Last October, the spirit of humor mixed with new-found strength marked No Kings Day.
On Saturday, the spirit of anger will prevail. Not just at the obvious target of Trump alone, but at the wretches who sold our republic for thirty pieces of silver, at those who have betrayed what it used to mean to be an American, those who stood by and enabled the worst, most contemptible, most incompetent, most dishonest, most fucked-up Administration in our history to come to power, not just to break laws and norms, but to wreck, destroy and kill with impunity -- not once, but twice.
Looking forward to being with tens of millions of my friends on March 28. My own sign in front of Congress on the National Mall will simply say:
Trump "sucks the air out of the room" as in the whole world. There is nothing now but him and his destruction. Our everyday ordinary lives and plans and projects are in the backseat. What will he do next?... has taken over our lives. Many think they can go on with their lives, but terror and insecurity is in the air.
Leaders hedge their bets, not knowing what terrible decision Trump will make next. He is destroying the country, our economy, our pride, our futures. He is destroying lives and land and resources. How much oil is now being burned into the atmosphere? Nothing matters but his puny self. He is nothing and he is causing our world to be nothing.
No one is benefitting from this War. It never should have been started. Iran did NOT attack the US or Israel. Iran's support for those who object to the systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide of a peoples just so Israel can realize it's dreams of conquest should be admired. But, no, in this US/Israeli empire regime, it is defined as "terrorism".
I always said that if Trump gets reelected, it would mean the end of western. civilization as we know it. But noooo, I was being too dramatic. Man, I wish I was wrong….
And Judith, a LOT of people are benefiting from this war. MBS, Netanyahu, Putin, and last but certainly not least,the Orange Goblin King himself - and his family. And don’t forget the Silicon Valley Tech Bro Billionaires, who have put enormous amounts of money in the effort to destroy democracy and the international rules based order - because they hate rules that other people make: they only like their own rules…
Those who are benefitting will be living in hell ...and I don't mean the next world either.
I think being rich is horrible in itself. What do you do with your time? Shop? hangout with other rich people?
Not For Me. I like projects and solving problems and I had plenty of opportunity to do that. I am very good at it, too.
My worst nightmare is having "married well" and my second is being on a cruise.
These rich will live in bubbles with friends and family. Air, water, ICE style security guards, Whole Foods! There have to be sci-fi novels like that. Or, horror stories. Just think: Family: Forever!
One problem I see is that they are never satisfied with what they have, they always want more and that's a need that will never be satisfied. For some of us, especially if you've struggled, enough is a roof over your head, food on the table, grocery shopping without a calculator, access to health care, ability to pay for meds and other necessities. Everything beyond that is treasured.
Billionaires are sociopathic hoarders, wounded, insatiable as heroin junkies for money and power — never filling the hole in their child-wounded souls. These sick people want to rule the planet, yet are so clueless as to how it operates.
Elizabeth, I have known a few people who enjoy cruises. They are the same people who enjoy going to casinos. At the risk of sounding like a snob, I would describe those folks as low-class. They have no interest in enriching their understanding of the world and are poor managers of their finances.
Only a small, incurious mind is satisfied by the contrived, gaudy surroundings of a floating shopping mall that purports to be an environment of wealth.
I've been on 3 cruises: One to the Caribbean and one to Alaska, both through Olivia Travel, which charters cruise ships to various destinations, and markets it to lesbians. Loved the Caribbean cruise; 220 passengers on a 5 masted sailing ship (also motor powered). The Alaska cruise was fun, as we went with my aunt and her wife and was on one of the "Dam ships" as Holland America calls them. Casino on board the ship, and jewelry stores lining the approach to town from the pier (caused my wife to say "why does this look like the Caribbean?").
Third cruise was a day long river cruise down the Rhein with my in-laws, where we just traveled down the river for 6 hours and then took a train back to their place, stopping at a bunch of cathedrals.
For my money, an "exotic" vacation will now be an all-inclusive resort experience (we did one in Mexico with that same couple, my wife's sister and her husband). I see that happening maybe once more in my lifetime.
The word **enough** comes to mind, and that places each of us on an ever-changing continuum. I used to wear a cap with a peace sign; tomorrow it'll be one with bold letters DEFIANCE (pointer to Miles Taylor). My sign has a prayer emoji 14' high, under which one side says, REGIME CHANGE HERE, other side says, REMOVE. All BIG letters.
I think being rich soon becomes a very empty, meaningless life. It is a material life, and mere matter is per definitionem meaningless.
To me, it's all a show, a compensation, a pain killer. It's a feeble attempt to cover the hole in their hearts which can never be filled with money, riches, fame, power - deep down, they know the truth, but they are to scared to face it: that hole in their hearts can only be filled with the one thing they cannot buy: love.
Yea, well I don't have the temperament or the aptitude for fame and great wealth. Like the rest of you, I prefer thoughtful engagement with friends, family and community, healthy hobbies etc. Although I'm beginning to wonder if it's a recurrent delusion that a change in government will make a difference...... But I will not despair, but continue to hope.
Yes, but I think the Aid we gave came with conditions..and all those 800 military bases were not for the benefit of those countries. They were to control those countries. Malta used to have a UK base but they kicked them out and claim to be far safer with no military base. A lot of countries are questioning the wisdom and safety of having USA parked on a piece of their land. An "essential" piece of military hardware was removed from S. Korea to give to Israel. This was to protect them from N. Korea. You can bet they are looking sideways at that big base.
I am questioning the way America is spending our money. The Pentagon can't account for a billion dollars of expenditures.
Trump is rotting away. His mind is mush. Half dead. But, he's still allowed to make decisions. I Cannot believe that troops are actually going to be sent there. Such easy targets for those very prepared Iranians. And, Iran will have POWs....hostages. What a surreal nightmare this is.
Nothing in return huh? That sounds awfully simplistic to me. 80 years of American soft power totally wasted? You are taking a very simplistic and reductionist view that any dollar spent outside the US border is wasted. I believe you are wrong. So do many “not quite lefty” administrations. And has this left you personally hungry and homeless, somehow I doubt that to be true. You have plenty of $ to post your opinions here and many other subscriptions. I think you have benefited greatly from the success of this nation.
I had a conversation with friends this past week about Zuck outfitting himself with a bunker.......in my mind, I saw a scenario in which all the "rich" billionaires have interconnected underground bunkers in the event of a nuclear strike; where they never see the light of day and make their own rules.......stabbing each other in the back until there is only one person standing. How appropriate that they should be constructing a living hell for themselves.
You were and are right. I thought so too. They learned to play a different game from last time. Democrats are still in the same poker game, playing by the rules that were tossed long ago. It’s not just America that is being betrayed
Was there ever a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance, fairness? Should we feel pity more than hatred for people so unfortunate to be mistaken in matters where they believe their wealth and accumulation of same, their hatred and racial superiority are much more important?
If we will it -- if we Rise Up Angry -- we can be that revolution. But first we need solidarity, from which evolves the requisite discipline and leadership, though sometimes the leadership comes first.
same here. My response to the few I know who told me all would be well and I was being was that I would be sooo thankful to be proven wrong; that if I was right things would not end well.
Wish you had been wrong too. It is not a country--government wise--that I recognize any more. Our founding fathers must be turning over in their graves.
Read what Iran has done to Israel. Supporting the terrorists in Hezbollah, Houthis and Hamas, launching thousands of missiles at Israel. Under Netanyahu - also despised by majority of Israelis - terrible things are done to Palestinians. Israel's current leaders are not saints. But Israelis are also exhausted by non-stop terror.
tRump, on the other hand, has agency. He could easily have said no to Netanyahu. And now we learn the Saudis, for whom no love for Iran is lost, has been whispering in tRump's of their ambitions, egging tRump on all along.
The REAL question is where is Congress? They could impeach him & end this war of tRump's choice. The GOP has no courage to do their job. The GOP Congress has allowed the destruction of what the founders of the US held dear.
Israelis would not be so exhausted if they got along with the indigenous population. The Palestinians are not Amalek; they are lovely people, the most educated in the Muslim world.
It's Israel and the USA who are the terrorists.
I get a kick out how well prepared Iran was for this. I'm not into the slaughter or the assassination of the Supreme Leader of Shia Muslims. That will be a never ending problem. For decades.
I think Israel purposively lied to pitiful trump about this being a 2 day war. They had to know better. The Mossad has been on the ground for ages in Iran. Aren't they on the ground everywhere??
Israel wanted and wants a long war, to turn Iran into a Syria.
Love it, Judith -- "if they got along with the indigenous population."
Heather has been documenting how Donald has not only been destroying the world order of balances the U.S. led since WWII, but has further let his greedy family ally with Persian Gulf monarchies and autocrats for corrupt Trump family profit. While Donald himself -- Heather's been great at specifying this -- has been allying his thoroughly corrupt interests with those of Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, and others averse to democracy.
With so many so vulgar, so cruel, so murderous all cohering, all ruling, who could even begin to set U.S. educators to any project so Israeli and Palestinian English-learning youth might do essaying beyond the hate-based stereotypes which rulers depend on to underwrite their plundering?
Yes, this is Netanyahu’s and Putin’s and MBS’s war that we are fighting on their behalf to make a new world order they have long wanted. T is stupid and deranged enough to do their bidding because they flatter and scare him - they have more brains and willpower and he wants them to admire him. They give him money and he’s then happy to spend OUR MONEY on their behalf. Now he is sending in our soldiers to spend their blood for him, and still can’t find a consistent story that would explain what our national interest is in his whole fucked up mess.
If this still can’t convince Reps to throw him overboard they are choosing personal loyalty to a treasonable fuckwit over actual representation of US interests. Not one vote for them and put their asses in jail when this bloodbath is finally over. I may not live to see it, but so many others are dying thanks to him that it would be fitting to join them on the “other side.”
I heard that Vance could have a talk with other high up leaders and do an Amendment 25 and get trump out.
"Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."
Vance should do this if he wants a future...for himself and the USA.
I am sure our administration was, and is, fully aware of what they are doing... it is the end game that I wonder about at times; it is either to enrich themselves even further with taking over territories, oil etc... or something far more dangerous. The lifting of sanctions on Russia while it is helping Iran is prompting me to scratch my head! Or it is indeed as simple as needing to divert attention from one evil act to another...
Let's call this what it is -- WWIII. At least 13 countries have suffered casualties as a result of Trump's unilateral action to attack Iran. And then add on the people Donald has ordered killed in cold blood in Venezuela and other countries. And then there's Russia's War with Ukraine.
Donald is following Putin's roadmap of enriching himself and a group of oligarchs while the rest of the country suffers.
He has gone from being President for only himself and the Republican bros, to being President for himself, his family and dozens of oligarchs.
Trump is following Putin's and Orban's roadmap. And like Hitler he has an Army of brownshirt thugs that have already killed American citizens and deported them as well.
It could have been WWIII if the rest of NATO or Western Liberal countries had supported us. Their refusal may well have stopped the spiral that resulted in WWI and it's child WWII.
Yes and..... evil has a way of inventing new crisis to lure nations back into the fight. NATO has shown independence, they must stay on guard. Besides, their worry now is Ukraine, another country we stabbed in the back, just as we are doing to NATO itself. And yes, we... not the Felon... because our families and neighbors elected a crazy, knowing full well what he told them he would do and they stood compliant to his vision.
GJ, I'm not quite ready to call it WWIII. What we are involved in seems more like gang terror on a global scale, with Donald being the gang boss. Basically, Donald is roaming the globe, terrorizing any nation he perceives to be weak enough to capitulate, in an apparent effort to expand his "turf."
If the first two world wars are examples, what we are now seeing doesn't fit. There are no allied nations coalescing into coordinated military forces fighting in identifiable theaters. Just a couple of thugs using their militaries to beat up on one thug's enemy, egged on by a few interested bystanders.
Congress - a group of sycophants who do nothing except two things, kowtow and gain riches (by collecting their salaries for doing nothing for the people and getting rich from inside trading).
Marj, I doubt the answer to your question is easy, but I have this observation. U.S. politics has become a habitat for people who have no marketable skills, save the ability to befriend people with money.
How does one get elected these days? By parroting talking points created by handlers. These talking points are at their core, meaningless; and by spending more money than one's opponents to blast those meaningless talking points into the eyes and ears of an electorate that has checked out of their communities. Whoever spends the most money wins.
The problem is that these elected officials have no idea what to do or how to do it once they find themselves in Congress – except to make sure their friends with money are kept happy, so they will give them money to win the next election. The people who donate matter. The people who vote don't.
Courage has nothing to do with this job. It's all about the money.
Israel and Saudi Arabia benefit from the toddler moron using what belongs to the American people - our wealth, our children, our future--as if they are toys.
One can easily see how simple it has been for them to bribe dumptys vile offspring and flatter this elderly vain fool to achieve their goals.
We are being robbed, and a third of the country thinks it's great.
Exactly Jen. It's theft, pure and simple. I wish when I pay my taxes this year, I could include a note about how I feel about this donation that feeds the mafia style regime is VERY RESENTED!
Iran's support for those who object to the systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide you speak of appear to include Hamas and the Houthis, and I do consider them terrorists. Big difference from those of us who do NOT support the Israeli genocide in Palestine, but are not terrorists.
Hamas and the Houthis are freedom fighters and heroes in my book. They only benefit from getting satisfaction from acting as Allah would want.
Muhammad Ali refused to fight in the Viet Nam war and was sent to prison and had to pay a fine and lose his boxing license. His Muslim religion directed him and made him strong. The Supreme Leader would not allow nuclear bombs or doing to the Iraqis what had been done to them; a million Iranians killed with chemical weapons, supplied by the USA. Looks to me like that religion is a whole lot more peaceful that the religions of the warrior countries USA and Israel.
I do NOT support the Israeli genocide in Palestine but my country does. I can't do anything about it. My country should and some Presidents tried weakly to do something about but Israel just plowed ahead. Kennedy tried hard but he was shot. I am sure all Presidents knew the risk as does trump. Charlie Kirk opened his mouth and he was disposed of. No proof but very suspicious. .
Any candidate for Congress knows he has to support Israel or he will lose.
Credit goes to Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah who have put their lives on the line to do something about it. They are working with meager resources unlike the unlimited wealth of the USA and all the Zionists.
Let us peacefully pray for the people in Gaza. It won't make any difference.
