Last week’s dramatically dropping stock market prompted Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo to ask Trump in an interview that aired yesterday if he was expecting a recession.
People keep saying”Why is he doing this?!” He’s doing this because he’s a Russian asset, and that’s what Putin wants him to do. Putin has helped him financially for years, and I’m sure there’s promises of more money and towers in Moscow. He’s a mentally compromised asset. Tell him he’s handsome and he’ll follow you off a cliff. His sociopathic character does not allow him to feel guilt, compassion or accountability. He is also sadistic. While normal people are scared now, he’s loving watching them suffer. That’s the make up of a Malignant Narcissist. In the wrong hands—very dangerous indeed.
Who is going to say the correct word? I dare everyone to! I will! The logical explanation for what Trump is doing is that he is compromised by foreign influences. What he and Project 2025 are doing to our country is TREASON! Who else will have the balls (or ovaries) to say it with me??
Im saying that the scumbag president is a traitor not because I have balls .but because is true . And keep an eye on the vice Manchurrian because he is worse.
Trump's puppet masters are struggling to keep up. His popularity is fading fast and he is freaking the fuck out about the stock market tanking.
Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk and dozens of other oligarchs bended a knee to Trump only to watch their wealth melt away. And for what? Thirty pieces of silver in the form of a tax cut?
Trump's crypto has gone from a high of around $72 to $10.52 as of yesterday. Tesla stock is dropping like a rock. Ehtereum tanking and Bitcoin slowly crumbling.
People have been mocking Buffett for sitting on so much cash. Like Noah, he told us all exactly why he was and what was going to happen to the over priced markets.
Frank cherry picking one poll does not give the complete picture. We all know by now a poll is only as good as its questions, sampling and interpretation.
Barbara, thank you for this assessment of polls. I learned about how polls worked from the wonderful Carolina Lady with Fan on the Maddow blog years ago. She had worked in polling and gave us the lowdown.
Poll are like a grab bag. You don't know whether the chosen group is made up of equally distributed parties or if they are skewed one way or the other. The small number of people out of 340 million people...even if half of them are children or teens, that still a lot of people not polled.
Frank Loomer, maybe a dose of reality, but watching the protests and town halls, I am becoming a bit more optimistic. If no Social Security checks in April… .
Most of MAGA, from what I have read,, do not have money in the Stock Market anyway. They love Trump for his bombast and bravado, Lemmings to the front!
Keep in mind that the number of voters registered as Independent/No Party Preference exceeds registered Republicans and Democrats combined. That is a potent potential landslide waiting to happen. Remember that the real story of 2024 was not how many voted for Trump but how many voters decided to not vote compared to 2020. That also is a potent potential for 2026. SD Auburn CA
The money people know, and the money people may watch Fox, but they also know money, and they are going to get their money out of stocks ASAP. The other Fox watchers are going to keep believing because they are dependent on Fox. That's their life.
I think I heard this about a year ago, when "Beau" was posting on youtube before his wife, "Belle" took over: he said that billionaires are not "red" or "blue"--they are "green" explaining they will support wherever they can get the most money. I tend to support this. I just did a search, there are 801 billionaires in the US. I can only name perhaps 10 off the top of my head.
I guess people aren't lining up to buy trump coins. I don old fashion. As far as money in the air goes, credit cards, checks, online bill payments, that's with me. I suspect I can't walk into Starbucks and pay with this crypto currency.
That will change. Within another month, he will have no more supporters who aren't sycophants who have been paid off. Whether or not there will still be a path to removing him and destroying the damage is another question and I'm not optimistic. He's following the dictator playbook of Putin and Orban. Republicans hate us and want us dead.
Frank, multiple pools reveal what you describe. Protests, yeah great, not a former MAGA in the crowd. ONLY when former MAGAs turn out in the streets and speak up can there be change. Ignoring reality only fools ourselves like those that predicted a Harris easy win.
Franks…we must win the moderate middle…arguing with maggots is pointed, they have drank the Kool-Aid! But middle America is the fertile ground and we can win if we project strong American values and patriotism for our great country. Us there are issues and crazies, but the polarization and extreme ism hurts us all. I love that progressive was invented in Iowa not New York nor CA…they gave us hippies and the John Birch Society. Which gave us HF 2025!
Hardworking people of all races and genders. But the puritanical forces oddly find rich ground in the extremes. Absolutes hurt!
I smile and say, ‘nice dress’, and move on…to real issues.
Yes it is how we treat the ‘least of these’ by which we will be judged…I’m okay with that but is feel think thee a puritanical smell to too many of the ideas of ‘gender’ on both sides…just saying. ‘Who do you want be today’ is different than pedantic absolutes. There is a middle proud ground.
These rich guys are making a killing, buying up stocks rather low, and then when they grow up, which is almost the only way they can go I guess, they’ll be swimming and even more wealth and twice as corrupt
I will say it. Most folks with a functional brain are beginning to see that all this destruction is just exactly what a Russian asset would do. That's what I thought until now. Check with Sen Merkley.
But now, the destruction continues at break neck speed I am concluding that he is more than an asset. $Trump is A Russian agent.
He also knows that if he were not president, he would have a good chance of being in prison.
Donald's first and only motivation is money, as it's always been. He was born into a household where there was no love, but plenty of money. Consequently, he thinks money is love. He was also born with a learning disability, so he's not good with money. He loses a lot of it.
When his daddy died, he lost his financial safety net. As he continued losing money, he had to borrow to keep the family business afloat. He also had to break laws to conceal his losses. His law-breaking was mounting.
Through his Bratva business associations, he came to the attention of the Kremlin.
His losses continued, and U.S. banks cut him off, as he is a bad credit risk.
Russian oligarchs stepped into the breach and lent him more money, with strings attached. Donald's Russian debts came due in the mid 2010s.
Capturing the U.S. presidency was a long shot for Donald, but it was his best way out of debt and prison, so he went for it. To protect their "investment," Russian oligarchs assisted with his election campaign, and he surprisingly won.
Learning-disabled Donald's first term was not as successful as he and his Russian sponsors had hoped. In the midst of chaos, financial gains were disappointing to both Donald and the Russians. The law was catching up with him. Then Covid revealed the extent of his incompetence and he lost his bid for reelection.
Fortunately for Donald and the Russians, Americans have short memories.
With the help of his sponsors in Russia and fellow Russian asset Elon Musk, Donald did get another chance to monetize the U.S. presidency. He and his Russian cronies have wasted no time in maximizing his presidential power to generate wealth.
The tariff gambit has nothing to do with fentanyl; it's a scheme to rapidly manipulate stocks so Donald and his ring of insiders can buy low and sell high.
Learning-disabled Donald's executive orders and other actions are at the behest of his theo- and tech-puppeteers, as they are seeking control of the nation's future. Donald just cares about the money – and staying out of prison.
This.... Often times, the simplest answers say the most. I never had any desire, care, or the slightest interest to read books about the cft - aka the 'OiD' , Orange il Duce. I have however paid attention on Mary Trump's substack on that topic. It's an absolute disaster of dysfunctions. I always come away feeling deeply sad for Mary. I hope somehow that her labors in writing are helpful for her in many ways and long for a day that she feels victorious.
My years of reading about the Trump family tell me differently. Money has always come first. Gaining Fred's approval was a factor when Donald was young, only because he thought he was competing with his older brother, Freddy. But Freddy chose his own path and it didn't include the family business.
At no time has Donald ever loathed himself. Quite the opposite. As the "baby" of the family, he was doted on and spoiled. He never doubted that he was the most wonderful boy. That's why he has such trouble accepting even the slightest criticism, and calls it "unfair."
Racism is ever-present, but not as a motivator; it's just who he is. A bulldozer's blade pushes whatever is in front out of the way, but it's the engine that moves the bulldozer. Racism is the blade; money is the motor.
10 million dollars and counting on golfing trips this year (2 months? And a lot of it goes into his coffers. I thought we were cutting fraud and waste.
Bill, I believe you're correct on both counts. He'd love to destroy this country in order to help Putin to dominate the world, and there's no question that he'd be doing time in maximum security if the supermajority of the Supreme Court hadn't slow-walked in order to save him.
When the American people make a regrettable mistake in a presidential election and can not afford to wait four years to undo it, there is only one recourse: impeachment and conviction. Enough Republicans must stand against what Trump is doing to "give aid and comfort" to an enemy to remove him from office.
Ah, if only….but most, if not all the R’s, would roll over and kiss the feet of His Heinous. That is unless the D’s & I’s sweep the 2026 midterms and are a super majority in Congress, or at least enough total votes to convict an impeachment….🤞.
Do you still believe we'll have elections if the scumbag president's negatives are much higher than the positives?
I think they will cheat or find a reason not to run it. By then they'll control everything. I'm just guessing Barbara, but I would not put all my eggs in that basket.
I heard someone who worked in Tony Blair’s cabinet interviewed yesterday (he’s British, of course) say as much as Brits despise tfg, he’s #2. Vance is #1.
Someone named Gideon Rachman in the FT (London) said “I don’t think Trump has a coherent plan. I think instead he has instincts and prejudices. He likes tariffs and Putin. He dislikes Zelenskyy, Trudeau and the mainstream media. He admires wealth and power. He despises those he thinks are weak.” I think Rachman’s assessment is accurate.
If you have the stomach for it, watch the scumbag president's speech before Congress and observe the Manchurian vice's facial expression. I noticed the lack of humanity, empathy and flashes of cruelty all combined. No soul inside his body. British people have good eyes 👀.
Absolutely agree. He could be much worse because his beliefs are villainess. I can’t believe his Indian wife stays with him given how he feels and believes what women should be and do.
I nominate you as our new poet laureate!! Poetry, too, should take part in conversations about identity, culture and society, as well as aesthetics. I took great pleasure in your text....
He's flip-flopping like a carp out of water. One minute he's bragging about how great he's making the stock market and then next, he's not really paying attention. Joe Biden's economy was a mess, but his is causing a little pain but that's to be expected when we're all going to be so much wealthier.
He's even sorta flip-flopping on Russia, just not Putin.
To all those MAGA types who talk about how terrible Joe Biden's economy was, I say: In the not too distant future, you will be looking back and saying, wistfully, "Remember those times when egg prices went to $8.00, and we had jobs?"
I like the little discomfort, transition period. Is he feeling it? Probably has no idea what the price of eggs is ($8.99 in CT 3/11). Fine it is due to the avian flu which in his wisdom fired the scientists who was working on it. Did they get rehired? Blaming Biden for it is nonsense. Yes, it started during Biden's term. Blame him for a virus (germ)? Okay. then the Covid was trump's fault and he caused it. It did happened during his term.
We are acting like lawless thugs. Did you read what Heather (and others) said about the Columbia grad student, who is a green card, permanently resident of the US? He was taken from his home without a warrant, which they probably couldn’t get. Then they moved him to Louisiana without telling his wife or lawyer. This is the US now.
Not in my America. If we start acting like them, they win. Didn't you folks know this would happen? I strongly recommend people channel their fear and rage into constructive avenues. You should know what they are by now.
Stop cooperating with them in burning down America.
Stop fear mongering. Stop doom posting. Start with constructive ways to combat this. Do you really want to burn it all down with them? Because this is exactly what they want.
One of the main tenets of Russia's plans was to sow fear, chaos and anger. When a society descends into this all is lost as things completely fall apart.
Right. So now if I participate in a protest, I'm at risk of being arrested? I missed my chance in the 60's, so might as well. Plus, the optics are better now--a little old lady with wild gray hair.
I'm really annoyed that the Judge didn't order him released. Preventing him from being deported is a good (if tiny) step, but leaving him locked up in a notorious prison across the country from his very pregnant wife is truly despicable.
I've long entertained myself in my darkest hours with mental images of a firing squad made up of volunteers from the Myopia Hunt (yes it's a thing, so named bc the members were all nearsighted). The treasonous felon was to be executed by them, but since they were not allowed their corrective lenses it took a while. He could run but not hide.
About 20 years ago, we got a new manager at the lab I worked at. I won't write about him because I could easy rattle off about 25K words to explain. Anyhow, he'd strut around the lab harassing people. At least weekly, he'd leave some coworker in tears. He was a tubby guy and his dress shirts would be taut against his back. I actually started imagining what a blood stain would look like on that canvas. I do not own any guns, I am not a violent person. These thoughts frightened me, no joke, so much so that I went back to therapy and found a therapist who helped me find the courage to get a new job. Best thing I ever did. The ex-boss told us that we could "be replaced with trained monkeys" and "be grateful for your job"--this wiped away any sense of worth.
The guy used scare tactics to terrorize people all in the name of efficiency. He got two employees to start ratting out others. He brainwashed many, too, who now said he was "so smart". I could point out incorrect things he said--medical science, this is, lab stuff--that we all knew was wrong, and these women KNEW he was wrong. IN 2016 when Trump came down the elevator, I told my husband, he is JUST LIKE "ex-manager" which makes me hate him.
Methinks, Jen, that many folks are mentally lurking in those dark shadow thoughts with you and, no doubt, aghast at their own mental musings. I know I am.
I won't go there any more. Instead, I pray for the hamberders cumulative impact to take effect.
I used to work with a woman whose hope was, as he exits Air Force one and attempts to grab Melania's hand, she swats it away so vigorously that he tumbles down, snapping his neck as he goes down the stairs, and lands lifeless on the tarmac. When my coworker was in a more generous mood, she'd hope that he'd be rendered a paraplegic and be ventilator dependent.
I dont think this kind of anti-Trump hyperbole is going to held sway American opinion, if anything, add to any anti-Dem sentiment that is already out there. Not that this will hurt with Heather's commenting crowd here.
We should be calling out all the traitors in this regime. Miller, who strips us of rights like a small child pulls the wings off a butterfly. Hegseth, systematically standing down our defenses against Russian hacking and helping to betray our allies in Ukraine and elsewhere. The list goes on.
We should also be revealing the kompromat these people are using to keep others in line. We are way past the point where smart people in power should recognize the threat to our country and even to themselves personally; there must be another reason that zero of them have resisted or spoken out. Perhaps the mainstream media, those with resources to cover the story, isn't doing it because their billionaire owners are similarly compromised?
The number of possible explanations for what is happening to us is dwindling. It's becomes harder with every story to attribute this to stupidity, or simple malice, or greed, or hubris. It is clearer every day that the American government, and our future, is no longer in the hands of Americans.
No more doom and gloom - we must seize the power. There are hundreds of millions of us. We must put aside our differences and stand together and hang all the traitors! Pretend it's France 1790
Then Robespierre with the guillotines? I agree on seize the power, but electoral process, right? You think many independents are going to go along with this and similar sentiments here? Not likely in my mind.
Mobiguy , scary as hell to think about how true this is. I’m 76 so for me my time is shorter? but for the younger generations it’s sad. They will never know about the history of our freedom and what it took for us to have this freedom.
I've got the ovaries to say it: the felon rapist is a Russian asset, he's a traitor to the constitution, he wants to destroy our country for money and for putin.
During Trump‘s first term there was that two hour meeting with Putin was not allowed to be transcribed or witnessed. What was said then is now being acted out now.
I remember that moment! DJT's departure from diplomatic norms gave me horrors, evidencing future chaos and diminishing democratic rules of law. Thank you, Bonnie, for recalling it. The mainstream media didn't know what to do with it, so it was ignored, swept under the rug. When will we ever learn!!
Senator Merkley in this 7 min video as he drills T associates about T being a Russian asset.He is a master at getting out the truth and shutting down the BS.📣
Just listened to Merkley’s clear and appropriate comments and questions and non-answers from the 3 being interviewed. It’s like these people are programmed for Trump’s double-speak.
Sorry Anne: I bear you to it years ago. But I am more than happy to oblige: DJT as the putative president ofvthecUSA and nany of his lackeys are traitors.
This has been tossed around for years. It was thought to be a part of the Mar a Largo case. Did he commit treason? What did he do with the documents? Who did he share them with? BTW. Those documents are now back in Florida. If we had a stronger Attorney General under Biden this charge might have stuck.
