As expected, Trump’s team has reorganized the Republican National Committee’s donation system, arranging for maximum donations to go first to Trump’s presidential campaign, then to Trump’s Save America political action committee, and finally to the RNC to elect down ballot candidates. The Save America PAC pays Trump’s legal bills. So far in 2024 it has spent $8.5 million on them. In essence, this new flow means Trump is using the RNC to raise money that is then diverted to him.
I wonder if Betsy DeVos helped him with this RNC pyramid model, because, you know -Amway. I must say I would enjoy it immensely if the Trump/Putin "MAGAtized" RNC paid Trump's legal bills and starved every other GOP campaign for donations. And yes, George Conway is correct, it should be called the MAGAPutins or something similar. Regardless of the name, it is a criminal organization working to attack the Republic (as a representative democracy), destroy vital institutions such as Social Security and public education, and burn the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Senators Budd, Lee, Cruz, and Paul -are all part of the MAGA movement -and Cruz also stood against certification of the 2020 election with 146 other MAGAtized extremists who should be considered for expulsion from Congress.
The Senate passed a $1.2 trillion federal spending bill early Saturday morning – but not before missing a midnight deadline which triggered a brief partial government shutdown.
The spending package easily cleared the upper chamber in a 74-24 vote.
Like most commenting here, I keep up on the news. Like most, too, I very much value Heather’s takes on things as she near-daily puts out her “Letters from an American.”
But today’s too much combines the dreadful. First, the total lunacy from the idiot Republicans in their clown show chaos relacing what had been the U.S. Congress. Marjorie Taylor Greene a "leader" there? Such a despicable illiterate, only gaming to thrust her back-of-the-woods slack-jawed twang and
boorishness ever onto center stage.
Now, too – can it be? – ISIS in a mass terror attack on Putin's Russia, a country itself terrorized by a mass murderer?
Well, Putin does what all the most vulgar always do – reduce all life to group loathing. Now this has a hate-filled group hating him, too.
So much group hatred. So much grouped loathing. And the schools? Can American schools get rid of their hate-filled preachers, tribal demagogues, paranoid censors, numbering-relentless standardized testers? Can we join others in the world for higher human standards -- for humanities and essays, for seeing individuals, neighboring characters in so many of their nuances, complexities, communities?
The do-nothing repubs made budget brinkmanship routine. At first people got alarmed when they held us all hostage, and that let them extort a better deal. But fatigue is setting in - not just in the legislature; the public isn't all that impressed either! You can't keep playing the same trick and expect everyone to play along and pretend it's original forever.
I'm sick of this. It's a dumb game, and I don't want to play with repubs any more. VOTE BLUE 2024!!
I've just turned 79, and I can vividly remember, around the time of Freedom summer, thinking that we were not going to survive the Civil Rights struggle. Then during the Cuban missile crisis thinking that I probably wouldn't live to see my twenty first birthday. I watched following Brown v Board how so many of us couldn't accept the simple truth of humanity. And then we plunged into Vietnam and I spent four years of my life in the army, including that awful year of 1968, not sure how the country would hold together. We barely got out of that one intact, perhaps saved only by three extraordinary men going to the moon surrounded by our profound will to put them there. Then there were the Pentagon Papers and Watergate and the disastrous collapse of trust in the government. And so on.
You know, I often think I've spent my whole life in a storm. I spent over 40 years teaching American history and attempting to give my students some sense of the extraordinary story of our founding and the reasons for it, all the while watching that extraordinary promise frittered away by men and women with small souls, biased hearts, limited vision, stunted morality, and increasing partisanship.
So now, watching this current mess, I guess I'm a little less horrified than I ought to be because I've become so used to such people calling themselves Americans and thinking that they are a legitimate part of this grand experiment when in fact they have utterly failed to understand who we were designed to be. Yes, that design was flawed from the start, primarily by slavery, but the dream was there in the minds of those (admittedly all white males) who endured that long, hot summer in that closed-windowed building and created something another American would one day call "the last best hope of earth".
I still believe, with Lincoln, in the great task remaining before us, but lord, sometimes it is awfully damned hard.