Don't demonstrate because then you risk having your future ruined.
It's safer to Shut your mouth and conform like the vast majority.
Judith, excellent post defining what is happening as no one can plan much of anything. I have thought about how the war is polluting the atmosphere along with widespread destruction of oil facilities. And of course, loss of life. Thank you for reflecting on what Israel has done to Gaza as well and our aiding and abetting.
I sure agree with your spirit of anger. For the first No Kings, I dressed as Colonial Paula Revere. Second No Kings with a sign "WE THE PEOPLE ARE PISSED!" This No Kings: Giving a speech on how we overthrew a king, proclaimed "All men are created equal" while stealing Native lands, enslaving people, and denying the vote to women and "minorities," but did set up a Constitution that laid the path toward a more perfect union, so what the hell has happened!
As we point out the problem, we do well to point to the solution--in this case, mass mobilization of the people into sustained civic engagement. So affirmatively tell people what to do, like join an Indivisible group, a bridge brigade, a Singing Resistance pod, a mutual aid network, support good progressive candidates for office, and/or support good legislation. No Kings!
Greed, money and corporate wealth have shifted the values of the rulers of our country - the people we elected! It's been gradual over time but they control our wealth as the top 1% has what - the tope 80% of the money. It's all about letting us starve - just like the Middle Ages...
I applaud all your efforts. I wish however that we could put the same amount of effort into explaining to the Trump voters (not those who are making billions by siding with him), why we are losing our democracy, our rights, our country.
You could. But the die hards have every reason you can think of to defend him anyway. Because they voted for him and now must defend their decision? Because Democrats are ‘demons’? Because Faux News continues to lie to them? And for any reason at all. Or no reason.
We have tried doing just that for years. We have used facts and connected the dots, there has been little movement. We have to see them for what they are, anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional. Different issues but same arguments that came to a head under the Buchanan administration.
Ligia, I have tried. People that I worked with in law enforcement, who I trusted with my life, and they trusted me with theirs, are willfully in an information silo which feeds them propaganda that they believe with all their hearts. A long ago axiom from crisis negotiations is "you cannot reason with unreasonable people." That has played out in my world since Obama's election in 2008 to now, on the few occasions I still try.
I hear you Ally, and do understand the reasoning behind not trying to argue with the people I call "the unarguables". But there has to be some curiosity in people. I often try to hear what the republican pundits have to say (while I hold back the gagging!) to grasp their thinking, just in case I have to have a conversation with one of them. But this kind of blind devotion to anything (including religion) is beyond me. My maternal grandfather taught me to question everything, and I try...
Good mix of words on your sign. Brief and simple. Thus it will be read. I am unable to march but will be promoting my Memorandum all day. My wife is marching with her sister. Each of them have a poster of my UnitedWeAmend.org logo with a personal message on the other side. "A Gov. of Laws, and No" then under that is a big Crown with the X over it and below the crown is the word "KINGS" at the bottom. This will be a big and loud turnout.
That change in spirit, from humor to anger, is a worry. If any of the thousands of rallies show signs of violence, it will only bolster the Orange Menace's threat of force against "the radical Left" as he calls us. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
ICCT, I am going to put that on the obverse of my sign, which has photos of both my Dad and I in uniform and reads "Antifa: Family tradition since 1942". If I had any contact with the "cousins" from Montana that I never met and pretty much considered my Dad an outcast, I could probably find photos of the lineage that reportedly came from the Revolutionary war forward. My inability to lie to get into the Navy broke a generational chain.
ICTT: You are so right that tomorrow's outpouring of our people may well be out of anger. And we all need to listen to that anger in us to discern whether it is righteous or vengeful. It may be both. But the best anger is to heed what Sikh peace activist Valarie Kaur says: "The aim of divine rage is not vengeance. It is to reorder the world."
We are not alone in our anger towards those who seek to "remake" our government for the few. "NOT WITH MY CONSENT--NOT ON MY WATCH" ....wonderful words!!!!
On Saturday, my husband and I will be present with our sign as well! I hope to see large crowds as we have seen before in South Carolina and once as we gathered in Virginia while visiting our daughter.
"Trump" is our object of distain but he, along with his family, were carefully chosen by the real enemies of our country. Those robbers and thieves have been patiently and steadily working for years to arrive at this point of destruction of the foundations of our freedoms and rights as citizens of the United States of America!!!!
I am grateful for the heroes and heroines who are rising up to bring our country not only back from darkness but to the light of a better, stronger, governance of the people, by the people and for the people!!!!
Extraordinary Americans, young and old, liberal and conservatives are standing or sitting or marching together. Many have simply chosen to be present as they are able!!!! They/We are making the effort to be seen as citizens who love this country and remember those who have served, given their life's blood for freedom in the past
and are fighting for this country in the present!!!!
However, not only do we have to fight against the magas at home, but the increasing alliances with other nefarious governments: Hungary, Russia, North Korea etc. We are heading into a world not led by reason, but by blows, insults and torture.
Yesterday I made my sign for NO KINGS, and then spent the day doing chores that I had been putting off, and didn't check the news when I came home. I just woke up, read Heather's post, and feel like Rip Van Winkle. I've woken up, and years must have gone by; so much has happened.
We are now fully in the autocratic camp in foreign policy with no restraints whatsoever, and those foreign policy choices will drive us into a major recession with the uncontrolled spending on the not-a-war.
I don't think anyone saw that foreign policy would come first as the weapon of choice for the destruction of our democracy. We have all been focused on the domestic threats.
I take that back. One person saw it. Putin.
We have to make NO KINGS the most massive protest we can. Today, don't just get yourself ready for the protest. Call every friend and family member you have and convince them to get out there too.
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. president George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba'athist Iraq, and North Korea. January 2002.
None of these countries has done anything like what we are doing now. This to bring Democracy to what country? Israel? that has no democracy for 1/2 of its population.
See the evolving term used against whichever country we are competing with.
I originally called for the good generals of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prevent Trump from entering office through a military coup. I know, destroy the constitution in order to save it is what that amounts to. I'm convinced now more than ever this would have been the better and safer course to take.
There is nothing left. There will likely be no mid terms. Who is kidding who. Let’s go out and show Trump that we mean business so he can destroy another historic landmark. Who wants to bet he won’t. I’m taking bets.
Me too Bill! Of course I continue to wonder how he got as far as being on the ballot.
I think what he has planned for tomorrow, to take the media away from protests, is beyond my imagination. At first I thought it would blood shed on Kharg Island. Now I feel like it will be worse.
Thank you for this useful addition to the discussion. Perhaps we’re not so much joining such an Axis as we are becoming an independent (rogue?) player on the side of evil.
Putin may have been the first, but Netanyahu and MBS were close behind. Remember the cute pictures of Trump and Pence "doing the sword dance"?
and Bibi's fortnightly visits with fruitily emotional declarations that Israel had never ever had a better friend than the United States? Lies and deceit whichever way you turn.
Yes, I think that is part of the pattern people were missing in real time.
The sword dance was easy to dismiss as spectacle, and Bibi’s constant praise could sound like ordinary diplomatic flattery. But to other world leaders, those moments likely signaled something more serious: Trump was highly responsive to personal praise, theatrical displays of loyalty, and relationships with authoritarian or illiberal leaders. That matters because those images were not just embarrassing photo ops. They suggested that American power was becoming more personal, more transactional, and less anchored to democratic principle. Leaders like MBS and Netanyahu would have understood that very clearly, even if much of the public did not. So yes, the deceit ran in multiple directions. The pageantry helped normalize relationships and agendas that should have been scrutinized much more closely. What looked like flattery was also influence, and what looked like diplomacy was often the staging of power.
My wife, who has tried to keep her sanity by ignoring Trump, finally summed it up after reading today's news in the NYTs and on her phone; "What a disgusting human being...except for the human being part".
We are in the criminal camp. Let’s just plainly say that autocrats are criminals. By moving fast and breaking things, Trump and the morbidly rich in America have broken America’s integrity and stolen from all the rest of us. Putting troops in Iran will be a bloody disaster. Thank God, my military son is retired.
Unless and until the orange criminal is held to account, he will continue his crimes, the list of which is endless.
Georgia, I signed up for the NO KINGS protest in Ashland, OR. I asked if I could get a ride there, and my wife, and her aunt, and possibly our nieces are going to go with me. I will have a walker and my crutch (walker so I can sit when I need to; the knee is healing nicely, but only 3 weeks out from replacement).
Note: We're in Southern Oregon for our annual "March Birthday" celebrations (we also have them in May, July, and August). If both nieces come, we'll have all three of us March babies there!.
Happy birthdays! I think we all need to get out together to get back into a feeling of community. It was so cold here in NJ for so long that there was not a lot of community time or spirit. I hope people come away with a real sense of how powerful we can be if we come together, that it is not just a time to vent our anger. As Heather keeps saying, now is the time to think about what we want our future to be like when we win. It has to be so much more than just getting rid of Trump and ensuring accountability and reparations for the harm done. We need to reclaim our right to decide what our society should be like in terms of equal opportunity and diversity,
I have tried to gather a group of people together for tomorrow. The comments> 'Protests are stupid', 'What does a protest do', 'There may be violence'. 'It won't change a thing', The last protest he tore down the east wing'.
People are being intimidated and they feel it and they are afraid so they make excuses.
I think that all you can do is ask them if they believe that what Trump is doing is right, and ethical. Ask them what they would do if they had a child in the military. Would they protest then? Would they protest if they lost their job, or their Social Security? What would it take to get them to take a stand?
Then ask them what, given the progression of events, stands in the way of their worst fear coming to pass.
What is the alternative is to peaceful protest NOW?
NO American should be allowed to keep a billion dollars in order to get their way over those who have a few hundred. I call it treason.
I raised my family on very little but we could afford doctors, university courses for me, college for the kids, a house, 2 cars...I have to wonder how we got a mortgage in 1968 for a one family in a nice town when we had a low declared income. Because we had managed the 2 family for 4 years and always paid our bills or ...because we were white?
It was not difficult to live a middle class life on a lower class income. Many factory workers did. Detroit and other factory towns were built on factory worker's salaries.
Immigrants!!!! When I am not angrier than hell over Iran I forget about the immigrants getting thrown into hellholes: That makes me angrier than as hell, also! Hard working people who had to leave their native countries because WE destroyed them.
One comforting thing about being 86...soon, I will not be getting any terrible news about Amerika.
Judith, I am 64 and honestly I am so resentful of living this Trump/Putin/Epstein nightmare for the past ten years. Biden’s presidency was just a flash in time. It’s as if it never happened. Last week our bi-weekly house cleaner had to go back to Honduras. We both cried like babies. She’s been here for 27 years. Had to leave her grown children and grand babies. Hard working, tax paying woman and NOT a criminal.
Meanwhile, I guarantee you that all of the immigrants working at Trump’s golf motels are still in place. Nothing makes sense anymore but please take care of yourself and let’s hope for the best to come in November. Surely, good with prevail. ❤️
So sorry for you and So sorry for your housekeeper....thankgod, I live in Mexico and my housekeeper will stay safe in his nice country.
Sorry you have so many more years of this. Hang tough. Cut off your TV and go back to fiction....I wish i could.
When I was traveling in Honduras in 1991, all over the country...solo on buses..budget: my style of travel, rather insecure, the way I like it...I met many who had worked in the States and had family there. I thought Honduras should be the 51st State!
I find that the USA has invaded militarily 8 times. How dare they think the bananas and wood belong to the people. it's amazing how well I was treated, considering that..
My poster for tomorrow has large official pictures of Hillary and Kamala with the words If Only… on one side. On the other is the criminal in jail, in an orange prison suit with Lock Him Up above.
A bit of hope for today, sent from a year in the future...
''March 28, 2027
One Year After “No Kings III,” America’s Democratic Renewal Is the Story That Changed the World''
A year after the No Kings rallies, America’s biggest story is not authoritarian drift, but democratic renewal. This essay imagines how mass protest, grassroots organizing, and a blue wave in 2026 could change the country’s course and remind the world that democratic decline is not destiny.
Hopefully every protest moves the polls ever closer to a trump and republican loss during the midterms. Maga may not be moved by this but many podcasters are pointing out how illiterate and innumerate trump is. He can barely articulate simple facts and is totally unaware of his inconsistencies. There is no sign of adulthood.
And, in the meantime, call your Congresspeople and Senators and tell them, no more money for DoD, fund DHS without ICE and CBP, no ground troops in Iran, and release the full Epstein files NOW!
I absolutely agree. Silence is not an option! It is crystal clear that our Democracy being destroyed from within. Are you going to comply and live with it, or doing something about it?
Two options for you: 1. There will be a virtual protest for those who have conflicts or mobility issues. You can register here for a zoom link: https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/925250/
Or 2. Do your own from wherever you are! Pick a spot and hold up your own sign. I bet there are others who would join you. If you're totally rural, sit by your mailbox on the road for an hour, or just post a No Kings sign. Sometimes a single protester has more power than a group!
I know that Americans all over the world are going to protest. You can see that there are a lot of American expats around the world by the number of No Kings rallies that are being held. We are all in solidarity with our family and friends in the USA.
We need to defeat Trump who is part of the Trump/Netanyahu duo. We will get out there on Saturday and show them how unpopular Trump and his regime is. Here is a list of No Kings, No Tyrants, No Dictators, which are NO ICE and NO WAR protests from around the world that you can sign up for. Please share with family and friends inside and outside the US.
Germany had 9 yesterday, then this morning I learned that there are 2 more, one in Göttingen for whom I don't have a sign up link and one in Freiburg, which is listed on https://tacker.fr/node/17645
Here is a new song that we can all be singing at our rallies on Saturday. Bette Midler's All You Fascists Bound to Lose.
These are crazy times and right now the US is having a net immigration loss. More people are moving away from than are moving to the USA. Wherever you are, please stand up and be counted.
Frankly, this bothers me. You don't kidnap the leader of a country and throw him, and his wife, into shitty prison cells. I think they should be put up in a hotel with guards.
On the other hand: Trump: in a shitty prison cell: Perfect.
Judith: (Where's my reply gone to?) Here it is again, more or less: Yes, it bothers me too, that's why I wrote it. I applaud your idea. And yes, send her back to where they can understand what she's saying.
