While Republicans on the House Oversight Committee continue to insist that President Joe Biden has committed crimes, testimony today by a former associate of Trump’s disgraced ex-lawyer Rudolph Giuliani was so damning not for Biden but for Republicans that Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA) told his colleagues: “When you review the entire record of evidence of these hearings going back over a year, you've actually provided more evidence to impeach Donald Trump for a third time than you have in so much as laying a glove on Joe Biden.”
I have a Tshirt that reads, "I'm RETIRED. I was TIRED yesterday, and I'm TIRED again today."
I am so TIRED of trying to understand how ONE person (Mike Johnson) can stop the important and necessary work of Congress. How can this be happening in America?? Did the writers of the Constitution see this as an option?
Anyone who is NOT tired of the mess we're in, doesn't realize what a mess we're in,
Maybe three, four, five of the old school Republicans will find their backbones and quit or switch parties to save democracy and Ukraine. I'm looking forward to the house flipping before Nov because it seems the only way out of this morass.
Sorry! Backbones are in severly short supply in the Republican Party. They have all been added to Trump’s collection. Do not expect anything courageous or patriotic out this bunch of sycophants.
It might come to the point that even if the Congress (Johnson) gets the bill passed, it may be too late. Let's throw a life preserver to someone who has already drowned.
I was thinking about how trump's base listens to him lie and insult and threaten people and they laugh and cheer! Like Nero fiddled while Rome burned, these fools laugh as trump is destroying our Democracy. I'm not quite sure what percentage of Americans they are, but I find it disgusting and alarming. Is the U.S. losing it's mind? Are we turning into drooling idiots who want a reality show government?
I want to add that I do believe that most of us are not fools and the polls are wrong and Biden will be reelected. But while Heather's article reflects lots of victories, we still live in a scary world. So, fight on!
There are lots of things we can do, including remembering that all the little things add up and not giving up. The ocean is made up of millions of little drops.
You probably already do some of these things. I personally stay informed with reliable news, analysis and commentary sources. The people who's analysis I enjoy back up their opinions with information I get from straightforward news outlets. Obviously, Heather is a great source. I requested ideas from her Substack community and got several recommendations. I also share with others what I find important. I don't have much disposable income, but I donate to a few causes. Again, the little drips and drabs add up. I recently moved to a small town, but I've found the local Democrats and am gradually getting involved. I've gone to a few little marches and protests for responsible gun legislation, reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. They were fairly small gatherings, but part of huge nationwide protests. I know there are cities where one can get involved in the campaign headquarters. I'd like to do some post card mailings. My girlfriend and I are shy, but there are opportunities to make phone calls or knock on doors to get out the vote. Our local group manned a booth at the county fair for that purpose and to register people to vote. I've written my local representatives on various issues. Email makes that so easy. We live in a conservative area, so we're cautious about lawn signs, but we have put them and window signs up. And I also think the encouraging comments here and elsewhere help. We might give hope, ideas and support to one another. You never know.
I'm sure I've forgotten tons of other ways of non-violent "fighting." We really are in a war and I take it seriously. I hope lots of others will add to my modest To-Do list.
Informed action helps me keep my worry down too. We are not helpless. So, I do what I can, remember to have some fun and let go.
I found it frustrating to watch this woman. preempt the Biden transition team. Not that Donald Trump 's outgoing administration did anything for transition.
Some of our most important functions in terms of federal government and national security happen during the peaceful transition of power between presidents and parties.
Of course the current clown show in Congress sort of outweighs any transition antics.
Speaking of traditions, isn't the present president suppose to unveil the past president's portrait? I know trump refused to do Obama's (what a petty man), but I wondered if trump's was unveiled yet? I know Biden did Obama's.
Great answer to someone who wrote that, "He (Biden) happened to be in the Oval Office when COVID ended, which is doubtful in the minds of those who still demand that everyone continue to wear the ineffective masks."
The article mentioned the Biden Advisers threatened legal action over the stonewalling that kept them from classified information in addition to national security and the potential (non-existent, though), potential vaccine rollout/(distribution) plans. I remember the rapid development of distribution plans the Biden Administration created that was so critical to beginning to get better control of the pandemic.
I don't know how much the legal threats might have sped up the distribution but remember how disgusting it was to find that they were hiding such incompetence (if that's all it was).
I remember hints that Trump's allies seemed to be trying to distribute some in ways that might profit them handsomely. If the House wants to expand their investigations of the criminality of past and current administrations, that tail end of the Trump reign of terror would seem a target rich environment.
I have wondered where she fits into the coup as well...I would not be surprised if there are more indictments after the election and if Smith chose to go from the top down because Trump's coup needed to be the headline.
There are many individuals exercising too much power these days. That Texan judge who stopped the sale of mifepristone comes to mind. And trump, an unelected citizen and criminal ruling the gop for his own diabolical purposes. There have been several other instances lately, but those two came immediately to mind. Johnson is just another power mad fool.
I am tired. Any mature, intelligent person is. That helps to work against truth!
Take your vitamin B-12 and hold on to one another and demand that the people who work for “we the people “better get serious or they will be fired! Aren’t we mostly tired of immaturity at a very high level??????
How about a tee shirt, lawn sign & bumper sticker which says "Trump & Putin 2024" Together Again!! That should be their campaign slogan and forget this Make America Great Again nonsense
I would not want their name in my yard. It would make it look dirty. But so true! Should tfg be elected....that is what we will end up with as the result. There are so many crazy people in my area....it frightens me!
I have one that says, "The gullible and their freedom will soon be parted." Might be a little too subtle but I didn't want to call anyone stupid. It can be considered a bipartisan sticker, I guess.
Actually, Christopher, less alternative than mirror realities.
Putin, like Trump, like Orban has no culture. Totally vulgar instead. So when he sees others he doesn't "see" and certainly "other" has no meaning for one who lacks any and all details as to what the range of the personal might include or open up to out there.
A vulgar entity can only parrot back ready-made formulae, abstracted labels, and packaged categories. All the vulgar reiterate each other's sinkholes of depravity: Speaker of the House Howdy Doody, Clarence, the greatest bribe-taker in the history of the court he's collected pay from for over three decades, Erdogan, Xi, Kim, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, his mirror in vulgarity Hamas, the ayatollahs, Assad, Sisi, Modi -- along with the three most vulgar by which I began this. Zero of them have any equipment to see into complex and differing individuals apart from the(moneyed) packaging that floats the vulgar.
All just mirror each other's dehumanization.
Do we want our schools to follow such vulgarity, to leave out humanities as totally as Putin murders any opposition, as surely as fat orange Trump curses in labels, as illiterately as all the white trash lemmings in Congress rush for nearest cliffs?
Tempting as it is, it would be a mistake to insult Trump voters. Just ask Hillary Clinton how her comment calling them a "basket of deplorables" worked out. Trump voters got t-shirts that said things like "Proud to Be A Deplorable" and Trump won, in the Electoral College only, but that was enough. Our stance needs to be that Trump is a con man who is defrauding his own voters, using them, manipulating their patriotism, because he wants power, fame, money, and to stay out of jail for his crimes. We need to find a short, punchy, persuasive way to say "Trump Is Ripping You Off!"
He was also aided mightily by the mainstream media, focusing story after story on the whole email "scandal." It was appalling and one of the main reasons I've dumped all of them..The Times, Washington Post, The Guardian.
It's extremely unfortunate that all the MSM outlets cannot resist the political version of "if it bleeds, it leads". For Dumpster's first run, a lot of guilty parties contributed gratuitously to his "win": MSM breathlessly publishing his every tweet and giving him bucketloads of free coverage, repeating whatever he said little or zero in-the-moment debunking of his lies; the Bernie supporters who decided that the Democratic party was not sufficiently perfect, and opted to sit out the election rather than vote for Hillary Clinton; and Hillary and her campaign, who made the deeply stupid assumption that they didn't need to campaign in historically union-heavy Democratic states because they were the "blue wall" [not]; and Hillary herself, not calling Trump out when she should have, as when he stalked her on stage during debates, and also publicly treating Trump voters with contempt ("basket of deplorables") which 100% backfired on her. Oh, and of course, James Comey violating the FBI policy about never talking about investigations, not once but *twice*, first announcing he was investigating her email server in early summer, then mentioning it again shortly before the election. There are probably more guilty parties and I'm just too exhausted to remember the rest.
I have not given up my subscriptions, but I can understand why some people have.
Oh, and worse than ripping us off, he appears to want to get us all killed. Trump is way, way worse than deplorable and he scares the crap out of me. (Pardon my Italian!).
Likewise! He scares the crap out of me, too. Anyone who's not terrified at the possibility of a second Agent Orange term is either not paying attention or deeply deluded.
Hillary's "deplorables" line did no matter to the voters Not one person who was offended by that had had any intention of voting for Clinton in the first place. It cost her no votes. This was bullshit made up by the press.
Hillary came across, Elizabeth, as out of touch with America's working classes.
If she'd had any humanities, she could well have used them (so many, so apt) to show sympathy, solidarity, with how U.S. billionaires offshored all the millions of decent, working-class jobs, fought against health care, aided the white terrorists.
It's a vicious spiral downwards, Elizabeth, for all American's who've attended schools, K-12 and "higher" which have marginalized, abandoned, dumped on the humanities.
But his was the first plan of the far-right foundations who organized after the Powell memo of 1971. To allow them to proceed in their depredations, first trick was to rid the schools of humanities, thus to blind, anesthetize everyone to what the predators could thus so easily do thereafter.
It probably would not convince any Trumpers to change their minds, though they might try to look up "lemmings" just out of curiosity. It would, however, become an appropriate bumper sticker if Trump is re-elected and we have nothing left to lose.
Hmm. I have a problem with the White Trash thing. It is bigotry. And it is inaccurate. While Trump tends to attract less educated poorer White voters, it is only part of the picture. When you look at why, it is driven by Republican government policies and political wedge issues crafted by privileged racist right wing religious extremists. These Republicans, with power, perpetuate economic inequity and its associated anxieties while playing on racial and religious prejudice. And it runs through every economic group. (I've have had occasion to meet very wealthy individuals, it's always astounding how financially insecure they seem to feel and who they blame.)
Phil, your description of, '' white trash lemmings in Congress'' is an extremely accurate description of those in the Fascist GQP low-life members in there. MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Tim Burchett, are just a few of them that immediately came to mind to me. That was a great comment, Phil.
Twit is being kind to gunslinger Barbie. She is the kind of woman who has forgotten the real power of the feminine and instead is a pale vulgar imitation.
I agree, Maggie. I wish i had to never look at that disgusting hag, Maggot Traitor Goon Greene either. She is the most disrespectful, hateful, arrogant, lying cretin i have ever seen or heard.
Hi Jen, if Boebert does happen to be an anchor on Spewsmax, let me know, because i NEVER EVER watch their lying garbage. I never watch that Fox Spews or OANN either. I have had a heart condition for several years now, and i certainly don't want to risk a heart attack from watching those false news outlets. I can't help it, but i get extremely angry when i hear anyone bash Democrats like those lying bungholes always do. I don't need those lying white trash third rate ''so called'' news outlets.
I had some relatives a generation or so ago that might have been considered by the bigoted gentry of the time as "white trash" - the men worked in logging in the South and, per my sainted Aunt Carolyn, their families lived in cabins with dirt floors. And yet, by my dad's generation (born 1929), all the kids in that generation went to college (all in the south), most of them in the liberal arts and not one of them a racist. All of them white Methodists (not Baptists, thankfully). Solid middle-class Americans. And I'll say this: it isn't money that saves you from being white trash, or owning or inheriting land or your own business, or living in a "good" neighborhood. The creatures we see in congress today are DEFINITELY deplorable white trash low-lifes, no matter that they have money, or land, or a position of respectability and responsibility - which they betray day by day. Bless their hearts.
I like, John, your spelling of Jim Jordan's given name as "Gym."
I think you are nicely reminding us of his earlier career, where he was using a certain Ohio State gym as springboard to career of always being sycophant, cover for the most vulgar powerful.
Phil, I am so gratified to read your explanation and description of the makeup of Totalitarians with power. [I went looking for a lengthy description by Bruce Springsteen to add here as a link, and cannot find it--he includes how Trump not only has no appreciation of the arts, but doesn't like animals--especially dislikes dogs!]
Long ago (teens) I observed that totalitarian dictators were empty and boring when it came to tastes in art and music.
Decades since, my work as a psychotherapist leads people to see and understand through their inner lives including through dreams. The results give them an appreciation of the levels of symbolism we all live within.
I would argue that the individuals you name are all autocrats, but they vary in the form of autocracy they’re employing. And each in their own way uses “their version” of their national culture in their messaging to their populace. As we know a keystone of populism is an emotional appeal to nationalism. Putin’s call to nationalism is based on a nostalgia for more perfect times when Russia was successfully expanding its Empire, Orban’s call to nationalism is based on the nostalgia of a “more perfect time” when only Christian Hungarians lived in a Hungary, Erdogan’s call to nationalism calls for a return to some key aspects of the Ottoman Empire, and Xi’s call to nationalism is similar to Putin’s in that it’s based on the nostalgia of a glorious empire when China without question dominated the Asian continent. Likewise the Christian Nationalists are essentially following their version the the autocratic playbook especially Orban’s playbook. Therefore, IMO the key to eliciting this psychological support of citizens through their state sponsored propaganda is the underlying message of a return to “past stability” in a world which to many of their citizens seems to be more fragmented and uncertain than ever in their lifetimes. Using these nostalgic appeals to a return to a period that seemed more secure for their populace (even if unrealistic) is key and using their own internal political messaging to repeatedly air this messaging is essential.
You are so right. Joe Biden's challenge to this has to include more history of what the Democratic administrations including his have done to make lives better in the United States and their worldview and plans for the future.
I think Biden's going to the unions is a great idea. If it were possible, he should go to the sites where the infrastructure is being done. This way people have something concrete to see.
I think everyone has some nostalgia for the past. I keep seeing how great life was four years ago. The questioner is referring to the entirety of trump's term. They forget that 4 years ago the unemployment was up to @16%, millions of people were dying, businesses closed, shortage of supplies, and incompetent assignments in things such as distribution (Jared was in charge, really?) His term, his fault (even if it wasn't). This is the logic trumpers use on Biden. His fault for the Russians attacking Ukraine, his fault the Hamas attacked Israel, his fault the withdrawal from Afghanistan went so badly.
Putin's winning the latest election is like trump's winning his primaries with basically no one running against him. he should have gotten close to 100% of the votes (of those who voted in the primary), but he didn't. hmmm
Maybe even MAGA people are getting tired of the constant self-parading, now-all-too-obvious narcissism, reckless thrall to violence and threats of chaos, mayhem, bloodbath, now-tiresome reference to fellow Americans as vermin, poison.
Yes, Karen. Trump so resembles Putin for vulgarity. But how many U.S. Republicans remain in Speaker Howdy Doody's Congress to root for the ever-lower floor they think the mob craves? How many justices on the Clarence court feel it Constitutional to destroy that to which they cynically, blithely perjured themselves in giving oaths? How many evangelical men and women feel it "Christian" when Lauren Boebert fondles what she fondles in public, or when cult leader grabs whatever impulse goads him to grab (in places where same Clarence court arrogates its own rule, dictatorial possession, also)?
In reference to the grabbing part, I have the perfect theme song for trump It's by the Steve Miller Band: Abra cadabra, I want to reach out and grab ya. The rest of the song is appropriate also, but that one line just jumped out at me.
Clarence court. Fat orange diaper guy. Speaker Howdy Doody. And, maybe worst, all those hundreds of billionaires, all zombie, living dead organized that the rest of us get replaced, too, by their pod people -- but all as serfs.
Excellent post, Phil. They lack culture and are vulgar instead. Your post is full of excellent observations....sinkholes of depravity.....moneyed packaging that floats the vulgar....white trash lemmings. And a plea for humanities. Kudos. I often rant that such monsters have so much power in this world.
Speaking of vulgar: the myth that Lemmings rush off cliffs is a product of Disney looking for a good story, not a characteristic of a species of rodent. The fact that Disney filmmakers faked the scene of rodents committing mass suicide and it has survived to become a part of our language in spite of widespread fact checking says something sad about our culture.
Disney won an Acadamy award in 1958 for the "documentary" White Wilderness.
A bit like trump's practice, change your mind and deny that he actually had said. repetitiveness is his trade mark. How often has he whined about the stolen election?
Remember Putin is "Russia Russia Russia" ... we well might take Heather's quoting of Russian ambitions and perhaps intentions of getting in the military conflict with NATA in the not too distant future.
Has been so for decades, now it’s at 90 decibels 24/7. And the MAGAts slurp at the trough of hogwash, and the MSM is not only loathe to call them out, but finds the whole Schitt show good for ratings. Shout out to Dems trying to inject a dose of sanity and remind people of the reality that is under attack.
Thanks to Lynell for sharing this on Robert Hubbell’s/Today’s Edition:⬇️
As of yesterday (Wednesday, March 20), here is a list of signatories to the discharge petition for aid to Ukraine. If this is correct, there are only 15 signatures left to get to 200, the total Republicans say they want to see before adding their names. If you don't see your Dem rep on the list, call them to urge them to sign on.
I found my Rep, DEMOCRAT Pramilla Jayapal on the OPPOSED list and contacted her office. Spread the word! The list is informative and contact #’s listed!
...and screeching the most ridiculous, vapid nonsense. He's like Trey Goudy on steroids. How dare the MSM treat them like they are politicians. Everett Dirksen was a politician, not a circus performer, as these cretins are.
Yes. Talk about a witch hunt! This shameless , baseless investigation into the affairs of the Bidens continues to make a mockery of the impeachment process which was never meant to be used as a weapon to attack the integrity of a politician for personal, petty reasons.Enough with this bull pucky.
The House Republicans tried to load each and every spending bill with poison pills and draconian spending cuts mostly aimed at reducing benefits for the underprivileged.
I wonder how much money and time Comer, Jordan, Greene, Gaetz and the other maganiazis have wasted on their witch hunts.
Hopefully, the Democrats will be back in control of the House in January, 2025 and they can 1) quash these ridiculous hearings and 2) use the actual evidence that has been brought out against TFFG.
Dead on. The GOP subscribes heavily to the Tu Quoque fallacy. It has to be one of the worst fallacies because it brings discourse to a grinding halt while your brain struggles to make sense of what you just heard.