Yes, treason. The problem is, we also have a cult, and they will defend their leader to the death. I think things are going in our favor. I think slow and steady is the way. I think Trump and his people are getting nervous. I think we keep up the daily calls to our reps so that they know we are watching.
They like being elected more than they feel obligated to obey their oaths of office, and they think failure to support the orange menace means they won't get votes. Also, they largely believe in Project 2025. In my book they are just as traitorous as PINO.
It's well known in the intelligence community the man is a Russian asset, and Melania is suspected his handler. In considering his many weaknesses he's the easiest of marks for a KGB officer.
Everybody, everywhere should be calling this a (or rather, THE) Trumpcession, just like the Contrarian does, to head off the MAGAts, who will certainly keep praising the Orange Clown and blame everything bad on the Dems.
Oh, and you’re absolutely right about Trump being a malignant and sadistic narcissist.
The 'Trumpcession'?... Why are We Surprised? DJT is the Supreme Wealth Destroyer... DJT is Simple-Minded, and his Dementia is getting Worse... DJT has squandered Billions of $, and has filed for Bankruptcy 6-Times... In the year 2000, the USA had a Balanced Budget, and was slated to payoff the National Debt by 2010... Then came GWB, and his Forever-Wars, and DJT's Tax-Cuts for the Wealthy... The Wealthy own the Corporations thru their Funds, and Stock Holdings... DJT was a 'Successful Businessman' only in a Simple-Minded Fantasy Reality Show.... DJT is the Perfect Orange Puppet for Putin, and Musk... Putin wants to Destroy the U.S. led Western-Order, Musk wants to Pillage the USG for his own Ends... Note which Agencies have been Crushed by Musk... Now Musk wants to have 'X' make Electronic Payments... Didn't Musk just abolish the CFPB?... Keep an Eye on China... The Chinese play an extremely Long-Game, and they are are starting to Fight Back...
I think none of us here is surprised. The MSM _act_ surprised, and the MAGAts will simply keep playing the old game: "blame the Dems." But you're right: the Orange Clown is not a successful businessman - only in his own fantasy. In reality, he is just a con man.
Thanks Dutch... Only now DJT Delusions are growing. and getting more Dangerous... DJT's Grifting Schemes are getting more Outlandish, and Dangerous... A 'Crypto Sovereign Fund?'... That will trigger a Collapse of the US Market if it implodes....
Sad but true. It wasn't the greatest of ideas, to elect as president a sadistic, malignant and misogynistic narcissist sliding into dementia and losing all inhibitions... I'm afraid the day will come he will start masturbating in front of the cameras.
Edit: Apache reminded me kindly that he has already performed fellatio on a microphone - eliciting cheers from his MAGA crowd. They will probably applaud him for stroking his weenie on stage as well, then.
We are coming up on a Senate vote that will provide one of the few chances to throw a log in front of the Trump runaway train. Forty-one senators need to vote against a six-month CR which will give Trump an unfettered 6-month pass to smash more things. A one-month CR will give multiple chances to expose Trump as a bunch that is ignoring congressional budgets. It will also provide clear evidence that will support intervention by the courts.
I don’t agree. I am seeing some very articulate senators and Congresspeople speaking up and being aired in alternative media venues where they’re being ignored in most MSM. Brian Tyler Cohen just wrote about his trip to Washington DC. We’re 50 influencers met with Democrats on the hill to build a coalition of strength on the left for disseminating information. He rightly contends that’s the right effectively co-opted alternative media venues for the last 10 years. We don’t have to 10 years to get this megaphone up and running. But I am seeing video clips of committee, speeches, and interviews with some very impressive and savvy, elected officials on the left.
Hello Heather... I see only Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie traveling, and holding Mass Rallies in the Hinterlands...Restricting ones activities to DC is limiting... A Grassroots Swelling of Righteous Outrage is necessary... DJT won in the Hinterlands, and not DC...
Look at Dick Durbin and tell me he isn’t losing sleep. Listen to Sheldon Whitehouse and tell me he isn’t alive to what’s going on. That’s all I have time to write about, but look and listen to senators and NEVER miss Jasmin Crockett (D-TX). I hear that everybody in Ukraine knows who she is!!!. Americans need to catch up.
Jasmine Crockett and AOC are two stars in the Dem party and need to be recognized for how popular they are and rising stars!! Come on old guys…step away and let them be heard!!
There are very good Democratic Senators who have been speaking up. Chris Murphy of CT comes to mind, along with my junior Senator in Maine, Independent Angus King. Of course, my senior Senator, Susan Collins is useless.
They might be in on the crypto scams to silence opposition. Pay offs to be silent. Fits the pattern of how they trade stocks. Just like during the Pandemic. Maybe a bigger sell off tomorrow. Then they buy it back cheap with all that crypto profit in order to launder it back in.
Dems in on crypto? I would hope they're smart enough to stay the hell away from that scam. And it's all a scam. They'd be damn fools - if it came out that they were in on any of it, we'd be looking for their heads even before we went for T****'s.
All senate Democrats voted NO on the anti-trans athlete bill and it failed. Only two predictable Texas Democrats (Gonzales and Cuellar) failed to vote NO on that bill in the House. So I would say yes, there are Democrats in both houses who won’t cave. They are much more likely to stand firm if they are hearing from you on every vote. And then, never forget to thank them when they vote the right way.
We all need to call our Reps and Senators and tell them to vote NO on this! If you can't reach them by phone, email them! Follow Indivisible for more information.
Putin’s helping now with crypto price manipulation of bitcoin and meme coins. Elon is the conduit and the facilitator. The fraud, pump and dump schemes are not new, these are Russian strategies to boost the oil oligarchs wealth.
He’s already made billions from his and Melanie meme coins. Homage paid paid by Russia, China, oligarchs. He’s making more everytime the prices whipsaw. How will we know how much?
He’s doing it to try and lessen the impact on the national debt for implementing another big tax cut for the greedy rich. He’s doing it because he’s showing you he can. He’s doing it because he has already told you that he’s smarter than most everyone else…sure he is — but many know that he’s really “dumber than a bag of hammers”! [I have no real clue what that last quote means, but I’ve heard it used before and thought that it might be appropriate for use here].
You mean like using them to try and pound some cents - oooopps - [common] sense into the heads of people like or beginning with trump, musk, MAGA-cult members and their followers; as well as the other "despicables" who have and/or have exhibited a flaw [or flaws] in their character and personalities?
I think it refers to the phrase "if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail". Hammers are useful tools, but only in skilled hands. Otherwise, useless.
We know Musk bought the presidency for him. I wonder if Trump is so doggedly pursuing these tax cuts because he has been told worse will befall him if he fails to deliver.
NO ... no he didn't. Look at the massive number of legally registered voters who just bothered not to vote...that's what and who allowed for this criminal to get into the White House again!
I don't understand why voter turnout is so low in the USA. Your NPR link says that 63,9% turnout is the second highest in 100 years. That's incredibly low! What must all the other turnout figures have been? Is it because of voter suppression?
You know, we in the psych community have been warning about this for donkey's years, and it seems very few among the general population have been listening. I find myself wondering if this is because our vocabulary is too foreign to them. "Malign Narcissism" is a handy-for-us shorthand for saying selfish, crooked, greedy, dangerous creep. Wish we'd been saying that from the beginning. I guess adding something like "easily manipulated by flattery and bribes" and "can never be trusted" to round out the picture.
I think every academic community hasn’t learned the power, that is social media meets identity politics. Then u had manipulation by big tech to alter the algorithms in support of Trump 2.0. Combined social media is a military grade psychological weapon.
The age of surveillance capitalism by Dr. Shoshana Zuboff
Check out Dam Harris podcast. Republicans are scared they will get primaries. And scared for their families from radicalized magats. Crazy, weak, cowardice.
In addition to tanking our economy, he embraces the New Feudalism, where the wealthy rule and the rest of us are serfs (a group that will grow in size).
As for ICE detaining people without cause, here are 2 Germans who were coming into the US from Mexico with legal papers, and yet, they were arrested and detained by ICE without committing any crime.
Plenty of people have been pointing out that we do not need to use 1930s European countries to explain what is going on. I am reading Freedom's Dominion by Jefferson Cowie in a political book club of Democrats Abroad and he is discussing the kind of feudal freedom of slave nations that is embraced by those who are running things now. I call this the New Feudalism. It is certainly about a different kind of freedom than Dr. Martin Luther King talks about. Instead it is the freedom of wealthy, mostly White men to own other people and do whatever they want without consequences.
This Bulwark article furthers that idea, and ties it to the South.
Our institution of slavery means that the US has a history of brutal treatment of people that some are not able to move beyond. ICE is like the plantation hierarchy, and these are the overseers in a system that is at its core, cruel.
Not only do we have the cruel ICE, but also the cruel January 6 people who have all been pardoned. The US, under Trump, has become so excessively corrupt so quickly that it makes the head spin. What we must all strive to do, is to not let this become normal.
This is worrying. It appears we have a government entity that is either out of control or in control of Nazis. Keeping a U.S. citizen chained to a bench is not normal, not legal, not humane. But that's the point: sow fear in all, even legal citizens.
I think it is important for people to be aware that US citizens are being detained by ICE and not treated very well in the interim. It is not just brown-skinned people, but everyone can be faced with this illegal behavior, so don't feel safe. It also seems like they are discouraging people from going to Mexico. Clearly driving over the border is not the way to go.
However, if you have black or brown skin you should be even more wary of being illegally detained.
How many more reports of this government malfeasance will we see? I spent two years stationed near San Juan, and can attest to that attitude even on the island (back then, my hair was black and, with the tan from an unrelenting sun, I was mistaken as a brown-skinned Puerto Rican. I know - my kids don't believe me, but I remember).
I think this is true. What better gift for Putin than to show that democracy and capitalism don’t work?
The other day the Guardian published a timeline of things Trump has said or done, since only February!, that show that he is helping Putin and hurting Ukraine.
The Senate confrontation yesterday, in which Merkley, Landau, and Whittaker discussed reasons why Trump is a Russian asset, was chilling. In case you missed it, the reasons Merkley mentioned were: in the Oval Office, Trump said Zelinskyy is a dictator, he said Ukraine started the war, he gave away negotiations before they began such as the US will oppose Ukraine's entry into NATO, he completely cut off arms shipments to Ukraine, he undermined an 80-year partnership with Europe, and he paused US intelligence to Ukraine. Landau and Whittaker couldn't say any of it was not true, because it's all true. What will we do about it?
''That is, the Trump administration has arrested and detained a legal resident for expressing an opinion that Trump officials don’t like, likely using Khalil to launch this extraordinary attack on the First Amendment because they don’t expect Americans to care deeply about his fate.''
Exactly. What Trump and his minions are doing is probing, probing and poking to see what they can get away with.
I was just going to leave a comment saying the same thing. People keep asking why is he destroying the economy? For the same reason, he’s destroying America’s relationships with our European allies. He is a Putin asset. It seems pretty obvious why aren’t people talking about that?
“Trump is inciting an economic storm,” Long wrote. “The big question is why he’s doing this.”
He's doing it to incite civil unrest so he can declare martial law, install himself as dictator, suspend the 2026 election and complete privatizing (stealing) all government functions so he and his billionaire friends can run them and extract the profit. This is all planned and deliberate. The Constitution and rule of law only get in his way so he simply ignores them, along with his republican enablers (who have wanted government privatized, or "drowned in a bathtub" since forever) and his corrupt Supreme Court. Still, trump is but the figurehead. Look to the Heritage Foundation, the Koch brothers, etc. etc. who are actually the masterminds behind this. trump is just a useful tool (or fool -- take your pick).
Senator Merkley: “Is President Trump a Russian asset? People back home have been asking me this question, saying, if he was a Russian asset we would see exactly what he’s doing now. For example, he’s sharing Russian propaganda that Ukraine started the war.”
There is another problem, which touches on the lying versus being delusional debate. It's both. He lies deliberately, but more importantly, like all sociopaths and narcissists, he truly believes what he says to be true. This makes him so convincing to his followers. It's in the truest sense of the word brainwashing.
“Trump did not inherit an economy mired in crisis, of course; he inherited what was, at the time, the strongest economy in the world.”
As he warns the United States that “things will get worse” but we’ll be rolling in dough, he’s only referring to himself and the billionaire class of thugs dismantling our government. Watch for the privatization of services coming soon to the federal departments on which we all desperately depend.
Do you suppose the recent effort to make crypto an official currency of the Treasury is more than just a means of receiving dark money, but also a way of funneling tax dollars from the Treasury into the coffers of the elite?? It is largely unregulated and a choice medium for criminal transactions and grift.
Crypto is an even bigger disaster. There is a problem here with the people who like applications of blockchain technology not having a firm grip on how early high school mathematics is relevant in everyday life. Anytime anything is growing exponentially, at some point something is going to break. In this case, it is the growth demand for electric power. I live in Washington State, and our local power companies mostly purchase their power from either the Bonneville Power Administration or from the Bureau of Reclamation. We are being told that these will be unreliable providers starting in about two years. There are several culprits - data centers in general (AI and cloud services), blockchain apps, which is primarily Bitcoin, and the movement away from fossil fuels. As I see it, two of those three need to be reigned in. No matter, even if it isn't, the whole mess is going to come crashing down fairly soon.
Bingo. That is the idea: bleed the Treasury and the American tax payers dry. Don't forget: Musk has given up this Earth, he wants to escape with his space ship to Mars and leave everybody else behind to burn in the climate catastrophe. So that is why he is grabbing all he can at light speed: he is in a hurry.
When you're high on ketamine, you'll believe anything. One of the side-effects of frequent use is the increase of delusions. It also can create complete lack of empathy or regard for other people. One can become an emotionless hulk.
Oh yes. That is his goal: to go beyond his heroes. Musk's ego was bruised, and he wants to fix it. His heroes went to the moon, so Musk needs to go beyond: to Mars. This video explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MoACklnnxk
Nah, he needs to be the hero. Mankind may be saved, but only at the hands (and grace) of Elon Musk - otherwise, we can go and burn in hell for all he cares.
Break it then “fix” it with privatization. What repubs have wanted for all my adult life. No wonder they cave when muskrat says “this is our chance, we’ll never have another one.” Tis true,
Many governmental functions are far too vital and/or to dangerous to be privatized; subjected to private conflicts of interest, opacity, and lack of full public accountability. I think robust private enterprise is great, but as a service to society, not it's master.
I do agree the thrust of the Musk/Trump agenda is to so weaken our country so that oligarchs can swoop in and buy up services to run, for more money and with less ac-cumin, for a profit. Imagine a privately owned nuclear stock-pile. We will be weaker in every way.
Privatized medicine has given us the shortest life spans and highest infant mortality rates in the developed world (actually El Salvador does better than the US in both those areas) - all for multiples of what others pay. A privatized government will be much the same, paying a lot more money for fewer and much crappier services. We will be far weaker as a result.
"Reaganomics". I seem to recall claims that tax cuts for the rich would more than pay for themselves (that public revenues would actually swell, making up on volume what was lost on every collection with an incoming wave of shared prosperity. All I saw come of it was calls for "austerity" (for some) and "We can't afford that; we're broke"). Oh well, if we cut taxes and accountability for the ultra wealth, maybe this time, THIS time, Main Street will get a lift?
Steve, you probably read Prof. Richardson's Newsletter of March 5th in which she discussed the same agenda you mention. She referenced a Substack publication "The View from Rural Missouri" by Jess Piper. Piper posted an article entitled "I Know Exactly What They're Doing" on March 5th in which she argued that the Trump agenda is exactly as you say: 1. Wreck the government. 2. Impoverish the people. 3. Free our willing, duplicitous Oligarchs to come in, buy whatever assets are left at Fire Sale prices, and begin "privatizing" everything. For me, this was eye-opening to say the least.
I’m not sure that’s a requirement for all civil service positions. It is from the military and for elected officials, but I don’t think there an oath of office required for lower level civil service.
