’t be more true, as a result of Rupert and Rush’s 40 year made-up war and evidence to the contrary.
Fkin' gleeful contrarians! Making sensational money off their ludicrous lies. There ought to be a law!!!
Closer to 50 years Jerri. I posted in this vein, a day or so ago. I'll copy and paste if you didn't see it. Btw; I'm having some very peculiar things happening with my email. I suspect a 'bug' of some nefarious origin, so I'll be doing a deep dive into my hard drive for 'bugs.' "Out of the blue" comments and likes from my friends here are disappearing into a 'known spam' folder, so if some of my friends have written to me in the past few days and I've not responded, be a bit patient (I always write back when addressed). I will have this straightened out in about a day or so; I've had this before.
Indeed, I’m old and still have a decent memory. I think the Carter presidency was the first one that I remember being Shanghaied.. Reagan was the guilty perp.
Me, too, on email and Internet behavior. I think we'll eventually have to go dark, totally disconnect from the infrastructure that's been put in place to cut off Project 2025 and its hobgoblins. Then, after we've starved them out electronically, we can start the process of dismantling their machinery and replacing or rebuilding it. They've had too long to infiltrate everything on every level. Burn it down, shut it off, replace it with something better and more tamper resistant.
Well, for the record I'm not too excited about it; I've had this happen a number of times personally. I'm just going to do some routine maint. and it will all wash out. However, I don't mean to take anything away or minimize the threats we're all somewhat exposed to in light of what we do know. I'm rather surprised that 'Joe and Jane' average American citizen is not all up in arms about the intrusions and exposure.
Sure makes one wonder who is tracking all of us 'lefties'.
For Trump to seem rational to his followers, the lies about Biden have to appear bigger and bigger.
Patricia, and now they are going to investigate Biden and his aides. So another waste of taxpayer dollars while they destroy help for ordinary people and do nothing to improve the general welfare.
My doctor thinks I'm too thin - however - I'm going to get thinner - my cheekbones, nose and jaws will become more prominent - just worrying about all this.....
To add to my comment above - I will have to dress more fashionably to keep up morale because every day of the week will be a bad news day, increasing anxiety and dismay.
I think we have to take a day off from bad news once in a while to keep on an even keel. Hope you can give yourself some time.
Which LIES?
Like that he was suffering from MENTAL DECLINE?
The ones about a failing economy, a dysfunctional government, Haitians eating cats and dogs, the Stolen Election Lie, "I had nothing to do with January 6", Biden being executed and replaced by a robot, that the middle class will be better off because of the "Big Beautiful Bill", and on and on.
Those lies.
It's so sad that any folks could buy it or even entertain themselves with all that crap, isn't it. I for one am guilty of presuming far more mental acuity in general around the country.
So what? If you're lucky, you'll live long enough to see it happen. Doesn't mean Biden didn't do a good job. Unlike TACO man.
BIDEN did a good job?
Then why did the Democratic party kick him out?
And why did they lose the election?
you are delusional.
He did a terrible job. The voters rendered their opinion.
We all suffer from a mental decline. How about your fearless leader? Accuses Biden of being an automoton!
"On May 31, the President shared another user's Truth Social post claiming Biden was executed five years ago and what we are seeing now are clones, doubles, and "robotic engineered soulless mindless entities."
"The White House has not responded to media requests for comment on the post."
Later Trump went into action accordingly ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/06/05/trump-orders-investigation-into-bidens-actions-what-to-know-about-autopen-claims/
And this morning MSM is reporting that Trump has directed the DOJ to investigate Biden? Well, that investigation should be wrapped up pretty quick, if he is dead.
These people are insane, that's where the investigation should be.
The Atlantic reports that $2 million (not counting inevitable “overages) will be spent to “investigate” whether DEI is resulting in plane crashes. Because Trump has a very strong feeling….
Don't feed the troll.
Russell Vought is a power hungry ideologue. If you don’t share his Christian Nationalism or buy into Project 2025, you are a “left wing” ideologue by his peculiar definition. Who does the Heritage Foundation think it is trying to dictate what government we should have?
For decades, I've considered the extreme privatization to be better described as "Piratization"
Isn’t it interesting that God’s goals are the same as Vought’s? God wants “natural resources” to be sold to His Christian Nationalists so they can be ripped up for profit? God wants His country to hoard food and money, letting Christians and other People if the Book to starve and die of disease? Maybe God will eventually want His country to convert the heretics everywhere - or stone them? It must be nice to be the leader of such a movement. Not to mention lucrative.
"God" always seems to agree with the zealots. Self fulfilling prophecy.
Marge, I am currently reading a book about early Islam and its conquests around the Mediterranean and then on to the European continent. This was all under the idea of spreading Islam, jihad, but as far as I can tell, it was really about increasing the tax base, booty and women, and sending a lot of this back to the Caliph in Damascus. The Christians arrayed against this do not get a pass. They were busy fighting amongst themselves over theology and of course, power and wealth. Charles Martel was about as vicious a person as you could find.
True. Susan B. Anthony, who was born a Quaker, made a statement that she found it rather curious that people often thought God agreed with them in expressing their views.
Yes; That has always amused me. Never mind the bible mentions regarding the last of the prophets. Hey, what's a few small details when there's so much self serving material to use and abuse.
"Messengers"... from some 'god' one supposes, or so they say. The 'new' or neo prophets, despite biblical statements regarding 'the last of the prophets' ; Smallish details they don't pass around with their self serving pablum.
I’m speechless, but beyond that sliteyed with anger at the lies from maggots, their fashion worn with thorns and spite. Vought = polluted slime. There’s no bottom to the cruelty and greed. No 12th step program to curb the addiction to $$ & power. They make other addicts look almost angelic.
Heather once again spotlights the essentials as this day opens with blooming peonies seemingly innocent of the lurking evil of this maladministrations
negation of anything beneficial to life.
My peonies are doing great this year! They smell intoxicating.
My garden is also thriving because i care for it along with my garden helper and we both have the same philosophy about gardening. Tomorrow is she is going to spray downy mildew with milk. I hope this works and she told us, it had to be full fat. She has also hosed aphids off the roses with water.
So glad to see someone else calling out the delusion of "The Left" and how its used by such as Vought, Vance, and other Fascists.
I just posted a comment myself springing from noting that Big Lie. Thank you!
Well... how do you like Schumer claiming his admiration for Musk because Musk doesn't really like the big beautiful bill? Schumer needs to sit down and let people like Jasmine Crockett or Tammy Duckworth speak on behalf of us and the other less spineless democrats. At this point the dems approval rating is extremely low, because they are not trusted messengers!!!
IHCTT, did you sprain your fingers typing that last sentence? 😉
🤪 ! If you're interested, you can pass it around that I have sprained my brain.. lol .. 🤪
"To say you want to withdraw from all this means you don't believe in civilized society ..."
The ideologues currently running the government (Donald isn't one of them) have differing models of "the ideal society." All of those models exist in the past, from 50 to 125 to 500 to 2,000 years ago.
I suspect Russell Vought's model is the biblical era, when "Jesus walked the earth." The Judeo-Christian scriptures and the religious art based on those scriptures glamorize the period and give the false impression that life in the Middle East was civilized. Prosperous men controlled their destinies; women and slaves knew their place. This is the society Vought and his cronies aspire to.
The biblical stories downplay the reality that a few autocrats ruled barbarically, and their sycophantic courtiers lived in luxury. For everyone else, life was a miserable struggle for survival, with constant wars or threats of wars.