She would be the Queen of Sheba back there in Slovakia, or wherever. The First Lady and rich from corruption money. I guessed that wealthy donors contributed millions for her to Not leave Trump...in the first regime...in the second she was prob. used to it and figured out how to live on her own in NYC without his disgusting self. Her movie is now on Prime and if I see her face: Ack!
I'm writing the editor of the two local papers to urge them to print stories about No Kings III with lots of pictures, above the fold and the top stories on their online sights.
The moron Trump started WWIII when he bombed Iran and the idiot doesn't even know the difference between Iran and Tehran.
To counteract the myriad protests, Trump and Kegsbreath will likely order troops into Iran tonight. This is your Republican Senators and Congresscritters allowing this to happen as well as the hypocrites on SCOTUS.
My wife, who has tried to keep her sanity by ignoring Trump, finally summed it up after reading today's news in the NYTs and on her phone; "What a disgusting human being...except for the human being part".
More flotsam and Jetsam from Heather. A wasted letter meaning nothing but thank you very much for sending it keeping your lemmings in line allowing them to continue believe in fairytales Heather you should pick up the book honestly art of the deal. Guarantee you would learn something.
So you didn’t understand it, obviously. Sorry. They were actually using that in some college classes in negotiating skills. And obviously you’ve never used them and you don’t understand the ins and outs of negotiating.
And I always love when people use their middle initial or full name as if it creates some type of authoritarian aura around it lol
It’s one of the many ways that Donald Trump has been successful and having hotels and golf courses all over the world with his name on them.
Not sure I’ve seen a Robert N Abernathy product anywhere.
To Impeach TrumpStein we need to win bigly to also convict him. Still, being impeached 3 X will upset his self-image.
Since we need to unite to win the election we might as well unite with an eye to resolve how we must mend the many wounds inflected by the Supreme Court and the free enterprise system upon our Constitution, our Republic, our Democracy and to Amend our Constitution. I discuss that in my Memorandum at UnitedWeAmend.org.
Or, we can worry less about winning biggly and drag him out of the white house by his red tie and give him the rewards that come to thieves and traitors.
Its past time for Americans to recognize we haven't lived in a democracy for ages, and if we want to have one in the future to act accordingly.
I write about not living in a democracy in my Memorandum. The 14th Amend recognizes us as "Citizens of the United States." The 16th Amend taxes us for our incomes. Yet we as Citizens had no say in that but only the States. We have been paying for every war beginning with the Civil War debt but have had no vote in any of it. Washington had four executive Departments. Today we have 15 and We the Citizens of the United States are paying for it all. I conclude we must repeal the Elector System and the single "President" and replace that with us as Citizens of the United States voting in a national election for seven executives educated and experienced in the fields of government which they will oversee, "State Dept and Commander in Chief," "Attorney General," Etc. UnitedWeAmend.org.
Wasn’t there something in the Bible about sticks and stones…or stoners and rocks…no-it was stoning. Those are the rewards that come to thieves and traitors
But the First Amend. builds a wall of separation between church and state. American history / tradition would have him wearing hot tar and feathers and then put in a prison cell on a prison ship far off shore.
It won’t happen until the Democrats hold a majority in the House. But I have no idea what crime Trump would have to commit to get 67 votes for conviction in the Senate.
Just the ones he's already committed dozens of times -- if Senators actually followed their sworn oaths to "support, protect and defend" the Constitution and stopped quaking with prevarication and terror, like cowardly bowls of jello without the bowls.
What happened to the majority of Republicans who voted for impeachment or for conviction last time? They lost elections or quit.
I’m not sure why you think that Republicans care about their oaths. They are all all-in on Project 2025. They all want to end American democracy. And that is the Republicans running for library boards and township offices all the way to the White House.
Why would you want to stop a success there debbie. This has been America’s most successful war so far by the way and in record time.
We wasted 20 years at Afghanistan. It took us 10 years to get a lot. Bin Laden took us four years to get Saddam Hussein took us 10 months and 21,000 bombs to get Kadafi and Libya took one evening to get nuclear Iran denuclearized and it took three days not 10 years or 10 months or four years to get the leadership of Iran and its successor and its successor and its successor. They’re about to name the new successor to the leader leadership in Iran on Friday, but his funeral is scheduled for Monday already.
Remind me to blame you for all the new inflation your war will produce. Also for all the U.S. service people already killed and injured, and all of them who will be killed and injured trying to un-fuck the Strait of Hormuz. Your boy Kegsbreath is a war criminal; a dumb bastard who got himself kicked out of the DC National Guard because he was such an idiot; then screwed up a veteran’s group, who kicked him out; an anti-Muslim crusader who wants to “Kill all the Muslims”, and who conspired with Humpty J. Trumpty to start a generational holy war. So, Rick Satan, when do you suit up and join the fight to take Khanh Island? Will you put your own sorry ass on the line to defend your racist Nazi regime?
You know you get dumber with every. I’m pretty certain that before we went to war during World War II, but the biggest concern was going to be how much inflation it was gonna cause. WTF is wrong with you people. By the way, it would take Trump a monumental task to reach the inflation rate of Joe Biden at almost 9% compared to Trump’s current three. Any other nonsense you’d like to spew. He’s saving the world pal, and if this were Joe Biden, you’d be praising his name.
Keep shilling for your hero DJT. A genius. His GREAT decapitation strategy has put a target on his back and on the backs of his children and grandchildren for the rest of their lives. Then there are the depersonalized targets on Americans who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when an Islamic terrorist takes place on American soil.
I don’t think there’s a bottom to how stupid you can actually get.
But you sure are trying Iran has been threatening death to America and death to Israel for 50 years Do you want to just let them continue go ahead I’ll add your name to the list so your children could be afraid also you know how many times we’ve heard that bullshit from idiots like you If you choose to live in fear have at it, enjoy yourself
I want to say something wise and profound but all that comes to my mind is “Thank you Heather and everyone who doesn’t give up and keeps holding our country and the world in their hearts and reminding all to not forget that we are stronger then evil”. I know it sounds silly but Love is stronger than Hate. And we can never forget that.
Thank you, Leslie Tremaine, for saying this. A quote I heard recently comes to mind reading your words. It goes something like: “I may not be able to do everything to save the world. But I can do something.” So each day, every day, I DO something. And in my best days, it’s with Love.
"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." – Martin Luther King Jr., 1965 "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" commencement address at Oberlin College
Love is absolutely stronger than hate. The public reaction to the Buddhist monks’ Walk for Peace proved that to me! This is one reason why I’m kicking off the Peace Cities Project through the Route 66 Spirit of America Museum in Stroud, Oklahoma. Here’s a link to my video announcing the project…
That is profound enough for me! Thank you Leslie. Let's all keep on keepin' on! We gotta make the best of a bad situation... (apologies to the writers of that old song who I can't recall at this moment).
Yes, criminal Donald is now gifting his criminal buddy in the Kremlin an extra $10 billion a month.
Yes, he's withdrawing urgently needed arms from the besieged Ukraine.
He's also withdrawn key naval units from the region around the Taiwan straits, as goad to Xi's now-easy attack there.
And as Heather concludes in the words of the Dem congressman from N.Y., Joe Morelle, our dear criminal, rapist, protector of elite pedophiles Donald "has alienated our allies and made us less safe.”
It is a task to try to keep up with the crazy crap this ape throws at us every day. Today the nut house meeting with his pantry of mixed nuts (not a "cabinet" at all) all taking turns kissing his ass. There must be at least one psychiatrist out there who will step forward and declare and document that Trump is, "as a result of a mental health disorder, a danger to self, a danger to others, or gravely disabled (unable to provide for their own food, clothing, or shelter)." I doubt he can drive a car to the store and buy the products needed to make a meal. Every time he opens his stupid mouth he provides "recent, specific behavior or statements indicating an immediate risk." All 50 States have this kind of law for an involuntarily confinement of a person for up to 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation. During that time if the doctor determines more time is needed then that means more time...
A televised North Korean shit show, complete with Dear Leader at the center, pumping that invisible concertina back-and-forth, forth-and-back, spending at least 5 minutes talking about how his own pen was so much more wonderfuller, bigger, hugely thicker and more real than that horrid Joe Biden's was..... 🤪
Future generations will one day ask us: why didn't you just bust out in laughter? What will our answer be?
Because it stopped being funny a long time ago. As you note in your earlier post here, our good humor has turned to anger. The trick will be to harness that anger into peaceful, yet forceful action.
I used to ask, “How could the Germans ever have let Hitler take power?” Now I know. We MUST keep the pressure on. Everyone reading this MUST demonstrate at a No Kings rally on Saturday. See ya there!
Our sense of humor, along with our sense of honor and fidelity became warped and useless. Bought and entertained by carnival barkers on every corner, including churches
Answer: We did burst out-- in a tremendously creative, society-wide humor called mockery--a particularly effective form of resistant action against thin-skinned, self- absorbed, self- serving autocrats.
Good point. To that end we need an army of a 100K psychologist to evaluate every Trump voter. The orange ape is a damn convicted felon. What the hell were his voters thinking?
Over and over I agree. Doctors/ psychiatrists have a duty to inform. They are as helpless as the rest of us. Who could get a court order to have trump committed to a psychiatric hospital? Guided Iranian missiles are the only hope I see.
My wife, who has tried to keep her sanity by ignoring Trump, finally summed it up after reading today's news in the NYTs and on her phone; "What a disgusting human being...except for the human being part".
That "THANK YOU..." part of his post always tweaks me to wonder why anyone who reads those words of an 80 year old orange faced ape with blond hair would read those words. Why the hell can't they see something is way the hell off kilter? Then I see it really is a cult. The cult of an old felon orange faced "Reality TV Star" ape with blond hair. Could it be the effects of too much TV among certain Americans?
President Kennedy appointed Newton Minow as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in early 1961. Minow delivered a speech, the "vast wasteland", to the National Association of Broadcasters. He summed up TV as being a "...procession of game shows, violence...formula comedies...and cartoons,..." His leadership led us to the development of educational television and public broadcasting (PBS). Carl Sagan wrote "The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”. Now Trump has appointed a team (Brendan Carr, Russell Vought and get this, Robert F. Kennedy Jr) to kill PBS and National Public Radio by terminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is also parting out the Department of Education. For International Corporations to totally takeover America they need dumb Americans of divided States with a weak Federal government. I discuss this in my Memorandum at UnitedWEAmend.org. Merrill, your wife sounds smart. She might like my Memorandum.
Back in the seventies/eighties I used to end all my business letters with “Thank you for your attention to this matter” in the hopes that my requests would not be ignored.
Seeing the con man using that verbiage for me is really creepy to see!
In an almost trivial aside, America's currency got a fresh new layer of authoritarian sludge yesterday...
Last evening, Trump’s right-hand wormtongue, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, announced that Hair Furor’s signature will now appear on our new paper currency this year. “There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the semiquincentennial,” oozed the official statement (feel free to supply your own giant sucking sound effects).
There is no precedent in American history for a sitting US President’s signature to appear on its currency — none. The signature that goes on existing currency is that of the US Treasurer — neither Trump nor Bessent. But true to this tiny, insecure, grotty little man’s need to piss on everything like a chihuahua spreading his bladder around the entire neighborhood, Trump couldn’t resist. This, on top of minting a new gold coin showing him glaring at us, like Grumpy Cat trying to cosplay Winston Churchill -- another farce masquerading as strength.
Meanwhile, Ilan Goldenberg, former Iran Team Chief with the Secretary of Defense under President Obama, writes in Foreign Affairs tonight that "the outlines of a familiar, dangerous pattern are emerging" in the Middle East. "Washington is once again fighting a weak regional power without...clear objectives, a defined theory of victory, a viable exit strategy."
This is so ultra cringe...his face and name must be plastered everywhere and pasted on everything like the worst of the dictators and tin pot despots of the past. Donold has to bombard us with his image, name and loony tirades and hectoring as total immersion to his incessant need for attention and unbridled egotism.
Looking forward to the day when it all gets torn down, his horrid, wretched name removed, 'monuments' razed(or never built).
May that day start this Saturday, March 28, No Kings, No War for the hell of it, No fascist regime...
Ilan Goldberg mentioned "once again fighting a weak regional power without...a viable exit strategy" This usually indicates a war done for ego and politics, not for peace or prosperity. I'm unhappy that they cut my neighbor's medicare or school programs so that they could fund ego wars abroad. We the People end up poorer at home for it.
I have been putting up No Kings flyers around my community.
For 3 days in a row they have been torn down and I put new ones back up.
I just witnessed a guy rip down one of my flyers. I confronted him saying give that back. That is my property and I have a right to my opinion. He balled it up and threw it at me telling me he will tear it down again. While he was getting in his truck I hung it back up and he peeled out.
So now I am sitting here to see if he comes back. Sure enough vandal came back and pulled in behind me long enough to see all my stickers and flyers on the car and then he peeled out again. I will hang around for a little bit and read my emails, but not going to hang out all night. I imagine he will come at some point tonight and pull them down again 😒.
I absolutely understand. I only meant to hope that we all remember that keeping our phones close is one of our first, best defenses in all this insanity. Peace.
Another tough guy bully. I wonder what words he would have for little old pissed off 265 lb me? I hate rude people and don’t waste words anymore. My probation is over and once again I’ll stand my ground. There are fights one cannot win but there are fights the antagonist wishes he hadn’t won. And then one can attack in the dark hiding behind his generals. If you can’t fight at all take an old man’s advice and use treachery. Never give up.
I am 68, 200 pounds & losing, LOL. Female, which we all know MAGAts don’t like us out of the house. This guy was a skinny disheveled 60ish angry male Haole.
If the idiot er Houle peals out perhaps his transmission will fail prematurely like his brain has. And I would be very careful around a 200 lb woman. My first wife of 120 lbs blindsided me one morning. First I went to my knees then to my face as I saw the tile floor rushing up. Thankfully I was out before contact.
Hang in there Jody! I'll be wearing my Veterans Against Trump t-shirt at a small park. I was active after Vietnam but this time I have to sit instead of stand. Don't know what else I can do.
My husband and I take a canopy for shade and hang signs, banners and flags from it & chairs, too, so we can sit. At our first rally we were the only ones with chairs. Now lots of people bring chairs or walkers with a seat. You are showing up and that is what matters.