I found by Duck Duck Go a site that mentions ten cases where people were punished for breaking security protocols. Likely a right wing site, it argues that Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted for conducting government business on a private server. The examples appear to be real. A bit ironic since whats sauce for the goose is sauce for the grifter.
TESLA, Inc was down 🔻 15.43% at the Market close. Elon admits he is running the company "with great difficulty". The drop of 45%🔻 in 2025 will likely draw a shareholders class action lawsuit.
The Pre-Market stock sales open at 4:00 AM Eastern before the 3/11/25 U.S. Open. Euro trading sent VW up 📈on the Euro Market. TESLA will also likely up some early [ last pre-market trade at 4:35 AM Eastern TESLA up at 227.25 but, Caveat Emptor .....
Kari, privatization was what created oligarchy in Russia and it's influence in all aspects of culture, politics and and the economy. Here we have the oligarchy already that is taking over the whole country.Privatization it's going to make them richer.
Are all those people who lost their jobs going to be rolling in dough? Even taking a buyout, the money won't last forever. Would taking the buyout make you eligible for unemployment? If so, I would love to see the unemployment figures.
Thanks for fleshing out the frightening detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Seems like a staged step by DHS that is an ill omen for everyone involved in resisting government policies and random acts of authoritarianism. It was some splice to see that former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has been detained under the ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity. This maybe? will give the likes of Putin and Netanyahu pause. The two events side by side paint a pretty important picture of the current struggle.
Yes , Trump is delusional. For my money he’s psychotic. Most of us have known that for some time now.
The question is; WHERE THE HELL IS CONGRESS?!!! It is the sworn constitutional duty of Congress to reign in and, if necessary, boot out, a delusional, psychotic president. The Do-Nothing (nod to Harry Truman) Republican majorities in both houses are utterly derelict in their sworn duty to preserve and protect the Constitution. The crimes and misdeeds of the Musk/Trump Administration are their crimes and misdeeds as well.
Besides being guilty of high treason and dereliction of duty, they are gutless, spineless cowards afraid, afraid!, of facing their own constituents. They are the real criminals here.
Well, Ralph, I think Mump has collected his Congressional sycophants nutz and is holding them hostage & that’s why they don’t have the, um, cojones to stand up to him or thwart his ludicrous directives. A very sad legacy for these toadies indeed.
What would you have the Democrats do? As the minority party in both houses, their effetive options are few. They have filed multiple lawsuits, and judges have issued several restrining orders and injunctions. I believe even articles of impeachment have been intrduced in the house and quickly voted down by the Republican majority.
We have a president who cares nothing for the law, and a legislature majority that appears to be more than OK with letting him do it.
So, what's your advice to the Democrats to stem the damage that they haven't already done? Please, be specific.
Therein lies the rub. All they've done is what they can legally do, but when the party in control does not understand or take seriously its responsibility to the Constitution, the last recourse is for the citizenry to act.
Yes, we have elections - in 2026, and in 2028. Many months away.
Unless the Republicans have an epiphany and see their duty clearly, I give us four months before there will be an uprising, and enough citizens flooding the streets of Washington, D.C. to take control of the government. By that time, it will be a justified action. And we'll be lucky if the military follows the Constitution rather than T****'s orders to 'just shoot at their legs'.
T**** is not a student of history, and probably does not think he could end up as our 21st century Mussolini. Let Elon continue to run amok, f**k up Social Security, and the result may well be his undoing. How many grandparents are there who will not allow their grandchildren to grow up under a fascist regime. Those grandparents are children of the greatest generation, and have experienced a government that would not listen to them (Viet Nam, anyone?). It took massive protests to move that government. The question now is: can our protests move this government back to normalcy, back to respecting the rule of law and the Constitution.
In August it will be fifty-five years since I turned in my M-16 and left Phu Bai, and I've thought often on the decision I made in 1966 when the draft board letter arrived. There are millions of us who survived and went on to lead quiet lives, hoping our sons would never be called upon to fight in any war, just or unjust. I count myself as one of the lucky ones.
Other than a couple of summer camps when my sons were in Boy Scouts, I have not had a firearm in my hands since that day, certainly nothing of military capability. I hope the day never comes that forces me to again take up arms. On most days though, I can still see its approach. And it will come, in part, because so many of our citizens have no experience of the horrors of war. They cannot identify with the Ukrainian people just as we could not identify with the Vietnamese, and the closest they've ever been to armed conflict is a video game.
So now I'm left to worry about my grandsons and granddaughters. I will not allow them to grow up under a murderous fascist regime. The cancer in the Oval Office must be removed. It is of my generation, and my generation must redeem itself by removing it. We dare not shirk our responsibility.
James, I was too young for Vietnam, and first too gay, then too old for military service. I also swore an oath to defend the constitution and I carried weapon(s) in my daily life as I served my community for 25 years as a patrol deputy for a county the size of Connecticut. I maintain weapons proficiency, and will stand in front of those who need the protection.
I am of that generation as well and ready to fight again - for my children and grandchildren. Attended a protest in our small town last week and we had a great turnout. These will only get bigger as summer approaches. Keep the faith!
Thanks, James. I’m of your generation, remember the massive protests to move that government, and was hoping we would not have to go that route again. However, I see it coming — especially if they go after Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. T**** never has had the IQ to run a successful business and now appears to be losing his ability to learn or respond normally. I’m no psychiatrist, but both he and Musk also appear to have significant mental disorders.
Yes, coincidentally it was Rep. Al Green ( recently censored for interrupting during speech) who introduced the articles of impeachment shortly after the inauguration.
Could they not meet one another "off-campus", form a plan to woo the Republcans away from Trump, one by one or in twos, befriend and encourage the opponents to stop and think again, listen and sympathize, catch them off- guard with honey.
I fail to understand why, day after day, there are attempts to assign strategy to Krasnov's actions. Isn't it enough to simply admit, he doesn't have any idea what he's doing?
He does, revenge, hate and greed. What we all teach our children. Half this country hates Dems enough to vote for neoNazis. No secret here. He is a greedy, lying, delusional bastard, who will target anyone who will likely be hated by the cult. That’s at least half of us. We are all Jews now, it seems…
I am less pessimistic about the percentage of the country that hates Dems. This is so much about who is able to get the message out. Trump, Musk and the oligarchs own the corporate media or at least most of it. The NY Times barely said a positive thing about the Biden Presidency for four years publishing five or six stories a day about Trump instead. Same with the WAPO and Fox News has rarely, if ever said a positive thing about a single Democrat.
So we're left with Substack and YouTube and TikTok to get our message out? Even Facebook is filled with conspiracy theories, lies and other far-right propaganda.
Just watch the media white-wash what is happening to our economy while blaming Biden and the Dems at the same time.
Even CSPAN. I just changed the channel: the National League of Cities conference went from mayors talking about disaster relief to Rosie Ruiz giving a sales pitch for the 250th (she's got infectious enthusiasm) to what made me switch: J.D. Vance was welcomed to the stage, to much applause. My antacids are upstairs, as is the bourbon.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and others are telling it like it is. The March 10 evening program was all about how the idiot and his cult are tanking the economy. The problem is, this truth doesn't reach the other idiots that need to know this.
I’m a huge fan of Decoding Fox News on Substack. It’s a week of Fox in 45 min. And it compares Fox coverage with PBS. Once you hear what MAGA hears, you UNDERSTAND their unbelievable loyalty. On Fox, He has done no wrong. Just listen: Https://decodingfoxnews.substack.com?r=4j5a4
Shawn, I saw a meme on Facebook, a worm-faced, MAGA hat wearing figure with it's mouth open and a pipe that looks a lot like a 3" sewage export pipe feeding it: the label says "Russian Propaganda".
I called out some MAGAt commenters on a post and told them what they were taking as gospel was Russian propaganda. One unfriending and block came from that.
I'm very happy the home equity loan I applied for already has its interest rate locked in at 8 percent. But that rate will be adjusted a year from now. Anyone want to guess what interest rates will be like in March of 2026?
Also... "not liking President Trump" is rapidly becoming a crime punishable by sentences I'm afraid to imagine.
I thought I was a victim of usury when I locked in at 5.65% 20 years ago. We really are being SOLD, aren't we? The middle-class and poor are paying trillions to support banks and other institutions owned by a few very wealthy people. If you make the minimum monthly payments, you will end up paying your bank roughly 5X the amount of your loan over the next 30 years.
My bank seemed to do just fine charging me 5.65% - and my parents 3%. Why do they need 8% now? How will they justify charging 10 or 12% in 2026? Access to capital, affordable shelter and healthcare, and reliable sources of information are some of the REAL issues we need to be discussing now, not the latest ravings of two drug-addicted perps with anti-social personality disorder. Sorry for the rant Steve, but I needed it - Thanks.
Just like they justified 9 percent when we got a mortgage in the 80s, and refi'd at 6 some years later. The market swings, naturally, but we've got such big players now that they can manipulate it to our detriment.
I’m wondering when I’ll get blocked on Facebook for my frequent posts critical of trump et al. Sometimes now as I’m writing a comment on another’s post, a weird pale gray line appears. I’m not blocked from posting my full comment but it makes me wonder if I’m being tracked.
Heather often now mentions the chaos from Musk, the orange felon, & crew.
Lyndsey Stonebridge looks at such chaos in her recent book, “We are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience.”
“The starting point [for totalitarianism] was the uprooting of people that had come with capitalism, imperialism, nationalism . . .,” she writes. Yes, “The starting point . . . uprooting” to which she refers explains, too, our recent offshoring of millions of U.S. jobs – along with the wealth gap chasm into which more tens of millions have been junked. But she goes on: “The end point for totalitarian regimes was to make human superfluousness a permanent condition for absolute rule.”
Are we at this end point? In installing their convicted criminal in the White House, haven’t U.S. billionaires and Putin made the rest of us superfluous, tens of millions scarfing down Musk’s and the orange felon’s chaos?
And when the schools killed humanities (for depersonalized testing instead), doesn’t Lyndsey Stonebridge’s next line nab exactly why, now, we find ourselves in new totalitarianism threshold:
“The anonymity of modern life discovered its denouement in a political system in which human beings ceased to matter at all.”
Yes, much about “modern life” is abhorrent to me. The Andy Cohenization (lord of the Flies mentality), survivor competitions (some nude now), the crude, rude wrestling productions, Fox entertainment, along with the horrid Apprentice, to name a few. I hate much of what I’m immersed in today. But I have seen our better angels, even though they are not popular today. The promise of America is not dead, but chump’s America First crap is so hokey that I was sure none would succumb to pukifying diatribes. I was as wrong as wrong can be. May a spark still burn…
Brilliant explanation. I would add that the rise and exploitation of celebrity cult status postwar, set within the absolute winner/ loser competitive worldview of capitalist ideology, has added a difficult to dissolve doomloop of societal self destruction. A disorder born of collective narcissism.
The reductionist-materialistic philosophy of ‘modern’ Western science brought to its climax. All hail the Matrix, the Machine God: humans as cheap resources for production - emotionless, faceless, mechanical. The quantum physicist David Bohm said: “Fragmented thinking may well lead to our extinction.” Well, here we are…
Let's not forget that an icon among tech billionaires by the name of Curtis Yarvin once said that one way to deal with the poor would be to turn them into bio-fuels, using the prison system as a giant rendering facility. I have no idea if he was 'joking,' but his line got a good laugh at one of their gatherings. As in, "wink-wink, say no more, heh heh."
Along with that, Leigh, remember why they kicked humanities out of schools.
Novels, memoirs, histories, films, and the other arts focus on individual characters, emotions probed in some depth -- with respect for individuals and their complex circumstances. The billionaires and far-right foundations that implemented the Powell memo have nothing but contempt for people (though the biz schools do teach ways to keep all reduced to consumers, all in various set, fixed demographics easy for targeting group by group).
The tests reinforce never seeing anything or anyone personally. Only "skills" at seeing by categories, by simple linear chronology, life as nothing but the molecule-based, unit-by-unit replaceable, purchasable items.
They're cynics, nihilists, these billionaires. Their algorithms can manipulate all. Their oodles of money dangled in front of public officials have totally corrupted Washington, D.C.
But they rule.
And they long ago took all our humanities off the table, away from now humanly empty, depersonalized schools.
Phil, according to Progress Radio there are 100,000 elections in 2025. Many have already occurred. Musk and the other oligarchs can't buy them all like they did with the two Senate seats and the Presidency. They don't think they matter. But we can't buy into that? Where did Pete Buttigieg come from? Or Bill Clinton? Or Barack Obama? The next great Democrat President could be running for mayor of Pocatello, ID this year. Nobody knows.
Let's help the Trump Republican Party implode by supporting local and statewide candidates in 2025 & 2026.
The Republican message is all bullshit right now. They are tanking the economy and destroying each department in the Federal government. We need to rub this disaster in the face of every Republican. All they can do is deny what is happening with "alternate" facts that are lies.
I'm not sorry that the economy is tanking and that Republicans are losing their 401-Ks and businesses. Let them feel the pain they have wrought.
Putin very much involved -- with his money, intel, and techie boys's platforms all harnessed to get Americans more divided, more hostile to each other.
And he was most successful on top of all that getting his main asset into the oval office, from where to spew more hatred, more lies, more destruction of our republic.
Gary, could you please use "democratic" as the adjective? The word "Republican" is both a noun and an adjective; Democrat is the noun, and democratic is the adjective. Rush Limbaugh started (I think) using "Democrat" as a derisive adjective; I do NOT want that to slip into the common vernacular!
It's too late for that. I've started rewriting my sentences to use "Democratic" target than "Democrat." The far right started using "Democrat" as a pejorative some time ago.
Oh yes, that's correct! I've had this image in my mind of the human batteries field in The Matrix. We all are just needed for the purposes of these authoritarian leaders and then get discarded. Such an awful feeling. Ourr life, our feelings, our loved ones, don't count. We are all just fuel.
Personally Phil, I think the current ruling oligarchs may be banking on a mass die off. Those superfluous ones left will be servants (slaves) and the ranks backfilled with robots. They will let others join them in the oligarchy as they see fit. We allowed unregulated capitalism to gobble up our country and allowed it because to do otherwise might benefit more Black Americans getting a leg up. It’s why we don’t have universal healthcare and public education is dying. Those standardized tests which I also despise are a version of a voting poll tax. I predict it’s why Amazon will get the big post office contract so a good paying job is eliminated —pulled right out from under its employees. All this because this country has always operated to exploit labor and resources and anything interrupting that paradigm is short lived—just a case of the hiccups.
Lyndsey Stonebridge is great summarizing how millions lost the ability to tell fact from fiction 90 years ago in Germany (and other countries demoralized by recent history then). More millions couldn't take politics seriously -- just gave up, exactly as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave up on bringing up for a vote the Constitution's Article 14, Section Three.
Had he done so, the convicted criminal could not now be in the White House.
Most Americans now crave chaos, nihilism, cynicism, hatred. And we're getting it, fire hose after fire hose of nihilism, cynicism, hatred, and chaos.
I think there is a root to that evil. I think a lot of it is ultimately defensive rather than primarily offensive, not to say there are no offenders. Dogs often display "fear aggression".
Several years ago I met with a man who had been deported from the United States. There appeared to be a significant issue as to the deportation order and I asked him why he had not contacted his attorney until after he was deported from the country. At that time he said that it was a practice when he was put in jail to move him on a schedule of approximately every five or six days. It turned out that he was placed in one of the private prisons and that they had rules that a person was granted telephone privileges until they had been in the prison for about a week. Then the telephone time was limited to small number of prisoners per day. By constantly moving the deportees they were guarantied that their lawyers could not interfere and the cost of moving was covered by the government. It really is time for us to think about these and other practices that are and have been put in place to reduce rights and the benefits of laws. I personally have no confidence about this Administration following the rule of law and of them changing laws, rules and procedures against anyone they deem an enemy. Remember they could be using their fight against immigrants as a testing of procedures against all Americans. The right to a phone call when one is arrested is one that was found by the Supreme Court there is now a question whether this Court will follow these precedents.