Although modern technology has altered the appearance of Middle East culture, little of its underlying substance has changed in 2,000 years.
Dale, this has been the fate of the peons throughout most of history no matter what the religion or beliefs were. My last read was about Assyria and I am now in the middle of a book which starts just before Mohammed and then tracks the growth of Islam and its encounters with Europe. Nothing here to inspire people to be better or care for ordinary folks. Just power, glory, booty, women with a lot of rape, looting, and destruction when capturing various cities. The author mentions each time the necessity for increasing the tax base and sending the loot and women back to Damascus. On the Christian side in Iberia a lot of fighting about theology while increasing power at the expense of others. Visigoths, Franks, etc.
Yes, indeed, Michele! I omitted global history in my comment because I suspect Vought ignores it in his obsession with Christianity as he frames it.
In patriarchal cultures, which is virtually all of them, men claim to have all the answers. What to do when someone asks a question to which there is no answer? Quick! Invent a deity! Thus, we get Odin and all his Nordic crew, Jupiter and the Roman celestials, Zeus and all the Greek gods, Allah, and Yahweh (aka Jehovah, aka God), who in a deft move of one-upmanship, was later endowed with the inexplicable ability to be three persons in one.
It goes without saying that men would be prima persona in those fanciful stories they told around their fires, later transcribed into "sacred text."
It boggles my mind that modern, educated, intelligent people accept without question that all the Norse, Roman, Greek and other gods are mythical, but cling to the notion that the Judeo-Christian god is not a figment of old men's imaginations.
Dale, in the book about Islam and Europe, part of the fight among Christians centered around accepting the Trinity as proclaimed by the Nicene Creed or not. I did not know much about this fight or the bringing of Islam to Europe. None of what I am reading convinces me that this was for anything but power and loot and women. I will defend good people of faith always even if i do not believe as they do rather than a blanket condemnation of believers. I have my own approach to the universe which does not involve organized religion.
We agree that “to say you want to withdraw from all this means you don't believe in civilized society,” but do we agree about civilized society?
I agree with General Stanley McCrystal who, in a recent conversation with Nicholle Wallace on Deadline White House, said, “What we really need in the United States right now is a national conversation on character. What I mean is, we need to start individually. We need to think about what character is to us.” The conversation begins at about 27 minutes into the podcast. Here’s the link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-importance-of-character/id1367201919?i=1000709499357
If you want to understand the problem, observe Pope Donald the Infallible. He always criticizes people who disagree with him and treats them like a problem with a one-step “neutralize threat” solution.
In every society, people draw conflicting conclusions. A society is civilized when and because people resolve the conflict by openly sharing and challenging the assumptions underlying the conflict.
To “think global and act local” is to keep one eye on the big picture while acting on one’s own direct personal relationships.
Disagree with President Dick Tator, and you will be ignored, but that is only part of the problem. If someone with a reasoned argument disagrees with “me” and “I” ignore that person, then “I” am not part of the solution and “I” am instead part of the problem.
If anyone wants to disagree with me, they will not be ignored. You can do it here, or you can comment on my fee-free newsletter. Here’s a link to the latest edition, which is the tenth in a series of essays that are implicitly about the "character" concept:
https://jamesrcarey.substack.com/p/being-human-e10
A general welfare tax on all forms of income over $2,000,000 per year…there are way too many ‘loop-holes’ written in that benefit the very few. And a top rate of 50%. And I would also suggest that 50% of this welfare tax be dedicated to paying off investments, deficits.
The Left is largely responsible for creating the quality of life that most of Trump’s supporters enjoy. Yet tragically, many of them have swallowed whole the hatred aimed at immigrants, government, and transgender people—resentments tailor-made for demagogues to exploit. The bitter irony? Almost nothing Trump is doing actually benefits the very people who voted for him.
Wondering when, if ever, those who voted for Trump and who are actually paying some attention (not on Fox of course) to what is being done to the social safety net will get it that they were duped and they will suffer from his agenda.
You are what we need. We are all literally looking for a parent to make things right.
What would make the NYT and the Washington Post real newspapers is if they put your comments on the front page.
We are literally ( over used), being raised without parents. Our government ,running the way you have stated , is set up to do the parenting . In the New Deal that “parenting” system was set up. It included REGULATIONS, Boundaries, purpose for being, public not “private”, and a system where every good parent could support their favorite child ,America) called paying taxes in so all could enjoy health, safety, education and the peace of coming together for a pure purpose. That is called a Democracy.
Now we accept the ugly step sister to make our rules, pay themselves from our taxes, and flip us off . Really America?????????? When are you going to demand that those who don’t pay taxes quit flying their ugly private planes into our airports????
Am sick of being an orphan.
Fox News is so focused on Biden and a ' cover up" they don't talk about anything else.
Vought'a lie is affirmation of his religious and political fanaticism.
Once again, the 'leading' people in our government haven't a clue what is in our Constitution. We should send copies to all the offices of Republicans in DC. To the left, left, left. Gee whiz! I keep looking around to find all of the 'lefties' damage. Shame on Vought. I think there is a very warm place for him!
I actually think it's completely accurate.
And what Voight wants to do is a tool of the Richt, and he's okay with that.
It's accurate, true, and the Republicans have a lot to answer for. And they claim Lincoln while they do it.
I love Rosa DeLauro more and more every single day.
I worked in New Haven, CT for the Knights of Columbus for 15 years most of them remote. I'm not sure why, but she included me in her correspondence so I got to know about her and her efforts. Her efforts in Congress are very impressive.
Fun fact, she is Dana Milbank's mother-in-law.
What did you do for the Knights?
I supported their life and annuity insurance IT systems.
Since it’s Connecticut, it’s probable he worked for their insurance division. The K of C has a large life insurance plan for members.
She has always been the coolest in Congress. Never underestimate her abilities!
And her hair! Love it!
She rocks the Iris Apfel school of personal style.
Her email doesn't take out of district comments, but you can call her to thank her for speaking out.
Everyone, stop right now and spend 60 seconds to do so:
1-202-225-3661
Thanks!
Done.Staffer was appreciative.Sure beats calling my MAGA FL Rep….
📲
Same!
I agree, Kari! Amplify this--the most succinct and devastating description I have read in all of these months of blather. And who said it? Congresswoman Rosa deLauro. As usual these days the only people with "balls" actually have vaginas.
Indeed! Once more proof that men invented god and wrote the bible with the intent to control woman who men realized were smarter than "them." Congresswoman Rosa deLauro you have described Russell Vought correctly and rightly! Thank you.
#PublicHealthHaiku
Woman of courage /
Steps up and broadcasts the truth /
Rosa DeLauro.
She is a hero and a role model for pushing back against these hateful people. Even if it doesn't stop these men from destroying our country and the lives of people who aren't them. The word fascism isn't scary enough to describe what they are doing.
https://yadontknow.blogspot.com/2025/05/no-balls.html
CT, my home state, is really stepping up!!!
My home state as well!
Actually it’s to give men the right to rule over women and children. To ‘home school’ to the lowest common denominator, ie. Ignorance is bliss. To strip FREEDOM of thought, movement around our country and the world and force everyone to toe the line these men set .. everyone else is left to die … from lack of safety in our food distribution, medical attention now taken for granted as HUMAN RIGHTS, no more public schooling or public libraries, etc etc.