If you look into their rhetoric, you will see that they accuse the Democrats of fascism. They claim that if Joe Biden is elected there will never be another election. Anything that is objectively true of their party they use to paint the Democratic Party and the MAGA base believes it.
When my sisters and I were children we used to call this “mocking” and it was one of the worst things about having siblings at all. It generally ended in violence.
In this current iteration I fear that is the point.
Some other names for the tu quoque argument are the “you too” fallacy, appeal to hypocrisy, and personal inconsistency. Tu quoque arguments are considered logical fallacies because one's actions have little bearing on what is factually true.
Just like tfg. Lets us hope that the absolute lack of character/integrity is not reflective of all those in Congress and of Americans in general. That bunch in the House can not do more to destroy this country's reputation.
The correct word is LIARS. That is all they know how to do. That and to share dis/misinformation and to provide sound bites to their media partners. If they get help from Russia, so be it. They have given up on being a free, democratic country and now have aligned themselves with Trump and his autocratic ways and all the groups that are supporting him.
The Heritage Foundation is a full on right-wing Christian nationalist organization. Kevin Roberts, their new president is a rabid nationalist who wants to turn this country into a rich, white, male dominated country where only their ideas are the law of the land. If you aren't white and male god help you.
Let’s use the talking points about how the Republicans are wasting tax payers’ money on this fraudulent investigation. Wasting our money, wasting our time, and ultimately putting our national security at risk.
I agree with most of what you say. This is playground bullying tactics: Your mom is ugly.” “No, your mom is ugly.” Every accusation is a confession - excellent. However, I don’t think we should be saying Trump stole the 2016 - to me, that takes the focus away from the blatant, criminal actions in Jan. 2021 and after. Also, it gets us, as Democratic and Independent voters. One of the big reasons we lost is that we didn’t fight hard enough for Hillary. Yes, we won the popular vote. But I canvassed even before the email debacle and many people told me - I just don’t like her personality. Then the Comer email announcement and we didn’t stand firm on our commitment to the Democratic platform. It could have been a landslide for Hillary. We must do better.
Agreed Annabel. They are also the party of distraction and chaos. They want everything to fall apart. Because it will only be...once our country is no longer run by the rule of law (for some it doesn't work at all,.now) is when those who come into power will be unstoppable....and will be able to exploit, destroy, enslave, and reign over the remaining population of the world.
Example: Some republican extremist with a large following (Travis I believe) was complaining that Taylor Swift was traveling around the country in a jet. I am pretty sure that someone with two jets is not taking Amtrak or Greyhound. There are pictures of him on the tarmac with a jet that says TRUMP on it. Taylor told people to vote and I understand supported 2 democratic candidates. How many candidates did trump support in 2020?
It's important to understand that the Republican Party has been hanging on by its fingernails since FDR. Up until the aftermath of Nixon, they could (more or less) hold their own, but it's been a long, clawing slide downward ever since, and their chief bloc of support has been the hyper-conservative majority of the Evangelical movement. This turned out to be a vicious cycle: the more religiously conservative the Republicans got, the less attractive they were to the general population, requiring that they lock-in even more of the most extreme conservatives.
There's only one place for this to end, which is -- basically -- right where we are now.
If you give the link above a listen, it's clear that this has nothing to do with backbone, or ethics, or anything other than pure survival-at-any-cost for the Republican Party. They are losing power and money. They will do ANYTHING to get that back.
I think most of us find a limit at some point. For instance, if we have a lousy job with an abusive manager, we make excuses and hang on, but at some point, the abuse becomes too much and we simply walk away, wondering why we didn't do it sooner. With religion and politics, there seems to be no concept of "too much." People just cling to the awfulness no matter how bad it gets, and the excuses get worse and worse. That's where the Republicans are right now.
Thank you, Heather. From what I understand, Moskowitz donned a Putin mask before the meeting started. He did it to show the hilarity of these hearings but also the absurdity of them. Our Dems were fully prepared today with their witness, Lev Parnas. He really is our ace-in-the-hole along with Cassidy Hutchinson.
Bobulinski was as arrogant, actually more-so, than Hur was. What I loved watching was Comer’s expressions when Raskin was bringing up pertinent information. Truly, are the two Jimmies just plain stupid?
It all looks SO stupid to those of us who employ critical thinking skills. The idea of wasting all this time on a "prosecution" that has no evidence - not even a hint of evidence - would seem to us to be counterproductive. We ask why Comer and Clan aren't spending most of their time working on ways to fund the government. Why aren't they focused on doing their primary job? It IS a stupid waste of precious time and energy. But the Insurrectionists in Congress don't think so.
Because they are focused on something else. To paraphrase Trump's trainer Roy Cohn: "all publicity is good, even the bad stuff". The incredible irony is that Cohn also coached Senator McCarthy in his bogus "anti-communist" purge. Today his techniques are the tools of pro-Putin Russian sympathizers. You can't make this stuff up!
Republicans know that they own a base that DOES NOT think critically. Trump has instructed Comer and Johnson to keep the impeachment hearings alive. If they don't, he will send them to the political dumpster in the sky.
It matters to us that Raskin and Company can lay out the truth and viscerate this whole clown show. But the message to the Cult from Trump and his Slaves is that they are "holding the Biden Crime Family accountable". It IS a show. It is about video clips and sound bites for the Fascist Media. It's all stupid. Because for a lot of Stupid People, it's all very effective.
The question I have is: are there enough "persuadables" who don't identify with the Cult who are also critical thinkers? I am hopeful, but still terrified.
I think there is a general correlation between level of education and immunity to BS; yet not entirely. I've seen bright, well educated, and even formerly amiable drawn onto the web of lies. Whole societies go sociopathic. I think all or most of the opportunists at the top know that they are liars, and figure that it makes them clever; but I think most of the rank and file are deluded. History is full of this; but it's backing us into a worldwide crisis if can't find better ways to keep despotism from taking hold. I think that following the money would be instructive.
Right ON J L, your comment recalls the forensic psychiatrist Bandy Lee's warnings about the contagious effects of tRump's pathological narcissism and sociopathy!
Follow the money, yes. And also follow the chain of instruction and intimidation. Johnson and Comer have been told to keep this charade and clown show alive right up to the election. The Fascist Media will focus on a few clips and statements by Bobulinski and company. They certainly won't broadcast what Raskin or Goldman have to say.
We think that truth should triumph. But they think that strategy wins. Truth be damned.
"We think that truth should triumph. But they think that strategy wins. Truth be damned." You've hit the nail on the head, Bill! The GOP is all about strategy, as if this were all a game and they must win at all costs. Even when the cost is truth and democracy!
Trump wears his emotional IQ on his MAGA cap--45-47 (where 100 is normal). Ron Johnson and other professional liars also score low. How many promised to produce better ACA legislation?
Unfortunately I can prove that better-educated folks can indeed fall victim to the Trump BS. There are a couple authors I know who used to be friends with me, whose work I admired and respected, whose advice I sought, who I knew were conservative but seemed to be the kind one could work with and respect. And then one day they're wearing red hats.
One would like to think that, and in my frustration I say that, then I remember my father, a sweet, kind and very intelligent man became convinced of a Great Conspiracy within the government in the early 1970s. Now I have three well-educated friends, ( PhD engineering, RN, and BS Biology) who all are certain there is a Great Conspiracy. We just avoid speaking of politics now. That crapola seems to make the rounds every so often. I wish someone would research the history of these. It would be edifying.
An IQ lower than the room temperature... Or, be a narcissist or a child of a narcissist. Unfortunately there are many who grew up in the shadow of a narcissistic upbringing by parents born around the tail end of the Great Depression.
I for some reason prefer “dumb as a brick” for everyday use. Generally, politicians usually require “box of rocks” as a comparison, however, “bag of hammers” is for specific comparisons, such as Jim “OH hates my guts”Jordan, Jimmie “I’d love me some bacon” Comer and Tommy “I only know footballs are brown and round (cause that’s the only shape I know)” Tuberville.
I you think of the most evil person imaginable and them try to think about an ultimate malicious narcissist, I think that both searches will point in the same direction.
Love, love, love Moskowitz. He is smart, quick witted and gets the best of Republicans on a daily basis. I saw a video of him wearing the Putin mask last night and it made me smile.
When are more American voters going to hold their own elected legislators accountable for not doing any legislation? Does anyone recall voting to send their party's choice to join an actors' guild to put on exceptionally bad performances? Didn't there used to be a country that had a Constitutional directive "...to promote the general welfare...."? This pathetic exhibition certainly indicates that this is not the Congress of that country.
That is the essence of the message that President Biden and Vice President Harris have to get across: that many in the Trump base will get a better deal with the Democrats than the Republicans. Trump looks like he is sliding into insanity, if he has not been impaired all along.
They also need to get across that the Republican party only wants budgets that go against the well being of most Americans and they need to spell out line item by line item how that works. In fact, each line item should get its own ad! How about defunding social security with a discussion of how it is currently funded and the changes Biden wants to make to ensure solvency vs. the gutting and bankrupting that the Republicans want. That should be followed up with some images of how people lived before we had social security, a program developed by Otto von Bismarck in Germany in 1881. Roosevelt introduced it in the USA in 1935. So, in less than 100 years here it is under attack, whereas in Germany almost 150 years later it is enshrined into the expectations of the population. Social security covers more in Germany than it does here, so it is just as vital a program. https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/social-security
This is a very important piece of history for the “socialism” screamers. Report today on the “happiness” scale shows US out of the top 25. No surprise. The middle class has been killed by trickle down and union loss (both of which Biden is trying to reverse), the pandemic has hollowed out our medical care system, and millions no longer understand that age CAN bring wisdom (or what wisdom is, for that matter). Then we have “Speaker” Johnson, threatening all of US with a has-been “president.”
While the Republican party is aiming to make life as difficult as possible for our youth, who are suffering from the covid experiences and the isolation that it brought them, and contrary to the resilience they are supposed to have, they are not having it. They are inheriting a world where the quality of living is going down for them. Huge university debt (thank you Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party), and no prospects for buying a home, and being able to afford children at the same time that the Republican party wants to force children on them by making abortion illegal, and perhaps birth control too. The youth are more diverse and tolerant, and the hostility towards the diversity from the Republican party is oppressive.
Anyway, according to the study, people in the US are at place 23 for average life evaluation. Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden are in the top four spots, just going to prove that living in a warm climate is not what is necessary to be contented. In happiness ranking those under 30 in the US ranked at 62. The top 4 were Lithuania, Israel (before the war), Serbia and Iceland.
For happiness those 60 and above ranked at 10 for happiness in the US. These findings should be driving policy in our country. There is a huge perceived difference in happiness between the young and old in our country.
Yes. It is more like a happiness report for the semi-geriatric and not the nation. Both parties have been a cartel complicit in screwing over the young and working class in the U. S. Only recently has the Biden administration of the Democratic party started to try to undo what the neoliberal control of their party, which still controls it, have done. Unfortunately "a little genocide" is not OK, despite partisan stooges urging to shut up and back it quietly. Netanyahu can cost the Biden administration a reelection.
I do not put much stock in ranking countries by happiness indices due to their obvious subjectivity. What I do agree with is that my generation and its immediate successor have left a pathetic patrimony to the rising generations.
Happiness is hard to quantify, but there are clinical criteria for diagnosing depression. I think state of mind can be broadly assessed. My own statistically irrelevant experience with maybe a couple dozen young adults suggests heightened anxiety compared with my own cohort when I was of a similar age. For whatever reason, I think there was more optimism in popular music in the mid 20th Century than today. One strand of impending/potential disaster is climate change. I think that most people given a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease would quickly move their own health up the ladder of priorities, yet a similarly diagnostic assessment of an extremely dangerous threat to the health of everyone ranges from a response that ranges from "This demands immediate action" to "we ought to do something someday", even among those who don't deny it outright. Those likely to leave the living in the nearer term, seem less concerned than those still getting started.
That same report lists Israel in the top 5 happiest countries. Makes you wonder how we slipped from the top 25 when we are the only nation in the world trying to help their government to govern our citizens. I'll be the first to take that report with a large portion of salt.
Social Security is enshrined in our population, too. The minority-rulers do not care. The Republicans have a point: the nation is fiscally insolvent. About six or seven years ago, I looked at the national and state debts and looked at the assets. If these data were bundled into corporate financials and I had been at S.&P. or Moody's rating that hypothetical company, I would have graded that entity double-B at best (i.e., junk debt; 'at best' denoting intangible or unquantified national or state assets like parks or art-works in museums); today, it would more likely be single-B at best (really junk debt).
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The rub with the G.O.P. is that, for all of its whining about the debt, it has been a material contributor to it. And, no, social security is not the problem. The number of cash out-flow looks 'yooj' but represents savings plus cumulative interest set-aside by tax-payers themselves as well as, often and additionally, by their employers on their behalf. So it is money going out that never belonged to the government. The crunch comes from past mis-use of F.I.C.A. taxes collected, suppressed revenues from tax-cuts and certain 'pet' budgets like that of the D.o.D.
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The Democrats drop the ball, too, by assuming that Americans are unable and unwilling to think through these data and the economics they populate. Americans can understand, though the cognitive under-class (which includes many educated people) will refuse to. Time to cease allowing the cognitive under-class to shape the liberal message and to trust the people and, in truth, the message.
"The rub with the G.O.P. is that, for all of its whining about the debt, it has been a material contributor to it."
That's an understatement. Like GWB declaring two wars and massive tax cuts (mostly for the rich) simultaneously. That's unprecedented. Republicans installed the graduated income tax to pay for the Civil War.
I agree that the Democrats need to get the detailed messages out regardless of who is unwilling or unable to understand them. After seeing the film God and Country,
which talks about how the White Christian Nationalists have a symbiotic relationship to Trump who behaves very much like their church leaders in preaching charismatic lies, I got an understanding of how they are surrounded by misinformation. I also think that our youth is not only righteously upset about their world, but is also going to be victim to Russian bots, who make them even more alienated and disengaged, as the Happiness survey suggests. The details you mention are ones I consider important to include in any discussion of social security and medicare. How is it funded? how does that work? Who is not paying their fair share? What laws and other mechanisms allow them to avoid paying into it? Clinton would have town halls where he would get his boards out and simply explain things to the people. It seemed to be very effective. Here he is 3 weeks into office. https://youtu.be/1lx59aK6B4c?si=Z1ftVa10XzR-unz7
Thank you, Linda, for taking the time to give me a well thought out answer. For some reason, I can not open the first link. Given Trump's 'substance' (i.e., girth), I would think Xians would say one can not serve both G-D and Mammoth. 😉
There was an article in the WaPo yesterday providing the history of Trump's father and his decline into dementia. Apparently, Trump was put off by and terrified of his fathers decline for years.
My observation has been that men who have dementia and Alzheimer's disease tend to react more often with anger than do women.
What was, is. I have wondered since I was young why anyone who works hard for their living would ever vote for a Republican presidential candidate. But the Southern Strategy and the evangelical-conservative partnership worked, and sadly, here we are. We MUST rid ourselves of Trump and his followers in Congress. The last seven years have been a nightmare for our republic.
Speaking as an erstwhile Republican and an Eisenhower-Ford conservative, I would like to see American conservatism return to its mid-twentieth century moderation. Back then, the liberals would initiate social programs or reforms and the conservatives would follow by making those changes fiscally sustainable. In those cases where liberal policies has clearly failed or repudiated by the majority of Americans, the conservatives might abolish them.
I agree. However, Biden and Harris have to be blunt with the people and tell them , do you want a leader who believes in Freedom and Democracy for the people? Or do you want a dictator leading this country , striping all of your rights, and your freedom, your benefits, from Medicare, Medicaid, and Society Security?
Not to mention having the national gard in every damn state monitoring every damn move that you make. The media and free press would be completely gone. We would be a 3rd world country like Russia.
Great! We need every vote for Biden. This election is critical. Just the thought of our Democracy that could perish should be enough to motivate people to vote and save it.
The people these obstructionists represent, like their Confederate predecessors, hate the federal government because at its best it provides progress and cracks down on corruption and injustice. They WANT obstruction, and they call it states' rights.
They use diversionary tactics to try to camouflage what their objectives really are! Hopefully, we’re beginning to see through the facade! Your point is well taken!
With an oil-owned legislator here in northern Michigan (Enbridge Line 5 territory) it is impossible to hold him accountable and, so far, too expensive to oust him. We have 2 excellent Democratic candidates, Dr. Bob Lorinser and attorney Callie Barr. Both could use support!
But Ed, the House has passed 27 bills that made it into law in 2023. Where would we be without the National Duck Stamp Modernization Act? The movie Fargo wouldn't have been near as funny without the bits about the award. /S
I’d like to see your comment, Ed, sent to all newspapers and TV networks. Perfect description of the non-legislators running the only action in the House. Would this make them eligible for Grammys?
I just watched a 25 minute long documentary on the making of “Saving Private Ryan” which includes interviews with a group of WWII veterans. Hearing those veterans describe what they went through (and which the film faithfully portrayed) to save democracy from fascism left me with an even higher level of disgust for today’s GOP than I already had. And I didn’t think that was possible.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to eliminate this UNAMERICAN stain on America’s body politic from our country, but that MUST BE the agenda of EVERYONE alive today who sees this threat clearly.
A link to the documentary I just watched will be in the first comment because I’m afraid I’ll lose what I just wrote if I go back to YouTube to copy the link…
A fine tribute in many ways -- the various interviews, the historical footage, the scenes from the movie.
Arts can teach, model so much, but they'll never reach the contemptible who now aid Trump as he aids Putin and all the U.S. dark money predators. Millions of Americans, men and women, believed in that fight against fascism. My father among them.
And now we've still got to fight that fight, as we've so many ignorant, cult-addled, illiterate, dehumanized among us who have joined the fascists my father and the others fought against those 80 years ago.
Thank you for all you wrote, Phil. And thank you to your father for his service.
I forgot to mention that my father and mother were part of “the greatest generation” that defeated fascism too. (My Mom was in the USO; father was in the Army Air Corps). We may not have many World War II vets alive today, but the ones in the documentary spoke some very powerful words when it was filmed.
My dad, a victim of the Holocaust, saw the sign “Uncle Sam Wants You” enlisted in the Army in 1941. He wanted the Army to send him back to Europe to fight the Nazis. They instead, sent him to the Pacific Theater for 4 1/2 years. His English improved and he was able to get his citizenship papers while in the service. He left in 1945 as a Staff Sergeant. Sidenote: He apparently played a great hand of poker which awarded him R & R in Australia! :)
Steve Brant -- Thank you deeply for posting this documentary. I've just watched it, sobbing my way through it. I was 10 when the war actually ended, and remember that vividly. I remember D-Day too, but not any specifics. Two maternal uncles were in the war, one seeing combat, about which he never spoke. But the subsequent PTSD he suffered was not talked about in those days, at least in my family and small town, or not labeled. Where would we be without Stephen Spielberg. May he live a long time and bring more documentaries to us.