Trump’s behavior is causing global markets to plummet. His illegal actions against anyone who publicly challenges him are only just beginning.
There is some good news, however. Williams & Connolly, one of the premiere law firms in challenges against the Federal government, has been retained by Perkins Coie to challenge Trump’s stripping the firm from access to any government buildings or officials.
Robert Hubbell explains who's who among Biglaw, and calls Sullivan & Cromwell, the firm now representing Trump in his appeal from the 34 felony convictions in New York, "the Tesla of Biglaw."
The wealthy “friends” of DJT and F-Elon who have gotten themselves appointed to places in the government they know nothing about, are having field days with destroying regular folks lives. They’re dead-set on their goals of making the Everyman their slave or the Everywoman, their handmaiden. This is not hyperbole. They see themselves as being better than us. They think because they possess wealth, that they know how to run our government so much more efficiently when it fact, it is a lie. They’re dead plan on taking our money and investing it into private equities that will steal or purchase properties that we previously owned, downgrade them, and then rebuild them for a nice a little profit. Think of gentrification which they have done to drive the people out of their longtime homes so others who are in a higher socio-economic position, can just move right on in. The ethics that pour out in doing this is horrifying and dangerous.
It’s like they’re chomping at the bit to build detention centers to put innocent people and children into them. Look what happened to Khalil. Supposedly ICE agents arrested him but then didn’t reveal where he was…he disappeared. Things like this happened in Germany where in unmarked cars the SS would grab a person speaking out against the Nazi government and poof! That person was never seen again. This is what we have to fight hard against.
Heather, I just want to say that my jaw dropped when you revealed what Ann Coulter said! Never would I have ever thought that I would agree with someone like her.
Marlene, I think of these folks in their rarified atmosphere/bubble of “reality” and kinda wish for them a significantly long experience in a “switched at birth” life experience…a walk for a good long distance in others shoes. Might make a difference….maybe, maybe not.
It feels like we’re hanging by a thread. The courts are our last formal hook into democracy. Congress has capitulated. We have to hang there. Speak out - write - protest. Whatever we can do. The people must win this attack against our democracy. We are the key to our future.
I know there were those in the public who followed Trump’s Covid advice, ingesting bleach and livestock dewormer. It does flummox me how Republicans and business leaders continue to go along with the economic shit show as it has got to be rocking their own economic wellbeing.
A friend of mine actually died from organ failure after taking massive doses of ivermectin over about 14 months, but supported the orange monster till her last breath.
Sorry for your loss. I have read many COVID victims died denying COVID to their last breath. It is strange how people can be turned so thoroughly against their own interests.
Barbara, I have to push back in defense of the lemmings. It’s a little ironic as the notion that the actual rodents would be so stupid as to follow advice /fall in line with the outrageous distortions of reality promulgated by Trump 1.0 and 2.0 arises from the fabrication of untruths in distortion of reality by Disney in a ‘documentary.’ See https://www.businessinsider.com/lemmings-dont-commit-suicide-off-cliffs-2016-2.
If I recall correctly, sometime ago there was a TV show or video or some such thing showing the “Rapture” and folks earth-wide being “taken up” to their beloved wherever….and then those remaining on earth sighing with relief and living, collectively, happily ever after.
They're gonna welcome Jesus back and just wind up doing the same thing to him again it would seem.
Deportation for speaking out in defense of Palestinians and Ukrainians that are being killed and invaded by belligerent factions and militaries. Imprisoned. Probably tortured and executed since they won't recognize a messiah that speaks out against the lying, the greed, the corruption, the hate and advocates for Peace, equality and social justice...
Old tactic my friend, but still works if you have enough idiots to believed. Lately,as usual BIden and Soros are back as the instigators of anything wrong happening.
Yessiree. Biden is Schrödinger's president: an all-powerful marionette of the elites controlling everything, and at the same time too old and demented to get anything done.
Orange_O_nomics. We'll get to see first hand just what - "There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that.” - actually means. I'm sure that most people that have to balance a family budget won't be ok with that.
Before the election when Trump was telling an economic forum his tariffs were the answer, the look of disbelief on a audience that actually knew what they were listening to, meant... said all you needed to know. This won't be an elevator down, more like a lift without a cable... good grief.
The tariffs, like the bleach, solutions of a untethered mind. The scary thing now is that he doesn’t seem to have enough clarity to try and steady the markets …he has lost all inhibition.
I am convinced that it is more a matter of mental deterioration as HCR and Fallows have argued. And it may not be long until Vance takes the throne as a Catholic King imagined by the project 2025 sect.
Heather, nobody seems to be mentioning that X got hacked three times today. I have to admit, I have been wondering where some of the hacking experts on the ‘good side’ have been hiding. How about fighting fire with fire? And while they’re at it, maybe they could find out what Trump has on those MAGA sycophants up on Capitol Hill…
Everything he has done seems designed to destroy the United States, get rid of its Constitution (he's had help there), destroy its military and reduce its economy to a smoking ruin. I'd say he's doing a fabulous job for Putin, who still appears to be one of the people he admires most in the world. Whether he is consciously an asset for the Kremlin or not, doesn't matter at this point. He is achieving all their goals in record time. Back in the 90s when everyone was cheering that the US had "won" the Cold War, I thought at the time that you'd need both sides to agree to that; now we see that the US has just unilaterally surrendered. All it took was time and a little propaganda.
What gobsmacks me, Angela, is how many so-called Americans support this “vision” of America as a Autocracy/Oligarchy/Theocracy/Kleptocracy (aka Mandate For Leadership/Project 2025 and its precursors)…to them I say, be careful what you wish for.
Me too. I've listened to Republican BS my entire life about how much more they care about national security than Democrats and lots more crap from them about Russians. Turns out they didn't care about any of that - they were just trying to up the size of the bribe they'd be offered to sell out their country.
Barbara, yesterday, after posting a comment about no cure for stupidity, another reader send me a replay citing a quote by St Kassianni, an Orthodox saint that said "The only cure for stupidity is death"
They were told that all the bad stuff would only fall on "those people." Look at the reports of MAGA who were fired by DOGE, then were upset because they lost their jobs.
He has always hated this country and everything it stands for, especially the rule of law. As a sociopath he has no respect for anything that stands in his way.
A lot of propaganda, and I remember the repubs in Congress at that time. Arrogant bastards who may seem not bad compared with today, but they were horrid, and egotistical maniacs.
Actually - I think they have a deal - he wants Canada, Greenland and Panama, he's prepared to give Putin Europe for that. Hope the Europeans get their act together quick enough.
But I think the US will be without allies in the not too distant future, if it is not already.
Well, I think it's more like Putin _allows_ Trump to take Canada, Greenland and Panama, in exchange for pulling the US out of NATO, stopping support for Ukraine, and instead deploying the US military there. We'll be fighting both Russian and American soldiers here in Europe.
Even as it stands, the UK/EU would give Russia a swirly if they attacked. They can't even win in Ukraine and have been bled white over the last three years.
Curtis Yarvin had thought it would be useful to declare a State of emergency on day one for his ‘Caesar.’ Because you can’t have opposing views if you are becoming a dictator. I’m somewhat concerned that Trump is assembling his own little force of dirty mercenary brown shirts (“Triple Canopy” —former Blackwater?) to terrorize protesters. Getting the military to open fire on their own countrymen could be a much more difficult proposition.
As someone mentioned earlier, if you listen to Fox, and buy into what they are selling, it's easy to see how people are on the band wagon. Fox and many in Congress go on and on about how wonderful rumpy is, what a great, outstanding negotiator he is, how brilliant his decisions. They hammered on that for years while downgrading Biden and everything good he was doing. They've been successfully brainwashed and now we have a government dead set on destroying our country. We need to have truth on the news. How do you undo the brainwashing and get rid of the cult leader?
People keep saying”Why is he doing this?!” He’s doing this because he’s a Russian asset, and that’s what Putin wants him to do. Putin has helped him financially for years, and I’m sure there’s promises of more money and towers in Moscow. He’s a mentally compromised asset. Tell him he’s handsome and he’ll follow you off a cliff. His sociopathic character does not allow him to feel guilt, compassion or accountability. He is also sadistic. While normal people are scared now, he’s loving watching them suffer. That’s the make up of a Malignant Narcissist. In the wrong hands—very dangerous indeed.
Who is going to say the correct word? I dare everyone to! I will! The logical explanation for what Trump is doing is that he is compromised by foreign influences. What he and Project 2025 are doing to our country is TREASON! Who else will have the balls (or ovaries) to say it with me??
Im saying that the scumbag president is a traitor not because I have balls .but because is true . And keep an eye on the vice Manchurrian because he is worse.
Trump's puppet masters are struggling to keep up. His popularity is fading fast and he is freaking the fuck out about the stock market tanking.
Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk and dozens of other oligarchs bended a knee to Trump only to watch their wealth melt away. And for what? Thirty pieces of silver in the form of a tax cut?
Trump's crypto has gone from a high of around $72 to $10.52 as of yesterday. Tesla stock is dropping like a rock. Ehtereum tanking and Bitcoin slowly crumbling.
People have been mocking Buffett for sitting on so much cash. Like Noah, he told us all exactly why he was and what was going to happen to the over priced markets.
I have no social media accounts. I truly wish people would DROP TWITTER.
(I refuse to call it by the name Musk gave it, as I refuse to accommodate his overinflated ego).
I do not either. To protect my mental health. I would like this site more for exchanging ideas to push bak, helping DEMOs. They need fresh ideas.
Somebody in an early thread calls is Xiitter (pronounced Shitter after Xi Jin Ping). I thought that was appropriate.
that is probably TCinLA
His substack is "That's Another Fine Mess" and it is excellent.
Gary, i hate to say it, but the latest Gallop poll is more like showing skyrocketed Republican approval of Trump and non surprising disapproval from Dems, with "independents" "in between" Mind the economic turmoil and stock market beginning to price in recession may change a few minds come the next poll....dont count on a Maga shift, independents will be pivotal. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#trash/FMfcgzQZTgQGPPvnqbMrdjwWvwWgVgbZ?compose=DmwnWrRmTWddpXclzNnkbzRpJmvVScPxVTBrqCJxQgHHBSTskjcCCdjwcLcxgmFPBwmTWCSGRrFL
Frank cherry picking one poll does not give the complete picture. We all know by now a poll is only as good as its questions, sampling and interpretation.
Barbara, thank you for this assessment of polls. I learned about how polls worked from the wonderful Carolina Lady with Fan on the Maddow blog years ago. She had worked in polling and gave us the lowdown.
Poll are like a grab bag. You don't know whether the chosen group is made up of equally distributed parties or if they are skewed one way or the other. The small number of people out of 340 million people...even if half of them are children or teens, that still a lot of people not polled.
Thank you, Barbara.
Frank Loomer, maybe a dose of reality, but watching the protests and town halls, I am becoming a bit more optimistic. If no Social Security checks in April… .
Most of MAGA, from what I have read,, do not have money in the Stock Market anyway. They love Trump for his bombast and bravado, Lemmings to the front!
I can't say for sure, but I believe they don't think they have money in the market, but if they have a 401K, they do.
But many are enrolled in Medicaid, live on Social Security, or receive healthcare coverage via Medicare.
Keep in mind that the number of voters registered as Independent/No Party Preference exceeds registered Republicans and Democrats combined. That is a potent potential landslide waiting to happen. Remember that the real story of 2024 was not how many voted for Trump but how many voters decided to not vote compared to 2020. That also is a potent potential for 2026. SD Auburn CA
The money people know, and the money people may watch Fox, but they also know money, and they are going to get their money out of stocks ASAP. The other Fox watchers are going to keep believing because they are dependent on Fox. That's their life.
I think I heard this about a year ago, when "Beau" was posting on youtube before his wife, "Belle" took over: he said that billionaires are not "red" or "blue"--they are "green" explaining they will support wherever they can get the most money. I tend to support this. I just did a search, there are 801 billionaires in the US. I can only name perhaps 10 off the top of my head.
I guess people aren't lining up to buy trump coins. I don old fashion. As far as money in the air goes, credit cards, checks, online bill payments, that's with me. I suspect I can't walk into Starbucks and pay with this crypto currency.
The MAGAs are still solidly behind him. But no one else.
No change, then.
That will change. Within another month, he will have no more supporters who aren't sycophants who have been paid off. Whether or not there will still be a path to removing him and destroying the damage is another question and I'm not optimistic. He's following the dictator playbook of Putin and Orban. Republicans hate us and want us dead.
trump only uses pollsters who give him the results he wants.
Frank, multiple pools reveal what you describe. Protests, yeah great, not a former MAGA in the crowd. ONLY when former MAGAs turn out in the streets and speak up can there be change. Ignoring reality only fools ourselves like those that predicted a Harris easy win.
Franks…we must win the moderate middle…arguing with maggots is pointed, they have drank the Kool-Aid! But middle America is the fertile ground and we can win if we project strong American values and patriotism for our great country. Us there are issues and crazies, but the polarization and extreme ism hurts us all. I love that progressive was invented in Iowa not New York nor CA…they gave us hippies and the John Birch Society. Which gave us HF 2025!
Hardworking people of all races and genders. But the puritanical forces oddly find rich ground in the extremes. Absolutes hurt!
I smile and say, ‘nice dress’, and move on…to real issues.
Yes it is how we treat the ‘least of these’ by which we will be judged…I’m okay with that but is feel think thee a puritanical smell to too many of the ideas of ‘gender’ on both sides…just saying. ‘Who do you want be today’ is different than pedantic absolutes. There is a middle proud ground.
I believed Buffett was right and took defensive action. Thanks, Warren.
These rich guys are making a killing, buying up stocks rather low, and then when they grow up, which is almost the only way they can go I guess, they’ll be swimming and even more wealth and twice as corrupt
I hope the trend you describe continues. Thank you
I will say it. Most folks with a functional brain are beginning to see that all this destruction is just exactly what a Russian asset would do. That's what I thought until now. Check with Sen Merkley.
But now, the destruction continues at break neck speed I am concluding that he is more than an asset. $Trump is A Russian agent.
He also knows that if he were not president, he would have a good chance of being in prison.
Donald's first and only motivation is money, as it's always been. He was born into a household where there was no love, but plenty of money. Consequently, he thinks money is love. He was also born with a learning disability, so he's not good with money. He loses a lot of it.
When his daddy died, he lost his financial safety net. As he continued losing money, he had to borrow to keep the family business afloat. He also had to break laws to conceal his losses. His law-breaking was mounting.
Through his Bratva business associations, he came to the attention of the Kremlin.
His losses continued, and U.S. banks cut him off, as he is a bad credit risk.
Russian oligarchs stepped into the breach and lent him more money, with strings attached. Donald's Russian debts came due in the mid 2010s.
Capturing the U.S. presidency was a long shot for Donald, but it was his best way out of debt and prison, so he went for it. To protect their "investment," Russian oligarchs assisted with his election campaign, and he surprisingly won.
Learning-disabled Donald's first term was not as successful as he and his Russian sponsors had hoped. In the midst of chaos, financial gains were disappointing to both Donald and the Russians. The law was catching up with him. Then Covid revealed the extent of his incompetence and he lost his bid for reelection.
Fortunately for Donald and the Russians, Americans have short memories.
With the help of his sponsors in Russia and fellow Russian asset Elon Musk, Donald did get another chance to monetize the U.S. presidency. He and his Russian cronies have wasted no time in maximizing his presidential power to generate wealth.
The tariff gambit has nothing to do with fentanyl; it's a scheme to rapidly manipulate stocks so Donald and his ring of insiders can buy low and sell high.
Learning-disabled Donald's executive orders and other actions are at the behest of his theo- and tech-puppeteers, as they are seeking control of the nation's future. Donald just cares about the money – and staying out of prison.