My experience of home schoolers is a next door neighbor who had two little girls, about 5 and 7 I think. The street was a cul de sac, and one day when I was out in the yard I saw a battered old Chevy drive around the turnaround several times, as if lost. It was an odd neighborhood with streets carrying the same name but with Lane, Road, and Trail at the end, so not uncommon to see people lost. The 5 yo was in the back yard, and came up to me at the fence very alarmed.
"Make those men go away!"
"Why, honey?"
"Because they're going to rape me!"
Where the bloody hell would a child get something like that?
100% accurate, Carol!
I always wonder how a world like this would actually be to live in. For that reason, I tell me son he should move out of this country while he has the chance.
Barb, I think several Middle Eastern countries provide good examples.
Perfectly articulated!
Instead of eggs, flowers are being tossed at Voight, while his craven behavior is being rewarded with applause from trump et al. The escalating behavior by the cabinet and other republicans can only cause trump to rub his hands. He is more and more assured of the fecklessness of his opponents (dems) who have proved to have nothing but the horns of a snail.....
Rosa Delauro is a gem! Thank God for clear-eyed Connecticut yankees.
Well... people voted for economic turmoil and retribution - what do we expect?
This has been the Republican plot since Newt. She nailed it brilliantly
The Treaty of Versailles, and the Depression set the stage for Hitler's fascism. He didn't have to do much groundwork. This regime is working hard and to me it seems congress and an undependable court system are helping the fascists succeed.
I’m going to cut and paste her quote also, it was spot on 🎯. They don’t care, this is the chance they have long dreamed of, they are hellbent on accomplishing that dream. The rest of us be damned. That is what we are facing 🤬🤬🤬
Thank you for this quote
I consider Rosa DeLauro one of my heros....
Absolutely perfectly stated!
The Saudis and Qataris own Trump, just like papa Putin. We need to defend democracy and science. Support Harvard for fighting fascists - Profesor Richardson studied history there! https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/harvard-is-defending-democracy
To fight back, start mini gardens at your home or rental. We Americans need to be healthy, and the way to eat nutritious food is to grow some plants thru personal garden boxes.
And HCR, thank you for spreading the good news about Rep. Rosa DeLaur0 (D-CT) telling Vought what crappy disinformation he’s spreading. 🔥Protest daily by cutting and pasting Heather’s Substack & Olga’s daily Trump Tyranny’s Substack and Steve Balmer’s FactCheckUSA postings. ✊
Yes JaKsaa, we have to thank HCR for the clarity and scope of the information provided but at the same time, Fox News would and will ignore all of it and instead distract their viewers with fantasized stories. No wonder there are so many stupid voters still supporting this cruel and corrupted regime.
While the TACO king has targeted many groups, the veterans have been hit especially hard by his cruelty and hate.
And yet, they are among the most loyal MAGA's. Trump has already cut thousands from the VA and plans to cut 70,000 in total.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-veterans-affairs-budget-staff-cuts-jeopardize-cancer-research
"The VA has cut just a few thousand staffers this year. But the administration has said it plans to eliminate at least 70,000 through layoffs and voluntary buyouts within the coming months. The agency, which is the largest integrated health care system in the U.S., currentlyhas nearly 500,000 employees, most of whom work in one of the VA’s 170 hospitals and nearly 1,200 clinics."
And Veterans are also the largest group targeted by the DOGE personnel cuts.
I guess their dedication to their political beliefs is great enough that they willingly forego benefits to which they are otherwise entitled.
I am a disabled veteran who understands the devastating consequences of the current cuts to the VA health system. I resent the implication that all veterans stupidity follow and vote the MAGA directives. Absent statistical evidence, I am inclined to believe most MAGA types are not veterans.
Ron, I have a dear friend who is 100% total from both head injuries and MST from her USCG tenure as a GM2. I am well aware that there is a vast representation of Veterans; sadly, many of my former work cohort of retired cops represent the opposite viewpoint. It is people like you, her, and a handful of others that keep me from falling into that trap.
GJ, I fail to understand many veterans. I guess he appeals to their beliefs about how males should dominate and walk around with guns in camo or full battlefield gear. Btw, all the veterans I know cannot stand him and some are at protests regularly.
GJ, if we ever can answer the question regarding why people vote against their own interests, I guarantee we will be the winner on every election form that point on .
Donald who had bone spurs and did. Ot serve in Viet Nam, shameful.
It is a challenge, Ricardo, but we have to stay strong and spread the good word—not the mis- and disinformation from Rupert Murdoch et al. Rosa DeLauro for the win!
100% right Katharine 👍
the pain and suffering to follow will change minds. When you watch your loved ones cry from hunger, there is nothing more powerful. It boggles the senses to think those in charge don't care.
Celeste,don't you think that the ideological "inventors" of this regime don't know that minds are going to change because of the effects of those policies? The fact that they plow without caring makes me think they, for one reason or another won't allow elections to be run fairly 🤔
One reason for this is because Christian Nationalists and secular Republican ideologues have developed this ideology they have some divine mandate to hold power forever. The Democratic leadership has not been effectively countering them, although some Senate and House Democrats have been fairly effective. Jasmine Crockett gladly calls some of the GQP officials out for the fools and tools they are. Maggie Hassan showed how ignorant Kristi Noem was of basic constitutional concepts, like that of habeas corpus.
Are you suggesting we give up?
You're comment only makes me say again that we have to do everything we can to protect the integrity of our elections.
I got two more young women registered to vote, cautioned them to retain their birthnames for identification, and stressed what is at stake for them and their childrens' lives. Today, I'll do it again.
I don't really care if it's hard, it is our job to protect this country and the Constitution that let's us live free lives. This is the message I relate to everyone I talk to. And I will never give up. Our courts have held the line so far, and I support them and their work. I stay loud about it. And I encourage everyone I meet, no matter where I meet them, to do the same.
The current regime has no place in this country, and I'll do whatever I can to see to it they are voted out. I hope every American realizes what's at stake and does what they can to stop it. too.
There is strength in great numbers, and I'm hoping every American does what they can to protect their vote, and gets out to the polls to cast it.
But by the time their minds 'change', will it be too late?
It's never too late. I am sure it felt hopeless when it seemed we were losing our war of Independence. It probably felt too late and hopeless in the middle of the Civil War as McClellan bungled along and the South won battle after battle.
But Washington and Grant led us to victories.
There are WAY more of US than THEM. The misinformed and dedicated MAGAs voted for change, but many of them didn't think their friends and workers would be kidnapped. They didn't think they or their family members would lose healthcare and food assistance - Of 77 million, I bet there are a few million who are already having quiet second thoughts. They thought eggs would be cheaper.
We had 75 million voters and 89 million didn't show up to vote. My math says that the worse this war on people gets, the more we are headed for a flip of Congress and subsequent impeachment.
The Republican Party no longer exists. It is MAGAs, Miller, Vought and their ilk against the world.
It's going to get much, much worse before order and decency restored. My guess is that we are only 10% in when it comes to feeling the damage. But IMO, June 14th protests will be the largest in our history. And that will only be the beginning.
Veterans are protesting tomorrow. And their pain has only begun. Folks in military families will be waiting longer for those who served to get appointments, care will be delayed. And Trump spends $45 million + on a vanity parade. This is not going to play well.
I could be wrong. It happens all the time. But I believe the Karma Cops are running slow...but they ARE on the way.
It might be Daniel. We need a big push.