Oh my! What memories you have, including of your uncles! 🤗
You lived through a time we need to better appreciate. And I’m grateful to Stephen Spielberg for helping us do so… Tom Hanks too. The idea that so many are willing to throw away what so many fought for…. out of a misguided belief that a “strong man leader” is what America needs … to me shows the failure of the education system in America to teach what really matters. Learning English and math is one thing. But learning what America is really all about should be the number one objective.
Steve, thanks for bringing in the American education system. A critical point! And learning what America (the United States and Canada) is all about just as critical.
You’re welcome. Education is a huge problem… especially the lack of civic education as a national requirement. Is civics taught in Canadian schools? If you look up The Dreyfuss Initiative, you’ll see that Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters, etc) has been a champion of civic education for years.
This documentary had a strong message. These men sacrificed their life's for our Democracy and freedom. I hope people realize today that the threat our Democracy will be gone if Trump is elected in November.
Watched it, also, and shared it to my Facebook page, so that we can all remember how we fought then for freedom, hoping we can do so again but at the ballot box…
Thank you for sharing it! Helping people remember how hard those young men fought (and there were women in the war effort too, of course) is important. But to be honest, I think we may need to fight after we vote... by protesting the attempts the GOP will make to claim they really won. I am 100 percent positive they will try their "rigged election" BS again. Trump is incapable of admitting he has lost. So, I believe we will have to counter that part of the threat as well.
Milley, who has been widely criticized for being “woke,” claimed that Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer” when he contested the results of the 2020 election and claimed that Trump had led the U.S. to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment,” a reference to an incident in 1933 that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler used to consolidate political power in Germany.
(...)
The book says that Milley responded to the January 6 riot by saying, “These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II."
Thanks for this point about Miley. I hope he joins Joe Biden at some sort of STOP FASCISM event during the campaign. Maybe Mike Pence would speak at such an event too. Hey, a guy can dream!
Milley recently said "We are unique among the world’s militaries,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator.”
“And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” he spat. “We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it.” which is exactly the the point of a functioning republic. The ostensible point of America.
Outstanding commentary! about AH. It amazes me how corrupt T is - every day a new outrage.. What really gets me upset is the way he excoriates tthe military who sacraficed so much to keep us safe. He wiggled out of service due to his supposed heel spurs which never seemed to both his traversing his golf courses.
Thanks Heather. I find it hard to believe that we now have a clear demarcation between the forces of good and the forces of evil who cloak themselves as Christians reshaping a country in their deprived image. When reading that Russia is planning if not immediate but in the future a war with NATO, we could not have envisioned of more political, social, financial and yes spiritual instabilities, not to mention our climate instability. We are not only fighting for democracy and the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, we are fighting for the future itself. Thanks Heather for your comprehensive understanding and clarity!
With respect to G.O.P. stifling Ukraine aid, I am guessing that, except for an economic Depression and a general philo-semitism these days, we are in the place as we were in 1940.
I watched some of the testimony of Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis. It was bold, to put it mildly, and someone has committed perjury.
When Rep. Jamie Raskin moved to get the actual data from Bobulinski’s phone to support his allegations – pictures from his phone were shown on screens during his testimony – Gym Jordan immediately interjected to table the motion effectively quashing it.
There’s a whole lot of lying going on and it’s a pity this committee doesn’t seem to care.
Jordan should have been locked up for ignoring a subpoena from the Jan 6 investigation committee. He and others have deep dark secrets that need to come to light and get them jailed. What a huge criminal enterprise just to put a treacherous evil crook in the white house to hand out more pardons.
I agree about Jordan. Why is he exempt for ignoring a subpoena?? People go to jail for that. It appears that the house gop consider themselves above the law, like their leader.
Why didn't Merrick Garland / DOJ investigate and charge Jordan (and all the other seditious members of Congress) for participating in Jan 6th? Something stinks at the DOJ!
Any word on Jordan's supporters from his district? Is he a shoo-in this fall? (My point is that ultimately it's the voters who are responsible for all this.)
Red rural areas. (Sorry, edit function doesn’t work on my iPad.). Witness our D senator Sherrod Brown and our enshrining reproductive rights in our constitution. But districts like Jordan’s duck shaped one mean that we have overwhelmingly Republican representation. So sadly, Jordan’s almost certainly will win reelection.
I should also point out that our Supreme Court is scandalously corrupt. Governor Dewine’s son sits on the court, and did not recuse himself from the districting case, even though his father was a defendant. And nothing happens to fix this. It’s incredibly frustrating.
I hope you can build enough grass-roots support to turn things around. Here in Iowa I'd like to see a certain crop of legislators and our congressional representative put out to pasture this fall. I think it's doable, but it's gonna take a lot of work.
We’re trying here in Ohio. Unfortunately our extreme gerrymandering, against which we have voted twice, results in extremist candidates who continue to be re-elected. Last election we voted with illegal congressional maps. We still do not have legal ones. Ohio republicans are defying the Ohio Supreme Court and nothing happens.
In our state-wide votes, Ohio demonstrates that it’s fairly close to purple - blue cities, red r
99% is rural, farmland, and they eat up his schtick like Trump eating ketchup packets. No large metropolitan area is in his district, otherwise, he might face a real challenge. It's pathetic, and while various levels of courts have declared our entire state unconstitutional, there are enough Jordan-type GQP- and MAGA-ites to continue. It's maddening.
*-how he is referred to in our house, including by my 81-year-old (generally very kind & gentle) papa.
What a telling contrast - Raskin, a deeply principled Constitutional lawyer in defense of truth, vs. Comer, a sad McCarthyite functionary, shamefully tasked to divert attention from the issue at hand, the patent criminality and unfitness of Trump & enablers.
I didn't watch in its entirety but did see this clip of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., engaged in a tense exchange with Bobulinksi, whose testimony she said did not satisfy Republicans' accusations of high crimes by the president. She said House Republicans have failed to accuse Biden of a “high crime,” which is a requirement for impeachment.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said, "at this point, the story is not the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is why its proceeding anyway. Why is this committee proceeding based on false charges?...The story is when this committee knew they were working with falsified evidence(testimony)!"
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has just gotten to the crux of the matter. Why are they still kicking a dead horse? Enough time has been wasted. It's unbelievable that this is still going on.
Maybe someone needs to sue Bobalouie for defamation of character. Apparently a lot of Republicans have been lying about things. But he is so unbelievable that I'm not sure a jury could determine irreparable harm was done to Hunter Biden with his bizarre accusations.
They DO care. They WANT the lies. They are in the propaganda business. The Fascist Media will cherry pick clips of this horror show and present them to their Cult following - lie after lie as if it were the forces of Truth.
The hearings don't need to really prove anything - except to convince the "base" that they are fighting the war against the "Biden Crime Family".
We think it is stupid because there is no evidence. But from a publicity point of view it is todays version of brilliant messaging. The only hope is to out shout them with facts. It won't change the minds of any Cultists. But it might, hopefully, reach those who like real facts.
Democrats expect the opposition to somehow care about reality. They create their own reality! We are bringing a knife to a fight where the other guy has an AR-15 and several clips.
The gop seem to be channelling Ben Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must hang together, or, most assuredly we shall hang separately.” There is a lot of effort being made to willingly ignore facts/truth/common sense/Will of the People. They ALL know this is fiction
R Dooley, oh they care, they know that they are this close to being legally implicated. They are going down, its just a question of when. I’m surprised Lev Parnas is still alive
It's mind-boggling how Johnson can continue to block aid to Ukraine in this manner, simply by refusing to bring the bill up for a vote, in his role as Speaker of the House. Is there no recourse?
In the long term, if Ukraine cannot withstand Russia's attacks, it is one step closer to Russia under Putin engaging in a large-scale conventional conflict with NATO.
Without US funding Ukraine's survival is at stake.
'Ukraine's survival in danger, Pentagon chief warns' (Reuters)
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart March 19, 20247:15 PM
'RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany, March 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday warned that Ukraine's survival was in danger and sought to convince allies that the United States was committed to Kyiv, even as Washington has essentially run out of money to keep arming Ukrainian forces.'
'Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to call a vote on a bill that would provide $60 billion more for Ukraine and the White House is scrambling to find ways to send assistance to Kyiv, which has been battling Russian forces for more than two years.'
'Austin is leading the monthly meeting known as the Ukraine defense contact group (UDCG), held at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, of about 50 allies that have supported Ukraine.'
"Today, Ukraine's survival is in danger and America's security is at risk," Austin told a press conference after the meeting.'
"I leave here today fully determined to keep U.S. security assistance and ammunition flowing. And that's a matter of survival and sovereignty for Ukraine and it's a matter of honor and security for America," he added.'
"I think our allies are acutely aware of our funding situation and the Ukrainians more so than anyone because of the shortages that are resulting from us not being able to supply them," a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.'
'Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to allies on Tuesday to supply more air defences, saying Russia had launched 130 missiles, more than 320 attack drones and almost 900 guided bombs in attacks this month alone.
AIR DEFENCE, UKRAINE'S PRIORITY
'Speaking later in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said air defence remained Ukraine's main concern and thanked participants for their efforts' "so that this, our priority, is fulfilled in an appropriate manner".
'Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who attended the gathering, said on Telegram that participants' "demonstrated their unity and resolve in helping Ukraine. Our forces are critically in need of ammunition. The ammo will be delivered!"
'Experts say that Austin will face a skeptical audience in Europe.'
"It's becoming harder and harder for U.S. leaders to travel to Europe, with the message that the United States is committed to Ukraine in the long-term," 'Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center in Washington, said.'
"The message of this long-term financial, military, economic commitment flies in the face of the reality of what's happening on Capitol Hill."
'At a joint press conference in Berlin on Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, whose ammunition-starved troops face their toughest battles since the early days of Russia's invasion two years ago.'
'German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Tuesday a 500 million euro ($543 million) aid package for Ukraine which includes 10,000 rounds of ammunition and said the United States was still a reliable partner.'
"I have no doubt about the reliability of the Americans," Pistorius said. "There are particularities in the political systems, and we have to deal with that."
'European support has become increasingly key with Biden unable to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress, and much of his foreign policy energy is focused on the war in Gaza.
But U.S. officials say that the reality is that without the United States, European support for Ukraine will not be enough.'
"There isn't a way that our allies can really combine forces to make up for the lack of U.S. support," the senior U.S. defense official said.' (Reuters) See link below.
Fern, I would note that Lynell, who writes “View Between the Ears of a Horse,” posted a comment on Hubbell’s Substack urging us to ensure our Dem House Reps have signed the discharge petition for aid to Ukraine. He noted that House Republicans are withholding adding their names until the list of signatories reaches 200.
Thank you for the reminder, Barbara, that constituents call and write their representatives letting them know that we are watching as is history concerning their signatures on the discharge petition for aid to Ukraine. Our own democracy depends on us working together to stop Putin's war against Democracy and on the people.
One intellectual legerdemain I often find is that the M.A.G.A. and pro-Putin elements of the cognitive under-class -- that, yes, includes many well educated people -- wave the bloody-shirt of the national debt. Yes, that debt has arguably made the country insolvent. But the current proposal will add only 0.2% to the national debt for a running total increment of 0.4%.
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Stated another way: not funding aid to Ukraine will not solve the problem with the national debt. In fact, not funding Ukraine will more likely add immense amounts of debt, if the embryonic World War III goes full blown. Imagine the cost of fighting that war.
'One Trump puppet stands between Ukraine and the aid it needs'
Trump is in control US' aid to Ukraine at this time, not the President of the US, Joseph R. Biden. Who is controlling Trump? Isn't he Putin's puppet, so, who is controlling our funding of Ukraine as it fights for its democracy and survival? PUTIN IS IN CONTROL OF OUR FUNDING TO UKRAINE. When is that going to be spelled out for the American people?
'Speaker Mike Johnson in just months has all but cemented his place among the weakest House leaders in its history. Alas, the Louisianan nonetheless holds enough power that he’s single-handedly blocking one of the most crucial matters of our time: bipartisan U.S. aid to Ukraine for its defense against Vladimir Putin’s murderous expansionism.' (LATimes, Opinion By Jackie Calmes)
'It’s not like Johnson is making a stand on principle by not scheduling a House vote. Oh, no. To hear him talk, he’s all for our Ukrainian allies and wants some kind of aid. But Donald Trump does not — he’s with Putin, as usual — and Johnson generally stands wherever the former president directs. Not for nothing is the novice speaker called' “MAGA Mike.”
'And no issue illustrates better than Ukraine the dithering and subservience to Trump that have become Johnson’s hallmarks since October, when House Republicans ousted his predecessor, rejected several higher-ranking aspirants and then, exhausted by the impasse, settled on him.
'Also, no issue holds more dire consequences if Johnson doesn’t change course — for Ukraine, peace in Europe and the United States’ security and international standing.' (LATimes) See link below.
Thank You for these sources, Fern. Putin's most powerful and successful offensive in the war on Ukraine (and, thus, NATO) is in the halls of the U.S. Congress. So frustrating and terrifying that our democracy does not have an effective mechanism to fight foreign invasion of our legislature.
'Trump’s vague peace plan casts a shadow over Ukraine' (WAPO, Today's WorldView by Adam Taylor)
'Donald Trump holds no elected office, but the Republican presidential candidate’s vague Ukraine policy is already being felt in that country. Allies of the former president, who faces numerous legal challenges amid his campaign to return to the White House, have blocked aid to Ukraine in Congress for months, leading to profound shortages on the battlefield.'
'There are some signs that that impasse could end soon. However, what happens next if Trump returns to the White House is unclear. The candidate has only offered a hazy outline of how he would handle the war in Ukraine, suggesting he would push both Russia and Ukraine to negotiate and claiming he could reach a deal to end the war in' “one day.” His answers on key areas, like whether Russia could keep the territory it has seized, remain unknown — leading to pushback from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who last year called on him to release his plan and “not waste time.”
'Trump has been more specific on U.S. aid to Ukraine, which he has criticized as an “endless flow of American treasure” to Kyiv. As congressional debate over funding to Ukraine dragged on last month, Trump outlined a new vision of American foreign assistance: It should be a loan.'
"It can be loaned on extraordinarily good terms, like no interest and an unlimited life, but a loan nevertheless,” 'Trump wrote in an all-caps message to Truth Social on Feb. 10, adding that if a country “strikes it rich sometime in the future,” the money would have to be repaid.'
'That proposal has won support from some more traditional Republican foreign policy figures, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) who met with Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday. '“I informed him that given the crisis at the United States’ southern border and our overwhelming debt, President Trump’s idea of turning aid from the United States into a no-interest, waivable loan is the most likely path forward,” 'Graham announced that night.'
'However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who met privately with Trump in Florida on March 8, has described the aid plan differently.' “He will not give a penny into the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end,” Orban told a state-run Hungarian television channel following their meeting, adding that “the Europeans are unable to finance this war on their own, and then the war will end.”
'With the election still half a year away and its outcome is still highly uncertain, Trump is a long way from office. In America’s political system, however, that matters little. Though Ukraine funding made its way through the Senate — without the backing of Graham, despite his previous support for Ukraine — it has been held up in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has refused to put it to a vote.'
'Polling suggests that the majority of the public and a significant number of Republican voters support aid to Ukraine. Johnson is widely considered to have stalled on the vote out of concern that Trump could set his supporters on him, punishing him and preventing his reelection this year.' “Like most strongmen, Trump prizes loyalty above everything,” the Financial Times’s Martin Wolf wrote this week, dubbing Johnson “Trump’s poodle.”
'Last week, Johnson suggested he may finally come forward with a vote on Ukraine aid. But this Washington dogfight has been felt on Ukrainian battlefields for months. In December, Ukrainian forces told The Washington Post that a shortage of artillery shells on the front line had led to canceled attacks. '“Our gunners are given a limit of shells for each target,” 'a member of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, which is fighting in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, told my colleagues.'
'That was said months before Ukrainian forces lost the eastern city of Avdiivka, prompting a disorderly retreat that left significant numbers of troops missing or captured. Ukrainian forces, estimated to be at a numerical disadvantage of roughly 7-1, were also lacking antiaircraft defenses that could defend against Russian-guided aviation bombs, officials told The Post.'
'Some European partners are attempting to fill the gap left by the United States, but few have anything close to the capacity that the United States can provide. One recent analysis by the Estonian government found that Europe’s collective artillery output is roughly 50,000 shells a month, not all of which goes to Ukraine. Ukrainian officials, however, have warned that they need 200,000 shells a month.'
'U.S. officials have warned that Ukraine could see a potential collapse if it continues without a supplemental aid package and that even if it survives the storm, countless lives will have been lost. Even if aid is turned back on imminently, the losses already felt cannot be erased.'
'Miroslava Luzina, a translator and independent political consultant, offered a message to Johnson.'
“[Johnson’s] actions or his political stance is actually costing lives,” Luzina told Post contributing columnist Jim Geraghty in Kyiv, referring to a recent attack on Odessa that left at least 20 dead. "So, he is the cause of more people getting dead at the front line, and behind the front lines, and in the occupied territories.”
'A Trump peace plan could well spark further bloodshed. Trump may genuinely believe his calls for negotiation and warnings about aid will lead to an end to the fighting. But the early evidence from both sides is that they intend to dig in harder.'
“It would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating with Ukraine just because it’s running out of ammunition,” Putin said last week in an interview with Russian media outlets. “Possible negotiations are not a pause for rearming Kyiv, but a serious conversation with security guarantees for Moscow.”
'Though Putin has said he remains open, ultimately, to negotiations, a leaked document of his terms for peace in 2022 suggests a price that Ukraine could not pay. As the Wall Street Journal summarized it, the objective remains the same': “Turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression.”
'Accounts of life under Russian rule in occupied parts of Ukraine suggest an even worse fate, with deportations, kidnapping and forced reeducation of large portions of the population. The war has largely united Ukrainians against Russia, while Zelensky and his top aides have repeatedly suggested that while they seek peace, they also won’t give up agree to terms that could see the country remain divided.'