I still wish, as I have since he was first elevated to the Senate, that someone would throw Rand Paul off the Roebling Bridge. That little fuckwit *needs* termination since back when he was a "self licensed" opthamologist. We really are at the point where the only "good Republicans" are "pushing up daisies" as Harry Truman said way back in 1948.
It seems that Buck and Gallagher’s departure may finally give the Dems the leverage needed to force a vote on aid to Ukraine. MTG’s motion may have done them a big favor.
Such buffoonery in both houses by GOP radicals. Disgusting.
Vote Blue is not enough. WORK Blue matters. The ground game can skew things several percentage points that move us from lose to win. Them (the Democrats) is US! Go to a swing state and WORK to elect Democrats. I did that as long as I was able, working in NV for Obama and Hillary. At age 82, I'm sending money. Lots of swing states for Presidency and Senate, gotta be one close to each of us. NC, GA, OH, MI, WI, MT, NV, AZ, come to mind. Biden needs the Senate and the House to bull off his programs. Get off your butt and WORK to save Democracy! If you can't, send money of you can. My wife and I dropped $40K on the last round. Talk is cheap, and worthless. Democracy is not a spectator sport!
You wrote, ''This morning, conservative lawyer George Conway suggested that “we should stop defiling the memory of the party of Lincoln by referring to the current organization” as the Republican Party.''
Here's an idea let's have a poll to help George Conway. Here are some choices:
I am not sure if this Business Insider story is true. But essentially Ukraine has been using drones and long-range missiles to target its oil and gas industry. "US officials are said to be concerned that the attacks could drive up oil prices and provoke retaliation. They want Ukraine to ease up, per the report."
Obviously, higher oil prices would be bad for Biden in the upcoming election. It pains me to say this, but with aid being stalled in Congress, I can't help but think Ukranians' response to the U.S. "concern" would be like their response to that Russian warship early on in the war: "Go f**k yourself."
I am gobsmacked that Jackal Johnson has recessed the House until April 9th after its Perils of Pauline handling of the latest prospective government financial shutdown. So many artificial crises must be so psychologically exhausting that another more-than-two-week vacation is required.
Under Speaker Johnson the House has spent far more time in recess than in Washington. Part of this is due to the House Raucous Committee, which continually seeks to jab a stick into the wheels of government. Also, Johnson has difficulty getting his NYET instructions from Trump, who has been engaged in vacuuming money from the Republican National Committee for his legal bills while seeking the cash/bond for $464,000,000 by March 25th.
John has indicated his intention to invite Netanyahu to speak before the House (or, with Schumer’s assent, before a joint session of Congress.) Such a political meddling in the Middle East cauldron repeats what occurred with Netanyahu in 2015.
President Obama was on the cusp of concluding s six-nation agreement intended to short circuit Iran’s development of a nuclear capability. Netanyahu openly opposed this. The Republicans, in control of the House and Senate, invited Netanyahu to use this platform to publicly oppose a major initiative of the United States Government (and others).
[As a matter of diplomatic protocol, since Obama had not invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States, he was not invited to the White House.] Might Netanyahu journey to Mar a Lago to genuflect before his favored presidential candidate?
MEANWHILE, the Russians have been carpet bombing key electric installations in Ukraine, brave Ukrainians are dying as much better equipped and supplied Russians are ravaging, AND Johnson mentions that the $61,000,000,000 October request for urgent Ukrainian military aid will be ‘considered’ after the latest House recess.
Personally, I consider traitorous the Trump/Johnson NYETS on providing vital support for Ukraine against ‘Greater Russia’ Putin.The thought of ‘President’ Trump cutting off all aid to Ukraine in support of his buddy Putin makes me puke.
Wow! A really bad day for the POT (Party of Trump) A helpful piece of legislation swept past their slimy hands. Guess their 'Grand Imperial Wizard' will have another ketchup throwing tantrum. Come April 22, with only a one vote lead the poor maggots, uh sorry, magats, might be forced to witness some real legislation passing. Tough patooties, trump.