Your assessment is 100% in evidence in my cadre of former coworkers. There is NO way to get that information to them that they do not dismiss out of hand.
just built a fruit stand to put all the extras from our garden for sale to anyone who can't afford to buy stuff at the supermarket. Honor system.
Love it.
We grow way too much food in our little plot - so we can distribute it to neighbors and friends. Over a month of asparagus, now lettuce. Next will be kale, sugar snaps. And soon the summer harvest.
Feels good to share, doesn't it?
I've been bringing lettuce and spinach to my neighbor.
And you are correct.
You bet, Bill!
In 2019 I lived near a family that did that, and it was terrific. thanks for sharing how friendly the Honor system is ⭐️
Great idea and comment JaKsaa! Much like the WW 2 victory gardens, we’re fighting fascists and Nazis. But now we’re fighting them to “keep our republic if we can”. Grow liberty gardens for fresh nutritious food but also for the health of our democracy and in solidarity, share with friends and neighbors. Freedom gardens for connecting more with nature, meditating, visualizing, a way of resisting the regime, a protestation of the tariffization, knowing what matters and true peace. ☮️🪷🌻🌗🌞🌎
Yes JaKasa! Mini gardens and sprouts, too -- amazing what potent food can come from a kitchen. I love "Sproutpeople" for supplies and informative videos: https://sproutpeople.org/
Yes, thank you for lifting up Sproutpeople! They’ve been my valued source for decades! Adore them and their mission.
JaKsaa--may I add onto your first line there? You can pick up a 5 gallon bucket for about $3 at the big home centers. Drill a few holes in the bottom for drainage, and fill 2/3rds full with soil for plants or seeds. If you have a lot of sticks on your land, you can fill the bottom 1/3rd with them. Also, reuse any larger plastic pots from any plants you purchase, by placing them in the bottom, upside down.
If you have plenty of sun, you can easily grow tomatoes and peppers, from seeds or from plants. I have grown an abundance of beens in these containers. Look for seeds that say "bush" variety. Retain some seeds and plant those among the plants in mid summer to keep producing into the fall.
If you have limited sun, you can easily grown lettuces, spinach and kale in these pots.
You can even grow some veggies in jars of water inside your home, from scrap from veggies. I've done with with the butt of Romaine I've purchased.
https://www.aarp.org/videos/home-living/6354867979112/
Also, a chain fast food place by me used to (may still) offer their pickle buckets for free or a few bucks. They are a few gallons large, and work like the home center buckets. You could check with any places near you.
Yes. Home gardens to feed ourselves and our neighbors.
Here's a post on our site, Small Steps Matter, encouraging anyone who can to plant an extra row to share with others. We are seeking collaborators to help spread the word.
https://karenleemardicrane.substack.com/p/plant-an-extra-row
“Boss, it’s a plane, it’s plane!”
If it's a Qatari "gift", it's a white elephant, not a plane.
Or a Trojan Horse.
The interesting feature in all of this is Trump’s expressed desire to have Qatar’s government give him that white elephant of a plane. It’s so obviously a flagrant violation of the Emoluments Clause.
LOL! :DDD
Strange bedfellows, who has the most money??
Mental illness, sycophantic insanity
Wrapped in their Project 25 Manifesto.
They were stupid enough to lay it out, MAGAts are stupid enough to buy it, and repubs are evil enough to sign on.
James Fallows, another good guy, studied at Harvard, too.
I agree with the Professor, "Finally ... a distraction". Also Hat Tip to Lawrence O'Donnell tonight on the details of Trump's distraction after MUSK launchd his social media drones at Trump's [Big Bad] "Disgusting Abomination".
Musk's attack started at 1:30PM on Tuesday 6/3/25. That's exactly when Billionaire Musk jumped the sinking 🛳 orange budget ship.
What to do? Oh, what to do? You can see the memes coming "Kill the Bill" , "Kill-the-Bill Gang. Hmmm .... let me see let's look at the Playbook under "Distractions, ... distractions ... got it "Distractions" & subtopic "Major" -- major distractions.
Yeah, yeah, who hoo -- go with the trusty "Travel Ban" --- how about a Travel against citizens from Afghanistan all the way down to Yemen? More specifically that's A to Y:
Afghans
Burma
China
C again to cover 'Congo the Republic of' for more distraction
EG -- Equitorrial Guinea somewhere in the middle of Atlantic (maybe)
Eritrea -- why not
Haiti ... the orange Floridian hates them
I ... yup that's Iran ... "I ran so far away -- couldn't get away"
Libya -- always handy to trash
Somalia -- always, always, always (repeat smear as needed)
S again? Yes, got to get Sudan ---absolutely a purrrffect distraction, Who's ELON?
Y & that brings us to Yemen but, which side of that split country? Who knows, regardless certainly not Tump.
H/t Lawrence O'Donnell as well, thanks Lawrence but, I must say you are brilliant.
Counsellor, I record him on rehearsal nights so I can watch later. His monologues are simply brilliant. He was masterful two nights ago when discussing the deaths from USAID and held his emotions in check, yet communicated the seriousness of that particular abomination.
Sheriff, I record everything Lawrence broadcasts. I often take screenshots of his Team's charts & data, all the way from 'A' to 'Y' last night -- otherwise I could not have done the above rant.
I am so sad that he’s leaving MSNBC and I think tonight might be his last broadcast.
I had not heard that!!!
Gotta love that Flock of Seagulls reference with Iran! 🤪
Ellen my Hat tip to "Mimi" character in LaLa Land:
I saw and made a mental note of this too.
Gee, I wonder why.
Deborah...speaking of SA and Qatar...how does all this foreign (not just SA and Q) investment in America. MAGA? What happens when they get crossways with us and pull all their money out?
Oh, that's nothing to worry about. They'll love him forever. Like Vladimir. Where's that plane at the moment?
I bet they're on the memcoin list.
Also Turkey is not on the list
Probably because of the US airbase at Incirlik, but also because Turkey is able to mediate in the Middle East and with Russia.
Turkey is in NATO.
No kidding. Am I the only person who recalls that most (maybe all but one?) of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi?
Hypocrisy has always been the name of the game.
Deborah Kadin,
Not so curious....Trump's daughter is married to an Egyptian whose father holds a position within its government. She and her husband are expecting their first child.
Regarding Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Trump was gifted with an airplane ie, his sons have business connections.
In other words, "You rub my back; I'll rub yours".
My thoughts exactly! Some of his choices baffle me. What has Somalia done to the USA???
They obviously bought enough of his crypto to stay off the list. Just call it the graft and gift administration. What else would you expect from a criminal?
Must be due to the $ they keep flowing...
I'm shocked, shocked
I'm shocked, shocked
Thanks professor. We’re in the hands of a professional bancruptor. (Sp. if even a word?) Vought is pure evil. I seriously don’t understand these people. No disrespect to people. Thank you for giving us strength to bear this insanity and to understand the ramifications and hopefully giving us the strength to stand up to it and fight back. Peace and love everybody.
The US is going to be Trump’s 7th bankruptcy.
Sadly , more than just monetary bankruptcy.
Just because someone doesn't officially declare bankruptcy doesn't mean their business didn't fail. Whatever happened to Trump's wine or his football team or his airline or his myriad other businesses that have failed.
That is what concerns me. We saw what happened when Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced they were going to borrow money to cut the taxes of Britain’s wealthiest citizens. The announcement imploded the British economy (still reeling from Brexit,) and Mr. Kwarteng resigned first, followed soon after by Ms. Truss.