'Even before Ukraine was flooded with Western aid, its forces were able to deter Russia’s most ambitious designs on Kyiv in early 2022. The country is desperately trying to build up its domestic arms industry. And while European partners may struggle to make up for America’s deep pockets, recent comments by France’s Emmanuel Macron and other leaders suggest they may be willing to meet a Russian escalation in other ways.'
'If this is all part of the plan, it certainly isn’t one for peace. The fight for Ukraine has not become more peaceful, but more desperate — and all this without Trump having won office.' (WAPO, Today's WorldView by Alan Taylor) Copied in full.
"As the Wall Street Journal summarized it, the objective remains the same': “Turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression....and all this without Trump having won office.' (WAPO, Today's WorldView by Alan Taylor)." Ghastly.
Wellll JustRaven, it has been pretty clear that leaders in either House or Senate can hold up all kinds of critical stuff when we remember Mitch McConnell's stalling of Supreme Court nominee for nearly a year until a new election have us tRump! Lotta stuff in our government rules needs fixing.
From a risks versus reward perspective, I can’t envision Putin going to war with NATO. Especially with his military degraded. But the thought of it happening is chilling.
If Putin does, it will likely be timed with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, if China is stupid enough to invade the island. The lesson of the Hamas attack -- aa relatively minor conflict, though Israël has turned collateral damage into collateral carnage -- is how much pressure it has taken off the Red Army.
Ned, please don't confuse Putin's cannon fodder with Stalin's Red Army which, whatever the crimes it was ordered to do -- like watching from the far bank of the Vistula while Warsaw burned or systematically raping German women -- broke the might of Hitler's hordes at Stalingrad and did not stop until it had taken Berlin and, in effect, won the Second World War.
[I've not forgotten my puzzlement at age 3 about why the Red Army was called "red" if they didn't wear red uniforms like the guardsmen in front of Buckingham Palace...]
The weirdest and most deeply perverse reality today is Nazism in the Kremlin of all places and -- even more awful -- Nazi-formatted behavior in Hebron, all the while screaming "Nazis! Nazis!" at the neighbors while despoiling and massacring them.
Truly, "The evil that men do lives after them". And the perversion that the long dead Hitler and his henchmen visited on the world stains the descendants of their greatest victims.
That is the most foul way in which evil manifests, infecting posterity even generations later.
We should be mindful of this today, when the new avatars of Nazi/Fascism have arisen worldwide. Even at the heart of America.
Fascism, but really any effort to truly dominate others. "As I would not be a slave, I would not be a master" said Lincoln. Every day we negotiate with people over whose will prevails (I know married couples do) and that can be cooperative or coercive. Sometimes when people are not cooperative, you have to be coercive back, like the courts to Trump. Those whose primary impulse is to bully have always plagued humanity.
J L, although we in this place should be learning to identify causal chains that link past, present and future, we are blinded by horrors like 9/11, the invasion of Ukraine and what happened on October 7th last year and fail to see these for what they are and defuse these triggers for a long chain reaction. Instead our blind rage may activate our enemy's plans.
The Russian plan is clumsier and more disjointed, yet its purpose was and remains unchanged: to recreate the Soviet empire.
The attack on Israel set one of history's deadliest strategic traps, and it is working, thanks to Netanyahu's abyss of a character flaw, well understood by an unprecedentedly ruthless enemy.
Counterproductive in the assault on Ukraine. An intelligent conqueror might, like Hernan Cortes, have come as a liberator, not an enslaver and mass murderer. He did succeed in turning some against Stalin and recruiting them to fight alongside the Wehrmacht. But in most he provoked hatred and resistance. Party commissars made good use of this.
Yeah, agree 111%. I jotted down this mythical speech while I was travelling through Ukraine a few months after the ghastly invasion started. These days, I would drop the reference to President Kennedy in favor another not involving negotiation because Putin has made this an existential war.
The Russian winter is an Army destruction force in itself, it killed Napoleon’s army, it killed Hitler army. It’s why we need to give the Ukrainians the resources they need to help contain Putin, so we don’t have to do the extremely expensive bloody job of pushing Putin back to his own borders later.
I am referring to the culture of the Red Army; the horror stories about what the Russian army is doing reminds me of the Red Army. Putin is a soviet in his soul. You are right in saying that the U.S.S.R. likely never received the gratitude it should have from the Western allies. Taking over half-of-Europe made that difficult. There is a great series on Netflix, "Turning Point: the Bomb and the Cold War" which implies just how little Russian thinking has changed.
I did not even know of Bulgakov, let alone his home. I am rather a Philistine. I did not go to museums but went five places and talked with people in the street. What the war was like for them. This was a quiet time, just before Ukraine re-conquered Kharkiv. On the links: no expectation of your clicking on them; I simply make them available to you.
What I found out was that, though an overwhelmingly white country, Ukraine has a rich diversity within her population. Kyiv felt like a cross between New York and what I imagine Stockholm to be. Bucha was like a suburb, except where it sadly was not. Kharkiv seemed what I would imagine to be Russian or Eurasian. Odesa impressed me as the most 'soviet' city in the Cold War context. Lviv seemed so Austrian that I was half-expecting a bunch nuns to come running down the street singing 'What Do We Do about a Problem like Maria?'
(link to Buda Pest Memorandum of 1994 embedded within; crafted during trip)
🛑
I only learned about Bulgakov a year later in, of all places, the Adirondack Mountains. I met his grand-grand-grand nephew, a former Russian national. A very cultivated young man visiting friends of my sister's. So, I dutifully read 'The White Guard' and found it to be an apt description of the dangerously fluid situation of a society being disintegrated by competing and aggressive meddlers. Rather like our situation in the United States, though far different in degree.
Now, another organ of the regime, the FSB at prayer. Honest priests, purged.
He stole Russia's wealth, is robbing the country of its future, killing its young men and the young men of Ukraine. Poisoner, nihilist, blasphemer, destroyer, he means to commandeer the people's soul.
Attacking NATO would be suicidal for Putin, and he knows that. I view his talk as propaganda.
For the last 2 years Ukraine has pushed the invading Red Army back and held them at bay. This was accomplished with US, NATO, and EU help - the "West" gave them surplus weaponry and spent less than 5% of the US defense budget to do so. In spite of Ukraine's being constrained to only use NATO weaponry for defensive purposes the Russian casualties and losses from this hastily assembled resistance have been staggering. The Red Army is currently depleted by their attempt, and its leadership has been demonstrated to be less than effective.
Unlike Ukraine, NATO is better funded, its armies are well-trained and fresh, it posesses state of the art weaponry, and has been watching and learning from Russia's battlefield performance. They know what and where they'd strike if war broke out, and unlike Ukraine they aren't constrained from using any weapon they have to strike directly into Russian territory.
Putin's war-making infrastructure would be eradicated almost immediately.
- Add nuclear weapons to the scenario of attacking NATO and Putin is no better off. The response from the allied nations would be immediate and crushing if even tactical nukes were tried a single time.
Lastly, once Russia began to fail how long does anybody think Putin's vassal states would remain loyal before breaking off on their own?
Michael and Gary, I don't disagree with what you have said. But I think Putin believes he has an ace in the hole with Trump. And it isn't just that he thinks Trump will win in November. He would love that, but if in the event that it doesn't happen, he has been planting seeds of chaos which would erupt from a Trump defeat. His real goal is reconstitution of the Russian/Soviet empire and the dissolution of the United States. With the US out of the picture, at a minimum he can approach taking not just Ukraine but the Baltic republics, as well, in the same incremental manner he has been using in Ukraine for the last year. And as far as the NATO military superiority goes, Putin actually started his attacks on democracy in Europe first, so he already has a disinformation machine in place there. It follows, then, that if he can disable the US with disinformation, he probably feels pretty good about being able to hack the European voters in order to cripple their governments. There is a popular saying making the rounds right now that so and so "said the quiet part out loud." Heather has a way of doing the opposite. She tends to close her posts by saying the out loud part quietly. It seems to me that after a series of low blows from the courts recently, we are ready to take courage from every rake the Republicans step on. Especially when they were the ones who put the rake where they thought the Democrats would step on it. But as much as I enjoy watching the Republicans make fools of themselves, I don't think we can take our eyes off the guy who benefits most from our domestic conflict.
"Galanis is serving a 14-year sentence for defrauding a Native American tribe and numerous pension fund investors of tens of millions of dollars. He joined the proceedings virtually from federal prison."
Thank you, Heather, for such a good synopsis of the testimony in Comer’s hearing. Instead of actually doing good by approving aid to Ukraine or the Senate immigration bill, they choose to waste American dollars bringing witnesses to Washington.
I greatly fear that, if they don’t supply Ukraine soon, we may end up with American boots on the ground in Poland
Yeah, my fear, too. I feel like we are in the early stages of World War III and these Republicans are quite content to let it go full blown. If the cognitive under-class (that includes many educated people who know better) prevails, imagine the cost of a full-blown two-theatre war led by China in the East and Russia in the West.
It's unlikely that any such conflict would remain a conventional war. The tension of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) aside who would survive? Do Putin, and Xi have a death wish for the whole world? The ONLY way that they would be so bold/foolish would be if an American president would let them do "...what ever the hell they want to do."
Yeah, that is a great insight. Such a war would go nuclear but, as Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman argue in '2034', the nuclear exchange would be tit-for-tat type of attacks and counter-attacks at specific cities, not the whole kit and ka-boodle. China has been aggressive in pursuing her interests during the last few years, but I do not think she will attack Taiwan since the brain-drain from Formosa would hurt China. If anything, my bet is that China will conquer Siberia when taking needed agricultural land and lebensraum becomes less costly than buying it.
Despite the Admiral’s conjecture, if any combatant perceives they’re losing the tit-for-tat they will escalate. It’s insane to consider that a nuclear war is winnable!
The Repub committee members should be made to pay back the cost of this ridiculous hearing/show out of their salaries. It’s a huge waste of taxpayer money when it could be put to so many better uses— like more X-ray machines to stop fentanyl at the southern border.
As Professor Richardson notes, Democrats on these committees are at last abandoning being docile and conciliatory and calling out the actual frauds that Republicans are perpetrating through the use of fake "investigations." No more Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, without being called liars, liars, liars.
Thank you again, as always Heather. If these recipients of our tax funded largess weren't frightening enough, it would be hilarious. I need to read Jeff Tiedrich's accounts of these proceedings to maintain my sanity. Comer Fudd stepping on another rake is the perfect description of the daily reports.
First thing in the mrning will set up your day. Sometimes the chain of giggles is so infectious that there is nothing to do but comment and like as as it rolls by. I've given up on what I need to do that day several times. I've seen you get sucked in a bit yourself. Good comments though.
And they even took their witch hunt on the road when their "dear leader" was indicted in NY. Didn't that cost the taxpayer's millions? Think of all of the unwanted rape victim babies that could have received formula for a year with that money in TX, OK, LA, etc.
They will have no problem using our hard earned tax dollars to build the concentration camps for us either. Fuel for the helicopters to fly us over the ocean and drop us in for our last swim. They know what they're doing. Dachau was built to re-educate the lefties, which to them is US now.
They're sick, totally deranged, these Republicans Heather cites today.
But they have to be. They have to see the world as a sick place, always threatening them, so they lash out. They sink repeatedly into new iterations of their same old tiring culture wars -- offended by gays, offended by black people (aaarrgghhh -- how did black people ever get into lily white America?) offended by two women parenting a family, or two men also raising children. Offended by Mickey Mouse! By the green M-&-M.
But, no problem. America has two sides, and on the other side good libs on campuses are offended also easily. Need to issue trigger warnings lest anyone ever feel challenged. All divvy up into groups, so blacks have their own graduation, separate from everyone else graduating. No one can say anything about girls and their sexuality if not a girl. Everyone withdraws into group identity zones. HR enforces this.
Americans all inhabit this pathos unnecessarily. If people learned to handle personal issues -- from humanities actually taught in schools -- they could see individuals as complicated, nuanced. Our best novelists, musicians, film makers, and memoirists teach, exemplify, model this. No need for all the hiding in categories, packages, sects, tribes, abstractions, slogans, epithets, labels, online algorithms.
They are the party of projection. Everything they accuse others of doing they either did, are doing, or are fixing to do.
They say the prosecution of DJT is a witch hunt as they conduct an actual witch hunt against the Bidens.
They say "Stop the steal" because they stole 2016, tried to steal 2020, and are gearing up for another attempt in the upcoming.
Every accusation is a confession.
I want a tee shirt & bumper stickers w this quote: “EVERY ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION. “
Modify that to EVERY REPUBLICAN ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION!
Hoyt Bangs: THAT is one of the funniest ones yet!
I have a Tshirt that reads, "I'm RETIRED. I was TIRED yesterday, and I'm TIRED again today."
I am so TIRED of trying to understand how ONE person (Mike Johnson) can stop the important and necessary work of Congress. How can this be happening in America?? Did the writers of the Constitution see this as an option?
Anyone who is NOT tired of the mess we're in, doesn't realize what a mess we're in,
Maybe three, four, five of the old school Republicans will find their backbones and quit or switch parties to save democracy and Ukraine. I'm looking forward to the house flipping before Nov because it seems the only way out of this morass.
Sorry! Backbones are in severly short supply in the Republican Party. They have all been added to Trump’s collection. Do not expect anything courageous or patriotic out this bunch of sycophants.
I know, but it does seem to be more likely than Johnson finding his.
But can Ukraine wait until next January for the military supplies it needs to defeat Russia?? I doubt it.
Slava Ukraini
It might come to the point that even if the Congress (Johnson) gets the bill passed, it may be too late. Let's throw a life preserver to someone who has already drowned.
If only they would find their spine!!
Ah from your lips…
We can only hope!
Fiddling while Ukraine burns. Another fine mess.
I was thinking about how trump's base listens to him lie and insult and threaten people and they laugh and cheer! Like Nero fiddled while Rome burned, these fools laugh as trump is destroying our Democracy. I'm not quite sure what percentage of Americans they are, but I find it disgusting and alarming. Is the U.S. losing it's mind? Are we turning into drooling idiots who want a reality show government?
I want to add that I do believe that most of us are not fools and the polls are wrong and Biden will be reelected. But while Heather's article reflects lots of victories, we still live in a scary world. So, fight on!
Craig, thank you for your excellent and 100% insightful comment. You have summarized exactly all my fears in so few words. You literally read my mind.
Again, bread and circuses. Without the bread.
Craig, I agree. But what does fight on mean?
Are we praying that independents , never Trumpers and Dems vote for Joe? Hopefully we can do more than wait. Suggestions welcome .
There are lots of things we can do, including remembering that all the little things add up and not giving up. The ocean is made up of millions of little drops.
You probably already do some of these things. I personally stay informed with reliable news, analysis and commentary sources. The people who's analysis I enjoy back up their opinions with information I get from straightforward news outlets. Obviously, Heather is a great source. I requested ideas from her Substack community and got several recommendations. I also share with others what I find important. I don't have much disposable income, but I donate to a few causes. Again, the little drips and drabs add up. I recently moved to a small town, but I've found the local Democrats and am gradually getting involved. I've gone to a few little marches and protests for responsible gun legislation, reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. They were fairly small gatherings, but part of huge nationwide protests. I know there are cities where one can get involved in the campaign headquarters. I'd like to do some post card mailings. My girlfriend and I are shy, but there are opportunities to make phone calls or knock on doors to get out the vote. Our local group manned a booth at the county fair for that purpose and to register people to vote. I've written my local representatives on various issues. Email makes that so easy. We live in a conservative area, so we're cautious about lawn signs, but we have put them and window signs up. And I also think the encouraging comments here and elsewhere help. We might give hope, ideas and support to one another. You never know.
I'm sure I've forgotten tons of other ways of non-violent "fighting." We really are in a war and I take it seriously. I hope lots of others will add to my modest To-Do list.
Informed action helps me keep my worry down too. We are not helpless. So, I do what I can, remember to have some fun and let go.
You made me think and work Mark. Thanks!
Yes. Another Nero.
"Most contemporary sources describe him, (Nero) as tyrannical, self indulgent, and debauched.
The historian Tacitus, claims the Roman people thought him compulsive and corrupt." (Wikipedia)
Sound like anyone we know?
Talk about one person blocking significant things. Anyone remember the name Emily Murphy?
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gsa-official-blocking-bidens-transition-privately-plans-post/story?id=74234794
I found it frustrating to watch this woman. preempt the Biden transition team. Not that Donald Trump 's outgoing administration did anything for transition.
Some of our most important functions in terms of federal government and national security happen during the peaceful transition of power between presidents and parties.
Of course the current clown show in Congress sort of outweighs any transition antics.
Bill, thanks for the reminder of how crazy things have become.
Speaking of traditions, isn't the present president suppose to unveil the past president's portrait? I know trump refused to do Obama's (what a petty man), but I wondered if trump's was unveiled yet? I know Biden did Obama's.
Here's hoping he scribbles a beard and mustache on T's portrait.
In the trump tradition, how about the bathroom?
I remember!
Me too.
Great answer to someone who wrote that, "He (Biden) happened to be in the Oval Office when COVID ended, which is doubtful in the minds of those who still demand that everyone continue to wear the ineffective masks."
The article mentioned the Biden Advisers threatened legal action over the stonewalling that kept them from classified information in addition to national security and the potential (non-existent, though), potential vaccine rollout/(distribution) plans. I remember the rapid development of distribution plans the Biden Administration created that was so critical to beginning to get better control of the pandemic.
I don't know how much the legal threats might have sped up the distribution but remember how disgusting it was to find that they were hiding such incompetence (if that's all it was).
I remember hints that Trump's allies seemed to be trying to distribute some in ways that might profit them handsomely. If the House wants to expand their investigations of the criminality of past and current administrations, that tail end of the Trump reign of terror would seem a target rich environment.
I have wondered where she fits into the coup as well...I would not be surprised if there are more indictments after the election and if Smith chose to go from the top down because Trump's coup needed to be the headline.
ME TOO!
Agreed ~ it is disgusting our nation is being held hostage by one person.
Seems impossible
There are many individuals exercising too much power these days. That Texan judge who stopped the sale of mifepristone comes to mind. And trump, an unelected citizen and criminal ruling the gop for his own diabolical purposes. There have been several other instances lately, but those two came immediately to mind. Johnson is just another power mad fool.
I am tired. Any mature, intelligent person is. That helps to work against truth!
Take your vitamin B-12 and hold on to one another and demand that the people who work for “we the people “better get serious or they will be fired! Aren’t we mostly tired of immaturity at a very high level??????
Immaturity indeed!
May we all find strength to do what we can.