This.... Often times, the simplest answers say the most. I never had any desire, care, or the slightest interest to read books about the cft - aka the 'OiD' , Orange il Duce. I have however paid attention on Mary Trump's substack on that topic. It's an absolute disaster of dysfunctions. I always come away feeling deeply sad for Mary. I hope somehow that her labors in writing are helpful for her in many ways and long for a day that she feels victorious.
First was self loathing and racism, pleasing Daddy, then money.
My years of reading about the Trump family tell me differently. Money has always come first. Gaining Fred's approval was a factor when Donald was young, only because he thought he was competing with his older brother, Freddy. But Freddy chose his own path and it didn't include the family business.
At no time has Donald ever loathed himself. Quite the opposite. As the "baby" of the family, he was doted on and spoiled. He never doubted that he was the most wonderful boy. That's why he has such trouble accepting even the slightest criticism, and calls it "unfair."
Racism is ever-present, but not as a motivator; it's just who he is. A bulldozer's blade pushes whatever is in front out of the way, but it's the engine that moves the bulldozer. Racism is the blade; money is the motor.
Definitely he would be in jail paying mini golf.
With a spoon and a bean on his lumpy, smelly mattress!
Really nice…and add a musky roommate who wants the bean and I’m smiling!
10 million dollars and counting on golfing trips this year (2 months? And a lot of it goes into his coffers. I thought we were cutting fraud and waste.
It's just the begging Karen 😔
Bill, I believe you're correct on both counts. He'd love to destroy this country in order to help Putin to dominate the world, and there's no question that he'd be doing time in maximum security if the supermajority of the Supreme Court hadn't slow-walked in order to save him.
I suspect he wouldn't have to worry about picking up soap in the shower. yech.
Well, if he could arrange a multi-billion-dollar donation for his third term . . . .
When the American people make a regrettable mistake in a presidential election and can not afford to wait four years to undo it, there is only one recourse: impeachment and conviction. Enough Republicans must stand against what Trump is doing to "give aid and comfort" to an enemy to remove him from office.
Ah, if only….but most, if not all the R’s, would roll over and kiss the feet of His Heinous. That is unless the D’s & I’s sweep the 2026 midterms and are a super majority in Congress, or at least enough total votes to convict an impeachment….🤞.
Do you still believe we'll have elections if the scumbag president's negatives are much higher than the positives?
I think they will cheat or find a reason not to run it. By then they'll control everything. I'm just guessing Barbara, but I would not put all my eggs in that basket.
I heard someone who worked in Tony Blair’s cabinet interviewed yesterday (he’s British, of course) say as much as Brits despise tfg, he’s #2. Vance is #1.
Yeah Pod Save America. Great listen.
Someone named Gideon Rachman in the FT (London) said “I don’t think Trump has a coherent plan. I think instead he has instincts and prejudices. He likes tariffs and Putin. He dislikes Zelenskyy, Trudeau and the mainstream media. He admires wealth and power. He despises those he thinks are weak.” I think Rachman’s assessment is accurate.
They have an excellent reason for that.
If you have the stomach for it, watch the scumbag president's speech before Congress and observe the Manchurian vice's facial expression. I noticed the lack of humanity, empathy and flashes of cruelty all combined. No soul inside his body. British people have good eyes 👀.
Impeach. Feathers of Hope. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/p/remove-impeach-impeach
Absolutely agree. He could be much worse because his beliefs are villainess. I can’t believe his Indian wife stays with him given how he feels and believes what women should be and do.
T R E A S O N ! ! !
He could become the first president to get dragged through the streets. You know, Many people are saying it.
A Mussolini ending. I’ll go for that…
By the boot heels.. yes, befitting.
Hung by the bone spurs. . .
Said here: With utter respect.. hung by his balls, for all to see.
Won't work, Lady, just like balls, he doesnt have bone spurs, never did.
Ha ha !
Can't wait for the pizza afterwards.
Bigly!!!!
Delusional
Many people are saying, just wait and see,
Crypto’s the future, it’s all coming to me.
Elon and Vladimir, they’re in on the score,
We’re talking billions, who needs more?
The fake news won’t tell you, they’re out of the game,
But trust me, I’m winning, I’ll put them to shame.
Pump and dump schemes, you can’t even catch,
A perfect fraud—I’m untouchable, watch!
Canada’s fentanyl, it’s poisoning us all,
A crisis from north, they’ve built this wall.
But tariffs, folks, tariffs—don’t be deceived,
It’s you who’s paying, so just believe.
I’m the best at this, I’m making it clear,
They’ll never drag me out, no matter the fear.
I’ll make America great, with billions and pride,
No one can stop me, nowhere to hide.
"We’re talking billions, who needs more?"
We're talking billions and always want more.
Brilliant! Not like Trump's "Putin is brilliant", but like Marie Curie was brilliant.
That was the first biography I read. So many more since then.
I nominate you as our new poet laureate!! Poetry, too, should take part in conversations about identity, culture and society, as well as aesthetics. I took great pleasure in your text....
Well thought and rendered…. Thank YOU!
I will be henceforth making a citizen’s arrest of one Donald John Trump and insuring that he eat his own turd.
He's flip-flopping like a carp out of water. One minute he's bragging about how great he's making the stock market and then next, he's not really paying attention. Joe Biden's economy was a mess, but his is causing a little pain but that's to be expected when we're all going to be so much wealthier.
He's even sorta flip-flopping on Russia, just not Putin.
To all those MAGA types who talk about how terrible Joe Biden's economy was, I say: In the not too distant future, you will be looking back and saying, wistfully, "Remember those times when egg prices went to $8.00, and we had jobs?"
I like the little discomfort, transition period. Is he feeling it? Probably has no idea what the price of eggs is ($8.99 in CT 3/11). Fine it is due to the avian flu which in his wisdom fired the scientists who was working on it. Did they get rehired? Blaming Biden for it is nonsense. Yes, it started during Biden's term. Blame him for a virus (germ)? Okay. then the Covid was trump's fault and he caused it. It did happened during his term.
“The madness is the method”
Stop. Just stop.
This is banana republic stuff. We are trying to hang onto our Democracy not act like lawless thugs.
We are acting like lawless thugs. Did you read what Heather (and others) said about the Columbia grad student, who is a green card, permanently resident of the US? He was taken from his home without a warrant, which they probably couldn’t get. Then they moved him to Louisiana without telling his wife or lawyer. This is the US now.
Not in my America. If we start acting like them, they win. Didn't you folks know this would happen? I strongly recommend people channel their fear and rage into constructive avenues. You should know what they are by now.
Stop cooperating with them in burning down America.
Exactly
"You should know what they are by now." A few examples would be helpful. Most of us are not as enlightened as you are.
Right - what's next? Banning free speech? Imprisoning Americans without any charges? Taking people off the street and sending them to Guantanamo Bay?
Stop fear mongering. Stop doom posting. Start with constructive ways to combat this. Do you really want to burn it all down with them? Because this is exactly what they want.
One of the main tenets of Russia's plans was to sow fear, chaos and anger. When a society descends into this all is lost as things completely fall apart.
Like Kafka's book, "The Trial." Josef K is arrested and must defend himself against a charge for which he can't get any information.
Right. So now if I participate in a protest, I'm at risk of being arrested? I missed my chance in the 60's, so might as well. Plus, the optics are better now--a little old lady with wild gray hair.
My belief is that it will come to that and I'm fine with it, any way it goes.
I'm really annoyed that the Judge didn't order him released. Preventing him from being deported is a good (if tiny) step, but leaving him locked up in a notorious prison across the country from his very pregnant wife is truly despicable.
I've long entertained myself in my darkest hours with mental images of a firing squad made up of volunteers from the Myopia Hunt (yes it's a thing, so named bc the members were all nearsighted). The treasonous felon was to be executed by them, but since they were not allowed their corrective lenses it took a while. He could run but not hide.
I have to be very dark to go there.
WOW Jen!
About 20 years ago, we got a new manager at the lab I worked at. I won't write about him because I could easy rattle off about 25K words to explain. Anyhow, he'd strut around the lab harassing people. At least weekly, he'd leave some coworker in tears. He was a tubby guy and his dress shirts would be taut against his back. I actually started imagining what a blood stain would look like on that canvas. I do not own any guns, I am not a violent person. These thoughts frightened me, no joke, so much so that I went back to therapy and found a therapist who helped me find the courage to get a new job. Best thing I ever did. The ex-boss told us that we could "be replaced with trained monkeys" and "be grateful for your job"--this wiped away any sense of worth.
The guy used scare tactics to terrorize people all in the name of efficiency. He got two employees to start ratting out others. He brainwashed many, too, who now said he was "so smart". I could point out incorrect things he said--medical science, this is, lab stuff--that we all knew was wrong, and these women KNEW he was wrong. IN 2016 when Trump came down the elevator, I told my husband, he is JUST LIKE "ex-manager" which makes me hate him.
Methinks, Jen, that many folks are mentally lurking in those dark shadow thoughts with you and, no doubt, aghast at their own mental musings. I know I am.
See my comment right above yours.
I won't go there any more. Instead, I pray for the hamberders cumulative impact to take effect.
I used to work with a woman whose hope was, as he exits Air Force one and attempts to grab Melania's hand, she swats it away so vigorously that he tumbles down, snapping his neck as he goes down the stairs, and lands lifeless on the tarmac. When my coworker was in a more generous mood, she'd hope that he'd be rendered a paraplegic and be ventilator dependent.
Don’t forget to tar and feather him first!
The American people have chosen national suicide.
38% of Americans. 1/3 don’t vote. 1/3 are resisting. Hope is contagious.
He won by a 1.48% margin
1.7% voted for someone else.
15 million did not vote.
I am with you Ted. We keep on fighting. Remember the French Resistance in WW2.
I dont think this kind of anti-Trump hyperbole is going to held sway American opinion, if anything, add to any anti-Dem sentiment that is already out there. Not that this will hurt with Heather's commenting crowd here.
Nothing will change the MAGAs’ opinions. The people here are venting in frustration.
Exactly Frau. I don't find chastising them for it to be constructive either.
I have some rope, Ted. He wants to bring back lynching. We should oblige him. He's the prez (snicker)
probably not in effigy either.
We should be calling out all the traitors in this regime. Miller, who strips us of rights like a small child pulls the wings off a butterfly. Hegseth, systematically standing down our defenses against Russian hacking and helping to betray our allies in Ukraine and elsewhere. The list goes on.
We should also be revealing the kompromat these people are using to keep others in line. We are way past the point where smart people in power should recognize the threat to our country and even to themselves personally; there must be another reason that zero of them have resisted or spoken out. Perhaps the mainstream media, those with resources to cover the story, isn't doing it because their billionaire owners are similarly compromised?
The number of possible explanations for what is happening to us is dwindling. It's becomes harder with every story to attribute this to stupidity, or simple malice, or greed, or hubris. It is clearer every day that the American government, and our future, is no longer in the hands of Americans.
No more doom and gloom - we must seize the power. There are hundreds of millions of us. We must put aside our differences and stand together and hang all the traitors! Pretend it's France 1790
I respectfully disagree. The tide is changing. I think we emulate MLK and Ghandi and believe in the power of truth rather than choose violence.
Then Robespierre with the guillotines? I agree on seize the power, but electoral process, right? You think many independents are going to go along with this and similar sentiments here? Not likely in my mind.
Problem: is a “free and fair” election possible given the Proud Boys and other militia groups?
Must wait for the 2026 elections. Hope they’re not rigged somehow.
Mobiguy , scary as hell to think about how true this is. I’m 76 so for me my time is shorter? but for the younger generations it’s sad. They will never know about the history of our freedom and what it took for us to have this freedom.
Certainly not in the hands of True Americans!
Been saying it. It’s just not being published in MSM.
Then WE must say it louder and often. Flood the zone. Trump is a russian asset. He is a traitor.
I've got the ovaries to say it: the felon rapist is a Russian asset, he's a traitor to the constitution, he wants to destroy our country for money and for putin.
During Trump‘s first term there was that two hour meeting with Putin was not allowed to be transcribed or witnessed. What was said then is now being acted out now.
I remember that moment! DJT's departure from diplomatic norms gave me horrors, evidencing future chaos and diminishing democratic rules of law. Thank you, Bonnie, for recalling it. The mainstream media didn't know what to do with it, so it was ignored, swept under the rug. When will we ever learn!!
Senator Merkley in this 7 min video as he drills T associates about T being a Russian asset.He is a master at getting out the truth and shutting down the BS.📣
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-9tiGDuwCc
Just listened to Merkley’s clear and appropriate comments and questions and non-answers from the 3 being interviewed. It’s like these people are programmed for Trump’s double-speak.
Beat me to it! So glad he is one of my Senators!
Great!
Sorry Anne: I bear you to it years ago. But I am more than happy to oblige: DJT as the putative president ofvthecUSA and nany of his lackeys are traitors.
It was treason when he incited his followers to attack the Capitol on J6. Treason is, apparently, nothing new for him.
This has been tossed around for years. It was thought to be a part of the Mar a Largo case. Did he commit treason? What did he do with the documents? Who did he share them with? BTW. Those documents are now back in Florida. If we had a stronger Attorney General under Biden this charge might have stuck.
Yes, treason. The problem is, we also have a cult, and they will defend their leader to the death. I think things are going in our favor. I think slow and steady is the way. I think Trump and his people are getting nervous. I think we keep up the daily calls to our reps so that they know we are watching.
Wow Barbara, are you a Tr**p asset? You certainly seem to have taken up his talking points, mainly that it's all Biden's fault.
Oh quit. Stop putting words in someone's mouth and trying to create division.
Benedict Donald.
TREASON!
That would explain Trump's treason; how do you account for the rest of the right-wingers in Congress and the country?
They like being elected more than they feel obligated to obey their oaths of office, and they think failure to support the orange menace means they won't get votes. Also, they largely believe in Project 2025. In my book they are just as traitorous as PINO.
White Christian Nationalism. It is what they crave, and see Project 2025 as their ticket to get there.
Yep. Only they're not all foreign. We have plenty of malign influencers here at home, Dr. DeLaney.
Malign or not, they're abundant. Business has always been pro-Republican over all.
It's well known in the intelligence community the man is a Russian asset, and Melania is suspected his handler. In considering his many weaknesses he's the easiest of marks for a KGB officer.
TREASON….and clearly so!!
Me
Everybody, everywhere should be calling this a (or rather, THE) Trumpcession, just like the Contrarian does, to head off the MAGAts, who will certainly keep praising the Orange Clown and blame everything bad on the Dems.
Oh, and you’re absolutely right about Trump being a malignant and sadistic narcissist.
The 'Trumpcession'?... Why are We Surprised? DJT is the Supreme Wealth Destroyer... DJT is Simple-Minded, and his Dementia is getting Worse... DJT has squandered Billions of $, and has filed for Bankruptcy 6-Times... In the year 2000, the USA had a Balanced Budget, and was slated to payoff the National Debt by 2010... Then came GWB, and his Forever-Wars, and DJT's Tax-Cuts for the Wealthy... The Wealthy own the Corporations thru their Funds, and Stock Holdings... DJT was a 'Successful Businessman' only in a Simple-Minded Fantasy Reality Show.... DJT is the Perfect Orange Puppet for Putin, and Musk... Putin wants to Destroy the U.S. led Western-Order, Musk wants to Pillage the USG for his own Ends... Note which Agencies have been Crushed by Musk... Now Musk wants to have 'X' make Electronic Payments... Didn't Musk just abolish the CFPB?... Keep an Eye on China... The Chinese play an extremely Long-Game, and they are are starting to Fight Back...
I think none of us here is surprised. The MSM _act_ surprised, and the MAGAts will simply keep playing the old game: "blame the Dems." But you're right: the Orange Clown is not a successful businessman - only in his own fantasy. In reality, he is just a con man.
Thanks Dutch... Only now DJT Delusions are growing. and getting more Dangerous... DJT's Grifting Schemes are getting more Outlandish, and Dangerous... A 'Crypto Sovereign Fund?'... That will trigger a Collapse of the US Market if it implodes....