Muskrat’s objection to Trump’s bill is not due to some new found belief in the common good. He objects because there are not bigger cuts to social services and bigger tax cuts for the wealthy.
And cuts in electric car incentives. Tesla as the cornerstone of his house of cards.
True, and the cat fight between Muskrat and Trump is really something to behold!
🔥
Vought’s Project 2025 is abuse, out in full sight for all to see. His behavior mirrors the behavior of an abusive partner in a relationship. The same thing is true of 45-47. They are abusing this country for their own selfish ends.
I’ve thought Vought is a more malicious combination of all of Nixon ‘s chiefs of staff and aides like Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Liddy, and Colson. Colson became an Evangelical Christian after he got out of prison, and was allied with people like the late Jerry Falwell, sr. By contrast, Vought was raised as an Evangelical Christian, and he’s now a Christian Nationalist.
Kathy Hughes,
Jesus was brought before Pilot by the powerful religious leaders of the day.
They wanted Him to be crucified....to be mocked....to be destroyed.
It did not work out as they intended.
Pontius Pilate wasn’t kind to the people of Israel in that time. He had little respect for Jewish religious sensitivities or their religious practices.
Good point.
Mike Savage, Yes! Stand up and fight. Nationwide protest happening June 14th 2025!! Look for a city near you on the Internet.
The Trump regime has abruptly cut off funding to nearly all Job Corps centers around the US. This is a decades-old Dept. of Labor program that helps at-risk students, many coming from homelessness, abuse, and neglect. Students can earn GEDs and get valuable training in a variety of fields, including union-wage certification and jobs in building trades. As of this Friday, about 150 staff at the Job Corps center here have no jobs, and dozens of students and staff who've lived on the Job Corps campus have no homes. Fortunately, our small town is rallying to provide shelter, food, and safety for them.
These Job Corps closures will hit rural areas and small towns especially hard. Here's yet another reason to attend a NO KINGS! protest on Saturday, June 14. Find one near you at www.nokings.org, or get tips on how to organize one yourself. We must speak out against the cruelty, corruption, and lawlessness of the Trump regime and Congressional Republicans who enable it.
Did not know about this additional level of cruelty. Christians?
David French’s article in yesterday’s NYTimes explains in detail how the right-wing American “Christian” mind works when it comes empathy for the rest of society. Getting right with god is paramount, love thy neighbor as thyself, not so much. In fact, no love for thy neighbor is necessary, as long as things are hunky dorky with the almighty. They’ve perverted and turned upside down the teachings of the Jesus they claim to adore. Hypocrites, all of them.
John, I guess these people know whatever god is thinking, so they can be the judge of whether god approves. What a surprise! God is on their side!
John, I haven't read the NYT article and probably can't because of paywall, but I can confirm your summary, with one qualification. It is important to note that two groups of "believers" claim the title of "Christian."
Mainline denominations, such as Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians, consider themselves to be Christians but do not subscribe to Christian Nationalist thought. However, those denominations have split into two or more denominations each. Some of those offshoots are very conservative and will probably lapse into Christian Nationalism, if they haven't already. The "liberal" branches of these denominations engage in a lot of charitable work with various underprivileged populations and others in need.
The other group of believers typically regard themselves as "evangelicals," and usually prefer not to describe their segments as denominations. The many strains of Baptists refer to their segments as "conventions." In general, evangelicals do not engage in charitable activities. When they do, strings are attached. In order to receive charitable services, clients must at the very least stop doing whatever that church disapproves of, and preferably, "accept Jesus as their personal savior."
I was born into and reared in an evangelical pastor's home. Over the course of his career, my dad served at least a dozen congregations. Not a single one of them engaged in any charitable work in the communities where they were located. In fact, of income over and above local church operating expenses, every penny was sent to missionaries overseas. These missionaries operated schools and medical clinics as vehicles to erase indigenous spirituality and "convert" the beneficiaries of their services to evangelicalism.
When I became an adult and left evangelicalism, upon reflecting on my experience in that tradition, I was stunned by their profound indifference to needs down the street as they poured millions into proselytizing entire cultures in faraway lands. In light of the teachings of Jesus they claimed to follow, their lack of empathy for their neighbors was and is mind boggling.
Not quite, John.
They all just happened to attend U.S. schools, which have just about zero humanities anymore for any "empathy for the rest of society."
". . . hunky dorky with the almighty"? You're surely referring to the testers, yes?
Rather than castigating people like Vought with logic, it might be more revealing (if equally ineffective) to quote the Bible to him, and ask how his policies support such teachings as Matthew 25:40-45 -
Matthew 25:40-45
New International Version
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
The sooner poor people die, the sooner they go to heaven . So Ernst etc. just think they are being efficient 🙄
https://yadontknow.blogspot.com/2025/06/efficiency.html
This has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with opportunism, power, and greed.
Cruelty, corruption, and lawlessness. Three words that summarize the last 6 months and probably longer.
They will be on my June 14 Protest sign.
And 600 Great Lakes scientists are having their annual meeting in Milwaukee to talk about resilience in the face of drastic cuts to their research. As the lakes warm, it seems like the perfect time to gut funding.
Hard to "like" this, Laurie. That is devastating news.
Here too, Laurie, in rural northwest WA. Virtually no notice. Just gone.
Is there any press agency keeping track of the number of women nationwide who have died because of the neglect by hospitals and emergency rooms? Have we become a third-world nation in the number of women dying because of complications of childbirth?
Women are property—if you understand the constitution AND the concept of COVERTURE. It has been rather successfully hidden for centuries. COVERTURE means that the woman is “covered” by the man. Ah, so many many examples are there now if you only look for them. Just one: do women get equal medical treatment and attention as men? Absolutely not. I have a zillion examples of how coverture affects all women NOW, TODAY, and also coming to a country near you (HERE). How long did it take for all the rights of women in Afghanistan to lose all the gains that had been made? Two years to become property again? Think it’s NOT coming here? Think again. >>>
“You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution.”
Women who vote republican are the most deluded of our citizens. Stop Save the vote… people forget that…
This is it.
We are looking at the beginning of the end game.
Indeed. Trump cozies up to a Saudi Arabian prince who murders his critics. A country where every woman must have a "male guardian" who determines her actions. To rebel means women's prisons where "rehabilitation" takes place. AKA torture.
This is the sort of man and society Donald J. Trump admires. Of course, he has installed another con artist in the WH. Paula White-Cain. Need a $1000 Waterford Crystal 10" Cross? Send her a check. I wonder what the Trump "organization" cut is.
British law distinguished between married women, who were under the coverture of their husbands and were part of a legal whole represented by the husband. The femme (or feme) sole, who was often a widow and could carry out legal acts a married women could not. Married women’s property became property of the husband upon marriage, and some husbands could and often did squander money or gamble it away.
Coverture survived in American law and in the 19th century, laws were changed to allow women to own their own property. The problem was that vestiges of coverture survived because it wasn’t until about 50 years ago that married women often couldn’t get separate credit or bank accounts in their own names.
Thank you for the additional information. I have been trying to get attention on this subject for years. And been largely ignored. The more it can be magnified, and more people understand, maybe, just maybe, we can prevent history from repeating? COVERTURE is imbedded in Project 2025. Scary.
I remember, young people don’t
The Christian Nationalists would like to see women dependent upon their husbands for everything.