I have them up taped & stapled on light poles, palm trees, around the structure that holds the mailboxes at the Longhouse, bulletin boards & bathroom stalls at Puna Kai shopping Center.
"But Trump simply began the Iran war without consultation with Congress, ..."
This is, IMHO, the salient point: It could not and would not have happened without the cooperation of the Armed Forces in a clearly illegal war. We have to face the fact that the military is committed to the Trump agenda and will murder on command.
The armada against the drug boats was the first test case; the Maduro assault and capture was the second test. There was no protest from the military, on either side, so on to the Iran War.
The double-tap incident dropped off the radar. Internally, the military conducted a review and stood by the legality of the second strike, and the admiral said he—not Hegseth—gave the order because he thought the guys clinging to the debris were still legitimate targets. Pretty unbelievable that an admiral wouldn't know the basic tenets of the international law of the sea.
Congress saw some video and documents behind closed doors, but there hasn't been a comprehensive report, in part because the Pentagon and House leadership have limited what documents they have asked for and who they have subpoenaed. So there was compliance with the regime by staging a charade of an investigation.
No independent group has looked into the incident, and key evidence (the full video, targeting intelligence, and victim identities) has been classified or not disclosed.
As to the Maduro test, it violated international law and state sovereignty, but despite diplomatic protests, no international body has launched an investigation. Republicans in Congress are buying into the argument that it was a law-enforcement action.
So if there was no accountability in those cases, why risk your career? This is standard Trump regime tactics. Do something moderately outrageous to test the waters to see what happens. Do something even more outrageous and see if there is a response. Moving the Overton window and normalizing the lawlessness. Then go for the real prize--in this case, the Iran Not-a-war.
This is an excellent response to Mr. Levine's point. "The military" is a pretty diverse group, and not anywhere near all of them are Trumpies. But the current military leadership, both in uniform and civilian, has been purged of any senior officers of conscience. If they are unwilling to oppose an illegal order, their juniors will be even less inclined to do so. And there's the fact that these highly trained and motivated persons want very much to have a chance to put their skills to use. We've slid all the way down the slippery slope to the Iran Not-a-war. More war crimes no doubt to follow.
Liked for the persistence of the splendid Dr. Richardson in providing us (and history) a daily chronicle of these awful times, but the news of our endless, self-inflicted national downward spiral is consistently dreadful.
Yet, while I will certainly be marching through the streets of La Ciudad de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles on Saturday, tonight I am solemnly contemplating whether this is enough. With virtually the entire GOP membership in both the House and Senate fully paralyzed and Kool-Aided out, consistently refusing to even lift a finger to exercise their own duties and constitutional authority, it must be at least considered that we are at a terrible breaking point, not seen since a fairly famous vintner and founder of the University of Virginia first introduced the World to the pivot point of, "When in the course of human events..."
If this horrific, illegal, ghastly war against a proud and ancient Nation that did naught to US continues---aided and abetted by the genocidal leader of Israel and the bloodthirsty leader of the manufactured Nation/State known as the Kingdom of Saud---and our Congress continues to do nothing to stop it (GOP members, that is), and our Mad Emperor sans both clothes and human affect beneath his "Brazil"-esque makeup, surgically implanted follicles and ever broadening beam, continues to be emboldened by his brown shirts continues on his current path, are we not at a point where to say the very least, torches and pitchforks are to be raised?!?
Daniel, I appreciate your sentiment, we must remember to keep the opposition strong but nonviolent. Flooding the streets with nonviolent protest will ensure that the brownshirts can’t take the streets. The fascists want to provoke us into violence, which will give them an excuse to escalate. We must not give them what they want, but rather let’s follow the examples of Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi. The temptation to fight fire with fire is great, but better to use cool water. NO KINGS!
A proud and ancient nation indeed, but it has been in the thrall of MIGAts for half a century. Let's not kid ourselves that those millenialist theocrats don't wish us harm and would not hesitate to kill as many of their own people and ours to bring about the second coming of the 12th Imam.
I think I agree with half of your reply, James. The sclerotic (if still standing) leadership of the ruthlessly oppressive Islamic Republic is horrific indeed.
Yet that bears little relevance. The issue is not them, but rather that we as Americans have no right to wage war unilaterally and wholly without cause against any Country, irrespective of the status of their political leadership.
Beyond that, the Islamic Republic's leaders are basically the equivalent of Mike Johnson and his ilk, turbines and bearded. We don't have a lot of space to cast stones.
Finally, Iran posed no threat to us whatsoever. When was the last time the Persian nation initiated a War against anyone? Perhaps at Thermopolyae?!?
I agree with your fundamental point, Daniel. We have, and had, no business attacking Iran, neither from an ethical or a pragmatic viewpoint. This is not going well and is not going to end well. But that sclerotic leadership and those turbines would not be in place without the support of a significant portion of the Iranian population. We are screwed because of MAGA, which is what, perhaps 25% of our voting public. Iran is screwed because of Twelver Shiite millenialist activism, which probably affects (infects?) a similar proportion of the Iranian population.
Yes, Daniel. Despite what our president 'thinks' (actually I don't think the process going on in his head is thinking at all), Sovereignty IS a 'thing.' If the Iranians choose to be a theocracy, that's their right. If they choose to to impose it on those outside their borders, that's a different story. But they have not done this. And isn't this American regime's aim to be a Christian theocracy? We all read of Hegseth's prayer for maximum violence against our 'enemies.'
As Putin continues to cackle with glee at the success of his egotistical stooge.
This is treason. Pure and simple. Destroying our nation for the benefit of others. Timothy Snyder is the only one even coming close to saying that out loud.
Yes, of course. I subscribe to Paul and way too many others. It was getting late and my brain is fried from the year long rebuilding the burned down everything process.
The point is that it IS Treason and all the tRump said this that and who the fuck knows is babbled about on even INTELLIGENT Substacks and, as Jeff says, all you hear is crickets.
We must never forget the cowardly, moronic, sickening complicity of every Republican official and every Republcan voter for this horror. We must never let them forget what they have done.
I’m sure you meant to say Trump voters. I’ve been a Republic my entire life and I voted for Harris. It’s very wrong to assume that all Republicans voted for Trump.
We are not dithering and we are not giving up in advance.
Neither is the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democratic state governments, Democratic candidates, Federal and state jurists, ProPublica and investigative journalists throughout media, HCR, Joyce Vance, Marc Elias, Malcolm Nance, Steve Brodner, Ann Telnaes, Jess Craven, Robert Hubbell et al ... and millions of us across the nation.
Outrageous that this war was started on the whim of one man without consulting, let alone getting approval from Congress or the American people. Even Repub Chairs of Armed Services don’t know what’s going on! This is an illegal, incompetent and unplanned disaster. Where is Congress? Where is oversight?
What an insightful way to express the challenges that we face. What will it take for Trump's delusions to evaporate so that the rest of the world can move forward, once again, towards peace?
Get out on the streets Saturday and be loud. The only way past this is through.
Last October, the spirit of humor mixed with new-found strength marked No Kings Day.
On Saturday, the spirit of anger will prevail. Not just at the obvious target of Trump alone, but at the wretches who sold our republic for thirty pieces of silver, at those who have betrayed what it used to mean to be an American, those who stood by and enabled the worst, most contemptible, most incompetent, most dishonest, most fucked-up Administration in our history to come to power, not just to break laws and norms, but to wreck, destroy and kill with impunity -- not once, but twice.
Looking forward to being with tens of millions of my friends on March 28. My own sign in front of Congress on the National Mall will simply say:
"Not With My Consent -- Not on My Watch"
Trump "sucks the air out of the room" as in the whole world. There is nothing now but him and his destruction. Our everyday ordinary lives and plans and projects are in the backseat. What will he do next?... has taken over our lives. Many think they can go on with their lives, but terror and insecurity is in the air.
Leaders hedge their bets, not knowing what terrible decision Trump will make next. He is destroying the country, our economy, our pride, our futures. He is destroying lives and land and resources. How much oil is now being burned into the atmosphere? Nothing matters but his puny self. He is nothing and he is causing our world to be nothing.
No one is benefitting from this War. It never should have been started. Iran did NOT attack the US or Israel. Iran's support for those who object to the systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide of a peoples just so Israel can realize it's dreams of conquest should be admired. But, no, in this US/Israeli empire regime, it is defined as "terrorism".
I always said that if Trump gets reelected, it would mean the end of western. civilization as we know it. But noooo, I was being too dramatic. Man, I wish I was wrong….
And Judith, a LOT of people are benefiting from this war. MBS, Netanyahu, Putin, and last but certainly not least,the Orange Goblin King himself - and his family. And don’t forget the Silicon Valley Tech Bro Billionaires, who have put enormous amounts of money in the effort to destroy democracy and the international rules based order - because they hate rules that other people make: they only like their own rules…
Those who are benefitting will be living in hell ...and I don't mean the next world either.
I think being rich is horrible in itself. What do you do with your time? Shop? hangout with other rich people?
Not For Me. I like projects and solving problems and I had plenty of opportunity to do that. I am very good at it, too.
My worst nightmare is having "married well" and my second is being on a cruise.
These rich will live in bubbles with friends and family. Air, water, ICE style security guards, Whole Foods! There have to be sci-fi novels like that. Or, horror stories. Just think: Family: Forever!
One problem I see is that they are never satisfied with what they have, they always want more and that's a need that will never be satisfied. For some of us, especially if you've struggled, enough is a roof over your head, food on the table, grocery shopping without a calculator, access to health care, ability to pay for meds and other necessities. Everything beyond that is treasured.
Billionaires are sociopathic hoarders, wounded, insatiable as heroin junkies for money and power — never filling the hole in their child-wounded souls. These sick people want to rule the planet, yet are so clueless as to how it operates.
Hi Solange. "And"... authentically breathing an appreciative attitude more often than a raging one. Thank you for yours.
I'm definitely with you on "married well" (my mother's excuse for sending me to college), and cruises-barf (and I mean that literally) and boring.
I was "forced" on my first ocean cruise as it was tied into a destination wedding for a close nephew.
Never again.
Elizabeth, I have known a few people who enjoy cruises. They are the same people who enjoy going to casinos. At the risk of sounding like a snob, I would describe those folks as low-class. They have no interest in enriching their understanding of the world and are poor managers of their finances.
Only a small, incurious mind is satisfied by the contrived, gaudy surroundings of a floating shopping mall that purports to be an environment of wealth.
Really, cruises are not that bad 😚especially river cruises. You can still work on projects!
I've been on 3 cruises: One to the Caribbean and one to Alaska, both through Olivia Travel, which charters cruise ships to various destinations, and markets it to lesbians. Loved the Caribbean cruise; 220 passengers on a 5 masted sailing ship (also motor powered). The Alaska cruise was fun, as we went with my aunt and her wife and was on one of the "Dam ships" as Holland America calls them. Casino on board the ship, and jewelry stores lining the approach to town from the pier (caused my wife to say "why does this look like the Caribbean?").
Third cruise was a day long river cruise down the Rhein with my in-laws, where we just traveled down the river for 6 hours and then took a train back to their place, stopping at a bunch of cathedrals.
For my money, an "exotic" vacation will now be an all-inclusive resort experience (we did one in Mexico with that same couple, my wife's sister and her husband). I see that happening maybe once more in my lifetime.
They will have the options of what to do with us. Plenty of projects. I agree about too much money, but we are two. Is there anyone else.
The word **enough** comes to mind, and that places each of us on an ever-changing continuum. I used to wear a cap with a peace sign; tomorrow it'll be one with bold letters DEFIANCE (pointer to Miles Taylor). My sign has a prayer emoji 14' high, under which one side says, REGIME CHANGE HERE, other side says, REMOVE. All BIG letters.
Me JD! For 15 yrs a friend continues to ask me to go to lunch. Um, no thx, I'm busy living my life.
I think being rich soon becomes a very empty, meaningless life. It is a material life, and mere matter is per definitionem meaningless.
To me, it's all a show, a compensation, a pain killer. It's a feeble attempt to cover the hole in their hearts which can never be filled with money, riches, fame, power - deep down, they know the truth, but they are to scared to face it: that hole in their hearts can only be filled with the one thing they cannot buy: love.
The Beatles were right.
Yea, well I don't have the temperament or the aptitude for fame and great wealth. Like the rest of you, I prefer thoughtful engagement with friends, family and community, healthy hobbies etc. Although I'm beginning to wonder if it's a recurrent delusion that a change in government will make a difference...... But I will not despair, but continue to hope.
Do not despair, continue to hope but stay alert, alter your expectations and make plans. I think we are going to need survival skills.
WHO ARE WE BENEFITING?
How about the American Taxpayer? People you loathe.
For 80 years we've been the PATSY because leftists believed in America last.
We provided financial and military support for the rest of the world and got nothing return.
Thank you PResident Trump for standing up for America.
Yes, but I think the Aid we gave came with conditions..and all those 800 military bases were not for the benefit of those countries. They were to control those countries. Malta used to have a UK base but they kicked them out and claim to be far safer with no military base. A lot of countries are questioning the wisdom and safety of having USA parked on a piece of their land. An "essential" piece of military hardware was removed from S. Korea to give to Israel. This was to protect them from N. Korea. You can bet they are looking sideways at that big base.
I am questioning the way America is spending our money. The Pentagon can't account for a billion dollars of expenditures.
Trump is rotting away. His mind is mush. Half dead. But, he's still allowed to make decisions. I Cannot believe that troops are actually going to be sent there. Such easy targets for those very prepared Iranians. And, Iran will have POWs....hostages. What a surreal nightmare this is.
Nothing in return huh? That sounds awfully simplistic to me. 80 years of American soft power totally wasted? You are taking a very simplistic and reductionist view that any dollar spent outside the US border is wasted. I believe you are wrong. So do many “not quite lefty” administrations. And has this left you personally hungry and homeless, somehow I doubt that to be true. You have plenty of $ to post your opinions here and many other subscriptions. I think you have benefited greatly from the success of this nation.
Judith, LOL, nightmare of being on a cruise. My sentiments exactly.
I had a conversation with friends this past week about Zuck outfitting himself with a bunker.......in my mind, I saw a scenario in which all the "rich" billionaires have interconnected underground bunkers in the event of a nuclear strike; where they never see the light of day and make their own rules.......stabbing each other in the back until there is only one person standing. How appropriate that they should be constructing a living hell for themselves.