Sad but true. It wasn't the greatest of ideas, to elect as president a sadistic, malignant and misogynistic narcissist sliding into dementia and losing all inhibitions... I'm afraid the day will come he will start masturbating in front of the cameras.
Edit: Apache reminded me kindly that he has already performed fellatio on a microphone - eliciting cheers from his MAGA crowd. They will probably applaud him for stroking his weenie on stage as well, then.
Oh please that he would! Maybe THEN someone will notice that he’s lost his mind!
Some have commented, DM, that the double-armed fist-pump dance that he does suggests just that….oh, my eyes! my eyes! 🤮
Hello Dutch... Didn't DJT simulate Fellatio to the Microphone at one of his late Pre-Election Tallies to Cheers from his MAGAs?
I think it will be "...when it implodes."
Rachel Maddow used it last night.
I have been saying it since his impeachments were in process but not effective. Treacherous, traitorous, treasonous Trump!
I am all about the Blue State secession with DC of course. https://secularhumanism.org/exclusive/secession/
I read it called, "The trump Slump"
We are coming up on a Senate vote that will provide one of the few chances to throw a log in front of the Trump runaway train. Forty-one senators need to vote against a six-month CR which will give Trump an unfettered 6-month pass to smash more things. A one-month CR will give multiple chances to expose Trump as a bunch that is ignoring congressional budgets. It will also provide clear evidence that will support intervention by the courts.
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/how-to-fight-trump-part-2a
Do we have Dems that won’t cave? I’m beginning to wonder if some are on muskrat’s payroll. Bernie looks like the only one still breathing.
I don’t agree. I am seeing some very articulate senators and Congresspeople speaking up and being aired in alternative media venues where they’re being ignored in most MSM. Brian Tyler Cohen just wrote about his trip to Washington DC. We’re 50 influencers met with Democrats on the hill to build a coalition of strength on the left for disseminating information. He rightly contends that’s the right effectively co-opted alternative media venues for the last 10 years. We don’t have to 10 years to get this megaphone up and running. But I am seeing video clips of committee, speeches, and interviews with some very impressive and savvy, elected officials on the left.
Hello Heather... I see only Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie traveling, and holding Mass Rallies in the Hinterlands...Restricting ones activities to DC is limiting... A Grassroots Swelling of Righteous Outrage is necessary... DJT won in the Hinterlands, and not DC...
Look at Dick Durbin and tell me he isn’t losing sleep. Listen to Sheldon Whitehouse and tell me he isn’t alive to what’s going on. That’s all I have time to write about, but look and listen to senators and NEVER miss Jasmin Crockett (D-TX). I hear that everybody in Ukraine knows who she is!!!. Americans need to catch up.
Jasmine Crockett and AOC are two stars in the Dem party and need to be recognized for how popular they are and rising stars!! Come on old guys…step away and let them be heard!!
Include Mark Kelly, D-AZ
Agree!!
There are very good Democratic Senators who have been speaking up. Chris Murphy of CT comes to mind, along with my junior Senator in Maine, Independent Angus King. Of course, my senior Senator, Susan Collins is useless.
Jeff Merkley of Oregon is on fire as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLmL5BVe1nA
But she is ‘concerned.’
To that I say: bulls**t. Our Susan is one of the members of the human-race who can easily talk out of both sides of her mouth.
A gift for a politician
🤣🤣🙃
she is reptilian
They might be in on the crypto scams to silence opposition. Pay offs to be silent. Fits the pattern of how they trade stocks. Just like during the Pandemic. Maybe a bigger sell off tomorrow. Then they buy it back cheap with all that crypto profit in order to launder it back in.
Dems in on crypto? I would hope they're smart enough to stay the hell away from that scam. And it's all a scam. They'd be damn fools - if it came out that they were in on any of it, we'd be looking for their heads even before we went for T****'s.
We will know more in the next few days.
All senate Democrats voted NO on the anti-trans athlete bill and it failed. Only two predictable Texas Democrats (Gonzales and Cuellar) failed to vote NO on that bill in the House. So I would say yes, there are Democrats in both houses who won’t cave. They are much more likely to stand firm if they are hearing from you on every vote. And then, never forget to thank them when they vote the right way.
Thanks Kathleen Weber, I followed your link and contacted my Senators in Oregon.
Same here!!
Merkley and Wyden are in the bank. I don't know if you've seen this or not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLmL5BVe1nA
Merkley is a hero
We all need to call our Reps and Senators and tell them to vote NO on this! If you can't reach them by phone, email them! Follow Indivisible for more information.
Putin’s helping now with crypto price manipulation of bitcoin and meme coins. Elon is the conduit and the facilitator. The fraud, pump and dump schemes are not new, these are Russian strategies to boost the oil oligarchs wealth.
Hope the security at Ft Knox holds. Gold could be replaced by the ephemeral bitcoin.
He’s already made billions from his and Melanie meme coins. Homage paid paid by Russia, China, oligarchs. He’s making more everytime the prices whipsaw. How will we know how much?
What happens one Donald pays all his loans off and has 100 billion in the bank. I think that’s when he starts a war. Just like Putin. Wanna bet?
Exactly.
That makes some sense Ted
He’s doing it to try and lessen the impact on the national debt for implementing another big tax cut for the greedy rich. He’s doing it because he’s showing you he can. He’s doing it because he has already told you that he’s smarter than most everyone else…sure he is — but many know that he’s really “dumber than a bag of hammers”! [I have no real clue what that last quote means, but I’ve heard it used before and thought that it might be appropriate for use here].
But at least, JL, hammers are useful!
If you know how to use it........!!
You mean like using them to try and pound some cents - oooopps - [common] sense into the heads of people like or beginning with trump, musk, MAGA-cult members and their followers; as well as the other "despicables" who have and/or have exhibited a flaw [or flaws] in their character and personalities?
I think it refers to the phrase "if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail". Hammers are useful tools, but only in skilled hands. Otherwise, useless.
We know Musk bought the presidency for him. I wonder if Trump is so doggedly pursuing these tax cuts because he has been told worse will befall him if he fails to deliver.
NO ... no he didn't. Look at the massive number of legally registered voters who just bothered not to vote...that's what and who allowed for this criminal to get into the White House again!
See "A Wild Year in Politics, ..."
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/27/nx-s1-5222570/2024-politics-recap
Also see Voter Turnout by Election Cycle Table, Seth Cline, U.S. News & World Report, Source: University of Florida Election Lab
2024, Approx. Voter Turnout 64%, (63.9%)
Eligible Voting Population: 244,666,890,
Non-Voters: 89,278,984
Total Ballots Counted: 156,336,693
I don't understand why voter turnout is so low in the USA. Your NPR link says that 63,9% turnout is the second highest in 100 years. That's incredibly low! What must all the other turnout figures have been? Is it because of voter suppression?
Neither do we.
What’s worse than being dragged out of the White House and through the streets by an angry mob?
You know, we in the psych community have been warning about this for donkey's years, and it seems very few among the general population have been listening. I find myself wondering if this is because our vocabulary is too foreign to them. "Malign Narcissism" is a handy-for-us shorthand for saying selfish, crooked, greedy, dangerous creep. Wish we'd been saying that from the beginning. I guess adding something like "easily manipulated by flattery and bribes" and "can never be trusted" to round out the picture.
criminally-minded as well.
I think every academic community hasn’t learned the power, that is social media meets identity politics. Then u had manipulation by big tech to alter the algorithms in support of Trump 2.0. Combined social media is a military grade psychological weapon.
The age of surveillance capitalism by Dr. Shoshana Zuboff
Pfft, and where are the articles of impeachment? Congress now bears all the responsibility of enabling this madman.
Check out Dam Harris podcast. Republicans are scared they will get primaries. And scared for their families from radicalized magats. Crazy, weak, cowardice.
"Scared of being primaried" isn't a real fear - it's greed. Scared for their families... aren't they the people with guns?
In addition to tanking our economy, he embraces the New Feudalism, where the wealthy rule and the rest of us are serfs (a group that will grow in size).
As for ICE detaining people without cause, here are 2 Germans who were coming into the US from Mexico with legal papers, and yet, they were arrested and detained by ICE without committing any crime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C_x_hAryV0
ICE has been unleashed to be their most vicious selves, kind of like the SS in the 1930s.
Plenty of people have been pointing out that we do not need to use 1930s European countries to explain what is going on. I am reading Freedom's Dominion by Jefferson Cowie in a political book club of Democrats Abroad and he is discussing the kind of feudal freedom of slave nations that is embraced by those who are running things now. I call this the New Feudalism. It is certainly about a different kind of freedom than Dr. Martin Luther King talks about. Instead it is the freedom of wealthy, mostly White men to own other people and do whatever they want without consequences.
This Bulwark article furthers that idea, and ties it to the South.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/liberal-democracy-american-south-vance-bourbons?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Our institution of slavery means that the US has a history of brutal treatment of people that some are not able to move beyond. ICE is like the plantation hierarchy, and these are the overseers in a system that is at its core, cruel.
Not only do we have the cruel ICE, but also the cruel January 6 people who have all been pardoned. The US, under Trump, has become so excessively corrupt so quickly that it makes the head spin. What we must all strive to do, is to not let this become normal.
ICE= the TrumpStapo (trumps gestapo)
This is worrying. It appears we have a government entity that is either out of control or in control of Nazis. Keeping a U.S. citizen chained to a bench is not normal, not legal, not humane. But that's the point: sow fear in all, even legal citizens.
I think it is important for people to be aware that US citizens are being detained by ICE and not treated very well in the interim. It is not just brown-skinned people, but everyone can be faced with this illegal behavior, so don't feel safe. It also seems like they are discouraging people from going to Mexico. Clearly driving over the border is not the way to go.
However, if you have black or brown skin you should be even more wary of being illegally detained.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/8/2301289/-Caribbean-Matters-ICE-raids-target-Puerto-Ricans-and-Puerto-Rico
How many more reports of this government malfeasance will we see? I spent two years stationed near San Juan, and can attest to that attitude even on the island (back then, my hair was black and, with the tan from an unrelenting sun, I was mistaken as a brown-skinned Puerto Rican. I know - my kids don't believe me, but I remember).
Yet not a word from MSM. 😡
I think this is true. What better gift for Putin than to show that democracy and capitalism don’t work?
The other day the Guardian published a timeline of things Trump has said or done, since only February!, that show that he is helping Putin and hurting Ukraine.
He is owned by Putin.
The Senate confrontation yesterday, in which Merkley, Landau, and Whittaker discussed reasons why Trump is a Russian asset, was chilling. In case you missed it, the reasons Merkley mentioned were: in the Oval Office, Trump said Zelinskyy is a dictator, he said Ukraine started the war, he gave away negotiations before they began such as the US will oppose Ukraine's entry into NATO, he completely cut off arms shipments to Ukraine, he undermined an 80-year partnership with Europe, and he paused US intelligence to Ukraine. Landau and Whittaker couldn't say any of it was not true, because it's all true. What will we do about it?
- PULLED QUOTE -
''That is, the Trump administration has arrested and detained a legal resident for expressing an opinion that Trump officials don’t like, likely using Khalil to launch this extraordinary attack on the First Amendment because they don’t expect Americans to care deeply about his fate.''
Exactly. What Trump and his minions are doing is probing, probing and poking to see what they can get away with.
All the while stealing after they fired the inspector generals.
I was just going to leave a comment saying the same thing. People keep asking why is he destroying the economy? For the same reason, he’s destroying America’s relationships with our European allies. He is a Putin asset. It seems pretty obvious why aren’t people talking about that?
“Trump is inciting an economic storm,” Long wrote. “The big question is why he’s doing this.”
He's doing it to incite civil unrest so he can declare martial law, install himself as dictator, suspend the 2026 election and complete privatizing (stealing) all government functions so he and his billionaire friends can run them and extract the profit. This is all planned and deliberate. The Constitution and rule of law only get in his way so he simply ignores them, along with his republican enablers (who have wanted government privatized, or "drowned in a bathtub" since forever) and his corrupt Supreme Court. Still, trump is but the figurehead. Look to the Heritage Foundation, the Koch brothers, etc. etc. who are actually the masterminds behind this. trump is just a useful tool (or fool -- take your pick).
Eureka!
Senator Merkley: “Is President Trump a Russian asset? People back home have been asking me this question, saying, if he was a Russian asset we would see exactly what he’s doing now. For example, he’s sharing Russian propaganda that Ukraine started the war.”
No question in my mind. I bet he's been cozy with Russia for a long, long time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLmL5BVe1nA
There is another problem, which touches on the lying versus being delusional debate. It's both. He lies deliberately, but more importantly, like all sociopaths and narcissists, he truly believes what he says to be true. This makes him so convincing to his followers. It's in the truest sense of the word brainwashing.
Yes!
Dr Steven Hasan
Dr Bandy Lee
(1,000s more psychiatrists and psychologists)
“Trump did not inherit an economy mired in crisis, of course; he inherited what was, at the time, the strongest economy in the world.”
As he warns the United States that “things will get worse” but we’ll be rolling in dough, he’s only referring to himself and the billionaire class of thugs dismantling our government. Watch for the privatization of services coming soon to the federal departments on which we all desperately depend.
Exactly, Kari! That is Musk’s idea: crash the economy, and buy everything you can at low prices. It’s like a discount sale for billionaires!
Do you suppose the recent effort to make crypto an official currency of the Treasury is more than just a means of receiving dark money, but also a way of funneling tax dollars from the Treasury into the coffers of the elite?? It is largely unregulated and a choice medium for criminal transactions and grift.
Crypto is an even bigger disaster. There is a problem here with the people who like applications of blockchain technology not having a firm grip on how early high school mathematics is relevant in everyday life. Anytime anything is growing exponentially, at some point something is going to break. In this case, it is the growth demand for electric power. I live in Washington State, and our local power companies mostly purchase their power from either the Bonneville Power Administration or from the Bureau of Reclamation. We are being told that these will be unreliable providers starting in about two years. There are several culprits - data centers in general (AI and cloud services), blockchain apps, which is primarily Bitcoin, and the movement away from fossil fuels. As I see it, two of those three need to be reigned in. No matter, even if it isn't, the whole mess is going to come crashing down fairly soon.
In addition to all the other problems with crypto, it is a massive user of energy, which makes it criminally stupid to use in this era of climate change. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/05/04/cryptocurrency-energy/
Bingo. That is the idea: bleed the Treasury and the American tax payers dry. Don't forget: Musk has given up this Earth, he wants to escape with his space ship to Mars and leave everybody else behind to burn in the climate catastrophe. So that is why he is grabbing all he can at light speed: he is in a hurry.
According to Bill Browder, Putin did this very thing in Russia.
It's always the same playbook, isn't it...
Not even he can be that stupid to think life on Mars is possible in a hurry.
When you're high on ketamine, you'll believe anything. One of the side-effects of frequent use is the increase of delusions. It also can create complete lack of empathy or regard for other people. One can become an emotionless hulk.
Oh yes. That is his goal: to go beyond his heroes. Musk's ego was bruised, and he wants to fix it. His heroes went to the moon, so Musk needs to go beyond: to Mars. This video explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MoACklnnxk
I wish he would leave already! It would be good riddance.
The sooner he leaves for Mars the better!
I am just imagining he is going to experiment with sending humans he sees as dispensable to Mars—deporting undesirables.
Nah, he needs to be the hero. Mankind may be saved, but only at the hands (and grace) of Elon Musk - otherwise, we can go and burn in hell for all he cares.
CRYPTO is (what did Musk say?) “the biggest Ponzi scheme!”
Dutch. Damn 😈😈😈
Russia Russia Russia!
😭😭😭 Stealing from the hard working American middle class so you can go to hell with billions? Burn in hell !
Break it then “fix” it with privatization. What repubs have wanted for all my adult life. No wonder they cave when muskrat says “this is our chance, we’ll never have another one.” Tis true,
And they've managed to dumb down the populace to the point where 70 million of them will believe anything they're told.