Exactly, and the men always know best. How to wage war, subjugate, and rule with no opposition. Women on a lower rung as are any others. The difference with women is that the pretense of “for their own good” is palpable for many. I have been so lucky to have known men who didn’t treat women as “lessers.”
We never did that in my family, and my brother and brother in law love and respect their wives. They consider them full equals and respect their judgment.
Jesus had more respect for women than these cretins do, they are phony arses by any measure
Indeed, Jesus did. I think the traditional misogyny was a legacy of the Greco-Roman world.
Barbara, complete sidebar here: early in my law enforcement career (we're talking late1980's) the department started ordering and issuing body armor for all its weapons qualified staff, not just the squeaky wheels (raises hand) who demanded it. About the second or third order (8 years in, so mid 1990's) I got my first "women's" vest. It came with the statement "due to the unique contours of the female body" and had, I kid you not, boob darts. Body armor works best with a "pliable surface" behind it (read: torso). Darts leave the center of the chest with no pliable surface behind it. Their solution? An angled "chest plate" to cover that area (which would send a fragmented bullet directly into the neck of the wearer). I only ordered that vest ONCE. A mastectomy a few years later made a men's vest a much better fit.
Wow, what an insight into an ancient lack of co(verture)nsideration!
Thanks for that story, Ally.
Wow. But today, there are still many issues with garments for women…they still don’t get it. Did you know that men’s belts are measured in inches? Quaint idea. I have photos of racks of belts for women in stores labeled as small, medium and large. Those terms are meaningless. Why not actual measurements like men? “It’s too hard”.
POCKETS IN WOMEN'S CLOTHES!!!
Yes, in this new nation of Project 2025, women are cattle.
Women must be loud, our Granddaughters need us to be loud.
Their only thought about women of childbearing age is that they are incubators.
Yes. Remember, women are property, which kind of explains that. Today maybe not property, but who knows? Only takes months to change.
ProPublica has done an in depth series on women who’ve been refused care. I’d start there
Susan, also follow Jessica Venti and Abortion Every Day …she does a fantastic job.
“Fetal personhood” is the newest horror.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jessica/p/a-class-action-suit-brought-byfetuses?r=8b0vh&utm_medium=ios
Their reporting is astonishing and I believe the women reporters just won a Pulitzer!
I know only one woman who died in childbirth, my goddaughter. She died because she lived in Haiti, and they couldn’t get her to the proper care in time. One is too many, anywhere in the world, and I fear it will be happening here more often. 😢
That totally breaks my heart, Stephanie. I am so very sorry.
I too am so sorry to hear this. One of the most disturbing things is the number of African American women who die in childbirth. This is something that should not be happening in an affluent nation.
Evidence:
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/11/16879984/serena-williams-childbirth-scare-black-women
Good example, Ally! Serena went through hell and look at the money she has. The bigotry is right there, front and center.
Ally, thanks for mentioning that. They weren’t listening to Serena Williams when she told them she was experiencing pain, and it turned out she had a massive embolism that could have killed her.
There is a Substack writer tracking abortion . And, yes, if we don’t stop the MAGA regime the US will become a Third World country.
No Kings demonstration on June 14.
Not along the exact route of the military (birthday) procession, I trust? I want him to feel somewhat alone then. And very stupid, like wearing a costume when it turns out not to be a fancy dress party.
Definitely not! I agree the fewer people watching him burn up our tax dollars the better. I hope the number of cities and towns with demonstrations continues to grow. I read 1400 are scheduled now.
It won't matter how many people show up since Trump will cite whatever "statistics" he chooses. Will he understand on some level how small the crowd is, and will it hurt him? He certainly won't show any understanding or hurt publicly.
Of course the turnout will be small and there will be plenty of brown shirts there along with their little Fascist families.
And the corporate media will sane wash this ridiculous show of lunacy, just like they do with everything else.
Pathetic.
I’m afraid those brown shirts will employ arson, assaults and looting, just like they did during the George Floyd protests, turning them into riots. I suspect this is what trump/Vought want. Martial law declaration and the U.S. military will be unleashed. I wouldn’t advise anyone to be within a mile of the parade. Let the MAGAs face the consequences.
why oh why am I fervently hoping that at least a few military salute Trump ---with one finger raised--as they pass?
I believe his supporters or non-supporters (paid actors) will be bussed in. By whom? Ginni Thomas!
Pope Leo will be holding a mass in Chicago on the 14th.
I KNOW!😁
Exactly
and everyone stay cool..... remember MLK...
I fully expect Trump to either shut down the Congressional Budget Office or fire so many of its staff people as to make it nonfunctional. His entire mindset is that no one can challenge him and survive that challenge. Extending that philosophy to the CBO is completely on brand for Trump. 
Yes. Stephen Miller called out the CBO as full of leftists who lie. Shutdown is nigh
🤬😡
Vought is involved with the CBO as well, although he is Trump’s Chief of Staff and not in Congress. He knows how government works well enough to wreck it.
Voight is head of the OMB. Susie Wiles is Chief of Staff.
Thanks for correcting me on this.
Not sure Trump can do that directly, but of course he could try to force Republicans on the Hill to do the job for him.
Yesterday, the Fascist regime announced a new Federal government hiring requirement. Every applicant must write an essay praising King DonOld and his accomplishments.
Reality is stranger than fiction in this TACO administration.
Ridiculous. Trump doesn’t know or care why we established a professional civil service to begin with.
It will be yet another illegal action. The CBO does not belong to the Executive Branch but to the Legislative. I have no idea how Trump's idiot lawyers would even try to spin that before the Supreme Court.
He’ll do his best to kill it and let the courts try to stop him after the fact. Thats his approach to life. And that’s why I hated that the Democrats said they had an army of lawyers ready to act the minute there were election problems last November. Meanwhile, Trump and Musk did things that no lawyer working after the fact could ever make right. Lawyers are all defense. Trump is all offense.
ALL OFFENSE, offense is the best defense, so I heard
Offensive, indeed!
He wants to make the executive superior to the coequal legislative and judicial branches of government, and it’s a blatant violation of the Constitution. Unfortunately, the 6 GQP members on SCOTUS are willing to enable him.
The last newsflash on my phone, to add to the list of horrid issues by the Rtump administration is an investigation into the “cover-up” of Biden’s health. Rtump forgets he is the current president—he won the election of 2024. He is hell-bent on revenge. How pitiful.
I believe his investigation is aimed at proving that Biden was not in charge and that other people were running the government and using an auto pen to make it look like Biden was in charge. He might as well be investigating the 1947 Roswell UFO incident. This is all totally bonkers stuff.
Yes, totally bonkers, and a waste of our taxpayer money.
Ah yes, it’s not waste fraud and abuse because Donny orange mop two dolls orders it?
Trump has always been prone to accept nutty conspiracy theories, and this shows just how out of touch he is with reality. The other part of this that he hopes to distract the public from his own crimes.
Let’s crown him King Bonkers.
Yet T---p doesn't know half of what's going on in his regime and blanket-pardoned the J6 when it became too difficult to review them individually. But I guess I'm just trying to apply logic where logic doesn't apply.
Oh, but does it feed the MAGAts red meat...
Well, the SC has ruled that a president can’t be prosecuted for anything relating to his/her official duties. So, if President Biden came in every day and just turned on an auto-pen, then left, it would still be related to his official duties.
That’s a great thought. lol😵💫
Trump probably sits on his posterior watching Fox or Newsmax most of the day.