Tech bro billionaires "hate rules that other people make; they only like their own rules" That sums them up in a nutshell.
You were and are right. I thought so too. They learned to play a different game from last time. Democrats are still in the same poker game, playing by the rules that were tossed long ago. It’s not just America that is being betrayed
Alas, no... And yes, Democrats are still playing chess by the rules while the Republicans keep shitting on the board.
Was there ever a world enlightened by the idea of tolerance, fairness? Should we feel pity more than hatred for people so unfortunate to be mistaken in matters where they believe their wealth and accumulation of same, their hatred and racial superiority are much more important?
They keep saying, But that is SO Unprecedented! Too many damned wusses in the party.
I don't believe in America any more. We broke it.. We should give it back to the Indians.
I said exactly same to my husband, he said no Congress and the Supreme Court will never allow it............weak weak weak corrupt people.
We are in dire straights, and in this 250th year of America's existence, in need of another revolution. We all know who the enemies are.
If we will it -- if we Rise Up Angry -- we can be that revolution. But first we need solidarity, from which evolves the requisite discipline and leadership, though sometimes the leadership comes first.
Or simultaneously.
I don't know...can unreason, greed and self-interest be bred out of humanity? What is there to stop humans, men and women, from turning feral?
Well, it's a small thing that is there in an endless supply:
....love.
It appears to be a lost art at the moment.
The Road. Cormac McCarthy. A father and son trying to stay alive and not be eaten by the remaining feral population.
Excellent.but a Hard read. Pulitzer Prize 2007
I read it years ago. I recall the utter devastation, a world entirely undone. Today we also face a fight for a living world.
Aren't we 80% there already?
same here. My response to the few I know who told me all would be well and I was being was that I would be sooo thankful to be proven wrong; that if I was right things would not end well.
Trump is worse than Hitler and he doesn't have the balls to kill himself.
Wish you had been wrong too. It is not a country--government wise--that I recognize any more. Our founding fathers must be turning over in their graves.
Read what Iran has done to Israel. Supporting the terrorists in Hezbollah, Houthis and Hamas, launching thousands of missiles at Israel. Under Netanyahu - also despised by majority of Israelis - terrible things are done to Palestinians. Israel's current leaders are not saints. But Israelis are also exhausted by non-stop terror.
tRump, on the other hand, has agency. He could easily have said no to Netanyahu. And now we learn the Saudis, for whom no love for Iran is lost, has been whispering in tRump's of their ambitions, egging tRump on all along.
The REAL question is where is Congress? They could impeach him & end this war of tRump's choice. The GOP has no courage to do their job. The GOP Congress has allowed the destruction of what the founders of the US held dear.
Israelis would not be so exhausted if they got along with the indigenous population. The Palestinians are not Amalek; they are lovely people, the most educated in the Muslim world.
It's Israel and the USA who are the terrorists.
I get a kick out how well prepared Iran was for this. I'm not into the slaughter or the assassination of the Supreme Leader of Shia Muslims. That will be a never ending problem. For decades.
I think Israel purposively lied to pitiful trump about this being a 2 day war. They had to know better. The Mossad has been on the ground for ages in Iran. Aren't they on the ground everywhere??
Israel wanted and wants a long war, to turn Iran into a Syria.
Love it, Judith -- "if they got along with the indigenous population."
Heather has been documenting how Donald has not only been destroying the world order of balances the U.S. led since WWII, but has further let his greedy family ally with Persian Gulf monarchies and autocrats for corrupt Trump family profit. While Donald himself -- Heather's been great at specifying this -- has been allying his thoroughly corrupt interests with those of Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, Netanyahu, and others averse to democracy.
With so many so vulgar, so cruel, so murderous all cohering, all ruling, who could even begin to set U.S. educators to any project so Israeli and Palestinian English-learning youth might do essaying beyond the hate-based stereotypes which rulers depend on to underwrite their plundering?
yet the Jews are the original indigenous people of Israel.
It's more complicated than one side good, one side bad.
Except for Hamas, they are simply bad actors; outright terrorists who rob and subjugate their own people. Nazis by another name.
TY Phil, excellent reminder.
Yes, this is Netanyahu’s and Putin’s and MBS’s war that we are fighting on their behalf to make a new world order they have long wanted. T is stupid and deranged enough to do their bidding because they flatter and scare him - they have more brains and willpower and he wants them to admire him. They give him money and he’s then happy to spend OUR MONEY on their behalf. Now he is sending in our soldiers to spend their blood for him, and still can’t find a consistent story that would explain what our national interest is in his whole fucked up mess.
If this still can’t convince Reps to throw him overboard they are choosing personal loyalty to a treasonable fuckwit over actual representation of US interests. Not one vote for them and put their asses in jail when this bloodbath is finally over. I may not live to see it, but so many others are dying thanks to him that it would be fitting to join them on the “other side.”
"...a treasonable fuckwit..."
You win the internet today.
I heard that Vance could have a talk with other high up leaders and do an Amendment 25 and get trump out.
"Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."
Vance should do this if he wants a future...for himself and the USA.
I am sure our administration was, and is, fully aware of what they are doing... it is the end game that I wonder about at times; it is either to enrich themselves even further with taking over territories, oil etc... or something far more dangerous. The lifting of sanctions on Russia while it is helping Iran is prompting me to scratch my head! Or it is indeed as simple as needing to divert attention from one evil act to another...
What Putin wants, Putin will get.
yet the Jews are the original indigenous people of Israel.
It's more complicated than one side good, one side bad.
Except for Hamas, they are simply bad actors; outright terrorists who rob and subjugate their own people. Nazis by another name.
Sorry, that is propaganda, lies, BS.
You forgot the real reason they are "bad actors": they are Amalek. Case closed. They have to go. And, those evil toddlers.
No argument there, but if all the indigenous people on every piece of land takes back their territory, I wonder where we will all end up.
Let's call this what it is -- WWIII. At least 13 countries have suffered casualties as a result of Trump's unilateral action to attack Iran. And then add on the people Donald has ordered killed in cold blood in Venezuela and other countries. And then there's Russia's War with Ukraine.
Donald is following Putin's roadmap of enriching himself and a group of oligarchs while the rest of the country suffers.
He has gone from being President for only himself and the Republican bros, to being President for himself, his family and dozens of oligarchs.
Trump is following Putin's and Orban's roadmap. And like Hitler he has an Army of brownshirt thugs that have already killed American citizens and deported them as well.
It could have been WWIII if the rest of NATO or Western Liberal countries had supported us. Their refusal may well have stopped the spiral that resulted in WWI and it's child WWII.
Yes and..... evil has a way of inventing new crisis to lure nations back into the fight. NATO has shown independence, they must stay on guard. Besides, their worry now is Ukraine, another country we stabbed in the back, just as we are doing to NATO itself. And yes, we... not the Felon... because our families and neighbors elected a crazy, knowing full well what he told them he would do and they stood compliant to his vision.
GJ, I'm not quite ready to call it WWIII. What we are involved in seems more like gang terror on a global scale, with Donald being the gang boss. Basically, Donald is roaming the globe, terrorizing any nation he perceives to be weak enough to capitulate, in an apparent effort to expand his "turf."
If the first two world wars are examples, what we are now seeing doesn't fit. There are no allied nations coalescing into coordinated military forces fighting in identifiable theaters. Just a couple of thugs using their militaries to beat up on one thug's enemy, egged on by a few interested bystanders.
Dale, excellent observation. My other name for death star is mafia don.
Repubs are close to permanent power as a minority, who will break ranks. Not these wet noodles
Congress? is there still a Congress? You never hear from them. I thought they must have gone in the Miller/Musk purge.
Are you sure?
Is it Congress or the Republicans in Congress. I'm hearing news everyday about the efforts of the Dems in Congress doing what they can.
And it's up to us to turn that around.
Congress - a group of sycophants who do nothing except two things, kowtow and gain riches (by collecting their salaries for doing nothing for the people and getting rich from inside trading).
They're still drawing their paychecks, Anne-Louise -- for doing nothing.
Congress has abdicated all responsibility for governance. What cowards.
My question is the same - Why dies the GOP have no courage to do their job?
Marj, I doubt the answer to your question is easy, but I have this observation. U.S. politics has become a habitat for people who have no marketable skills, save the ability to befriend people with money.
How does one get elected these days? By parroting talking points created by handlers. These talking points are at their core, meaningless; and by spending more money than one's opponents to blast those meaningless talking points into the eyes and ears of an electorate that has checked out of their communities. Whoever spends the most money wins.
The problem is that these elected officials have no idea what to do or how to do it once they find themselves in Congress – except to make sure their friends with money are kept happy, so they will give them money to win the next election. The people who donate matter. The people who vote don't.
Courage has nothing to do with this job. It's all about the money.
Listen to Chris Murphy's speech before the senate. He skewers trump. It's brilliant. Do you think it will move the republicans????
And Cuba!!! Almost no reporting. Is it true that there is a US blockade that is preventing essential goods from reaching Cuba? Another war crime?
I am so sick at heart.
there has always been a blockade ...now they don't get the oil they had been getting from Venezuela. The only fuel they have now is wood.
Trump will save those skinny 100%v literate people by bombing them.
No one is benefitting from this war. I disagree, the allies of evil are orgasmic
Israel and Saudi Arabia benefit from the toddler moron using what belongs to the American people - our wealth, our children, our future--as if they are toys.
One can easily see how simple it has been for them to bribe dumptys vile offspring and flatter this elderly vain fool to achieve their goals.
We are being robbed, and a third of the country thinks it's great.
Exactly Jen. It's theft, pure and simple. I wish when I pay my taxes this year, I could include a note about how I feel about this donation that feeds the mafia style regime is VERY RESENTED!
Iran's support for those who object to the systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide you speak of appear to include Hamas and the Houthis, and I do consider them terrorists. Big difference from those of us who do NOT support the Israeli genocide in Palestine, but are not terrorists.
And Dutch Mike is right about who benefits.
Hamas and the Houthis are freedom fighters and heroes in my book. They only benefit from getting satisfaction from acting as Allah would want.
Muhammad Ali refused to fight in the Viet Nam war and was sent to prison and had to pay a fine and lose his boxing license. His Muslim religion directed him and made him strong. The Supreme Leader would not allow nuclear bombs or doing to the Iraqis what had been done to them; a million Iranians killed with chemical weapons, supplied by the USA. Looks to me like that religion is a whole lot more peaceful that the religions of the warrior countries USA and Israel.
I do NOT support the Israeli genocide in Palestine but my country does. I can't do anything about it. My country should and some Presidents tried weakly to do something about but Israel just plowed ahead. Kennedy tried hard but he was shot. I am sure all Presidents knew the risk as does trump. Charlie Kirk opened his mouth and he was disposed of. No proof but very suspicious. .
Any candidate for Congress knows he has to support Israel or he will lose.
Credit goes to Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah who have put their lives on the line to do something about it. They are working with meager resources unlike the unlimited wealth of the USA and all the Zionists.
Let us peacefully pray for the people in Gaza. It won't make any difference.
Don't demonstrate because then you risk having your future ruined.
It's safer to Shut your mouth and conform like the vast majority.
Amen!
Judith, excellent post defining what is happening as no one can plan much of anything. I have thought about how the war is polluting the atmosphere along with widespread destruction of oil facilities. And of course, loss of life. Thank you for reflecting on what Israel has done to Gaza as well and our aiding and abetting.
I sure agree with your spirit of anger. For the first No Kings, I dressed as Colonial Paula Revere. Second No Kings with a sign "WE THE PEOPLE ARE PISSED!" This No Kings: Giving a speech on how we overthrew a king, proclaimed "All men are created equal" while stealing Native lands, enslaving people, and denying the vote to women and "minorities," but did set up a Constitution that laid the path toward a more perfect union, so what the hell has happened!
As we point out the problem, we do well to point to the solution--in this case, mass mobilization of the people into sustained civic engagement. So affirmatively tell people what to do, like join an Indivisible group, a bridge brigade, a Singing Resistance pod, a mutual aid network, support good progressive candidates for office, and/or support good legislation. No Kings!
REAL COURAGE is about being afraid of something but doing it anyway!
WE ALL need REAL COURAGE NOW MORE THAN EVER BEFORE...
And so do our politicians!
If we were going to find courage from our politicians they would have shown it before now.
Yet some have
Mark Kelly, Vindman, that whole crew have faced the threat of prosecution in speaking out.
Adam Schiff continues to speak out under the threat of indictment.
They're out there and they need our support.
We have many speaking out! Some well known, others not so much.
Senator Elyssa Slotkin, Michigan!
Greed, money and corporate wealth have shifted the values of the rulers of our country - the people we elected! It's been gradual over time but they control our wealth as the top 1% has what - the tope 80% of the money. It's all about letting us starve - just like the Middle Ages...
I applaud all your efforts. I wish however that we could put the same amount of effort into explaining to the Trump voters (not those who are making billions by siding with him), why we are losing our democracy, our rights, our country.
You could. But the die hards have every reason you can think of to defend him anyway. Because they voted for him and now must defend their decision? Because Democrats are ‘demons’? Because Faux News continues to lie to them? And for any reason at all. Or no reason.
We have tried doing just that for years. We have used facts and connected the dots, there has been little movement. We have to see them for what they are, anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional. Different issues but same arguments that came to a head under the Buchanan administration.
Ligia, I have tried. People that I worked with in law enforcement, who I trusted with my life, and they trusted me with theirs, are willfully in an information silo which feeds them propaganda that they believe with all their hearts. A long ago axiom from crisis negotiations is "you cannot reason with unreasonable people." That has played out in my world since Obama's election in 2008 to now, on the few occasions I still try.
I hear you Ally, and do understand the reasoning behind not trying to argue with the people I call "the unarguables". But there has to be some curiosity in people. I often try to hear what the republican pundits have to say (while I hold back the gagging!) to grasp their thinking, just in case I have to have a conversation with one of them. But this kind of blind devotion to anything (including religion) is beyond me. My maternal grandfather taught me to question everything, and I try...
We can't win until we kill Fox News.
Yes! 12.2 million strong in sustained civic engagement, too!