Nailed it, JD.
Many governmental functions are far too vital and/or to dangerous to be privatized; subjected to private conflicts of interest, opacity, and lack of full public accountability. I think robust private enterprise is great, but as a service to society, not it's master.
I do agree the thrust of the Musk/Trump agenda is to so weaken our country so that oligarchs can swoop in and buy up services to run, for more money and with less ac-cumin, for a profit. Imagine a privately owned nuclear stock-pile. We will be weaker in every way.
Privatized medicine has given us the shortest life spans and highest infant mortality rates in the developed world (actually El Salvador does better than the US in both those areas) - all for multiples of what others pay. A privatized government will be much the same, paying a lot more money for fewer and much crappier services. We will be far weaker as a result.
Repubs have tried this every decade of my adult life. The bait and switch of today may pull it off
"Reaganomics". I seem to recall claims that tax cuts for the rich would more than pay for themselves (that public revenues would actually swell, making up on volume what was lost on every collection with an incoming wave of shared prosperity. All I saw come of it was calls for "austerity" (for some) and "We can't afford that; we're broke"). Oh well, if we cut taxes and accountability for the ultra wealth, maybe this time, THIS time, Main Street will get a lift?
Don't hold your breath.
Steve, you probably read Prof. Richardson's Newsletter of March 5th in which she discussed the same agenda you mention. She referenced a Substack publication "The View from Rural Missouri" by Jess Piper. Piper posted an article entitled "I Know Exactly What They're Doing" on March 5th in which she argued that the Trump agenda is exactly as you say: 1. Wreck the government. 2. Impoverish the people. 3. Free our willing, duplicitous Oligarchs to come in, buy whatever assets are left at Fire Sale prices, and begin "privatizing" everything. For me, this was eye-opening to say the least.
Not to mention the oath that federal employees take to support AND defend the constitution…
I’m not sure that’s a requirement for all civil service positions. It is from the military and for elected officials, but I don’t think there an oath of office required for lower level civil service.
Disagree. I worked in federal court for nearly 20 years and the oath was required for employment.
It is. Ask any federal employee. And for most of them (T**** appointees and 'special employees' excluded) so is a security clearance.
T***p has not required security clearance for any of his minions.
Putin pre-approved.
I don’t remember, but I surely remember about being lax with classified material
I found by Duck Duck Go a site that mentions ten cases where people were punished for breaking security protocols. Likely a right wing site, it argues that Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted for conducting government business on a private server. The examples appear to be real. A bit ironic since whats sauce for the goose is sauce for the grifter.
Tuesday Close:
***************
Heavy selling in the last 2 minutes of Trading Dow 🔻Down 478.84. 🔻Down 1.14%
Peter Navarro of all people was trying to calm Markets to no avail.
Down 1300 points 🔻Down over 2 Days
Meanwhile Trump turned the White House Lawn into new Tesla Car Lot & bought a Tesla from the struggling white male, Afrikaner Oligarch.
*****
Got some good new here in CA while waiting for the Close. KATIE PORTER sent out an email announcing she is running for Governor California. ✊🏽
Tuesday at 10AM Eastern:
**************************
Per Bloomberg Business 3/11 the DOW is Down🔻309 .75
The S&P 500 has list a Trillion 🔴dollars in value since 2/19/25 Biden's last day on Office.
A much older Lawrence (Larry) Summers predicted on Bloomberg interview this morning a "more than 50% chance of a Global Recession." 🔴
DJT confirms Steel & Aluminum Tariffs still on for 3/12 & his love for the Golden Age is still intact but, 401k's are not🔻happy.
There is ZERO Support for DJT's face on any U.S. paper currency.
*****************************************************************
Monday After Market Close
TESLA, Inc was down 🔻 15.43% at the Market close. Elon admits he is running the company "with great difficulty". The drop of 45%🔻 in 2025 will likely draw a shareholders class action lawsuit.
The Pre-Market stock sales open at 4:00 AM Eastern before the 3/11/25 U.S. Open. Euro trading sent VW up 📈on the Euro Market. TESLA will also likely up some early [ last pre-market trade at 4:35 AM Eastern TESLA up at 227.25 but, Caveat Emptor .....
〰️ Choppy 〰️ Waters hard to swim.
The privatization of government services for the public good is a recipe for disaster.
Kari, privatization was what created oligarchy in Russia and it's influence in all aspects of culture, politics and and the economy. Here we have the oligarchy already that is taking over the whole country.Privatization it's going to make them richer.
Already talking about the post office.
The royal "we."
Are all those people who lost their jobs going to be rolling in dough? Even taking a buyout, the money won't last forever. Would taking the buyout make you eligible for unemployment? If so, I would love to see the unemployment figures.
You’re right! We’re in a terrible situation. The only folks who will be rolling in dough are the billionaires
Thanks for fleshing out the frightening detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Seems like a staged step by DHS that is an ill omen for everyone involved in resisting government policies and random acts of authoritarianism. It was some splice to see that former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has been detained under the ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity. This maybe? will give the likes of Putin and Netanyahu pause. The two events side by side paint a pretty important picture of the current struggle.
Suggest reading Steve Vladeck's preliminary analysis titled "Five Questions About the Khalil Case" posted yesterday:
https://open.substack.com/pub/stevevladeck/p/131-five-questions-about-the-khalil?r=flasu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Agreed. That terrifies me.
Yes , Trump is delusional. For my money he’s psychotic. Most of us have known that for some time now.
The question is; WHERE THE HELL IS CONGRESS?!!! It is the sworn constitutional duty of Congress to reign in and, if necessary, boot out, a delusional, psychotic president. The Do-Nothing (nod to Harry Truman) Republican majorities in both houses are utterly derelict in their sworn duty to preserve and protect the Constitution. The crimes and misdeeds of the Musk/Trump Administration are their crimes and misdeeds as well.
Besides being guilty of high treason and dereliction of duty, they are gutless, spineless cowards afraid, afraid!, of facing their own constituents. They are the real criminals here.
Well, Ralph, I think Mump has collected his Congressional sycophants nutz and is holding them hostage & that’s why they don’t have the, um, cojones to stand up to him or thwart his ludicrous directives. A very sad legacy for these toadies indeed.
Loved your comment Barbara especially one part of it..🤔
The Dems have left the building.
"The Dems have left the building."
What would you have the Democrats do? As the minority party in both houses, their effetive options are few. They have filed multiple lawsuits, and judges have issued several restrining orders and injunctions. I believe even articles of impeachment have been intrduced in the house and quickly voted down by the Republican majority.
We have a president who cares nothing for the law, and a legislature majority that appears to be more than OK with letting him do it.
So, what's your advice to the Democrats to stem the damage that they haven't already done? Please, be specific.
Therein lies the rub. All they've done is what they can legally do, but when the party in control does not understand or take seriously its responsibility to the Constitution, the last recourse is for the citizenry to act.
Yes, we have elections - in 2026, and in 2028. Many months away.
Unless the Republicans have an epiphany and see their duty clearly, I give us four months before there will be an uprising, and enough citizens flooding the streets of Washington, D.C. to take control of the government. By that time, it will be a justified action. And we'll be lucky if the military follows the Constitution rather than T****'s orders to 'just shoot at their legs'.
T**** is not a student of history, and probably does not think he could end up as our 21st century Mussolini. Let Elon continue to run amok, f**k up Social Security, and the result may well be his undoing. How many grandparents are there who will not allow their grandchildren to grow up under a fascist regime. Those grandparents are children of the greatest generation, and have experienced a government that would not listen to them (Viet Nam, anyone?). It took massive protests to move that government. The question now is: can our protests move this government back to normalcy, back to respecting the rule of law and the Constitution.
In August it will be fifty-five years since I turned in my M-16 and left Phu Bai, and I've thought often on the decision I made in 1966 when the draft board letter arrived. There are millions of us who survived and went on to lead quiet lives, hoping our sons would never be called upon to fight in any war, just or unjust. I count myself as one of the lucky ones.
Other than a couple of summer camps when my sons were in Boy Scouts, I have not had a firearm in my hands since that day, certainly nothing of military capability. I hope the day never comes that forces me to again take up arms. On most days though, I can still see its approach. And it will come, in part, because so many of our citizens have no experience of the horrors of war. They cannot identify with the Ukrainian people just as we could not identify with the Vietnamese, and the closest they've ever been to armed conflict is a video game.
So now I'm left to worry about my grandsons and granddaughters. I will not allow them to grow up under a murderous fascist regime. The cancer in the Oval Office must be removed. It is of my generation, and my generation must redeem itself by removing it. We dare not shirk our responsibility.
James, I was too young for Vietnam, and first too gay, then too old for military service. I also swore an oath to defend the constitution and I carried weapon(s) in my daily life as I served my community for 25 years as a patrol deputy for a county the size of Connecticut. I maintain weapons proficiency, and will stand in front of those who need the protection.
I am of that generation as well and ready to fight again - for my children and grandchildren. Attended a protest in our small town last week and we had a great turnout. These will only get bigger as summer approaches. Keep the faith!
Thank you, James. Your perspective is enormously enlightening.
Thanks, James. I’m of your generation, remember the massive protests to move that government, and was hoping we would not have to go that route again. However, I see it coming — especially if they go after Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. T**** never has had the IQ to run a successful business and now appears to be losing his ability to learn or respond normally. I’m no psychiatrist, but both he and Musk also appear to have significant mental disorders.
We need millions to protest- sadly, our U.S. capital is so far from so many of the states & difficult & costly to get to.
Yes, coincidentally it was Rep. Al Green ( recently censored for interrupting during speech) who introduced the articles of impeachment shortly after the inauguration.
"The Dems have left the building."
Could they not meet one another "off-campus", form a plan to woo the Republcans away from Trump, one by one or in twos, befriend and encourage the opponents to stop and think again, listen and sympathize, catch them off- guard with honey.
I mean they are all salesmen at heart.
The Democrats have been trying that Nice Guy routine for the last thirty years, with little success.
They care only about being re-elected. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.
I fail to understand why, day after day, there are attempts to assign strategy to Krasnov's actions. Isn't it enough to simply admit, he doesn't have any idea what he's doing?
He does, revenge, hate and greed. What we all teach our children. Half this country hates Dems enough to vote for neoNazis. No secret here. He is a greedy, lying, delusional bastard, who will target anyone who will likely be hated by the cult. That’s at least half of us. We are all Jews now, it seems…
I am less pessimistic about the percentage of the country that hates Dems. This is so much about who is able to get the message out. Trump, Musk and the oligarchs own the corporate media or at least most of it. The NY Times barely said a positive thing about the Biden Presidency for four years publishing five or six stories a day about Trump instead. Same with the WAPO and Fox News has rarely, if ever said a positive thing about a single Democrat.
So we're left with Substack and YouTube and TikTok to get our message out? Even Facebook is filled with conspiracy theories, lies and other far-right propaganda.
Just watch the media white-wash what is happening to our economy while blaming Biden and the Dems at the same time.
Even CSPAN. I just changed the channel: the National League of Cities conference went from mayors talking about disaster relief to Rosie Ruiz giving a sales pitch for the 250th (she's got infectious enthusiasm) to what made me switch: J.D. Vance was welcomed to the stage, to much applause. My antacids are upstairs, as is the bourbon.
Bonded and barrel proof? That will do the trick. Some of that drinks below it's proof.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and others are telling it like it is. The March 10 evening program was all about how the idiot and his cult are tanking the economy. The problem is, this truth doesn't reach the other idiots that need to know this.
I’m a huge fan of Decoding Fox News on Substack. It’s a week of Fox in 45 min. And it compares Fox coverage with PBS. Once you hear what MAGA hears, you UNDERSTAND their unbelievable loyalty. On Fox, He has done no wrong. Just listen: Https://decodingfoxnews.substack.com?r=4j5a4
Shawn, I saw a meme on Facebook, a worm-faced, MAGA hat wearing figure with it's mouth open and a pipe that looks a lot like a 3" sewage export pipe feeding it: the label says "Russian Propaganda".
I called out some MAGAt commenters on a post and told them what they were taking as gospel was Russian propaganda. One unfriending and block came from that.
My husband checks the Fox News headlines daily (I don't know how he does it!). As I've said before, they're in another universe over there.
There does seem a twisted logic in it, which is not to say it's all that rational, but know thy enemy if you can.
Occam’s Razor applied to Trump.
He does know what he's doing in the sense that Putin tells him what to do.
I'm very happy the home equity loan I applied for already has its interest rate locked in at 8 percent. But that rate will be adjusted a year from now. Anyone want to guess what interest rates will be like in March of 2026?
Also... "not liking President Trump" is rapidly becoming a crime punishable by sentences I'm afraid to imagine.
I thought I was a victim of usury when I locked in at 5.65% 20 years ago. We really are being SOLD, aren't we? The middle-class and poor are paying trillions to support banks and other institutions owned by a few very wealthy people. If you make the minimum monthly payments, you will end up paying your bank roughly 5X the amount of your loan over the next 30 years.
My bank seemed to do just fine charging me 5.65% - and my parents 3%. Why do they need 8% now? How will they justify charging 10 or 12% in 2026? Access to capital, affordable shelter and healthcare, and reliable sources of information are some of the REAL issues we need to be discussing now, not the latest ravings of two drug-addicted perps with anti-social personality disorder. Sorry for the rant Steve, but I needed it - Thanks.
Just like they justified 9 percent when we got a mortgage in the 80s, and refi'd at 6 some years later. The market swings, naturally, but we've got such big players now that they can manipulate it to our detriment.
Not to love Der Fuhrer is a big disgrace...
just a bit confused, if it's "locked" how can it be adjusted?
Because the lock only lasts for one year
I’m wondering when I’ll get blocked on Facebook for my frequent posts critical of trump et al. Sometimes now as I’m writing a comment on another’s post, a weird pale gray line appears. I’m not blocked from posting my full comment but it makes me wonder if I’m being tracked.
Heather often now mentions the chaos from Musk, the orange felon, & crew.
Lyndsey Stonebridge looks at such chaos in her recent book, “We are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience.”
“The starting point [for totalitarianism] was the uprooting of people that had come with capitalism, imperialism, nationalism . . .,” she writes. Yes, “The starting point . . . uprooting” to which she refers explains, too, our recent offshoring of millions of U.S. jobs – along with the wealth gap chasm into which more tens of millions have been junked. But she goes on: “The end point for totalitarian regimes was to make human superfluousness a permanent condition for absolute rule.”
Are we at this end point? In installing their convicted criminal in the White House, haven’t U.S. billionaires and Putin made the rest of us superfluous, tens of millions scarfing down Musk’s and the orange felon’s chaos?
And when the schools killed humanities (for depersonalized testing instead), doesn’t Lyndsey Stonebridge’s next line nab exactly why, now, we find ourselves in new totalitarianism threshold:
“The anonymity of modern life discovered its denouement in a political system in which human beings ceased to matter at all.”
Yes, much about “modern life” is abhorrent to me. The Andy Cohenization (lord of the Flies mentality), survivor competitions (some nude now), the crude, rude wrestling productions, Fox entertainment, along with the horrid Apprentice, to name a few. I hate much of what I’m immersed in today. But I have seen our better angels, even though they are not popular today. The promise of America is not dead, but chump’s America First crap is so hokey that I was sure none would succumb to pukifying diatribes. I was as wrong as wrong can be. May a spark still burn…
Brilliant explanation. I would add that the rise and exploitation of celebrity cult status postwar, set within the absolute winner/ loser competitive worldview of capitalist ideology, has added a difficult to dissolve doomloop of societal self destruction. A disorder born of collective narcissism.
The reductionist-materialistic philosophy of ‘modern’ Western science brought to its climax. All hail the Matrix, the Machine God: humans as cheap resources for production - emotionless, faceless, mechanical. The quantum physicist David Bohm said: “Fragmented thinking may well lead to our extinction.” Well, here we are…
Or as business schools teach, labor is an expense and employees are fungible items of labor. Explains a lot, doesn't it? 🤔
Government regulation is supposed to be a check on unbridled Capitalism. Otherwise the people suffer. That's the truth that is now suppressed.