On Fox News, somebody recently counted that in an entire evening, a broadcaster spoke the word "Medicaid" once, while Joe Biden's name was mentioned over 90 times.
Yes, various people and organizations are counting every Fox show. Obviously, their producers have only one go to strategy. And that's to attack Biden and the "Biden crime family."
And where are the Christians. Do they condone all of this hate?
It is a “Christian” political movement, not to be confused with Christianity. WWJD? Not treat people like this.
You have to distinguish Christians and Christian Nationalists. Christians are willing to live and let live, and a lot of them are opposed to what Trump and his enablers are doing. Christian Nationalists think they are entitled to use their faith as an excuse for a power grab and to force everyone else to follow it.
Agree. Christian Nationalism is a political movement. I don't consider them Christians. You are correct - they twist the words of the Bible to make their prejudices look righteous.
I hope priests and pastors everywhere are making sure their congregations know the difference.
So do I.
No. I'm a christian and as frustrated as all of you. I'm protesting about 1x/week with a Bridge Brigade and singing with a Raging Grannies gaggle-we are BUSY! My heart hurts. All this needless destruction and hate. I don't get the money part....when is enough, enough?? Even the descendants can't spend all the $$ billionaires accumulate at out expense! They couldnt have accumulated $ without us buying or working for them. 🤬
Tax the rich
Melissa, my rallying cry echoes yours: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I have emailed those exact words to Congress, followed by "enough of the greed, the stripping of rights, the kidnapping of immigrants, the frivolous lawsuits, the cutting of social programs" etc.
I agree. This whole movement exalts greed and takes from the least of these.
The evangelicals I have known are opportunistic hypocrites. Self centered and entitled. Waiting on the "rapture."
Absurd!
Trump is intentionally trying to disempower the American people. His handlers gave him this mission. It is easier to assume control of the USA's natural, mineral, military, and financial resources if the democracy that citizens trust is laid to rest, if due process is rendered assailable, and if the majority of us are sick and struggling to get by. We must find a way to convince Trump supporters that they have put our country into the hands of corrupt oligarchs and fascist Trumpians.
You won't convince MAGAts of anything like that. They are not rational people.
Maggots correct spelling?
I think it is just a happy coincidence that a "t" tossed on the end of MAGA is pronounced the same way as "maggot"; the "s" simply indicates a plural.
I was called out early on for using that spelling, but as time has gone on, the opposition to that has stopped.
Coming soon to the OED near you 😉
Or at least "The Urban Dictionary"!
Ha! I, too, have been adding a t since I don't know when. It's soooo obvious.
How is FOX News still broadcasting? The discourse and tension bubbling over in our society is due to “alternate facts”. Truth, where is the truth? Lies/headlines for profit is ruining our society. Everything for Profit is overwhelming.
They're clones 😈
There is an error in paragraph 4 it should be increase the deficit by $2.8 trillion not reduce the deficit.
I think the projection is based on the tax revenue of the tariffs over ten years. But that optimism flies in the face of the so-called purpose of the tariffs — to move the manufacturing back to the usa. If that should succeed then tariff revenue would sink to zero! So who’s lying?
Actually it is not an error. That is the projection. But it is not their job to determine the affects of inflation and the reciprocal tariffs these companies are going to impose. Plus the tariffs have theoretically been paused for 90 days so if they are using the "paused" numbers, do they really mean anything?
We are in a Trump recession in many parts of the country. Many states are already suffering from the loss of income from foreign travelers and it's only going to get worse.
There was a Chinese lady and her 12 year old daughter that ICE arrested in NYC who was there visiting the US. They arrested her and left her 12 year old daughter unattended on the street.
😡😡
Infuriating!
I saw that horrible arrest of the visiting woman by ICE and with the help of several NYC police officers. She is Chilean.
The whole thing is just idiotic. Tariffs don't lead to domestic investment, especially these yo-yo diet tariffs. They create an atmosphere of complete uncertainty, unreliability and non-enforcement. There's a reason bond markets are RISING right now. No investor will start building steel mills in Indiana because of them. That's the thinking of a demented child who believes the world really does look like it did in 1898, and should look that way, too.
I caught that also and hope it can be fixed. It was corrected in the next paragraph?
I was just going to question that .. thank you!
Can't the American people disempower trump? the way the courts are doing? civil disobedience?
If so inclined, United we are not, sad to say…
Some may be convinceable, but there are several million people who won’t budge. They’ve been around since the beginning. See: Joseph McCarthy. Plus many others over the years.
Fiscal responsibility is out the window as we cut revenue and increase spending.
One example is the national parks system. Staff and resources have been reduced.
The park service is funded at $4 billion and collects revenue of $56 billion. Will that revenue stream be cut and add needlessly to the deficit?
Yes. Yes. Crater Lake in Oregon is short-staffed, already months behind in hiring, and is using volunteers to maintain services to visitors, per a report on Oregon Public Broadcasting today.
I am concerned that many incoming revenue streams will be sabotaged. They want to scrap America and sell off the salvage.
The biggest crime among today’s roster of insults to democracy is the fact that the Regime is already deep into manipulating federal data to magically produce the numbers they want: Within a couple of months, Inflation will vanish, unemployment will cease, the stock market will only go up, and tariffs will be paid by exporting countries….
It is essential that Congress establish a watchdog network that can still amass actual data to quantify real economic trends in order to counter the Regime’s nonsense.
Right on Jean Peters when you said “Congress establish a watchdog network that can still amass actual data to quantify real economic trends in order to counter the Regime’s nonsense.”
This Congress???
Call. Write. Email. Unrelentingly.
Use/share this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Reach out to your own reps, as well as those in other states on a specific committee important to a topic you’re sharing. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit?usp=drivesdk
I appreciate your consistency.
Others might call it an obsession 😅 I like your word choice haha
Thank you Megan !
The more Trump focuses on Biden’s health, the more he is covering up about his own. Trump’s decline into dementia needs more of our attention.
Smoke and mirrors. Why is FOX News allowed to exist. Truth needs to prevail so the general public can make rational decisions and understand what is happening.
“Let nature take its course” lives right next door to “”Well, we’re all going to die.” What a country
Susan, I was appalled at the “follow up” vid of her doubling down on her “we’re all going to die” statement…suggesting folks don’t understand it (that we’re all mortal)…chances are they know it more viscerally than she, especially if they struggle financially & with health issues and lack of care. Struck me as a “let them eat cake” moment. Truly heartless & not a good look and I hope voters hold her to account.
At an age when serious illness and (inevitable) death becomes increasingly likely, or at any age, there is a lot of comfort to be drawn from access to high quality medical care (which I do) as opposed to lacking it. And we know many people lack it.
Barbara, remember what happened to the head of the person giving such advice to the hungry population asking for bread?
It wasn’t Marie Antoinette who said this. It came from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote this some years before Marie Antoinette came from Austria to France. She could not see the larger picture of what was happening in the country, and Louis XVI was not willing to grasp the nettle and impose taxes on the nobility. It was easy to dislike Marie Antoinette as she was a foreigner, and was not eager to participate in the system of etiquette that governed the French court. She only became a political force when the Revolution broke out.
In retrospect, I’ve come to believe that although Marie Antoinette was less than an ideal queen, the biggest overlooked issue that provoked the French Revolution was the expense of helping the American fight for independence and the failure of Louis XVI to reform the tax system in France. Court extravagance did have some role, but the costs of the American war were far greater than that. Conspiracy theorists love to blame the “hidden hand” but there really wasn’t one. Another feature of life at that time is that there was a growing middle class in France with educated people who were unable to obtain access to higher positions which were reserved for nobles. When the economy in France worsened because of deficits, it hurt the middle class the most.