How can we stop Mike Johnson from blocking this vote?
Send him a picture of his boyfriend. That is what Mike is hiding!!
Good question! Wish I knew they answer.
How about a tee shirt, lawn sign & bumper sticker which says "Trump & Putin 2024" Together Again!! That should be their campaign slogan and forget this Make America Great Again nonsense
I would not want their name in my yard. It would make it look dirty. But so true! Should tfg be elected....that is what we will end up with as the result. There are so many crazy people in my area....it frightens me!
We have had a bumper sticker on our car for over five years. It reads “Trump/Putin, make Russia great again “.
I have one that says, "The gullible and their freedom will soon be parted." Might be a little too subtle but I didn't want to call anyone stupid. It can be considered a bipartisan sticker, I guess.
That’s a good one! Wonder if a few MAGAs could see and believe.
What happened to the good old days when commies were caught and tried?
Carol O: AGREE!
That would be a great number sticker
Annabela, that's exactly right.
Putin does that too.... re the denazification of Ukraine etc.
He accuses NATO, a peacekeeping organisation, of doing what he is actually doing.
This creation of alternative realities is very effective.
Actually, Christopher, less alternative than mirror realities.
Putin, like Trump, like Orban has no culture. Totally vulgar instead. So when he sees others he doesn't "see" and certainly "other" has no meaning for one who lacks any and all details as to what the range of the personal might include or open up to out there.
A vulgar entity can only parrot back ready-made formulae, abstracted labels, and packaged categories. All the vulgar reiterate each other's sinkholes of depravity: Speaker of the House Howdy Doody, Clarence, the greatest bribe-taker in the history of the court he's collected pay from for over three decades, Erdogan, Xi, Kim, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, his mirror in vulgarity Hamas, the ayatollahs, Assad, Sisi, Modi -- along with the three most vulgar by which I began this. Zero of them have any equipment to see into complex and differing individuals apart from the(moneyed) packaging that floats the vulgar.
All just mirror each other's dehumanization.
Do we want our schools to follow such vulgarity, to leave out humanities as totally as Putin murders any opposition, as surely as fat orange Trump curses in labels, as illiterately as all the white trash lemmings in Congress rush for nearest cliffs?
Phil, nice job! Ah! WHITE TRASH LEMMINGS. Another great bumper sticker...
Tempting as it is, it would be a mistake to insult Trump voters. Just ask Hillary Clinton how her comment calling them a "basket of deplorables" worked out. Trump voters got t-shirts that said things like "Proud to Be A Deplorable" and Trump won, in the Electoral College only, but that was enough. Our stance needs to be that Trump is a con man who is defrauding his own voters, using them, manipulating their patriotism, because he wants power, fame, money, and to stay out of jail for his crimes. We need to find a short, punchy, persuasive way to say "Trump Is Ripping You Off!"
'We need to find a short, punchy, persuasive way to say "Trump Is Ripping You Off!"'
How about "Trump Is Ripping You Off!"?
>:-D
He was also aided mightily by the mainstream media, focusing story after story on the whole email "scandal." It was appalling and one of the main reasons I've dumped all of them..The Times, Washington Post, The Guardian.
It's extremely unfortunate that all the MSM outlets cannot resist the political version of "if it bleeds, it leads". For Dumpster's first run, a lot of guilty parties contributed gratuitously to his "win": MSM breathlessly publishing his every tweet and giving him bucketloads of free coverage, repeating whatever he said little or zero in-the-moment debunking of his lies; the Bernie supporters who decided that the Democratic party was not sufficiently perfect, and opted to sit out the election rather than vote for Hillary Clinton; and Hillary and her campaign, who made the deeply stupid assumption that they didn't need to campaign in historically union-heavy Democratic states because they were the "blue wall" [not]; and Hillary herself, not calling Trump out when she should have, as when he stalked her on stage during debates, and also publicly treating Trump voters with contempt ("basket of deplorables") which 100% backfired on her. Oh, and of course, James Comey violating the FBI policy about never talking about investigations, not once but *twice*, first announcing he was investigating her email server in early summer, then mentioning it again shortly before the election. There are probably more guilty parties and I'm just too exhausted to remember the rest.
I have not given up my subscriptions, but I can understand why some people have.
Oh, and worse than ripping us off, he appears to want to get us all killed. Trump is way, way worse than deplorable and he scares the crap out of me. (Pardon my Italian!).
Likewise! He scares the crap out of me, too. Anyone who's not terrified at the possibility of a second Agent Orange term is either not paying attention or deeply deluded.
Trump is becoming demented (like his father before him), and as a result, he's making a lot of stupid decisions which are hurting his candidacy.
Hillary's "deplorables" line did no matter to the voters Not one person who was offended by that had had any intention of voting for Clinton in the first place. It cost her no votes. This was bullshit made up by the press.
Hillary came across, Elizabeth, as out of touch with America's working classes.
If she'd had any humanities, she could well have used them (so many, so apt) to show sympathy, solidarity, with how U.S. billionaires offshored all the millions of decent, working-class jobs, fought against health care, aided the white terrorists.
It's a vicious spiral downwards, Elizabeth, for all American's who've attended schools, K-12 and "higher" which have marginalized, abandoned, dumped on the humanities.
But his was the first plan of the far-right foundations who organized after the Powell memo of 1971. To allow them to proceed in their depredations, first trick was to rid the schools of humanities, thus to blind, anesthetize everyone to what the predators could thus so easily do thereafter.
No. Seriously, should we give into that sort of temptation?
No.
It probably would not convince any Trumpers to change their minds, though they might try to look up "lemmings" just out of curiosity. It would, however, become an appropriate bumper sticker if Trump is re-elected and we have nothing left to lose.
Might as well go down laughing.
Hmm. I have a problem with the White Trash thing. It is bigotry. And it is inaccurate. While Trump tends to attract less educated poorer White voters, it is only part of the picture. When you look at why, it is driven by Republican government policies and political wedge issues crafted by privileged racist right wing religious extremists. These Republicans, with power, perpetuate economic inequity and its associated anxieties while playing on racial and religious prejudice. And it runs through every economic group. (I've have had occasion to meet very wealthy individuals, it's always astounding how financially insecure they seem to feel and who they blame.)
Phil, your description of, '' white trash lemmings in Congress'' is an extremely accurate description of those in the Fascist GQP low-life members in there. MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Tim Burchett, are just a few of them that immediately came to mind to me. That was a great comment, Phil.
I'm doing my part to get rid of Boebert.
Look for her as an anchor for Newsmax
Actually - THEN I never would have to see or hear her again! She truly is a twit!
Twit is being kind to gunslinger Barbie. She is the kind of woman who has forgotten the real power of the feminine and instead is a pale vulgar imitation.
I agree, Maggie. I wish i had to never look at that disgusting hag, Maggot Traitor Goon Greene either. She is the most disrespectful, hateful, arrogant, lying cretin i have ever seen or heard.
Hi Jen, if Boebert does happen to be an anchor on Spewsmax, let me know, because i NEVER EVER watch their lying garbage. I never watch that Fox Spews or OANN either. I have had a heart condition for several years now, and i certainly don't want to risk a heart attack from watching those false news outlets. I can't help it, but i get extremely angry when i hear anyone bash Democrats like those lying bungholes always do. I don't need those lying white trash third rate ''so called'' news outlets.
I had some relatives a generation or so ago that might have been considered by the bigoted gentry of the time as "white trash" - the men worked in logging in the South and, per my sainted Aunt Carolyn, their families lived in cabins with dirt floors. And yet, by my dad's generation (born 1929), all the kids in that generation went to college (all in the south), most of them in the liberal arts and not one of them a racist. All of them white Methodists (not Baptists, thankfully). Solid middle-class Americans. And I'll say this: it isn't money that saves you from being white trash, or owning or inheriting land or your own business, or living in a "good" neighborhood. The creatures we see in congress today are DEFINITELY deplorable white trash low-lifes, no matter that they have money, or land, or a position of respectability and responsibility - which they betray day by day. Bless their hearts.
I think of white trash describing a mindset as opposed to poor white people. They have their own biases too, y’know.
I like, John, your spelling of Jim Jordan's given name as "Gym."
I think you are nicely reminding us of his earlier career, where he was using a certain Ohio State gym as springboard to career of always being sycophant, cover for the most vulgar powerful.
We’re doing what we can to get rid of Burchett.
Phil, I am so gratified to read your explanation and description of the makeup of Totalitarians with power. [I went looking for a lengthy description by Bruce Springsteen to add here as a link, and cannot find it--he includes how Trump not only has no appreciation of the arts, but doesn't like animals--especially dislikes dogs!]
Long ago (teens) I observed that totalitarian dictators were empty and boring when it came to tastes in art and music.
Decades since, my work as a psychotherapist leads people to see and understand through their inner lives including through dreams. The results give them an appreciation of the levels of symbolism we all live within.
I would argue that the individuals you name are all autocrats, but they vary in the form of autocracy they’re employing. And each in their own way uses “their version” of their national culture in their messaging to their populace. As we know a keystone of populism is an emotional appeal to nationalism. Putin’s call to nationalism is based on a nostalgia for more perfect times when Russia was successfully expanding its Empire, Orban’s call to nationalism is based on the nostalgia of a “more perfect time” when only Christian Hungarians lived in a Hungary, Erdogan’s call to nationalism calls for a return to some key aspects of the Ottoman Empire, and Xi’s call to nationalism is similar to Putin’s in that it’s based on the nostalgia of a glorious empire when China without question dominated the Asian continent. Likewise the Christian Nationalists are essentially following their version the the autocratic playbook especially Orban’s playbook. Therefore, IMO the key to eliciting this psychological support of citizens through their state sponsored propaganda is the underlying message of a return to “past stability” in a world which to many of their citizens seems to be more fragmented and uncertain than ever in their lifetimes. Using these nostalgic appeals to a return to a period that seemed more secure for their populace (even if unrealistic) is key and using their own internal political messaging to repeatedly air this messaging is essential.
You are so right. Joe Biden's challenge to this has to include more history of what the Democratic administrations including his have done to make lives better in the United States and their worldview and plans for the future.
I think Biden's going to the unions is a great idea. If it were possible, he should go to the sites where the infrastructure is being done. This way people have something concrete to see.
I think everyone has some nostalgia for the past. I keep seeing how great life was four years ago. The questioner is referring to the entirety of trump's term. They forget that 4 years ago the unemployment was up to @16%, millions of people were dying, businesses closed, shortage of supplies, and incompetent assignments in things such as distribution (Jared was in charge, really?) His term, his fault (even if it wasn't). This is the logic trumpers use on Biden. His fault for the Russians attacking Ukraine, his fault the Hamas attacked Israel, his fault the withdrawal from Afghanistan went so badly.
Phil , "white trash Lemmings" PERFECT!!
Putin's winning the latest election is like trump's winning his primaries with basically no one running against him. he should have gotten close to 100% of the votes (of those who voted in the primary), but he didn't. hmmm
Maybe we're seeing it happen, Karen.
Maybe even MAGA people are getting tired of the constant self-parading, now-all-too-obvious narcissism, reckless thrall to violence and threats of chaos, mayhem, bloodbath, now-tiresome reference to fellow Americans as vermin, poison.
Yes, Karen. Trump so resembles Putin for vulgarity. But how many U.S. Republicans remain in Speaker Howdy Doody's Congress to root for the ever-lower floor they think the mob craves? How many justices on the Clarence court feel it Constitutional to destroy that to which they cynically, blithely perjured themselves in giving oaths? How many evangelical men and women feel it "Christian" when Lauren Boebert fondles what she fondles in public, or when cult leader grabs whatever impulse goads him to grab (in places where same Clarence court arrogates its own rule, dictatorial possession, also)?
In reference to the grabbing part, I have the perfect theme song for trump It's by the Steve Miller Band: Abra cadabra, I want to reach out and grab ya. The rest of the song is appropriate also, but that one line just jumped out at me.
So many on the far right grabbing, Karen.
Clarence court. Fat orange diaper guy. Speaker Howdy Doody. And, maybe worst, all those hundreds of billionaires, all zombie, living dead organized that the rest of us get replaced, too, by their pod people -- but all as serfs.
Hell no. We must make a gallant effort to make sure that everyone shows up at the polls to vote for Democracy.
Excellent post, Phil. They lack culture and are vulgar instead. Your post is full of excellent observations....sinkholes of depravity.....moneyed packaging that floats the vulgar....white trash lemmings. And a plea for humanities. Kudos. I often rant that such monsters have so much power in this world.
This may be the single greatest blog comment I've ever read.
Speaking of vulgar: the myth that Lemmings rush off cliffs is a product of Disney looking for a good story, not a characteristic of a species of rodent. The fact that Disney filmmakers faked the scene of rodents committing mass suicide and it has survived to become a part of our language in spite of widespread fact checking says something sad about our culture.
Disney won an Acadamy award in 1958 for the "documentary" White Wilderness.
"This creation of alternative realities is very effective." And the master - Trump. OMG. it is head spinning.
They are all purveyors of The BIG LIE 101!
How about "BIG LIE LEMMINGS"?
Yes. The firehose strategy.
https://yadontknow.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-gloved-fist.html
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
Thanks Tim. Both of those shed a lot of light.
A bit like trump's practice, change your mind and deny that he actually had said. repetitiveness is his trade mark. How often has he whined about the stolen election?
Remember Putin is "Russia Russia Russia" ... we well might take Heather's quoting of Russian ambitions and perhaps intentions of getting in the military conflict with NATA in the not too distant future.
Thanks Kellyanne Conway. ugh.
Kellyanne Conway.
Has been so for decades, now it’s at 90 decibels 24/7. And the MAGAts slurp at the trough of hogwash, and the MSM is not only loathe to call them out, but finds the whole Schitt show good for ratings. Shout out to Dems trying to inject a dose of sanity and remind people of the reality that is under attack.
Any news on the discharge petition to force the supplemental bill vote?
Thanks to Lynell for sharing this on Robert Hubbell’s/Today’s Edition:⬇️
As of yesterday (Wednesday, March 20), here is a list of signatories to the discharge petition for aid to Ukraine. If this is correct, there are only 15 signatures left to get to 200, the total Republicans say they want to see before adding their names. If you don't see your Dem rep on the list, call them to urge them to sign on.
https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2024031209?CongressNum=118
Here is contact info:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTaMB3k5Z37OAM8HEMhDtwbLGzwn1wDXSNcoTmXEJbpfbacfp-m0fJGyb36lcNOhgqGO5-bArbibS5a/pubhtml?gid=614612044&single=true
I found my Rep, DEMOCRAT Pramilla Jayapal on the OPPOSED list and contacted her office. Spread the word! The list is informative and contact #’s listed!
I think I found all of mine listed.
I can guess whose signatures are missing. The world's fate is hinged on a few unhinged selfish, trump slaves.
Thank you for this
Thanks to Kathy
Jeri, I think Gym Jordan’s voice alone, is at 90 decibels!
...and screeching the most ridiculous, vapid nonsense. He's like Trey Goudy on steroids. How dare the MSM treat them like they are politicians. Everett Dirksen was a politician, not a circus performer, as these cretins are.
Yes. Talk about a witch hunt! This shameless , baseless investigation into the affairs of the Bidens continues to make a mockery of the impeachment process which was never meant to be used as a weapon to attack the integrity of a politician for personal, petty reasons.Enough with this bull pucky.
The House Republicans tried to load each and every spending bill with poison pills and draconian spending cuts mostly aimed at reducing benefits for the underprivileged.
I wonder how much money and time Comer, Jordan, Greene, Gaetz and the other maganiazis have wasted on their witch hunts.
Hopefully, the Democrats will be back in control of the House in January, 2025 and they can 1) quash these ridiculous hearings and 2) use the actual evidence that has been brought out against TFFG.
Maybe pass legislation to remove the insurrectionists, since the Supremely Corrupt Court refuses to do their job.
they'll need to end the filibuster to get that one. Or a super majority, not likely.
💙
Dead on. The GOP subscribes heavily to the Tu Quoque fallacy. It has to be one of the worst fallacies because it brings discourse to a grinding halt while your brain struggles to make sense of what you just heard.
If you look into their rhetoric, you will see that they accuse the Democrats of fascism. They claim that if Joe Biden is elected there will never be another election. Anything that is objectively true of their party they use to paint the Democratic Party and the MAGA base believes it.
When my sisters and I were children we used to call this “mocking” and it was one of the worst things about having siblings at all. It generally ended in violence.
In this current iteration I fear that is the point.
And the Supreme Court has made sure they're armed with weapons of war.
I'd say we need to arm too, but there's a fundamental problem: too many simply could never fire the damn things.
I'm pretty sure it ended in violence with me and my sister too!
I had to look that one up.
Some other names for the tu quoque argument are the “you too” fallacy, appeal to hypocrisy, and personal inconsistency. Tu quoque arguments are considered logical fallacies because one's actions have little bearing on what is factually true.
I've said this all along. How can people so blind?
"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
Just like tfg. Lets us hope that the absolute lack of character/integrity is not reflective of all those in Congress and of Americans in general. That bunch in the House can not do more to destroy this country's reputation.
Not just the reputation.
The correct word is LIARS. That is all they know how to do. That and to share dis/misinformation and to provide sound bites to their media partners. If they get help from Russia, so be it. They have given up on being a free, democratic country and now have aligned themselves with Trump and his autocratic ways and all the groups that are supporting him.
The Heritage Foundation is a full on right-wing Christian nationalist organization. Kevin Roberts, their new president is a rabid nationalist who wants to turn this country into a rich, white, male dominated country where only their ideas are the law of the land. If you aren't white and male god help you.
My thoughts exactly.
Let’s use the talking points about how the Republicans are wasting tax payers’ money on this fraudulent investigation. Wasting our money, wasting our time, and ultimately putting our national security at risk.
I agree with most of what you say. This is playground bullying tactics: Your mom is ugly.” “No, your mom is ugly.” Every accusation is a confession - excellent. However, I don’t think we should be saying Trump stole the 2016 - to me, that takes the focus away from the blatant, criminal actions in Jan. 2021 and after. Also, it gets us, as Democratic and Independent voters. One of the big reasons we lost is that we didn’t fight hard enough for Hillary. Yes, we won the popular vote. But I canvassed even before the email debacle and many people told me - I just don’t like her personality. Then the Comer email announcement and we didn’t stand firm on our commitment to the Democratic platform. It could have been a landslide for Hillary. We must do better.