I wonder if Betsy DeVos helped him with this RNC pyramid model, because, you know -Amway. I must say I would enjoy it immensely if the Trump/Putin "MAGAtized" RNC paid Trump's legal bills and starved every other GOP campaign for donations. And yes, George Conway is correct, it should be called the MAGAPutins or something similar. Regardless of the name, it is a criminal organization working to attack the Republic (as a representative democracy), destroy vital institutions such as Social Security and public education, and burn the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Senators Budd, Lee, Cruz, and Paul -are all part of the MAGA movement -and Cruz also stood against certification of the 2020 election with 146 other MAGAtized extremists who should be considered for expulsion from Congress.
It makes you wonder if there are any more Republicans who will resign, effective April 9 in order to change the majority in the House.
Good news:
The Senate passed a $1.2 trillion federal spending bill early Saturday morning – but not before missing a midnight deadline which triggered a brief partial government shutdown.
The spending package easily cleared the upper chamber in a 74-24 vote.
I dreaded this.
Like most commenting here, I keep up on the news. Like most, too, I very much value Heather’s takes on things as she near-daily puts out her “Letters from an American.”
But today’s too much combines the dreadful. First, the total lunacy from the idiot Republicans in their clown show chaos relacing what had been the U.S. Congress. Marjorie Taylor Greene a "leader" there? Such a despicable illiterate, only gaming to thrust her back-of-the-woods slack-jawed twang and
boorishness ever onto center stage.
Now, too – can it be? – ISIS in a mass terror attack on Putin's Russia, a country itself terrorized by a mass murderer?
Well, Putin does what all the most vulgar always do – reduce all life to group loathing. Now this has a hate-filled group hating him, too.
So much group hatred. So much grouped loathing. And the schools? Can American schools get rid of their hate-filled preachers, tribal demagogues, paranoid censors, numbering-relentless standardized testers? Can we join others in the world for higher human standards -- for humanities and essays, for seeing individuals, neighboring characters in so many of their nuances, complexities, communities?
How many times is it, now?
The do-nothing repubs made budget brinkmanship routine. At first people got alarmed when they held us all hostage, and that let them extort a better deal. But fatigue is setting in - not just in the legislature; the public isn't all that impressed either! You can't keep playing the same trick and expect everyone to play along and pretend it's original forever.
I'm sick of this. It's a dumb game, and I don't want to play with repubs any more. VOTE BLUE 2024!!
Very curious about ISIS attacks against Moscow. Why have they done this?
I've just turned 79, and I can vividly remember, around the time of Freedom summer, thinking that we were not going to survive the Civil Rights struggle. Then during the Cuban missile crisis thinking that I probably wouldn't live to see my twenty first birthday. I watched following Brown v Board how so many of us couldn't accept the simple truth of humanity. And then we plunged into Vietnam and I spent four years of my life in the army, including that awful year of 1968, not sure how the country would hold together. We barely got out of that one intact, perhaps saved only by three extraordinary men going to the moon surrounded by our profound will to put them there. Then there were the Pentagon Papers and Watergate and the disastrous collapse of trust in the government. And so on.
You know, I often think I've spent my whole life in a storm. I spent over 40 years teaching American history and attempting to give my students some sense of the extraordinary story of our founding and the reasons for it, all the while watching that extraordinary promise frittered away by men and women with small souls, biased hearts, limited vision, stunted morality, and increasing partisanship.
So now, watching this current mess, I guess I'm a little less horrified than I ought to be because I've become so used to such people calling themselves Americans and thinking that they are a legitimate part of this grand experiment when in fact they have utterly failed to understand who we were designed to be. Yes, that design was flawed from the start, primarily by slavery, but the dream was there in the minds of those (admittedly all white males) who endured that long, hot summer in that closed-windowed building and created something another American would one day call "the last best hope of earth".
I still believe, with Lincoln, in the great task remaining before us, but lord, sometimes it is awfully damned hard.
I still wish, as I have since he was first elevated to the Senate, that someone would throw Rand Paul off the Roebling Bridge. That little fuckwit *needs* termination since back when he was a "self licensed" opthamologist. We really are at the point where the only "good Republicans" are "pushing up daisies" as Harry Truman said way back in 1948.
It seems that Buck and Gallagher’s departure may finally give the Dems the leverage needed to force a vote on aid to Ukraine. MTG’s motion may have done them a big favor.
Such buffoonery in both houses by GOP radicals. Disgusting.