Good mix of words on your sign. Brief and simple. Thus it will be read. I am unable to march but will be promoting my Memorandum all day. My wife is marching with her sister. Each of them have a poster of my UnitedWeAmend.org logo with a personal message on the other side. "A Gov. of Laws, and No" then under that is a big Crown with the X over it and below the crown is the word "KINGS" at the bottom. This will be a big and loud turnout.
Courage!
Absolutely. I'll be there in spirit.
Harsh but true! You forgot to mention the killing of 500,000 with the food rotting in warehouses - that was murderous. As is the war.
The above was in response to a comment made by: It's Come to This."
Mine says”AMERICA is the love of my life”
My sign will be 'STOP Truth Decay'.
My sign this time says:
In your ♥️
U No He's Nuts
25th A. NOW!!
That change in spirit, from humor to anger, is a worry. If any of the thousands of rallies show signs of violence, it will only bolster the Orange Menace's threat of force against "the radical Left" as he calls us. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
ICCT, I am going to put that on the obverse of my sign, which has photos of both my Dad and I in uniform and reads "Antifa: Family tradition since 1942". If I had any contact with the "cousins" from Montana that I never met and pretty much considered my Dad an outcast, I could probably find photos of the lineage that reportedly came from the Revolutionary war forward. My inability to lie to get into the Navy broke a generational chain.
Ally, I love that antifa is a family tradition since 1942!!i always say that we all are antifa!
ICTT: You are so right that tomorrow's outpouring of our people may well be out of anger. And we all need to listen to that anger in us to discern whether it is righteous or vengeful. It may be both. But the best anger is to heed what Sikh peace activist Valarie Kaur says: "The aim of divine rage is not vengeance. It is to reorder the world."
It's Come to This,
We are not alone in our anger towards those who seek to "remake" our government for the few. "NOT WITH MY CONSENT--NOT ON MY WATCH" ....wonderful words!!!!
On Saturday, my husband and I will be present with our sign as well! I hope to see large crowds as we have seen before in South Carolina and once as we gathered in Virginia while visiting our daughter.
"Trump" is our object of distain but he, along with his family, were carefully chosen by the real enemies of our country. Those robbers and thieves have been patiently and steadily working for years to arrive at this point of destruction of the foundations of our freedoms and rights as citizens of the United States of America!!!!
I am grateful for the heroes and heroines who are rising up to bring our country not only back from darkness but to the light of a better, stronger, governance of the people, by the people and for the people!!!!
Extraordinary Americans, young and old, liberal and conservatives are standing or sitting or marching together. Many have simply chosen to be present as they are able!!!! They/We are making the effort to be seen as citizens who love this country and remember those who have served, given their life's blood for freedom in the past
and are fighting for this country in the present!!!!
Bravo! I'm with you, as well as other patriotic Americans, tomorrow in Burlington, Vt.
However, not only do we have to fight against the magas at home, but the increasing alliances with other nefarious governments: Hungary, Russia, North Korea etc. We are heading into a world not led by reason, but by blows, insults and torture.
....and intimidation, and immense monetary incentive.
Kindly keep clean language.
Yes, I love that sign. May I make it as well?
Yesterday I made my sign for NO KINGS, and then spent the day doing chores that I had been putting off, and didn't check the news when I came home. I just woke up, read Heather's post, and feel like Rip Van Winkle. I've woken up, and years must have gone by; so much has happened.
We are now fully in the autocratic camp in foreign policy with no restraints whatsoever, and those foreign policy choices will drive us into a major recession with the uncontrolled spending on the not-a-war.
I don't think anyone saw that foreign policy would come first as the weapon of choice for the destruction of our democracy. We have all been focused on the domestic threats.
I take that back. One person saw it. Putin.
We have to make NO KINGS the most massive protest we can. Today, don't just get yourself ready for the protest. Call every friend and family member you have and convince them to get out there too.
Yes, we have now joined the Axis of Evil. Let us pray that it be a short stay, and work to make it so.
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. president George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba'athist Iraq, and North Korea. January 2002.
None of these countries has done anything like what we are doing now. This to bring Democracy to what country? Israel? that has no democracy for 1/2 of its population.
See the evolving term used against whichever country we are competing with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil
I think Dubya was remembering what the "free" world called "the Axis" from 1940 to 45: Germany, Italy and Japan.
I originally called for the good generals of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prevent Trump from entering office through a military coup. I know, destroy the constitution in order to save it is what that amounts to. I'm convinced now more than ever this would have been the better and safer course to take.
There is nothing left. There will likely be no mid terms. Who is kidding who. Let’s go out and show Trump that we mean business so he can destroy another historic landmark. Who wants to bet he won’t. I’m taking bets.
Me too Bill! Of course I continue to wonder how he got as far as being on the ballot.
I think what he has planned for tomorrow, to take the media away from protests, is beyond my imagination. At first I thought it would blood shed on Kharg Island. Now I feel like it will be worse.
I Hope I am wrong.
Thank you for this useful addition to the discussion. Perhaps we’re not so much joining such an Axis as we are becoming an independent (rogue?) player on the side of evil.
Putin may have been the first, but Netanyahu and MBS were close behind. Remember the cute pictures of Trump and Pence "doing the sword dance"?
and Bibi's fortnightly visits with fruitily emotional declarations that Israel had never ever had a better friend than the United States? Lies and deceit whichever way you turn.
Yes, I think that is part of the pattern people were missing in real time.
The sword dance was easy to dismiss as spectacle, and Bibi’s constant praise could sound like ordinary diplomatic flattery. But to other world leaders, those moments likely signaled something more serious: Trump was highly responsive to personal praise, theatrical displays of loyalty, and relationships with authoritarian or illiberal leaders. That matters because those images were not just embarrassing photo ops. They suggested that American power was becoming more personal, more transactional, and less anchored to democratic principle. Leaders like MBS and Netanyahu would have understood that very clearly, even if much of the public did not. So yes, the deceit ran in multiple directions. The pageantry helped normalize relationships and agendas that should have been scrutinized much more closely. What looked like flattery was also influence, and what looked like diplomacy was often the staging of power.
Absolutely, Michael. Every word.
In truth, Bibi holds Trump in contempt.
🍊💩 is so easily manipulated.
putin and netanyahu STARTED and PERPETUATED a WAR to stay IN POWER and OUT of PRISON!!
trump IS doing the SAME THING NOW!
Lukashenko put his finger right in Trump’s eye by signing a cooperation pact with Kim Jong-Un. How much clearer can it get???
Trump likes Kim Jong-Un. He admires the “strongmen”. He wishes he were like them, and not just a big rich baby.
Texas has so many asleep at the wheel
My wife, who has tried to keep her sanity by ignoring Trump, finally summed it up after reading today's news in the NYTs and on her phone; "What a disgusting human being...except for the human being part".
Get everyone you know out to No Kings tomorrow.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
We are in the criminal camp. Let’s just plainly say that autocrats are criminals. By moving fast and breaking things, Trump and the morbidly rich in America have broken America’s integrity and stolen from all the rest of us. Putting troops in Iran will be a bloody disaster. Thank God, my military son is retired.
Unless and until the orange criminal is held to account, he will continue his crimes, the list of which is endless.
Georgia, I signed up for the NO KINGS protest in Ashland, OR. I asked if I could get a ride there, and my wife, and her aunt, and possibly our nieces are going to go with me. I will have a walker and my crutch (walker so I can sit when I need to; the knee is healing nicely, but only 3 weeks out from replacement).
Note: We're in Southern Oregon for our annual "March Birthday" celebrations (we also have them in May, July, and August). If both nieces come, we'll have all three of us March babies there!.
Happy birthdays! I think we all need to get out together to get back into a feeling of community. It was so cold here in NJ for so long that there was not a lot of community time or spirit. I hope people come away with a real sense of how powerful we can be if we come together, that it is not just a time to vent our anger. As Heather keeps saying, now is the time to think about what we want our future to be like when we win. It has to be so much more than just getting rid of Trump and ensuring accountability and reparations for the harm done. We need to reclaim our right to decide what our society should be like in terms of equal opportunity and diversity,
Exactly so! I am so grateful for an open and loving family!!
I have tried to gather a group of people together for tomorrow. The comments> 'Protests are stupid', 'What does a protest do', 'There may be violence'. 'It won't change a thing', The last protest he tore down the east wing'.
People are being intimidated and they feel it and they are afraid so they make excuses.
I think that all you can do is ask them if they believe that what Trump is doing is right, and ethical. Ask them what they would do if they had a child in the military. Would they protest then? Would they protest if they lost their job, or their Social Security? What would it take to get them to take a stand?
Then ask them what, given the progression of events, stands in the way of their worst fear coming to pass.
What is the alternative is to peaceful protest NOW?
Tax the rich! Impeach Trump and imprison him for treason. Let's sing the no kings anthem loudly on Saturday so that he fears we the people: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/no-kings-anthem
NO American should be allowed to keep a billion dollars in order to get their way over those who have a few hundred. I call it treason.
I raised my family on very little but we could afford doctors, university courses for me, college for the kids, a house, 2 cars...I have to wonder how we got a mortgage in 1968 for a one family in a nice town when we had a low declared income. Because we had managed the 2 family for 4 years and always paid our bills or ...because we were white?
It was not difficult to live a middle class life on a lower class income. Many factory workers did. Detroit and other factory towns were built on factory worker's salaries.
Not to mention the fact that America was built on immigrants!
Immigrants!!!! When I am not angrier than hell over Iran I forget about the immigrants getting thrown into hellholes: That makes me angrier than as hell, also! Hard working people who had to leave their native countries because WE destroyed them.
One comforting thing about being 86...soon, I will not be getting any terrible news about Amerika.
Judith, I am 64 and honestly I am so resentful of living this Trump/Putin/Epstein nightmare for the past ten years. Biden’s presidency was just a flash in time. It’s as if it never happened. Last week our bi-weekly house cleaner had to go back to Honduras. We both cried like babies. She’s been here for 27 years. Had to leave her grown children and grand babies. Hard working, tax paying woman and NOT a criminal.
Meanwhile, I guarantee you that all of the immigrants working at Trump’s golf motels are still in place. Nothing makes sense anymore but please take care of yourself and let’s hope for the best to come in November. Surely, good with prevail. ❤️
So sorry for you and So sorry for your housekeeper....thankgod, I live in Mexico and my housekeeper will stay safe in his nice country.
Sorry you have so many more years of this. Hang tough. Cut off your TV and go back to fiction....I wish i could.
When I was traveling in Honduras in 1991, all over the country...solo on buses..budget: my style of travel, rather insecure, the way I like it...I met many who had worked in the States and had family there. I thought Honduras should be the 51st State!
I find that the USA has invaded militarily 8 times. How dare they think the bananas and wood belong to the people. it's amazing how well I was treated, considering that..
I was always safe there. Now, not so sure.
HYPOCRISY thy name is trump.
I am angered to read this. There is absolutely no way she should be be deported. I freaking hate these hypocrites.
I’m somewhat younger but I resent having to live my last years with putrid Donald trump.
“Those were the days, my friends…”
Mary Hopkin, Marlene -- 1968.
So much this.
IMO, as we approach No Kings 3, it's important that we stay focused on the issues that matter most to voters:
1. Affordability: Life in America which Trump's tariffs and Iran War have made far more difficult for the average American
2. ICE: Trump's fascist approach to our immigrant issues and Trump's test for creating a secret police state in America.
3. Health Care: Trump's "It will be Wild" approach to American healthcare and disease prevention. "Hey, Hey, RFK, HOw many kids did you infect today?"
4. The Iran War: Trump's mindless, illegal war conducted without purpose or strategy.
These are all winning issues for Nov. Both Trump and the GOP must be tagged with these vastly unpopular issues.
The fight for November begins the day after tomorrow.
Hi, PS. Any chance you can post the lyrics to the song? (I just became a paid subscriber of your work)
POSTERs should read:
“Trump must go to Prison”
LOCK HIM UP!
...less copy and a classic.
Not just Him!
My poster for tomorrow has large official pictures of Hillary and Kamala with the words If Only… on one side. On the other is the criminal in jail, in an orange prison suit with Lock Him Up above.
There'll be a group in DC tomorrow whose slogan is "impeach, convict, remove'. More people daily are audible on this theme.
Together with his enablers.
RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES & PEDOS GET PRISON
or NO CHILD RAPISTS FOR KING
A bit of hope for today, sent from a year in the future...
''March 28, 2027
One Year After “No Kings III,” America’s Democratic Renewal Is the Story That Changed the World''
A year after the No Kings rallies, America’s biggest story is not authoritarian drift, but democratic renewal. This essay imagines how mass protest, grassroots organizing, and a blue wave in 2026 could change the country’s course and remind the world that democratic decline is not destiny.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/march-28-2027
Not just Saturday. Every Saturday, Sunday, Holiday. Crank it up.
Hopefully every protest moves the polls ever closer to a trump and republican loss during the midterms. Maga may not be moved by this but many podcasters are pointing out how illiterate and innumerate trump is. He can barely articulate simple facts and is totally unaware of his inconsistencies. There is no sign of adulthood.
And, in the meantime, call your Congresspeople and Senators and tell them, no more money for DoD, fund DHS without ICE and CBP, no ground troops in Iran, and release the full Epstein files NOW!
I absolutely agree. Silence is not an option! It is crystal clear that our Democracy being destroyed from within. Are you going to comply and live with it, or doing something about it?
https://snyder.substack.com/p/no-kings-freedom
I wish we could get Timothy Snyder's post on why protest matters out to more people...
I have sent it to my network. You can certainly send it to your network. Good luck!
I wish I could. The nearest No Kings is 100 miles from here.
Two options for you: 1. There will be a virtual protest for those who have conflicts or mobility issues. You can register here for a zoom link: https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/925250/
Or 2. Do your own from wherever you are! Pick a spot and hold up your own sign. I bet there are others who would join you. If you're totally rural, sit by your mailbox on the road for an hour, or just post a No Kings sign. Sometimes a single protester has more power than a group!
I know that Americans all over the world are going to protest. You can see that there are a lot of American expats around the world by the number of No Kings rallies that are being held. We are all in solidarity with our family and friends in the USA.