Agreed Annabel. They are also the party of distraction and chaos. They want everything to fall apart. Because it will only be...once our country is no longer run by the rule of law (for some it doesn't work at all,.now) is when those who come into power will be unstoppable....and will be able to exploit, destroy, enslave, and reign over the remaining population of the world.
A confession, and also a projection.
This has been the Republicans’ MO for years!
Example: Some republican extremist with a large following (Travis I believe) was complaining that Taylor Swift was traveling around the country in a jet. I am pretty sure that someone with two jets is not taking Amtrak or Greyhound. There are pictures of him on the tarmac with a jet that says TRUMP on it. Taylor told people to vote and I understand supported 2 democratic candidates. How many candidates did trump support in 2020?
Reposting this:
https://youtu.be/Yilgr2SJ3xQ
It's important to understand that the Republican Party has been hanging on by its fingernails since FDR. Up until the aftermath of Nixon, they could (more or less) hold their own, but it's been a long, clawing slide downward ever since, and their chief bloc of support has been the hyper-conservative majority of the Evangelical movement. This turned out to be a vicious cycle: the more religiously conservative the Republicans got, the less attractive they were to the general population, requiring that they lock-in even more of the most extreme conservatives.
There's only one place for this to end, which is -- basically -- right where we are now.
If you give the link above a listen, it's clear that this has nothing to do with backbone, or ethics, or anything other than pure survival-at-any-cost for the Republican Party. They are losing power and money. They will do ANYTHING to get that back.
I think most of us find a limit at some point. For instance, if we have a lousy job with an abusive manager, we make excuses and hang on, but at some point, the abuse becomes too much and we simply walk away, wondering why we didn't do it sooner. With religion and politics, there seems to be no concept of "too much." People just cling to the awfulness no matter how bad it gets, and the excuses get worse and worse. That's where the Republicans are right now.
Thank you, Heather. From what I understand, Moskowitz donned a Putin mask before the meeting started. He did it to show the hilarity of these hearings but also the absurdity of them. Our Dems were fully prepared today with their witness, Lev Parnas. He really is our ace-in-the-hole along with Cassidy Hutchinson.
Bobulinski was as arrogant, actually more-so, than Hur was. What I loved watching was Comer’s expressions when Raskin was bringing up pertinent information. Truly, are the two Jimmies just plain stupid?
It all looks SO stupid to those of us who employ critical thinking skills. The idea of wasting all this time on a "prosecution" that has no evidence - not even a hint of evidence - would seem to us to be counterproductive. We ask why Comer and Clan aren't spending most of their time working on ways to fund the government. Why aren't they focused on doing their primary job? It IS a stupid waste of precious time and energy. But the Insurrectionists in Congress don't think so.
Because they are focused on something else. To paraphrase Trump's trainer Roy Cohn: "all publicity is good, even the bad stuff". The incredible irony is that Cohn also coached Senator McCarthy in his bogus "anti-communist" purge. Today his techniques are the tools of pro-Putin Russian sympathizers. You can't make this stuff up!
Republicans know that they own a base that DOES NOT think critically. Trump has instructed Comer and Johnson to keep the impeachment hearings alive. If they don't, he will send them to the political dumpster in the sky.
It matters to us that Raskin and Company can lay out the truth and viscerate this whole clown show. But the message to the Cult from Trump and his Slaves is that they are "holding the Biden Crime Family accountable". It IS a show. It is about video clips and sound bites for the Fascist Media. It's all stupid. Because for a lot of Stupid People, it's all very effective.
The question I have is: are there enough "persuadables" who don't identify with the Cult who are also critical thinkers? I am hopeful, but still terrified.
But it worked on Hilary. Almost. It took Comey and Putin's whores to defeat her.
It's also that a whole lot of people don't want a female president.
Each it was all Eves fault
Yup. They just keep repeating the same junk over and over. The "emails" and the "laptop". Some people eat it up.
Dumber than a bag of rocks, those two (and so many of the GQP) are . . . . . .
You have to have an IQ lower than ambient room temperature to qualify for membership in the Trump party.
I think there is a general correlation between level of education and immunity to BS; yet not entirely. I've seen bright, well educated, and even formerly amiable drawn onto the web of lies. Whole societies go sociopathic. I think all or most of the opportunists at the top know that they are liars, and figure that it makes them clever; but I think most of the rank and file are deluded. History is full of this; but it's backing us into a worldwide crisis if can't find better ways to keep despotism from taking hold. I think that following the money would be instructive.
Right ON J L, your comment recalls the forensic psychiatrist Bandy Lee's warnings about the contagious effects of tRump's pathological narcissism and sociopathy!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/
Follow the money, yes. And also follow the chain of instruction and intimidation. Johnson and Comer have been told to keep this charade and clown show alive right up to the election. The Fascist Media will focus on a few clips and statements by Bobulinski and company. They certainly won't broadcast what Raskin or Goldman have to say.
We think that truth should triumph. But they think that strategy wins. Truth be damned.
"We think that truth should triumph. But they think that strategy wins. Truth be damned." You've hit the nail on the head, Bill! The GOP is all about strategy, as if this were all a game and they must win at all costs. Even when the cost is truth and democracy!
Organized crime in in fancier suits,
Trump wears his emotional IQ on his MAGA cap--45-47 (where 100 is normal). Ron Johnson and other professional liars also score low. How many promised to produce better ACA legislation?
JL a really excellent comment.
Unfortunately I can prove that better-educated folks can indeed fall victim to the Trump BS. There are a couple authors I know who used to be friends with me, whose work I admired and respected, whose advice I sought, who I knew were conservative but seemed to be the kind one could work with and respect. And then one day they're wearing red hats.
Yup
Certainly seems that is a prerequisite.
One would like to think that, and in my frustration I say that, then I remember my father, a sweet, kind and very intelligent man became convinced of a Great Conspiracy within the government in the early 1970s. Now I have three well-educated friends, ( PhD engineering, RN, and BS Biology) who all are certain there is a Great Conspiracy. We just avoid speaking of politics now. That crapola seems to make the rounds every so often. I wish someone would research the history of these. It would be edifying.
Crucial.
🤣🤣🤣 Thank you. I look at Comer and want to laugh . He must have someone to shave him because looking at his face in the mirror….
🤣🤣
An IQ lower than the room temperature... Or, be a narcissist or a child of a narcissist. Unfortunately there are many who grew up in the shadow of a narcissistic upbringing by parents born around the tail end of the Great Depression.
And equally as vulnerable.
Definitely dumber. A bag of rocks at least possesses an air of weighty reserve. A rock is authentically a rock, and makes no effort to mislead.
It is like the Two Stooges! I think that is what they should be called.
218 Stooges
Ask Putin.
Bringing out the analogies dumber than a sack of hammers or a box of rocks.
My favorite is “dim bulbs”….😏
I for some reason prefer “dumb as a brick” for everyday use. Generally, politicians usually require “box of rocks” as a comparison, however, “bag of hammers” is for specific comparisons, such as Jim “OH hates my guts”Jordan, Jimmie “I’d love me some bacon” Comer and Tommy “I only know footballs are brown and round (cause that’s the only shape I know)” Tuberville.
Stupid? Arrogant fabricators without a shred of integrity. One might refer to them as evil.
I you think of the most evil person imaginable and them try to think about an ultimate malicious narcissist, I think that both searches will point in the same direction.
Yes.
I love Jared Moskowitz, so smart and such a great sense of humor.
Very quick-witted! When he pulled that stunt with Comer, somebody posted a pic of Jaime Raskin’s big smile. :)
Love, love, love Moskowitz. He is smart, quick witted and gets the best of Republicans on a daily basis. I saw a video of him wearing the Putin mask last night and it made me smile.
For those who didn’t see the mask
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/house-democrat-shows-up-to-hearing-in-a-putin-mask-i-just-want-to-thank-james-comer/amp/
Yes, yes they are plain stupid. They also seem to enjoy humiliation.
It’s like they are playing a rigged slot machine, and they keep pulling the lever one more time…
Great metaphor for Reaganomics. Cut taxes and responsibilities for the rich, just >one< more round....
yes
When are more American voters going to hold their own elected legislators accountable for not doing any legislation? Does anyone recall voting to send their party's choice to join an actors' guild to put on exceptionally bad performances? Didn't there used to be a country that had a Constitutional directive "...to promote the general welfare...."? This pathetic exhibition certainly indicates that this is not the Congress of that country.
That is the essence of the message that President Biden and Vice President Harris have to get across: that many in the Trump base will get a better deal with the Democrats than the Republicans. Trump looks like he is sliding into insanity, if he has not been impaired all along.
They also need to get across that the Republican party only wants budgets that go against the well being of most Americans and they need to spell out line item by line item how that works. In fact, each line item should get its own ad! How about defunding social security with a discussion of how it is currently funded and the changes Biden wants to make to ensure solvency vs. the gutting and bankrupting that the Republicans want. That should be followed up with some images of how people lived before we had social security, a program developed by Otto von Bismarck in Germany in 1881. Roosevelt introduced it in the USA in 1935. So, in less than 100 years here it is under attack, whereas in Germany almost 150 years later it is enshrined into the expectations of the population. Social security covers more in Germany than it does here, so it is just as vital a program. https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/social-security
This is a very important piece of history for the “socialism” screamers. Report today on the “happiness” scale shows US out of the top 25. No surprise. The middle class has been killed by trickle down and union loss (both of which Biden is trying to reverse), the pandemic has hollowed out our medical care system, and millions no longer understand that age CAN bring wisdom (or what wisdom is, for that matter). Then we have “Speaker” Johnson, threatening all of US with a has-been “president.”
The discussion of US being out, is that while people 60+ are at #10, our youth have dropped a lot. https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-of-the-younger-the-older-and-those-in-between/
While the Republican party is aiming to make life as difficult as possible for our youth, who are suffering from the covid experiences and the isolation that it brought them, and contrary to the resilience they are supposed to have, they are not having it. They are inheriting a world where the quality of living is going down for them. Huge university debt (thank you Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party), and no prospects for buying a home, and being able to afford children at the same time that the Republican party wants to force children on them by making abortion illegal, and perhaps birth control too. The youth are more diverse and tolerant, and the hostility towards the diversity from the Republican party is oppressive.
Anyway, according to the study, people in the US are at place 23 for average life evaluation. Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden are in the top four spots, just going to prove that living in a warm climate is not what is necessary to be contented. In happiness ranking those under 30 in the US ranked at 62. The top 4 were Lithuania, Israel (before the war), Serbia and Iceland.
For happiness those 60 and above ranked at 10 for happiness in the US. These findings should be driving policy in our country. There is a huge perceived difference in happiness between the young and old in our country.
Yes. It is more like a happiness report for the semi-geriatric and not the nation. Both parties have been a cartel complicit in screwing over the young and working class in the U. S. Only recently has the Biden administration of the Democratic party started to try to undo what the neoliberal control of their party, which still controls it, have done. Unfortunately "a little genocide" is not OK, despite partisan stooges urging to shut up and back it quietly. Netanyahu can cost the Biden administration a reelection.
I do not put much stock in ranking countries by happiness indices due to their obvious subjectivity. What I do agree with is that my generation and its immediate successor have left a pathetic patrimony to the rising generations.
Happiness is hard to quantify, but there are clinical criteria for diagnosing depression. I think state of mind can be broadly assessed. My own statistically irrelevant experience with maybe a couple dozen young adults suggests heightened anxiety compared with my own cohort when I was of a similar age. For whatever reason, I think there was more optimism in popular music in the mid 20th Century than today. One strand of impending/potential disaster is climate change. I think that most people given a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease would quickly move their own health up the ladder of priorities, yet a similarly diagnostic assessment of an extremely dangerous threat to the health of everyone ranges from a response that ranges from "This demands immediate action" to "we ought to do something someday", even among those who don't deny it outright. Those likely to leave the living in the nearer term, seem less concerned than those still getting started.
That same report lists Israel in the top 5 happiest countries. Makes you wonder how we slipped from the top 25 when we are the only nation in the world trying to help their government to govern our citizens. I'll be the first to take that report with a large portion of salt.
Social Security is enshrined in our population, too. The minority-rulers do not care. The Republicans have a point: the nation is fiscally insolvent. About six or seven years ago, I looked at the national and state debts and looked at the assets. If these data were bundled into corporate financials and I had been at S.&P. or Moody's rating that hypothetical company, I would have graded that entity double-B at best (i.e., junk debt; 'at best' denoting intangible or unquantified national or state assets like parks or art-works in museums); today, it would more likely be single-B at best (really junk debt).
😱
The rub with the G.O.P. is that, for all of its whining about the debt, it has been a material contributor to it. And, no, social security is not the problem. The number of cash out-flow looks 'yooj' but represents savings plus cumulative interest set-aside by tax-payers themselves as well as, often and additionally, by their employers on their behalf. So it is money going out that never belonged to the government. The crunch comes from past mis-use of F.I.C.A. taxes collected, suppressed revenues from tax-cuts and certain 'pet' budgets like that of the D.o.D.
🤔
The Democrats drop the ball, too, by assuming that Americans are unable and unwilling to think through these data and the economics they populate. Americans can understand, though the cognitive under-class (which includes many educated people) will refuse to. Time to cease allowing the cognitive under-class to shape the liberal message and to trust the people and, in truth, the message.
"The rub with the G.O.P. is that, for all of its whining about the debt, it has been a material contributor to it."
That's an understatement. Like GWB declaring two wars and massive tax cuts (mostly for the rich) simultaneously. That's unprecedented. Republicans installed the graduated income tax to pay for the Civil War.
I agree that the Democrats need to get the detailed messages out regardless of who is unwilling or unable to understand them. After seeing the film God and Country,
https://watch.eventive.org/godandcountry/play/65e601a2a2d7070041c33efd
which talks about how the White Christian Nationalists have a symbiotic relationship to Trump who behaves very much like their church leaders in preaching charismatic lies, I got an understanding of how they are surrounded by misinformation. I also think that our youth is not only righteously upset about their world, but is also going to be victim to Russian bots, who make them even more alienated and disengaged, as the Happiness survey suggests. The details you mention are ones I consider important to include in any discussion of social security and medicare. How is it funded? how does that work? Who is not paying their fair share? What laws and other mechanisms allow them to avoid paying into it? Clinton would have town halls where he would get his boards out and simply explain things to the people. It seemed to be very effective. Here he is 3 weeks into office. https://youtu.be/1lx59aK6B4c?si=Z1ftVa10XzR-unz7
Thank you, Linda, for taking the time to give me a well thought out answer. For some reason, I can not open the first link. Given Trump's 'substance' (i.e., girth), I would think Xians would say one can not serve both G-D and Mammoth. 😉
Hi Ned, I am sorry the link did not work. I am reposting it, but this opens for me and it is the only one I have. https://watch.eventive.org/godandcountry/play/65e601a2a2d7070041c33efd
Here is the youtube link to the trailer. https://youtu.be/cTQKmR6a9fw?si=2QhFfTTjKFel9z0x
There was an article in the WaPo yesterday providing the history of Trump's father and his decline into dementia. Apparently, Trump was put off by and terrified of his fathers decline for years.
My observation has been that men who have dementia and Alzheimer's disease tend to react more often with anger than do women.
At what age did Trump's father begin his slide into senility?
Not sure when it began but here is an interesting article that might inform Trumps behavior. After all, he is if nothing else, a projectionist.
https://wapo.st/4ajCUvR
This sounds like Trump.
What was, is. I have wondered since I was young why anyone who works hard for their living would ever vote for a Republican presidential candidate. But the Southern Strategy and the evangelical-conservative partnership worked, and sadly, here we are. We MUST rid ourselves of Trump and his followers in Congress. The last seven years have been a nightmare for our republic.
Agreed!
Speaking as an erstwhile Republican and an Eisenhower-Ford conservative, I would like to see American conservatism return to its mid-twentieth century moderation. Back then, the liberals would initiate social programs or reforms and the conservatives would follow by making those changes fiscally sustainable. In those cases where liberal policies has clearly failed or repudiated by the majority of Americans, the conservatives might abolish them.
President Eisenhower was a good man.
I agree. However, Biden and Harris have to be blunt with the people and tell them , do you want a leader who believes in Freedom and Democracy for the people? Or do you want a dictator leading this country , striping all of your rights, and your freedom, your benefits, from Medicare, Medicaid, and Society Security?
Not to mention having the national gard in every damn state monitoring every damn move that you make. The media and free press would be completely gone. We would be a 3rd world country like Russia.
Normally, this would be a year, like 2016, in which I would consider a third-party vote. Not this time in view of what Trump will do.
Great! We need every vote for Biden. This election is critical. Just the thought of our Democracy that could perish should be enough to motivate people to vote and save it.
111% in agreement, Patricia; thank you for the morale-booster-shot!
The people these obstructionists represent, like their Confederate predecessors, hate the federal government because at its best it provides progress and cracks down on corruption and injustice. They WANT obstruction, and they call it states' rights.
They use diversionary tactics to try to camouflage what their objectives really are! Hopefully, we’re beginning to see through the facade! Your point is well taken!
With an oil-owned legislator here in northern Michigan (Enbridge Line 5 territory) it is impossible to hold him accountable and, so far, too expensive to oust him. We have 2 excellent Democratic candidates, Dr. Bob Lorinser and attorney Callie Barr. Both could use support!
https://www.votedrbob.com/allaboutbob
https://callieforcongress.com/
I just sent donations to both campaigns because you made me aware of it. Keep up the good work MaryPat Sercu-MI
THANK YOU, MLRGRMI!!
Gave $$ to both. MaryPat, I am so impressed with Callie Barr!
Thank You!!! She is impressive!
MaryPat. Add my worthless Congressman Reppy J to the list
But Ed, the House has passed 27 bills that made it into law in 2023. Where would we be without the National Duck Stamp Modernization Act? The movie Fargo wouldn't have been near as funny without the bits about the award. /S
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/us/politics/bills-laws-2023-house-congress.html
More American voters going to hold their own elected legislators accountable on Nov 5.
That's whats maddening. U.S. voters are powerless for TWO YEARS until the next election.
They read a highly redacted version of the Constitution, and write "what is really says" in the margins.
The Republican congress of traitors that are willing to anything to elect Trump back into office in 24.
Do you think this will make them eligible for Grammys?
I've suggested several times that Hollywood should have an Oscar category for best actor in each house of Congress.
I’d like to see your comment, Ed, sent to all newspapers and TV networks. Perfect description of the non-legislators running the only action in the House. Would this make them eligible for Grammys?