Vote Blue is not enough. WORK Blue matters. The ground game can skew things several percentage points that move us from lose to win. Them (the Democrats) is US! Go to a swing state and WORK to elect Democrats. I did that as long as I was able, working in NV for Obama and Hillary. At age 82, I'm sending money. Lots of swing states for Presidency and Senate, gotta be one close to each of us. NC, GA, OH, MI, WI, MT, NV, AZ, come to mind. Biden needs the Senate and the House to bull off his programs. Get off your butt and WORK to save Democracy! If you can't, send money of you can. My wife and I dropped $40K on the last round. Talk is cheap, and worthless. Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Thank you, Heather.
You wrote, ''This morning, conservative lawyer George Conway suggested that “we should stop defiling the memory of the party of Lincoln by referring to the current organization” as the Republican Party.''
Here's an idea let's have a poll to help George Conway. Here are some choices:
1. Authoritarian Nationalist Party (ANP)
2. Centralist Republican Authority (CRA)
3. Patriotic Governance Party (PGP)
4. Liberty Control Party (LCP)
5. New Republican Order (NRO)
6. Republican Autocracy Party (RAP):
7. Conservative Authoritarian Movement (CAM)
8. Dominant Republican Initiative (DRI)
9. Nationalist Republican Vanguard (NRV)
10. United Republican Regime (URR)
Please vote for one or make up your own.
I chose #6 because it's acronym rhymes with crap.
Speak up. Speak out. Vote. Pray.
I am not sure if this Business Insider story is true. But essentially Ukraine has been using drones and long-range missiles to target its oil and gas industry. "US officials are said to be concerned that the attacks could drive up oil prices and provoke retaliation. They want Ukraine to ease up, per the report."
Obviously, higher oil prices would be bad for Biden in the upcoming election. It pains me to say this, but with aid being stalled in Congress, I can't help but think Ukranians' response to the U.S. "concern" would be like their response to that Russian warship early on in the war: "Go f**k yourself."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-finally-found-a-way-to-make-russia-suffer-the-us-seems-to-want-it-to-stop/ar-BB1klwj2?
I am gobsmacked that Jackal Johnson has recessed the House until April 9th after its Perils of Pauline handling of the latest prospective government financial shutdown. So many artificial crises must be so psychologically exhausting that another more-than-two-week vacation is required.
Under Speaker Johnson the House has spent far more time in recess than in Washington. Part of this is due to the House Raucous Committee, which continually seeks to jab a stick into the wheels of government. Also, Johnson has difficulty getting his NYET instructions from Trump, who has been engaged in vacuuming money from the Republican National Committee for his legal bills while seeking the cash/bond for $464,000,000 by March 25th.
John has indicated his intention to invite Netanyahu to speak before the House (or, with Schumer’s assent, before a joint session of Congress.) Such a political meddling in the Middle East cauldron repeats what occurred with Netanyahu in 2015.
President Obama was on the cusp of concluding s six-nation agreement intended to short circuit Iran’s development of a nuclear capability. Netanyahu openly opposed this. The Republicans, in control of the House and Senate, invited Netanyahu to use this platform to publicly oppose a major initiative of the United States Government (and others).
[As a matter of diplomatic protocol, since Obama had not invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States, he was not invited to the White House.] Might Netanyahu journey to Mar a Lago to genuflect before his favored presidential candidate?
MEANWHILE, the Russians have been carpet bombing key electric installations in Ukraine, brave Ukrainians are dying as much better equipped and supplied Russians are ravaging, AND Johnson mentions that the $61,000,000,000 October request for urgent Ukrainian military aid will be ‘considered’ after the latest House recess.
Personally, I consider traitorous the Trump/Johnson NYETS on providing vital support for Ukraine against ‘Greater Russia’ Putin.The thought of ‘President’ Trump cutting off all aid to Ukraine in support of his buddy Putin makes me puke.
The RNC is now the hardware store that Tony and the boys did a "bust out" on in The Sopranos.
Like watching a train wreck in slow motion
Wow! A really bad day for the POT (Party of Trump) A helpful piece of legislation swept past their slimy hands. Guess their 'Grand Imperial Wizard' will have another ketchup throwing tantrum. Come April 22, with only a one vote lead the poor maggots, uh sorry, magats, might be forced to witness some real legislation passing. Tough patooties, trump.