We need to defeat Trump who is part of the Trump/Netanyahu duo. We will get out there on Saturday and show them how unpopular Trump and his regime is. Here is a list of No Kings, No Tyrants, No Dictators, which are NO ICE and NO WAR protests from around the world that you can sign up for. Please share with family and friends inside and outside the US.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/no-kings-no-tyrants-no-dictators?r=f0qfn
Germany had 9 yesterday, then this morning I learned that there are 2 more, one in Göttingen for whom I don't have a sign up link and one in Freiburg, which is listed on https://tacker.fr/node/17645
Here is a new song that we can all be singing at our rallies on Saturday. Bette Midler's All You Fascists Bound to Lose.
https://youtu.be/U5VXwncNvTo?si=nqEITYquqPah1kh5
We can stand with this military wife too against what this regime is doing.
https://substack.com/@parislychee/note/c-221726913?r=f0qfn&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
These are crazy times and right now the US is having a net immigration loss. More people are moving away from than are moving to the USA. Wherever you are, please stand up and be counted.
No Kings III
Sat 28 March
Keep the pressure on
Avance la Lucha!
Tax the rich! Impeach Trump and imprison him for treason. Let's sing the no kings anthem loudly on Saturday so that he fears we the people: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/no-kings-anthem
There's a nice couple of cells in New York, currently occupied by Mr and Mrs Maduro.
Frankly, this bothers me. You don't kidnap the leader of a country and throw him, and his wife, into shitty prison cells. I think they should be put up in a hotel with guards.
On the other hand: Trump: in a shitty prison cell: Perfect.
Melania: deported back to where she came from.
Judith: (Where's my reply gone to?) Here it is again, more or less: Yes, it bothers me too, that's why I wrote it. I applaud your idea. And yes, send her back to where they can understand what she's saying.
She would be the Queen of Sheba back there in Slovakia, or wherever. The First Lady and rich from corruption money. I guessed that wealthy donors contributed millions for her to Not leave Trump...in the first regime...in the second she was prob. used to it and figured out how to live on her own in NYC without his disgusting self. Her movie is now on Prime and if I see her face: Ack!
It's Slovenia, Judith, on the Adriatic.
Slovakia is wedged between Poland, the Ukraine, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
Be kind! Imprison Trump closer to Russia. How about Alaska?
I'm writing the editor of the two local papers to urge them to print stories about No Kings III with lots of pictures, above the fold and the top stories on their online sights.
The moron Trump started WWIII when he bombed Iran and the idiot doesn't even know the difference between Iran and Tehran.
To counteract the myriad protests, Trump and Kegsbreath will likely order troops into Iran tonight. This is your Republican Senators and Congresscritters allowing this to happen as well as the hypocrites on SCOTUS.
I’ve read the book. It’s a piece of crap.
The Art of the Steal.
I read the book in 2015. In that book he told everyone exactly what a crook he was. People who voted for him wanted a crook.
Exactly.
👍
Indeed
My wife, who has tried to keep her sanity by ignoring Trump, finally summed it up after reading today's news in the NYTs and on her phone; "What a disgusting human being...except for the human being part".
Get everyone you know out to No Kings tomorrow.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
More flotsam and Jetsam from Heather. A wasted letter meaning nothing but thank you very much for sending it keeping your lemmings in line allowing them to continue believe in fairytales Heather you should pick up the book honestly art of the deal. Guarantee you would learn something.
I’ve read the book. It’s a piece of crap.
The Art of the Steal.
So you didn’t understand it, obviously. Sorry. They were actually using that in some college classes in negotiating skills. And obviously you’ve never used them and you don’t understand the ins and outs of negotiating.
And I always love when people use their middle initial or full name as if it creates some type of authoritarian aura around it lol
It’s one of the many ways that Donald Trump has been successful and having hotels and golf courses all over the world with his name on them.
Not sure I’ve seen a Robert N Abernathy product anywhere.
& learn to spell.
I guess you’ve never been in business you don’t steal…. it’s called negotiation. And the better thenegotiator, the better the deal
Voice texting. It’s brand new u should try it. Lol. Could give a shit.
Not my thesis nor my dissertation. Try this pal. CONTENT OVER FORM. EVERY TIME.
guess I made my point. Lmao. No dangling participles. No ending a sentence with a preposition. You know…- the vital issues in life.
I’m guessing you couldn’t negotiate yourself out of a paper bag
Have a nice day, Rick.
Trump is not a King. He is a puppet of other Kings - MBS, Putin, and Nat...
Aspirations.
A delusional criminal, pedophile & grifter.
They keep talking about it and having hearings, but they don’t DO anything to stop him.
We will all be marching, but he won’t know because his enablers will hide it.
Impeach him.
Here is a map of where the marches are planned. https://www.nokings.org/
To Impeach TrumpStein we need to win bigly to also convict him. Still, being impeached 3 X will upset his self-image.
Since we need to unite to win the election we might as well unite with an eye to resolve how we must mend the many wounds inflected by the Supreme Court and the free enterprise system upon our Constitution, our Republic, our Democracy and to Amend our Constitution. I discuss that in my Memorandum at UnitedWeAmend.org.
Albert, Ezra Levin stated today there are close to 3300 marches planned worldwide! HOORAY!
Or, we can worry less about winning biggly and drag him out of the white house by his red tie and give him the rewards that come to thieves and traitors.
Its past time for Americans to recognize we haven't lived in a democracy for ages, and if we want to have one in the future to act accordingly.
I write about not living in a democracy in my Memorandum. The 14th Amend recognizes us as "Citizens of the United States." The 16th Amend taxes us for our incomes. Yet we as Citizens had no say in that but only the States. We have been paying for every war beginning with the Civil War debt but have had no vote in any of it. Washington had four executive Departments. Today we have 15 and We the Citizens of the United States are paying for it all. I conclude we must repeal the Elector System and the single "President" and replace that with us as Citizens of the United States voting in a national election for seven executives educated and experienced in the fields of government which they will oversee, "State Dept and Commander in Chief," "Attorney General," Etc. UnitedWeAmend.org.
Wasn’t there something in the Bible about sticks and stones…or stoners and rocks…no-it was stoning. Those are the rewards that come to thieves and traitors
But the First Amend. builds a wall of separation between church and state. American history / tradition would have him wearing hot tar and feathers and then put in a prison cell on a prison ship far off shore.
It won’t happen until the Democrats hold a majority in the House. But I have no idea what crime Trump would have to commit to get 67 votes for conviction in the Senate.
Just the ones he's already committed dozens of times -- if Senators actually followed their sworn oaths to "support, protect and defend" the Constitution and stopped quaking with prevarication and terror, like cowardly bowls of jello without the bowls.
What happened to the majority of Republicans who voted for impeachment or for conviction last time? They lost elections or quit.
I’m not sure why you think that Republicans care about their oaths. They are all all-in on Project 2025. They all want to end American democracy. And that is the Republicans running for library boards and township offices all the way to the White House.
Frank, the idea that impeachment/conviction won't happen will not stop me from calling for it!
Morning, Lynell. Me either!! High crimes and misdemeanors indeed.
Morning, Ally!!
If we go down, at least we will go down fighting…together!
Every step of the way!!!
Why would you want to stop a success there debbie. This has been America’s most successful war so far by the way and in record time.
We wasted 20 years at Afghanistan. It took us 10 years to get a lot. Bin Laden took us four years to get Saddam Hussein took us 10 months and 21,000 bombs to get Kadafi and Libya took one evening to get nuclear Iran denuclearized and it took three days not 10 years or 10 months or four years to get the leadership of Iran and its successor and its successor and its successor. They’re about to name the new successor to the leader leadership in Iran on Friday, but his funeral is scheduled for Monday already.
Remind me to blame you for all the new inflation your war will produce. Also for all the U.S. service people already killed and injured, and all of them who will be killed and injured trying to un-fuck the Strait of Hormuz. Your boy Kegsbreath is a war criminal; a dumb bastard who got himself kicked out of the DC National Guard because he was such an idiot; then screwed up a veteran’s group, who kicked him out; an anti-Muslim crusader who wants to “Kill all the Muslims”, and who conspired with Humpty J. Trumpty to start a generational holy war. So, Rick Satan, when do you suit up and join the fight to take Khanh Island? Will you put your own sorry ass on the line to defend your racist Nazi regime?
By the way, moron, Iran has already killed at least 1000 of our soldiers overtime. I don’t see you yelling and screaming about that. Do you
You know you get dumber with every. I’m pretty certain that before we went to war during World War II, but the biggest concern was going to be how much inflation it was gonna cause. WTF is wrong with you people. By the way, it would take Trump a monumental task to reach the inflation rate of Joe Biden at almost 9% compared to Trump’s current three. Any other nonsense you’d like to spew. He’s saving the world pal, and if this were Joe Biden, you’d be praising his name.
Oops, that Khargh Island. Spellchecking AI sucks!
Hey Rick,
Keep shilling for your hero DJT. A genius. His GREAT decapitation strategy has put a target on his back and on the backs of his children and grandchildren for the rest of their lives. Then there are the depersonalized targets on Americans who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when an Islamic terrorist takes place on American soil.
I don’t think there’s a bottom to how stupid you can actually get.
But you sure are trying Iran has been threatening death to America and death to Israel for 50 years Do you want to just let them continue go ahead I’ll add your name to the list so your children could be afraid also you know how many times we’ve heard that bullshit from idiots like you If you choose to live in fear have at it, enjoy yourself
I want to say something wise and profound but all that comes to my mind is “Thank you Heather and everyone who doesn’t give up and keeps holding our country and the world in their hearts and reminding all to not forget that we are stronger then evil”. I know it sounds silly but Love is stronger than Hate. And we can never forget that.
Nothing silly about it. Woe to all of us if we forget that.
Yes. And persistence and endurance in a righteous cause, in the face of seemingly intractable difficulties, is courageous.
Thank you, Leslie Tremaine, for saying this. A quote I heard recently comes to mind reading your words. It goes something like: “I may not be able to do everything to save the world. But I can do something.” So each day, every day, I DO something. And in my best days, it’s with Love.
Yes, I can't make world peace today, but I can hold the door open for the person behind me, smile and say hello.
"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." – Martin Luther King Jr., 1965 "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" commencement address at Oberlin College
That statement is by no means silly because it’s true Love is stronger than Hate it’s been proven over and over again..
'All you need is Love' as the song by the iconic, inimitable Beatles says and continues to remind us, still reverberating out into the ether...
That’s rather profound, Leslie. Not silly. There is no opposite to Love. It is all encompassing.
Salud, friend.
🗽💜
Excellent statement, Christine.
Salud!
🗽❤️🩹
Love is absolutely stronger than hate. The public reaction to the Buddhist monks’ Walk for Peace proved that to me! This is one reason why I’m kicking off the Peace Cities Project through the Route 66 Spirit of America Museum in Stroud, Oklahoma. Here’s a link to my video announcing the project…
https://youtu.be/6nORcp7zOiE
That is profound enough for me! Thank you Leslie. Let's all keep on keepin' on! We gotta make the best of a bad situation... (apologies to the writers of that old song who I can't recall at this moment).
I hear you, and that sentiment is beautiful.
Yes, criminal Donald is now gifting his criminal buddy in the Kremlin an extra $10 billion a month.
Yes, he's withdrawing urgently needed arms from the besieged Ukraine.
He's also withdrawn key naval units from the region around the Taiwan straits, as goad to Xi's now-easy attack there.
And as Heather concludes in the words of the Dem congressman from N.Y., Joe Morelle, our dear criminal, rapist, protector of elite pedophiles Donald "has alienated our allies and made us less safe.”
It is a task to try to keep up with the crazy crap this ape throws at us every day. Today the nut house meeting with his pantry of mixed nuts (not a "cabinet" at all) all taking turns kissing his ass. There must be at least one psychiatrist out there who will step forward and declare and document that Trump is, "as a result of a mental health disorder, a danger to self, a danger to others, or gravely disabled (unable to provide for their own food, clothing, or shelter)." I doubt he can drive a car to the store and buy the products needed to make a meal. Every time he opens his stupid mouth he provides "recent, specific behavior or statements indicating an immediate risk." All 50 States have this kind of law for an involuntarily confinement of a person for up to 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation. During that time if the doctor determines more time is needed then that means more time...
A televised North Korean shit show, complete with Dear Leader at the center, pumping that invisible concertina back-and-forth, forth-and-back, spending at least 5 minutes talking about how his own pen was so much more wonderfuller, bigger, hugely thicker and more real than that horrid Joe Biden's was..... 🤪
Future generations will one day ask us: why didn't you just bust out in laughter? What will our answer be?
Because it stopped being funny a long time ago. As you note in your earlier post here, our good humor has turned to anger. The trick will be to harness that anger into peaceful, yet forceful action.
In the words of Captain Picard, "make it so...!"
Leaders needed.
I used to ask, “How could the Germans ever have let Hitler take power?” Now I know. We MUST keep the pressure on. Everyone reading this MUST demonstrate at a No Kings rally on Saturday. See ya there!
I wondered that too, no more
Because you never laugh at a mentally deranged man who has a military aide always nearby with the Presidential Emergency Satchel at his side.
'Cause he's freakin' nuts!!!!!!!
Our sense of humor, along with our sense of honor and fidelity became warped and useless. Bought and entertained by carnival barkers on every corner, including churches
Use the concertina and sing that old religious song “Yes, Putin loves me. The Bible tells me so.”
ICTT,
Answer: We did burst out-- in a tremendously creative, society-wide humor called mockery--a particularly effective form of resistant action against thin-skinned, self- absorbed, self- serving autocrats.
Apparently, not enough of us did so.
Maybe too soon to tell?.
Thanks, Albert. I think that "pantry of mixed nuts" also need to be evaluated for their cheering him on or better yet, vote them all out!
Good point. To that end we need an army of a 100K psychologist to evaluate every Trump voter. The orange ape is a damn convicted felon. What the hell were his voters thinking?
That the charges are "fake" and prosecution is "weaponized", and nothing will convince them otherwise.
It's not one ape Al; It's a coalition. Connect the dots friend.
Yes, it is a large shrewdness of apes.
Over and over I agree. Doctors/ psychiatrists have a duty to inform. They are as helpless as the rest of us. Who could get a court order to have trump committed to a psychiatric hospital? Guided Iranian missiles are the only hope I see.
My wife, who has tried to keep her sanity by ignoring Trump, finally summed it up after reading today's news in the NYTs and on her phone; "What a disgusting human being...except for the human being part".