Nothing new here Kathy, a woman was guilty of something she didn't say or do. That's the history I learned since I was a kid a few decades ago.😅
In any case, the moral to the story is, don't mess up with the basic needs of the people specially the middle class and make the richest among us, play a role at keeping a deficit under control.
Thanks for the historical correction, I know better now.🤗
Beat me to it by 18 minutes, my friend!
🤗 thanks anyway.
Trump has no link to reality, and it's everyone's job in this administration, in between implementing Project 2025, to do everything in their power to convince Americans that what Trump says is the real reality.
Thank God cracks are appearing, but those fluffers at Fox and OAN are working hard to make this country into Gaslight Nation.
Write, call, protest, march and by all means VOTE! Do whatever you are able to do to change the ugly, nihilistic narrative that is currently being bullhorned by those in power. Regardless of what they’re saying and trying to do, don’t buy into their bullshit. Remember, “The power of the people is always greater than the people in power”. If they didn’t know that they wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep us down. If our vote wasn’t so threatening, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop us from voting. The time is now to fix the problem created in November.
Can only hope there is no "national emergency" such that voting is canceled.
That's the most likely scenario William, I've been warning about that possibility for months now. No sane administration would implement such cruel and corrupt policies expecting to winn elections. They are going to stay in power by other means, or at least they are going to try hard.
My fear.
I think it’s an entirely reasonable fear that Trump would create an excuse for canceling elections.
We are on the same page Kathy.
The tech oligarchy has used the Christian Nationalist to sow division and hatred to distract from what they have been doing
Too many by into this view, “Vought was a key author of Project 2025, whose aim is to disrupt and destroy the United States government order to center a Christian, heteronormative, male-dominated family as the primary element of society. To do so, the plan calls for destroying the administrative state, withdrawing the United States from global affairs, and ending environmental and business regulations.l
Please watch The Daily Show, season 30 episode 69
Jon Stewart's interview with Carole Cadwalladr who broke the Cambridge analytica story, 2018
Facebook lied, Cambridge did have 87million people's data from Facebook. Facebook got fined 5 billion dollars by the FDC, 100million by the SCC and 100s of thousands pounds by other countries around the world. But nobody was ever held to account. Gross illegality yet neither company nor the Trump or EU Leave campaign had any charges, Nothing changed. she was however the only one put on trial for discovering this very true thing.
Weaponizing that information was the blueprint for what we are seeing now
the dream of big data to use massive amts. of data to use algorithms to target people. Now we are seeing it weaponized to defang democratic processes.
Now they are building a techno authoritarian surveillance state by DOGE accessing all data, now Palintir owned by Peter Thiel is merging all these databases via AI, This is a system of control and has no regulation protecting your data. We had all this time to do something about protecting data and we did not.
Trump's big beautiful bill has a section that states that for 10 years, congress will not be allowed to legislate or regulate AI in any way shape or form .
They can label anyone a domestic terrorist, It is a pathway to fascism.
It is based upon totally illegal behavior against copyright laws, privacy laws, and more,
In Europe the dangers of this are more recent, Germany is the main country who is most familiar with this,
chatGPT hallucinates, gets things wrong, and is this the system that is going to decide who gets Medicare or Social Security? How will anyone be able to challenge it?
She does think we can slow the inevitability of this.
tech bros are selling absolute BS. AI is not inevitable, it is based on illegal behavior,
We must stand up to these companies,
Don't post on these
https://substack.com/home/post/p-156155179?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you Linda Querry about this link:
Carole Cadwalladr - Broligarchs, AI, and a Techno-Authoritarian Surveillance State | The Daily Show
https://youtu.be/vG7CvbccdVM?si=L_2GwnsWgx5whZuK
Scary interview. Horror movie in real life
Linda, I recently purchased a book “More Everything Forever…AI Overlords, space expired and Silicon Valley’s crusade to control the fate of humanity” by Adam Becket [edit: correction it’s Becker…dang clumsy-thumbsy!]—have not cracked it open yet, but was prompted to purchase it by the unfolding information/reporting on the tech-bros hubris in thinking they have “the answer” and should be in control of “the masses”. One of my thoughts on reading such info is that some dudes (and it’s mostly dudes) need to take a walk in a forest or a meadow or on a wild deserted beach…you know, the natural world that we call home.
I was one of the nerdy kids to who took to technology like a duck to water, but for the most part (big exceptions being commercial TV and atom bombs) I felt that every technological development served society and expanded my personal options. There are ways that was something of an illusion, I felt like the tools served my interests, society's interests. Now it feels to me that a technology is more and more rudely intrusive, and less under my control. It seems that tech is being used without public supervision and ways that do not serve my interests, or even those of society as a whole, like control being wrested from us, and the public too unfocused to respond.
Yep, the U-turn happened for me too.
Try teaching schools these days! My daughters are HS teachers, and they talk about the number of kids who use AI to cheat, or to do their work. The really sad part is often the AI is totally garbeled and nonsensical, and they don't even read THAT--they simply copy/paste it into their work. This is going to become worse when AI becomes better.
Oh the stories my daughters have related to me about today's students! I fear that smartphones are aiding Project 2025, as it's turning young people into the old "mudsills"--they are incapable of doing anything that requires their attention away from the phone in hand.
Miselle, reading these comments make me SO glad I grew up as a “free range” kid, along with my sibs & friends! We made our own adventures and were outdoors usually until dinner time…or even indoors during inclement weather or at night building forts from blankets or drawing or reading… The “latest” tech we had was one TV (B&W) where you had to get up and manually change the channel…what? maybe 3 or 4 options? I am very grateful NOT to have experienced the crushing thrill/obsession with social media and one’s own constant companion of a mini handheld computer (smartphone). I see so many reports that show folks, say at a concert or other notable event, with their cellphones held high to record the occasion….sigh, does no one just be “in the moment” and experience it anymore? Tho’ one plus, I guess, is that the ubiquity of being filmed has the potential to “show what really happened”.
I grew up SO free-range, first in the country, and then plying residential city sidewalks on my bicycle. My companions and I were out of direct adult supervision any chance we got, except for agreements to be available at certain meal times, and of course, go to school and complete certain tasks, including homework. Not everything we got into was safe, but somehow all in my circle survived. I doubt that that style of parenting was entirely wise, yet kids learn resilience from experience. It pains me so see so many of the opportunities I experienced now closing during my pretty ordinary middle class upbringing.
And of course in so many ways those were not the "good old days", for minorities and women, but rights were fitfully expanding, and the yoke of authoritarianism retreating. I recall, for example, when it became legal for stores to stay open on Sunday in my state. When the palette of jobs available to women and minorities expanded. My father was born before women could vote nationally, and in those days is was the Southern Democrats who were fanatically racist, though forms of statutory racism were pervasive, abuse of gays was "normal", and that all stuff really sucked. Now there are divide and conquer efforts to revive it.
At the root? The urge to bully, and the monomaniacal "love of money". The "same old serpent" that has filled history with avoidable sufferings and atrocities. And we are STILL no wiser?
I hear ya, JL, something lost and something gained….or as they say, you never stand in the same river twice. Where the flow of time and tide will take us next is, I guess, part of the adventure.
Thank you