I just watched a 25 minute long documentary on the making of “Saving Private Ryan” which includes interviews with a group of WWII veterans. Hearing those veterans describe what they went through (and which the film faithfully portrayed) to save democracy from fascism left me with an even higher level of disgust for today’s GOP than I already had. And I didn’t think that was possible.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to eliminate this UNAMERICAN stain on America’s body politic from our country, but that MUST BE the agenda of EVERYONE alive today who sees this threat clearly.
A link to the documentary I just watched will be in the first comment because I’m afraid I’ll lose what I just wrote if I go back to YouTube to copy the link…
The documentary…
https://youtu.be/c-M1klmXjqI?si=M5usLN1vdpAUNlLb
I watched it, Steve.
A fine tribute in many ways -- the various interviews, the historical footage, the scenes from the movie.
Arts can teach, model so much, but they'll never reach the contemptible who now aid Trump as he aids Putin and all the U.S. dark money predators. Millions of Americans, men and women, believed in that fight against fascism. My father among them.
And now we've still got to fight that fight, as we've so many ignorant, cult-addled, illiterate, dehumanized among us who have joined the fascists my father and the others fought against those 80 years ago.
Thank you for the link.
Thank you for all you wrote, Phil. And thank you to your father for his service.
I forgot to mention that my father and mother were part of “the greatest generation” that defeated fascism too. (My Mom was in the USO; father was in the Army Air Corps). We may not have many World War II vets alive today, but the ones in the documentary spoke some very powerful words when it was filmed.
Steve, my Dad was SSgt. USAAC as a meteorologist.
Thanks for sharing this. We must not let all they did be undone by this domestic threat!
My dad, a victim of the Holocaust, saw the sign “Uncle Sam Wants You” enlisted in the Army in 1941. He wanted the Army to send him back to Europe to fight the Nazis. They instead, sent him to the Pacific Theater for 4 1/2 years. His English improved and he was able to get his citizenship papers while in the service. He left in 1945 as a Staff Sergeant. Sidenote: He apparently played a great hand of poker which awarded him R & R in Australia! :)
Steve Brant -- Thank you deeply for posting this documentary. I've just watched it, sobbing my way through it. I was 10 when the war actually ended, and remember that vividly. I remember D-Day too, but not any specifics. Two maternal uncles were in the war, one seeing combat, about which he never spoke. But the subsequent PTSD he suffered was not talked about in those days, at least in my family and small town, or not labeled. Where would we be without Stephen Spielberg. May he live a long time and bring more documentaries to us.
Oh my! What memories you have, including of your uncles! 🤗
You lived through a time we need to better appreciate. And I’m grateful to Stephen Spielberg for helping us do so… Tom Hanks too. The idea that so many are willing to throw away what so many fought for…. out of a misguided belief that a “strong man leader” is what America needs … to me shows the failure of the education system in America to teach what really matters. Learning English and math is one thing. But learning what America is really all about should be the number one objective.
Thanks for writing.
Take care.
Steve, thanks for bringing in the American education system. A critical point! And learning what America (the United States and Canada) is all about just as critical.
All of this is important food for thought.
Be well!
You’re welcome. Education is a huge problem… especially the lack of civic education as a national requirement. Is civics taught in Canadian schools? If you look up The Dreyfuss Initiative, you’ll see that Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters, etc) has been a champion of civic education for years.
Yes… lots to think about. Lots to improve!
This documentary had a strong message. These men sacrificed their life's for our Democracy and freedom. I hope people realize today that the threat our Democracy will be gone if Trump is elected in November.
Thank you, for sharing.
Thank you for watching it! I hope people understand the threat we face too!
Watched it, also, and shared it to my Facebook page, so that we can all remember how we fought then for freedom, hoping we can do so again but at the ballot box…
Thank you for sharing it! Helping people remember how hard those young men fought (and there were women in the war effort too, of course) is important. But to be honest, I think we may need to fight after we vote... by protesting the attempts the GOP will make to claim they really won. I am 100 percent positive they will try their "rigged election" BS again. Trump is incapable of admitting he has lost. So, I believe we will have to counter that part of the threat as well.
Thank you for this link.
You're welcome!
Milley, who has been widely criticized for being “woke,” claimed that Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer” when he contested the results of the 2020 election and claimed that Trump had led the U.S. to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment,” a reference to an incident in 1933 that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler used to consolidate political power in Germany.
(...)
The book says that Milley responded to the January 6 riot by saying, “These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II."
https://www.dailywire.com/news/gen-mark-milley-compared-trump-supporters-to-nazis-these-are-the-same-people-we-fought-in-world-war-ii
Thanks for this point about Miley. I hope he joins Joe Biden at some sort of STOP FASCISM event during the campaign. Maybe Mike Pence would speak at such an event too. Hey, a guy can dream!
Milley recently said "We are unique among the world’s militaries,” Milley said. “We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator.”
“And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” he spat. “We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it.” which is exactly the the point of a functioning republic. The ostensible point of America.
Outstanding commentary! about AH. It amazes me how corrupt T is - every day a new outrage.. What really gets me upset is the way he excoriates tthe military who sacraficed so much to keep us safe. He wiggled out of service due to his supposed heel spurs which never seemed to both his traversing his golf courses.
Thanks Heather. I find it hard to believe that we now have a clear demarcation between the forces of good and the forces of evil who cloak themselves as Christians reshaping a country in their deprived image. When reading that Russia is planning if not immediate but in the future a war with NATO, we could not have envisioned of more political, social, financial and yes spiritual instabilities, not to mention our climate instability. We are not only fighting for democracy and the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, we are fighting for the future itself. Thanks Heather for your comprehensive understanding and clarity!
With respect to G.O.P. stifling Ukraine aid, I am guessing that, except for an economic Depression and a general philo-semitism these days, we are in the place as we were in 1940.
Dangerously close.
I remember the days and you are correct, Fred McDoodle. If you haven’t read “Prequel,” I recommend it.
It wasn’t a crime, it was only RICO ;)
Definitely agree.
I watched some of the testimony of Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis. It was bold, to put it mildly, and someone has committed perjury.
When Rep. Jamie Raskin moved to get the actual data from Bobulinski’s phone to support his allegations – pictures from his phone were shown on screens during his testimony – Gym Jordan immediately interjected to table the motion effectively quashing it.
There’s a whole lot of lying going on and it’s a pity this committee doesn’t seem to care.
Jordan should have been locked up for ignoring a subpoena from the Jan 6 investigation committee. He and others have deep dark secrets that need to come to light and get them jailed. What a huge criminal enterprise just to put a treacherous evil crook in the white house to hand out more pardons.
I agree about Jordan. Why is he exempt for ignoring a subpoena?? People go to jail for that. It appears that the house gop consider themselves above the law, like their leader.
Think Manafort. Currently in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. Why not Jordan?
And Navarro?
Do as I say, not as I do— The Hypocrite’s Motto. Also Bully”s Bible. Orange bully gave him the Medal of Freedom. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-award-medal-freedom-jim-jordan/#:~:text=President%20Donald%20J.,Jim%20Jordan%20%E2%80%93%20The%20White%20House
Why didn't Merrick Garland / DOJ investigate and charge Jordan (and all the other seditious members of Congress) for participating in Jan 6th? Something stinks at the DOJ!
Any word on Jordan's supporters from his district? Is he a shoo-in this fall? (My point is that ultimately it's the voters who are responsible for all this.)
Red rural areas. (Sorry, edit function doesn’t work on my iPad.). Witness our D senator Sherrod Brown and our enshrining reproductive rights in our constitution. But districts like Jordan’s duck shaped one mean that we have overwhelmingly Republican representation. So sadly, Jordan’s almost certainly will win reelection.
I should also point out that our Supreme Court is scandalously corrupt. Governor Dewine’s son sits on the court, and did not recuse himself from the districting case, even though his father was a defendant. And nothing happens to fix this. It’s incredibly frustrating.
I hope you can build enough grass-roots support to turn things around. Here in Iowa I'd like to see a certain crop of legislators and our congressional representative put out to pasture this fall. I think it's doable, but it's gonna take a lot of work.
Blue Ohio is a great group that I’m supporting.
We’re trying here in Ohio. Unfortunately our extreme gerrymandering, against which we have voted twice, results in extremist candidates who continue to be re-elected. Last election we voted with illegal congressional maps. We still do not have legal ones. Ohio republicans are defying the Ohio Supreme Court and nothing happens.
In our state-wide votes, Ohio demonstrates that it’s fairly close to purple - blue cities, red r
From what I understand, he perfectly represents the majority of his voters.
So many places in this country are unloveable.
Ed, Gym Effing Jordan* has one of *the* most gerrymandered districts in Ohio. https://www.congress.gov/member/district/jim-jordan/J000289
99% is rural, farmland, and they eat up his schtick like Trump eating ketchup packets. No large metropolitan area is in his district, otherwise, he might face a real challenge. It's pathetic, and while various levels of courts have declared our entire state unconstitutional, there are enough Jordan-type GQP- and MAGA-ites to continue. It's maddening.
*-how he is referred to in our house, including by my 81-year-old (generally very kind & gentle) papa.
Jennifer, I’m so happy to see you here! This is Kathy Rizzoni.
They are in it up to their ears.
The GQP cockroaches started scrambling as soon as Rep. Jamie Raskin turned on the spotlight . . .
What a telling contrast - Raskin, a deeply principled Constitutional lawyer in defense of truth, vs. Comer, a sad McCarthyite functionary, shamefully tasked to divert attention from the issue at hand, the patent criminality and unfitness of Trump & enablers.
I didn't watch in its entirety but did see this clip of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., engaged in a tense exchange with Bobulinksi, whose testimony she said did not satisfy Republicans' accusations of high crimes by the president. She said House Republicans have failed to accuse Biden of a “high crime,” which is a requirement for impeachment.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said, "at this point, the story is not the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is why its proceeding anyway. Why is this committee proceeding based on false charges?...The story is when this committee knew they were working with falsified evidence(testimony)!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GKu30F7t2s
Thank You for this info and clip of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, horhai! Sharing.
Thanks for the link - powerful stuff!
Thank you for the clip. AOC remains a “thorn jewel” for the groupies of Putin.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has just gotten to the crux of the matter. Why are they still kicking a dead horse? Enough time has been wasted. It's unbelievable that this is still going on.
Wow
Yeah, that was the big bust. Bet Comer and Jordan took the fifth -- of Johnny Walker -- after the shellacking they got today.
I trust there are millions of telespectators who know the difference and who do care.
Maybe someone needs to sue Bobalouie for defamation of character. Apparently a lot of Republicans have been lying about things. But he is so unbelievable that I'm not sure a jury could determine irreparable harm was done to Hunter Biden with his bizarre accusations.
They DO care. They WANT the lies. They are in the propaganda business. The Fascist Media will cherry pick clips of this horror show and present them to their Cult following - lie after lie as if it were the forces of Truth.
The hearings don't need to really prove anything - except to convince the "base" that they are fighting the war against the "Biden Crime Family".
We think it is stupid because there is no evidence. But from a publicity point of view it is todays version of brilliant messaging. The only hope is to out shout them with facts. It won't change the minds of any Cultists. But it might, hopefully, reach those who like real facts.
Democrats expect the opposition to somehow care about reality. They create their own reality! We are bringing a knife to a fight where the other guy has an AR-15 and several clips.
The gop seem to be channelling Ben Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must hang together, or, most assuredly we shall hang separately.” There is a lot of effort being made to willingly ignore facts/truth/common sense/Will of the People. They ALL know this is fiction
R Dooley, oh they care, they know that they are this close to being legally implicated. They are going down, its just a question of when. I’m surprised Lev Parnas is still alive
It's mind-boggling how Johnson can continue to block aid to Ukraine in this manner, simply by refusing to bring the bill up for a vote, in his role as Speaker of the House. Is there no recourse?
In the long term, if Ukraine cannot withstand Russia's attacks, it is one step closer to Russia under Putin engaging in a large-scale conventional conflict with NATO.
Without US funding Ukraine's survival is at stake.
'Ukraine's survival in danger, Pentagon chief warns' (Reuters)
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart March 19, 20247:15 PM
'RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany, March 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday warned that Ukraine's survival was in danger and sought to convince allies that the United States was committed to Kyiv, even as Washington has essentially run out of money to keep arming Ukrainian forces.'
'Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to call a vote on a bill that would provide $60 billion more for Ukraine and the White House is scrambling to find ways to send assistance to Kyiv, which has been battling Russian forces for more than two years.'
'Austin is leading the monthly meeting known as the Ukraine defense contact group (UDCG), held at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, of about 50 allies that have supported Ukraine.'
"Today, Ukraine's survival is in danger and America's security is at risk," Austin told a press conference after the meeting.'
"I leave here today fully determined to keep U.S. security assistance and ammunition flowing. And that's a matter of survival and sovereignty for Ukraine and it's a matter of honor and security for America," he added.'
"I think our allies are acutely aware of our funding situation and the Ukrainians more so than anyone because of the shortages that are resulting from us not being able to supply them," a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.'
'Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to allies on Tuesday to supply more air defences, saying Russia had launched 130 missiles, more than 320 attack drones and almost 900 guided bombs in attacks this month alone.
AIR DEFENCE, UKRAINE'S PRIORITY
'Speaking later in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said air defence remained Ukraine's main concern and thanked participants for their efforts' "so that this, our priority, is fulfilled in an appropriate manner".
'Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who attended the gathering, said on Telegram that participants' "demonstrated their unity and resolve in helping Ukraine. Our forces are critically in need of ammunition. The ammo will be delivered!"
'Experts say that Austin will face a skeptical audience in Europe.'
"It's becoming harder and harder for U.S. leaders to travel to Europe, with the message that the United States is committed to Ukraine in the long-term," 'Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center in Washington, said.'
"The message of this long-term financial, military, economic commitment flies in the face of the reality of what's happening on Capitol Hill."
'At a joint press conference in Berlin on Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, whose ammunition-starved troops face their toughest battles since the early days of Russia's invasion two years ago.'
'German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Tuesday a 500 million euro ($543 million) aid package for Ukraine which includes 10,000 rounds of ammunition and said the United States was still a reliable partner.'
"I have no doubt about the reliability of the Americans," Pistorius said. "There are particularities in the political systems, and we have to deal with that."
'European support has become increasingly key with Biden unable to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress, and much of his foreign policy energy is focused on the war in Gaza.
But U.S. officials say that the reality is that without the United States, European support for Ukraine will not be enough.'
"There isn't a way that our allies can really combine forces to make up for the lack of U.S. support," the senior U.S. defense official said.' (Reuters) See link below.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/out-money-pentagon-chief-looks-convince-allies-commitment-ukraine-2024-03-18/
Fern, I would note that Lynell, who writes “View Between the Ears of a Horse,” posted a comment on Hubbell’s Substack urging us to ensure our Dem House Reps have signed the discharge petition for aid to Ukraine. He noted that House Republicans are withholding adding their names until the list of signatories reaches 200.
Thank you for the reminder, Barbara, that constituents call and write their representatives letting them know that we are watching as is history concerning their signatures on the discharge petition for aid to Ukraine. Our own democracy depends on us working together to stop Putin's war against Democracy and on the people.
One intellectual legerdemain I often find is that the M.A.G.A. and pro-Putin elements of the cognitive under-class -- that, yes, includes many well educated people -- wave the bloody-shirt of the national debt. Yes, that debt has arguably made the country insolvent. But the current proposal will add only 0.2% to the national debt for a running total increment of 0.4%.
🫣
Stated another way: not funding aid to Ukraine will not solve the problem with the national debt. In fact, not funding Ukraine will more likely add immense amounts of debt, if the embryonic World War III goes full blown. Imagine the cost of fighting that war.
The national debt is such bullshit.
Well, a lot of the funding that goes to Ukraine is in the form of military weapons produced in the United States anyway!
Great insight; thanks!
'One Trump puppet stands between Ukraine and the aid it needs'
Trump is in control US' aid to Ukraine at this time, not the President of the US, Joseph R. Biden. Who is controlling Trump? Isn't he Putin's puppet, so, who is controlling our funding of Ukraine as it fights for its democracy and survival? PUTIN IS IN CONTROL OF OUR FUNDING TO UKRAINE. When is that going to be spelled out for the American people?
'Speaker Mike Johnson in just months has all but cemented his place among the weakest House leaders in its history. Alas, the Louisianan nonetheless holds enough power that he’s single-handedly blocking one of the most crucial matters of our time: bipartisan U.S. aid to Ukraine for its defense against Vladimir Putin’s murderous expansionism.' (LATimes, Opinion By Jackie Calmes)
'It’s not like Johnson is making a stand on principle by not scheduling a House vote. Oh, no. To hear him talk, he’s all for our Ukrainian allies and wants some kind of aid. But Donald Trump does not — he’s with Putin, as usual — and Johnson generally stands wherever the former president directs. Not for nothing is the novice speaker called' “MAGA Mike.”
'And no issue illustrates better than Ukraine the dithering and subservience to Trump that have become Johnson’s hallmarks since October, when House Republicans ousted his predecessor, rejected several higher-ranking aspirants and then, exhausted by the impasse, settled on him.
'Also, no issue holds more dire consequences if Johnson doesn’t change course — for Ukraine, peace in Europe and the United States’ security and international standing.' (LATimes) See link below.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-03-17/ukraine-mike-johnson-mitch-mcconnell-joe-biden
Thank You for these sources, Fern. Putin's most powerful and successful offensive in the war on Ukraine (and, thus, NATO) is in the halls of the U.S. Congress. So frustrating and terrifying that our democracy does not have an effective mechanism to fight foreign invasion of our legislature.
'Trump’s vague peace plan casts a shadow over Ukraine' (WAPO, Today's WorldView by Adam Taylor)
'Donald Trump holds no elected office, but the Republican presidential candidate’s vague Ukraine policy is already being felt in that country. Allies of the former president, who faces numerous legal challenges amid his campaign to return to the White House, have blocked aid to Ukraine in Congress for months, leading to profound shortages on the battlefield.'
'There are some signs that that impasse could end soon. However, what happens next if Trump returns to the White House is unclear. The candidate has only offered a hazy outline of how he would handle the war in Ukraine, suggesting he would push both Russia and Ukraine to negotiate and claiming he could reach a deal to end the war in' “one day.” His answers on key areas, like whether Russia could keep the territory it has seized, remain unknown — leading to pushback from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who last year called on him to release his plan and “not waste time.”