Bingo.
Hyper-commercialization has a hand in that, including the corruption of curricula.
Let's not forget that an icon among tech billionaires by the name of Curtis Yarvin once said that one way to deal with the poor would be to turn them into bio-fuels, using the prison system as a giant rendering facility. I have no idea if he was 'joking,' but his line got a good laugh at one of their gatherings. As in, "wink-wink, say no more, heh heh."
Along with that, Leigh, remember why they kicked humanities out of schools.
Novels, memoirs, histories, films, and the other arts focus on individual characters, emotions probed in some depth -- with respect for individuals and their complex circumstances. The billionaires and far-right foundations that implemented the Powell memo have nothing but contempt for people (though the biz schools do teach ways to keep all reduced to consumers, all in various set, fixed demographics easy for targeting group by group).
The tests reinforce never seeing anything or anyone personally. Only "skills" at seeing by categories, by simple linear chronology, life as nothing but the molecule-based, unit-by-unit replaceable, purchasable items.
They're cynics, nihilists, these billionaires. Their algorithms can manipulate all. Their oodles of money dangled in front of public officials have totally corrupted Washington, D.C.
But they rule.
And they long ago took all our humanities off the table, away from now humanly empty, depersonalized schools.
Hat tip for the Monty Python reference, not so much for Thiel.
Soylent Green anyone?
Phil, according to Progress Radio there are 100,000 elections in 2025. Many have already occurred. Musk and the other oligarchs can't buy them all like they did with the two Senate seats and the Presidency. They don't think they matter. But we can't buy into that? Where did Pete Buttigieg come from? Or Bill Clinton? Or Barack Obama? The next great Democrat President could be running for mayor of Pocatello, ID this year. Nobody knows.
Let's help the Trump Republican Party implode by supporting local and statewide candidates in 2025 & 2026.
The Republican message is all bullshit right now. They are tanking the economy and destroying each department in the Federal government. We need to rub this disaster in the face of every Republican. All they can do is deny what is happening with "alternate" facts that are lies.
I'm not sorry that the economy is tanking and that Republicans are losing their 401-Ks and businesses. Let them feel the pain they have wrought.
Remember, too, Gary, how crowded a field it is.
Putin very much involved -- with his money, intel, and techie boys's platforms all harnessed to get Americans more divided, more hostile to each other.
And he was most successful on top of all that getting his main asset into the oval office, from where to spew more hatred, more lies, more destruction of our republic.
Gary, could you please use "democratic" as the adjective? The word "Republican" is both a noun and an adjective; Democrat is the noun, and democratic is the adjective. Rush Limbaugh started (I think) using "Democrat" as a derisive adjective; I do NOT want that to slip into the common vernacular!
It's too late for that. I've started rewriting my sentences to use "Democratic" target than "Democrat." The far right started using "Democrat" as a pejorative some time ago.
Oh yes, that's correct! I've had this image in my mind of the human batteries field in The Matrix. We all are just needed for the purposes of these authoritarian leaders and then get discarded. Such an awful feeling. Ourr life, our feelings, our loved ones, don't count. We are all just fuel.
Personally Phil, I think the current ruling oligarchs may be banking on a mass die off. Those superfluous ones left will be servants (slaves) and the ranks backfilled with robots. They will let others join them in the oligarchy as they see fit. We allowed unregulated capitalism to gobble up our country and allowed it because to do otherwise might benefit more Black Americans getting a leg up. It’s why we don’t have universal healthcare and public education is dying. Those standardized tests which I also despise are a version of a voting poll tax. I predict it’s why Amazon will get the big post office contract so a good paying job is eliminated —pulled right out from under its employees. All this because this country has always operated to exploit labor and resources and anything interrupting that paradigm is short lived—just a case of the hiccups.
THIS. Absolutely right on! Thanks for posting.
Absolute horror show we inhabit, T.R.
Lyndsey Stonebridge is great summarizing how millions lost the ability to tell fact from fiction 90 years ago in Germany (and other countries demoralized by recent history then). More millions couldn't take politics seriously -- just gave up, exactly as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave up on bringing up for a vote the Constitution's Article 14, Section Three.
Had he done so, the convicted criminal could not now be in the White House.
Most Americans now crave chaos, nihilism, cynicism, hatred. And we're getting it, fire hose after fire hose of nihilism, cynicism, hatred, and chaos.
I think there is a root to that evil. I think a lot of it is ultimately defensive rather than primarily offensive, not to say there are no offenders. Dogs often display "fear aggression".
Always, but consequences are severe, usually that is
Several years ago I met with a man who had been deported from the United States. There appeared to be a significant issue as to the deportation order and I asked him why he had not contacted his attorney until after he was deported from the country. At that time he said that it was a practice when he was put in jail to move him on a schedule of approximately every five or six days. It turned out that he was placed in one of the private prisons and that they had rules that a person was granted telephone privileges until they had been in the prison for about a week. Then the telephone time was limited to small number of prisoners per day. By constantly moving the deportees they were guarantied that their lawyers could not interfere and the cost of moving was covered by the government. It really is time for us to think about these and other practices that are and have been put in place to reduce rights and the benefits of laws. I personally have no confidence about this Administration following the rule of law and of them changing laws, rules and procedures against anyone they deem an enemy. Remember they could be using their fight against immigrants as a testing of procedures against all Americans. The right to a phone call when one is arrested is one that was found by the Supreme Court there is now a question whether this Court will follow these precedents.
🤬
Trump’s behavior is causing global markets to plummet. His illegal actions against anyone who publicly challenges him are only just beginning.
There is some good news, however. Williams & Connolly, one of the premiere law firms in challenges against the Federal government, has been retained by Perkins Coie to challenge Trump’s stripping the firm from access to any government buildings or officials.
I’ll be watching this case.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/us/politics/trump-perkins-coie.html
Robert Hubbell explains who's who among Biglaw, and calls Sullivan & Cromwell, the firm now representing Trump in his appeal from the 34 felony convictions in New York, "the Tesla of Biglaw."
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/sullivan-and-cromwell-the-tesla-of/
The wealthy “friends” of DJT and F-Elon who have gotten themselves appointed to places in the government they know nothing about, are having field days with destroying regular folks lives. They’re dead-set on their goals of making the Everyman their slave or the Everywoman, their handmaiden. This is not hyperbole. They see themselves as being better than us. They think because they possess wealth, that they know how to run our government so much more efficiently when it fact, it is a lie. They’re dead plan on taking our money and investing it into private equities that will steal or purchase properties that we previously owned, downgrade them, and then rebuild them for a nice a little profit. Think of gentrification which they have done to drive the people out of their longtime homes so others who are in a higher socio-economic position, can just move right on in. The ethics that pour out in doing this is horrifying and dangerous.
It’s like they’re chomping at the bit to build detention centers to put innocent people and children into them. Look what happened to Khalil. Supposedly ICE agents arrested him but then didn’t reveal where he was…he disappeared. Things like this happened in Germany where in unmarked cars the SS would grab a person speaking out against the Nazi government and poof! That person was never seen again. This is what we have to fight hard against.
Heather, I just want to say that my jaw dropped when you revealed what Ann Coulter said! Never would I have ever thought that I would agree with someone like her.
Marlene, I think of these folks in their rarified atmosphere/bubble of “reality” and kinda wish for them a significantly long experience in a “switched at birth” life experience…a walk for a good long distance in others shoes. Might make a difference….maybe, maybe not.
It feels like we’re hanging by a thread. The courts are our last formal hook into democracy. Congress has capitulated. We have to hang there. Speak out - write - protest. Whatever we can do. The people must win this attack against our democracy. We are the key to our future.
How can the country accept Trump's excuse that starting a recession is part of his solution for making America wealthy again? Pure nonsense.
I know there were those in the public who followed Trump’s Covid advice, ingesting bleach and livestock dewormer. It does flummox me how Republicans and business leaders continue to go along with the economic shit show as it has got to be rocking their own economic wellbeing.
A friend of mine actually died from organ failure after taking massive doses of ivermectin over about 14 months, but supported the orange monster till her last breath.
Sorry for your loss. I have read many COVID victims died denying COVID to their last breath. It is strange how people can be turned so thoroughly against their own interests.
Can’t bring myself to ‘like” that …I am so sorry.
I am not sure what LIKED is supposed to mean. I think of it primarily as a thanks for sharing, and some degree of resonance.
💔
That is so sad.
KSC, lemming DNA might ‘splain it! 🤷🏻♀️
Barbara, I have to push back in defense of the lemmings. It’s a little ironic as the notion that the actual rodents would be so stupid as to follow advice /fall in line with the outrageous distortions of reality promulgated by Trump 1.0 and 2.0 arises from the fabrication of untruths in distortion of reality by Disney in a ‘documentary.’ See https://www.businessinsider.com/lemmings-dont-commit-suicide-off-cliffs-2016-2.
Agree, KSC, I was just cowing to the oft repeated meme….no disrespect to lemmings intended!!!! Humans on the other hand…..
Well stated!
The evangelical magas I know believe these are the signs of the end times and that the orange sadist is in place to welcome Jesus back. FFS.
If I recall correctly, sometime ago there was a TV show or video or some such thing showing the “Rapture” and folks earth-wide being “taken up” to their beloved wherever….and then those remaining on earth sighing with relief and living, collectively, happily ever after.
Like Musk blasting off to Mars. Enjoy.
HEH! HEH! HEH! Gawd! that's a good one right there!
Love it…
Now THAT will be priceless.
They're gonna welcome Jesus back and just wind up doing the same thing to him again it would seem.
Deportation for speaking out in defense of Palestinians and Ukrainians that are being killed and invaded by belligerent factions and militaries. Imprisoned. Probably tortured and executed since they won't recognize a messiah that speaks out against the lying, the greed, the corruption, the hate and advocates for Peace, equality and social justice...
Simple: Cheer on the Orange Emperor and blame the Dems for anything bad that happens.
Old tactic my friend, but still works if you have enough idiots to believed. Lately,as usual BIden and Soros are back as the instigators of anything wrong happening.
Yessiree. Biden is Schrödinger's president: an all-powerful marionette of the elites controlling everything, and at the same time too old and demented to get anything done.
Nice assessment, Dutch Mike.
You have just measured the American public's understanding of economics, the head honcho included, and found it wanting.
Bait and switch. Bigly.
Orange_O_nomics. We'll get to see first hand just what - "There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that.” - actually means. I'm sure that most people that have to balance a family budget won't be ok with that.
Before the election when Trump was telling an economic forum his tariffs were the answer, the look of disbelief on a audience that actually knew what they were listening to, meant... said all you needed to know. This won't be an elevator down, more like a lift without a cable... good grief.
The tariffs, like the bleach, solutions of a untethered mind. The scary thing now is that he doesn’t seem to have enough clarity to try and steady the markets …he has lost all inhibition.
I think that to a malignant narcissist with power, the world and people in it are no more than personal playthings. A toy box.
Muskrat assures him that all will be well, not sure if Putin agrees
I am convinced that it is more a matter of mental deterioration as HCR and Fallows have argued. And it may not be long until Vance takes the throne as a Catholic King imagined by the project 2025 sect.
What I expected, but Putin and the oligarch’s are letting his revenge tour play out, at least til July. So it seems
The royal "we."
Heather, nobody seems to be mentioning that X got hacked three times today. I have to admit, I have been wondering where some of the hacking experts on the ‘good side’ have been hiding. How about fighting fire with fire? And while they’re at it, maybe they could find out what Trump has on those MAGA sycophants up on Capitol Hill…
Anonymous is probably after Muskrat.
Gods, I hope so!
I was just wondering how many of those fired 80% former Twitter employees who have deep knowledge of its inner workings hold a grudge....
Everything he has done seems designed to destroy the United States, get rid of its Constitution (he's had help there), destroy its military and reduce its economy to a smoking ruin. I'd say he's doing a fabulous job for Putin, who still appears to be one of the people he admires most in the world. Whether he is consciously an asset for the Kremlin or not, doesn't matter at this point. He is achieving all their goals in record time. Back in the 90s when everyone was cheering that the US had "won" the Cold War, I thought at the time that you'd need both sides to agree to that; now we see that the US has just unilaterally surrendered. All it took was time and a little propaganda.
What gobsmacks me, Angela, is how many so-called Americans support this “vision” of America as a Autocracy/Oligarchy/Theocracy/Kleptocracy (aka Mandate For Leadership/Project 2025 and its precursors)…to them I say, be careful what you wish for.
Me too. I've listened to Republican BS my entire life about how much more they care about national security than Democrats and lots more crap from them about Russians. Turns out they didn't care about any of that - they were just trying to up the size of the bribe they'd be offered to sell out their country.
After selling their country, ours will be next.
Barbara, yesterday, after posting a comment about no cure for stupidity, another reader send me a replay citing a quote by St Kassianni, an Orthodox saint that said "The only cure for stupidity is death"
They were told that all the bad stuff would only fall on "those people." Look at the reports of MAGA who were fired by DOGE, then were upset because they lost their jobs.
He has always hated this country and everything it stands for, especially the rule of law. As a sociopath he has no respect for anything that stands in his way.
Yes and he hates us even more now since some of us dared to attempt to hold him accountable for a few of his many crimes against the country.
A lot of propaganda, and I remember the repubs in Congress at that time. Arrogant bastards who may seem not bad compared with today, but they were horrid, and egotistical maniacs.
Exactly right. They helped create this situation for sure.
Newt.
Right on, Angela: you’ve nailed it. The Orange Clown is simply enacting Putin’s orders.
Actually - I think they have a deal - he wants Canada, Greenland and Panama, he's prepared to give Putin Europe for that. Hope the Europeans get their act together quick enough.
But I think the US will be without allies in the not too distant future, if it is not already.
Well, I think it's more like Putin _allows_ Trump to take Canada, Greenland and Panama, in exchange for pulling the US out of NATO, stopping support for Ukraine, and instead deploying the US military there. We'll be fighting both Russian and American soldiers here in Europe.
You may very well be right. I hope very much you won't have to fight at all.
Be careful what you wish for. If Putin starts playing with nukes, we definitely won't have to fight at all...
I can assure you that was not the way I meant it! 😉
Even as it stands, the UK/EU would give Russia a swirly if they attacked. They can't even win in Ukraine and have been bled white over the last three years.
Why do people continue to comment as if it is only trump to blame for the right-wing fascist movement?
It is the whole right-wing, and they have been working for decades to implement their fascist coup,
Because that's shorthand for the entire movement, I guess.
Please, keep control of your military machine... an angry loser with total control of the US military machine could wreak real havoc in the world.
pretty please
Orange Man wants to provoke riots in the streets in order to get the military to start shooting people. I give it 6 months.
Or declare martial law and suspend elections in 2026.
Curtis Yarvin had thought it would be useful to declare a State of emergency on day one for his ‘Caesar.’ Because you can’t have opposing views if you are becoming a dictator. I’m somewhat concerned that Trump is assembling his own little force of dirty mercenary brown shirts (“Triple Canopy” —former Blackwater?) to terrorize protesters. Getting the military to open fire on their own countrymen could be a much more difficult proposition.
As someone mentioned earlier, if you listen to Fox, and buy into what they are selling, it's easy to see how people are on the band wagon. Fox and many in Congress go on and on about how wonderful rumpy is, what a great, outstanding negotiator he is, how brilliant his decisions. They hammered on that for years while downgrading Biden and everything good he was doing. They've been successfully brainwashed and now we have a government dead set on destroying our country. We need to have truth on the news. How do you undo the brainwashing and get rid of the cult leader?
It is a long and painful process.
Exactly, they want to have everything in place by July, so I read. Probably in Project 2025, they are still writing the script…
Barney, hard to “like” this….I fear this too!
That’s rather optimistic. My bet is 2 months.
That’s the plan, man. Already rolling
People who assemble strategic intelligence have to know Trump is a looser than loose cannon.