'Trump has been more specific on U.S. aid to Ukraine, which he has criticized as an “endless flow of American treasure” to Kyiv. As congressional debate over funding to Ukraine dragged on last month, Trump outlined a new vision of American foreign assistance: It should be a loan.'
"It can be loaned on extraordinarily good terms, like no interest and an unlimited life, but a loan nevertheless,” 'Trump wrote in an all-caps message to Truth Social on Feb. 10, adding that if a country “strikes it rich sometime in the future,” the money would have to be repaid.'
'That proposal has won support from some more traditional Republican foreign policy figures, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) who met with Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday. '“I informed him that given the crisis at the United States’ southern border and our overwhelming debt, President Trump’s idea of turning aid from the United States into a no-interest, waivable loan is the most likely path forward,” 'Graham announced that night.'
'However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who met privately with Trump in Florida on March 8, has described the aid plan differently.' “He will not give a penny into the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end,” Orban told a state-run Hungarian television channel following their meeting, adding that “the Europeans are unable to finance this war on their own, and then the war will end.”
'With the election still half a year away and its outcome is still highly uncertain, Trump is a long way from office. In America’s political system, however, that matters little. Though Ukraine funding made its way through the Senate — without the backing of Graham, despite his previous support for Ukraine — it has been held up in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has refused to put it to a vote.'
'Polling suggests that the majority of the public and a significant number of Republican voters support aid to Ukraine. Johnson is widely considered to have stalled on the vote out of concern that Trump could set his supporters on him, punishing him and preventing his reelection this year.' “Like most strongmen, Trump prizes loyalty above everything,” the Financial Times’s Martin Wolf wrote this week, dubbing Johnson “Trump’s poodle.”
'Last week, Johnson suggested he may finally come forward with a vote on Ukraine aid. But this Washington dogfight has been felt on Ukrainian battlefields for months. In December, Ukrainian forces told The Washington Post that a shortage of artillery shells on the front line had led to canceled attacks. '“Our gunners are given a limit of shells for each target,” 'a member of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, which is fighting in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, told my colleagues.'
'That was said months before Ukrainian forces lost the eastern city of Avdiivka, prompting a disorderly retreat that left significant numbers of troops missing or captured. Ukrainian forces, estimated to be at a numerical disadvantage of roughly 7-1, were also lacking antiaircraft defenses that could defend against Russian-guided aviation bombs, officials told The Post.'
'Some European partners are attempting to fill the gap left by the United States, but few have anything close to the capacity that the United States can provide. One recent analysis by the Estonian government found that Europe’s collective artillery output is roughly 50,000 shells a month, not all of which goes to Ukraine. Ukrainian officials, however, have warned that they need 200,000 shells a month.'
'U.S. officials have warned that Ukraine could see a potential collapse if it continues without a supplemental aid package and that even if it survives the storm, countless lives will have been lost. Even if aid is turned back on imminently, the losses already felt cannot be erased.'
'Miroslava Luzina, a translator and independent political consultant, offered a message to Johnson.'
“[Johnson’s] actions or his political stance is actually costing lives,” Luzina told Post contributing columnist Jim Geraghty in Kyiv, referring to a recent attack on Odessa that left at least 20 dead. "So, he is the cause of more people getting dead at the front line, and behind the front lines, and in the occupied territories.”
'A Trump peace plan could well spark further bloodshed. Trump may genuinely believe his calls for negotiation and warnings about aid will lead to an end to the fighting. But the early evidence from both sides is that they intend to dig in harder.'
“It would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating with Ukraine just because it’s running out of ammunition,” Putin said last week in an interview with Russian media outlets. “Possible negotiations are not a pause for rearming Kyiv, but a serious conversation with security guarantees for Moscow.”
'Though Putin has said he remains open, ultimately, to negotiations, a leaked document of his terms for peace in 2022 suggests a price that Ukraine could not pay. As the Wall Street Journal summarized it, the objective remains the same': “Turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression.”
'Accounts of life under Russian rule in occupied parts of Ukraine suggest an even worse fate, with deportations, kidnapping and forced reeducation of large portions of the population. The war has largely united Ukrainians against Russia, while Zelensky and his top aides have repeatedly suggested that while they seek peace, they also won’t give up agree to terms that could see the country remain divided.'
'Even before Ukraine was flooded with Western aid, its forces were able to deter Russia’s most ambitious designs on Kyiv in early 2022. The country is desperately trying to build up its domestic arms industry. And while European partners may struggle to make up for America’s deep pockets, recent comments by France’s Emmanuel Macron and other leaders suggest they may be willing to meet a Russian escalation in other ways.'
'If this is all part of the plan, it certainly isn’t one for peace. The fight for Ukraine has not become more peaceful, but more desperate — and all this without Trump having won office.' (WAPO, Today's WorldView by Alan Taylor) Copied in full.
"As the Wall Street Journal summarized it, the objective remains the same': “Turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression....and all this without Trump having won office.' (WAPO, Today's WorldView by Alan Taylor)." Ghastly.
The republicans have a majority of what, three? With Buck and Santos replaced by a Democrat, not for much longer
Jen, from your lips to God’s ear.
Thank you Fern for the information!!We definitely need to help the Ukraine 🇺🇦!!!
300 million is a step in the right direction for the Ukraine but we should be moving heaven and earth to get them the 60 billion.
Wellll JustRaven, it has been pretty clear that leaders in either House or Senate can hold up all kinds of critical stuff when we remember Mitch McConnell's stalling of Supreme Court nominee for nearly a year until a new election have us tRump! Lotta stuff in our government rules needs fixing.
Vote him out is the civilized thing to do.
These "witnesses" called by GOP/MAGA are straight out of a Coen Brothers film
Names and all!
That is great! 😃
From a risks versus reward perspective, I can’t envision Putin going to war with NATO. Especially with his military degraded. But the thought of it happening is chilling.
Like Trump, Putin is capable of anything he THINKS he can get away with.
If Putin does, it will likely be timed with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, if China is stupid enough to invade the island. The lesson of the Hamas attack -- aa relatively minor conflict, though Israël has turned collateral damage into collateral carnage -- is how much pressure it has taken off the Red Army.
Ned, please don't confuse Putin's cannon fodder with Stalin's Red Army which, whatever the crimes it was ordered to do -- like watching from the far bank of the Vistula while Warsaw burned or systematically raping German women -- broke the might of Hitler's hordes at Stalingrad and did not stop until it had taken Berlin and, in effect, won the Second World War.
[I've not forgotten my puzzlement at age 3 about why the Red Army was called "red" if they didn't wear red uniforms like the guardsmen in front of Buckingham Palace...]
[Sorry, no "edit" yet]
The weirdest and most deeply perverse reality today is Nazism in the Kremlin of all places and -- even more awful -- Nazi-formatted behavior in Hebron, all the while screaming "Nazis! Nazis!" at the neighbors while despoiling and massacring them.
Truly, "The evil that men do lives after them". And the perversion that the long dead Hitler and his henchmen visited on the world stains the descendants of their greatest victims.
That is the most foul way in which evil manifests, infecting posterity even generations later.
We should be mindful of this today, when the new avatars of Nazi/Fascism have arisen worldwide. Even at the heart of America.
Fascism, but really any effort to truly dominate others. "As I would not be a slave, I would not be a master" said Lincoln. Every day we negotiate with people over whose will prevails (I know married couples do) and that can be cooperative or coercive. Sometimes when people are not cooperative, you have to be coercive back, like the courts to Trump. Those whose primary impulse is to bully have always plagued humanity.
J L, although we in this place should be learning to identify causal chains that link past, present and future, we are blinded by horrors like 9/11, the invasion of Ukraine and what happened on October 7th last year and fail to see these for what they are and defuse these triggers for a long chain reaction. Instead our blind rage may activate our enemy's plans.
The Russian plan is clumsier and more disjointed, yet its purpose was and remains unchanged: to recreate the Soviet empire.
The attack on Israel set one of history's deadliest strategic traps, and it is working, thanks to Netanyahu's abyss of a character flaw, well understood by an unprecedentedly ruthless enemy.
Hitler was neither the first nor the last to use barbaric tactics. History is littered with mans' inhumanity to man.
Counterproductive in the assault on Ukraine. An intelligent conqueror might, like Hernan Cortes, have come as a liberator, not an enslaver and mass murderer. He did succeed in turning some against Stalin and recruiting them to fight alongside the Wehrmacht. But in most he provoked hatred and resistance. Party commissars made good use of this.
Yeah, agree 111%. I jotted down this mythical speech while I was travelling through Ukraine a few months after the ghastly invasion started. These days, I would drop the reference to President Kennedy in favor another not involving negotiation because Putin has made this an existential war.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6945099109762510849/
The Russian winter is an Army destruction force in itself, it killed Napoleon’s army, it killed Hitler army. It’s why we need to give the Ukrainians the resources they need to help contain Putin, so we don’t have to do the extremely expensive bloody job of pushing Putin back to his own borders later.
I am referring to the culture of the Red Army; the horror stories about what the Russian army is doing reminds me of the Red Army. Putin is a soviet in his soul. You are right in saying that the U.S.S.R. likely never received the gratitude it should have from the Western allies. Taking over half-of-Europe made that difficult. There is a great series on Netflix, "Turning Point: the Bomb and the Cold War" which implies just how little Russian thinking has changed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHuuLo-CSRo
Soul? What soul? "Soviet" is too flattering for this backyard tough who made it.
On another tack, I see you traveled in the land, even during wartime. You'll likely have visited Bulgakov's house, but did you read The White Guard?
(The theatrical version was Stalin's favorite play...)
I did not even know of Bulgakov, let alone his home. I am rather a Philistine. I did not go to museums but went five places and talked with people in the street. What the war was like for them. This was a quiet time, just before Ukraine re-conquered Kharkiv. On the links: no expectation of your clicking on them; I simply make them available to you.
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https://www.slideshare.net/NedMcDonnell/digital-collage-ua-pl-hupptx
(annotated photo-album)
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What I found out was that, though an overwhelmingly white country, Ukraine has a rich diversity within her population. Kyiv felt like a cross between New York and what I imagine Stockholm to be. Bucha was like a suburb, except where it sadly was not. Kharkiv seemed what I would imagine to be Russian or Eurasian. Odesa impressed me as the most 'soviet' city in the Cold War context. Lviv seemed so Austrian that I was half-expecting a bunch nuns to come running down the street singing 'What Do We Do about a Problem like Maria?'
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https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6963114645016461313/
(link to Buda Pest Memorandum of 1994 embedded within; crafted during trip)
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I only learned about Bulgakov a year later in, of all places, the Adirondack Mountains. I met his grand-grand-grand nephew, a former Russian national. A very cultivated young man visiting friends of my sister's. So, I dutifully read 'The White Guard' and found it to be an apt description of the dangerously fluid situation of a society being disintegrated by competing and aggressive meddlers. Rather like our situation in the United States, though far different in degree.
Remember, Michael -- Putin pals around with those old men in long skirts, voluminous jewelry.
They're the eastern Orthodox priests --and they long for The Rapture as murderously blissfully as any random number of U.S. dehumanized evangelicals.
The LIE church? Low-Intellect Evangelicals? It was created by Trump’s media folks at Fox and their radio clones.
Now, another organ of the regime, the FSB at prayer. Honest priests, purged.
He stole Russia's wealth, is robbing the country of its future, killing its young men and the young men of Ukraine. Poisoner, nihilist, blasphemer, destroyer, he means to commandeer the people's soul.
Their bodies he can destroy but this he cannot.
Truly just plain stupid.
Attacking NATO would be suicidal for Putin, and he knows that. I view his talk as propaganda.
For the last 2 years Ukraine has pushed the invading Red Army back and held them at bay. This was accomplished with US, NATO, and EU help - the "West" gave them surplus weaponry and spent less than 5% of the US defense budget to do so. In spite of Ukraine's being constrained to only use NATO weaponry for defensive purposes the Russian casualties and losses from this hastily assembled resistance have been staggering. The Red Army is currently depleted by their attempt, and its leadership has been demonstrated to be less than effective.
Unlike Ukraine, NATO is better funded, its armies are well-trained and fresh, it posesses state of the art weaponry, and has been watching and learning from Russia's battlefield performance. They know what and where they'd strike if war broke out, and unlike Ukraine they aren't constrained from using any weapon they have to strike directly into Russian territory.
Putin's war-making infrastructure would be eradicated almost immediately.
- Add nuclear weapons to the scenario of attacking NATO and Putin is no better off. The response from the allied nations would be immediate and crushing if even tactical nukes were tried a single time.
Lastly, once Russia began to fail how long does anybody think Putin's vassal states would remain loyal before breaking off on their own?
Michael and Gary, I don't disagree with what you have said. But I think Putin believes he has an ace in the hole with Trump. And it isn't just that he thinks Trump will win in November. He would love that, but if in the event that it doesn't happen, he has been planting seeds of chaos which would erupt from a Trump defeat. His real goal is reconstitution of the Russian/Soviet empire and the dissolution of the United States. With the US out of the picture, at a minimum he can approach taking not just Ukraine but the Baltic republics, as well, in the same incremental manner he has been using in Ukraine for the last year. And as far as the NATO military superiority goes, Putin actually started his attacks on democracy in Europe first, so he already has a disinformation machine in place there. It follows, then, that if he can disable the US with disinformation, he probably feels pretty good about being able to hack the European voters in order to cripple their governments. There is a popular saying making the rounds right now that so and so "said the quiet part out loud." Heather has a way of doing the opposite. She tends to close her posts by saying the out loud part quietly. It seems to me that after a series of low blows from the courts recently, we are ready to take courage from every rake the Republicans step on. Especially when they were the ones who put the rake where they thought the Democrats would step on it. But as much as I enjoy watching the Republicans make fools of themselves, I don't think we can take our eyes off the guy who benefits most from our domestic conflict.
"Galanis is serving a 14-year sentence for defrauding a Native American tribe and numerous pension fund investors of tens of millions of dollars. He joined the proceedings virtually from federal prison."
Hey, only the beat people.
There is no evidence.
There will be no vote.
Just political theater.
While the fate of Ukraine dangles by a thread.
Shame on them!
Thank you, Heather, for such a good synopsis of the testimony in Comer’s hearing. Instead of actually doing good by approving aid to Ukraine or the Senate immigration bill, they choose to waste American dollars bringing witnesses to Washington.
I greatly fear that, if they don’t supply Ukraine soon, we may end up with American boots on the ground in Poland
Yeah, my fear, too. I feel like we are in the early stages of World War III and these Republicans are quite content to let it go full blown. If the cognitive under-class (that includes many educated people who know better) prevails, imagine the cost of a full-blown two-theatre war led by China in the East and Russia in the West.
It's unlikely that any such conflict would remain a conventional war. The tension of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) aside who would survive? Do Putin, and Xi have a death wish for the whole world? The ONLY way that they would be so bold/foolish would be if an American president would let them do "...what ever the hell they want to do."
Yeah, that is a great insight. Such a war would go nuclear but, as Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman argue in '2034', the nuclear exchange would be tit-for-tat type of attacks and counter-attacks at specific cities, not the whole kit and ka-boodle. China has been aggressive in pursuing her interests during the last few years, but I do not think she will attack Taiwan since the brain-drain from Formosa would hurt China. If anything, my bet is that China will conquer Siberia when taking needed agricultural land and lebensraum becomes less costly than buying it.
Thanks, Ned, for a new word for me, "Lebensraum":
"the territory that a state or nation believes is needed for its natural development, especially associated with Nazi Germany." And now Russia.
Forgive my pointless pedantry; unfortunately the term applies in this case.
Perfectly!
Despite the Admiral’s conjecture, if any combatant perceives they’re losing the tit-for-tat they will escalate. It’s insane to consider that a nuclear war is winnable!
And that is why the book has a deus-ex-machina ending.
The Repub committee members should be made to pay back the cost of this ridiculous hearing/show out of their salaries. It’s a huge waste of taxpayer money when it could be put to so many better uses— like more X-ray machines to stop fentanyl at the southern border.
Billboards in their districts explaining how much time and tax dollars they squandered on these partisan cluster-*ucks would be nice . . .
It's like a frivolous lawsuit except wasting our entire nation's time, money and energy on such cockamamie proceedings.
They really should have to pay for the cost of this but if they pay with losing their seats in Congress that would be at least some consolation.
As Professor Richardson notes, Democrats on these committees are at last abandoning being docile and conciliatory and calling out the actual frauds that Republicans are perpetrating through the use of fake "investigations." No more Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, without being called liars, liars, liars.
Thank you again, as always Heather. If these recipients of our tax funded largess weren't frightening enough, it would be hilarious. I need to read Jeff Tiedrich's accounts of these proceedings to maintain my sanity. Comer Fudd stepping on another rake is the perfect description of the daily reports.
Jeff Tiedrich is a bright spot in my day as well. Nice to be able to giggle to the events of the day . . .
First thing in the mrning will set up your day. Sometimes the chain of giggles is so infectious that there is nothing to do but comment and like as as it rolls by. I've given up on what I need to do that day several times. I've seen you get sucked in a bit yourself. Good comments though.
And they even took their witch hunt on the road when their "dear leader" was indicted in NY. Didn't that cost the taxpayer's millions? Think of all of the unwanted rape victim babies that could have received formula for a year with that money in TX, OK, LA, etc.
They will have no problem using our hard earned tax dollars to build the concentration camps for us either. Fuel for the helicopters to fly us over the ocean and drop us in for our last swim. They know what they're doing. Dachau was built to re-educate the lefties, which to them is US now.
They're sick, totally deranged, these Republicans Heather cites today.
But they have to be. They have to see the world as a sick place, always threatening them, so they lash out. They sink repeatedly into new iterations of their same old tiring culture wars -- offended by gays, offended by black people (aaarrgghhh -- how did black people ever get into lily white America?) offended by two women parenting a family, or two men also raising children. Offended by Mickey Mouse! By the green M-&-M.
But, no problem. America has two sides, and on the other side good libs on campuses are offended also easily. Need to issue trigger warnings lest anyone ever feel challenged. All divvy up into groups, so blacks have their own graduation, separate from everyone else graduating. No one can say anything about girls and their sexuality if not a girl. Everyone withdraws into group identity zones. HR enforces this.
Americans all inhabit this pathos unnecessarily. If people learned to handle personal issues -- from humanities actually taught in schools -- they could see individuals as complicated, nuanced. Our best novelists, musicians, film makers, and memoirists teach, exemplify, model this. No need for all the hiding in categories, packages, sects, tribes, abstractions, slogans, epithets, labels, online algorithms.