Get everyone you know out to No Kings tomorrow.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
That "THANK YOU..." part of his post always tweaks me to wonder why anyone who reads those words of an 80 year old orange faced ape with blond hair would read those words. Why the hell can't they see something is way the hell off kilter? Then I see it really is a cult. The cult of an old felon orange faced "Reality TV Star" ape with blond hair. Could it be the effects of too much TV among certain Americans?
President Kennedy appointed Newton Minow as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in early 1961. Minow delivered a speech, the "vast wasteland", to the National Association of Broadcasters. He summed up TV as being a "...procession of game shows, violence...formula comedies...and cartoons,..." His leadership led us to the development of educational television and public broadcasting (PBS). Carl Sagan wrote "The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”. Now Trump has appointed a team (Brendan Carr, Russell Vought and get this, Robert F. Kennedy Jr) to kill PBS and National Public Radio by terminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is also parting out the Department of Education. For International Corporations to totally takeover America they need dumb Americans of divided States with a weak Federal government. I discuss this in my Memorandum at UnitedWEAmend.org. Merrill, your wife sounds smart. She might like my Memorandum.
Back in the seventies/eighties I used to end all my business letters with “Thank you for your attention to this matter” in the hopes that my requests would not be ignored.
Seeing the con man using that verbiage for me is really creepy to see!
Do we think the Russia/Ukraine/Taiwan actions were the plan behind the war all along? I’ll accept a ‘duh, yes’ reply but asking seriously.
In an almost trivial aside, America's currency got a fresh new layer of authoritarian sludge yesterday...
Last evening, Trump’s right-hand wormtongue, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, announced that Hair Furor’s signature will now appear on our new paper currency this year. “There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the semiquincentennial,” oozed the official statement (feel free to supply your own giant sucking sound effects).
There is no precedent in American history for a sitting US President’s signature to appear on its currency — none. The signature that goes on existing currency is that of the US Treasurer — neither Trump nor Bessent. But true to this tiny, insecure, grotty little man’s need to piss on everything like a chihuahua spreading his bladder around the entire neighborhood, Trump couldn’t resist. This, on top of minting a new gold coin showing him glaring at us, like Grumpy Cat trying to cosplay Winston Churchill -- another farce masquerading as strength.
Meanwhile, Ilan Goldenberg, former Iran Team Chief with the Secretary of Defense under President Obama, writes in Foreign Affairs tonight that "the outlines of a familiar, dangerous pattern are emerging" in the Middle East. "Washington is once again fighting a weak regional power without...clear objectives, a defined theory of victory, a viable exit strategy."
This is so ultra cringe...his face and name must be plastered everywhere and pasted on everything like the worst of the dictators and tin pot despots of the past. Donold has to bombard us with his image, name and loony tirades and hectoring as total immersion to his incessant need for attention and unbridled egotism.
Looking forward to the day when it all gets torn down, his horrid, wretched name removed, 'monuments' razed(or never built).
May that day start this Saturday, March 28, No Kings, No War for the hell of it, No fascist regime...
This is repulsive. What an ego.
The new currency will be good fuel for a fire.
🤢
Ilan Goldberg mentioned "once again fighting a weak regional power without...a viable exit strategy" This usually indicates a war done for ego and politics, not for peace or prosperity. I'm unhappy that they cut my neighbor's medicare or school programs so that they could fund ego wars abroad. We the People end up poorer at home for it.
Link to the story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/us/politics/trump-signature-us-dollars.html
So wish the farce were funny but alas, language fails
Thanks to the Covid era, I no longer carry cash on my person. So no seeing The Grump’s scribble next to George’s or Abe’s face for me.
I have been putting up No Kings flyers around my community.
For 3 days in a row they have been torn down and I put new ones back up.
I just witnessed a guy rip down one of my flyers. I confronted him saying give that back. That is my property and I have a right to my opinion. He balled it up and threw it at me telling me he will tear it down again. While he was getting in his truck I hung it back up and he peeled out.
So now I am sitting here to see if he comes back. Sure enough vandal came back and pulled in behind me long enough to see all my stickers and flyers on the car and then he peeled out again. I will hang around for a little bit and read my emails, but not going to hang out all night. I imagine he will come at some point tonight and pull them down again 😒.
Jody I’m sorry this is happening please be safe 💟
There are more of us than them.
I dream
very frustrating, Jodi,but if you can stick it out you ARE doing the right thing, and he is on the wrong side of history.
I am so sorry, we have neighbors like this too.. they are wrong. It won't be pretty when they realize that they have been part of this problem..
And I hope you remembered to pull out your phone and video the person and the vehicle.
My phone was in the car, ugh. As he peeled away it occurred to me that I should have gotten his image and license. Next time will be more prepared.
I absolutely understand. I only meant to hope that we all remember that keeping our phones close is one of our first, best defenses in all this insanity. Peace.
Another tough guy bully. I wonder what words he would have for little old pissed off 265 lb me? I hate rude people and don’t waste words anymore. My probation is over and once again I’ll stand my ground. There are fights one cannot win but there are fights the antagonist wishes he hadn’t won. And then one can attack in the dark hiding behind his generals. If you can’t fight at all take an old man’s advice and use treachery. Never give up.
I am 68, 200 pounds & losing, LOL. Female, which we all know MAGAts don’t like us out of the house. This guy was a skinny disheveled 60ish angry male Haole.
Aloha!
If the idiot er Houle peals out perhaps his transmission will fail prematurely like his brain has. And I would be very careful around a 200 lb woman. My first wife of 120 lbs blindsided me one morning. First I went to my knees then to my face as I saw the tile floor rushing up. Thankfully I was out before contact.
😮
The moral of the story is…don’t underestimate the power of a woman.
🤙🤙🤙
Thank you, Jody! You are a brave soul. Be safe tonight and we will all be loud tomorrow!
Well, I meant to say Saturday…guess my brain is excited to get to Saturday and cause good trouble!
Hang in there Jody! I'll be wearing my Veterans Against Trump t-shirt at a small park. I was active after Vietnam but this time I have to sit instead of stand. Don't know what else I can do.
My husband and I take a canopy for shade and hang signs, banners and flags from it & chairs, too, so we can sit. At our first rally we were the only ones with chairs. Now lots of people bring chairs or walkers with a seat. You are showing up and that is what matters.
That's my plan. Surgical recovery ain't gonna stop me from going!
Sitting at a protest is a lot. I thank you.
Someone in my apartment building destroyed my Trump "Nope" sign. I patched it back together and placed it where she could not avoid seeing it.
LOVE IT!
Can you hide them overnight? Garage? Just don't get hurt.
I have them up taped & stapled on light poles, palm trees, around the structure that holds the mailboxes at the Longhouse, bulletin boards & bathroom stalls at Puna Kai shopping Center.
My next trip to the Big Island, I will try and look you up. We visited Pahoa on our first trip there and loved it!
Be careful!
Be safe Jody. Too many whack jobs out there.
Make sure to get his plate number.
Be safe!
Yes…First, be safe. He is not thinking clearly…
Take a photo of him and his license.
I realized too late that is what I should have done, ugh.
"But Trump simply began the Iran war without consultation with Congress, ..."
This is, IMHO, the salient point: It could not and would not have happened without the cooperation of the Armed Forces in a clearly illegal war. We have to face the fact that the military is committed to the Trump agenda and will murder on command.
The armada against the drug boats was the first test case; the Maduro assault and capture was the second test. There was no protest from the military, on either side, so on to the Iran War.
The double-tap incident dropped off the radar. Internally, the military conducted a review and stood by the legality of the second strike, and the admiral said he—not Hegseth—gave the order because he thought the guys clinging to the debris were still legitimate targets. Pretty unbelievable that an admiral wouldn't know the basic tenets of the international law of the sea.
Congress saw some video and documents behind closed doors, but there hasn't been a comprehensive report, in part because the Pentagon and House leadership have limited what documents they have asked for and who they have subpoenaed. So there was compliance with the regime by staging a charade of an investigation.
No independent group has looked into the incident, and key evidence (the full video, targeting intelligence, and victim identities) has been classified or not disclosed.
As to the Maduro test, it violated international law and state sovereignty, but despite diplomatic protests, no international body has launched an investigation. Republicans in Congress are buying into the argument that it was a law-enforcement action.
So if there was no accountability in those cases, why risk your career? This is standard Trump regime tactics. Do something moderately outrageous to test the waters to see what happens. Do something even more outrageous and see if there is a response. Moving the Overton window and normalizing the lawlessness. Then go for the real prize--in this case, the Iran Not-a-war.
This is an excellent response to Mr. Levine's point. "The military" is a pretty diverse group, and not anywhere near all of them are Trumpies. But the current military leadership, both in uniform and civilian, has been purged of any senior officers of conscience. If they are unwilling to oppose an illegal order, their juniors will be even less inclined to do so. And there's the fact that these highly trained and motivated persons want very much to have a chance to put their skills to use. We've slid all the way down the slippery slope to the Iran Not-a-war. More war crimes no doubt to follow.
What scares me now is his 'test case' putting ice in airports. I know he is training for putting them at elections places.
Yup!
WTF? Not really.
😢
Liked for the persistence of the splendid Dr. Richardson in providing us (and history) a daily chronicle of these awful times, but the news of our endless, self-inflicted national downward spiral is consistently dreadful.
No Kings this Saturday. Be there and be loud!
We’re part of a new axis of evil, joining Russia, Hungary and the like. It’s hard to imagine what we’ve become in a little over a year.
Ha! I just posted almost exactly the same thing before I read your post.
We haven’t he has 🤬
James, right you are.
Yet, while I will certainly be marching through the streets of La Ciudad de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles on Saturday, tonight I am solemnly contemplating whether this is enough. With virtually the entire GOP membership in both the House and Senate fully paralyzed and Kool-Aided out, consistently refusing to even lift a finger to exercise their own duties and constitutional authority, it must be at least considered that we are at a terrible breaking point, not seen since a fairly famous vintner and founder of the University of Virginia first introduced the World to the pivot point of, "When in the course of human events..."
If this horrific, illegal, ghastly war against a proud and ancient Nation that did naught to US continues---aided and abetted by the genocidal leader of Israel and the bloodthirsty leader of the manufactured Nation/State known as the Kingdom of Saud---and our Congress continues to do nothing to stop it (GOP members, that is), and our Mad Emperor sans both clothes and human affect beneath his "Brazil"-esque makeup, surgically implanted follicles and ever broadening beam, continues to be emboldened by his brown shirts continues on his current path, are we not at a point where to say the very least, torches and pitchforks are to be raised?!?
Daniel, I appreciate your sentiment, we must remember to keep the opposition strong but nonviolent. Flooding the streets with nonviolent protest will ensure that the brownshirts can’t take the streets. The fascists want to provoke us into violence, which will give them an excuse to escalate. We must not give them what they want, but rather let’s follow the examples of Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi. The temptation to fight fire with fire is great, but better to use cool water. NO KINGS!
They are not paralyzed and kool-aided...they agree with trump and are enjoying the insider trading trump is allowing them to do.
Make no mistake....THEY ARE ALL COMPLICIT!!
A proud and ancient nation indeed, but it has been in the thrall of MIGAts for half a century. Let's not kid ourselves that those millenialist theocrats don't wish us harm and would not hesitate to kill as many of their own people and ours to bring about the second coming of the 12th Imam.
I think I agree with half of your reply, James. The sclerotic (if still standing) leadership of the ruthlessly oppressive Islamic Republic is horrific indeed.
Yet that bears little relevance. The issue is not them, but rather that we as Americans have no right to wage war unilaterally and wholly without cause against any Country, irrespective of the status of their political leadership.
Beyond that, the Islamic Republic's leaders are basically the equivalent of Mike Johnson and his ilk, turbines and bearded. We don't have a lot of space to cast stones.
Finally, Iran posed no threat to us whatsoever. When was the last time the Persian nation initiated a War against anyone? Perhaps at Thermopolyae?!?
I agree with your fundamental point, Daniel. We have, and had, no business attacking Iran, neither from an ethical or a pragmatic viewpoint. This is not going well and is not going to end well. But that sclerotic leadership and those turbines would not be in place without the support of a significant portion of the Iranian population. We are screwed because of MAGA, which is what, perhaps 25% of our voting public. Iran is screwed because of Twelver Shiite millenialist activism, which probably affects (infects?) a similar proportion of the Iranian population.
Yes, Daniel. Despite what our president 'thinks' (actually I don't think the process going on in his head is thinking at all), Sovereignty IS a 'thing.' If the Iranians choose to be a theocracy, that's their right. If they choose to to impose it on those outside their borders, that's a different story. But they have not done this. And isn't this American regime's aim to be a Christian theocracy? We all read of Hegseth's prayer for maximum violence against our 'enemies.'
PASADENA, CA LOUD!!!
As Putin continues to cackle with glee at the success of his egotistical stooge.
This is treason. Pure and simple. Destroying our nation for the benefit of others. Timothy Snyder is the only one even coming close to saying that out loud.
Paul Krugman, too: https://fortune.com/2026/03/24/paul-krugman-treason-oil-futures-trading-trump-white-house/
Yes, of course. I subscribe to Paul and way too many others. It was getting late and my brain is fried from the year long rebuilding the burned down everything process.
The point is that it IS Treason and all the tRump said this that and who the fuck knows is babbled about on even INTELLIGENT Substacks and, as Jeff says, all you hear is crickets.
Yes, he definitely fits the “aid and comfort to our enemies“ definition. By supporting him, I suppose most of the Republicans also fit the definition.
ALL of them. Complicit treasonous muthafkazz.
As Jeff Tiedrich says, and all we hear is crickets from MSM, complicit as well.
Tax the rich! Impeach Trump and imprison him for treason. Let's sing the no kings anthem loudly on Saturday so that he fears we the people: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/no-kings-anthem
We must never forget the cowardly, moronic, sickening complicity of every Republican official and every Republcan voter for this horror. We must never let them forget what they have done.
I’m sure you meant to say Trump voters. I’ve been a Republic my entire life and I voted for Harris. It’s very wrong to assume that all Republicans voted for Trump.
Republican not Republic. Auto-fill can be such a pain in the ass.
Touch the 3 dots below your post to open the option to edit and repost.
Of course.
OR ...which I find more sickening and destructive....the people who refused to vote.
The ones who chose not to vote, yes. The ones who were prevented from voting, not as much.
Silence is GOLDEN.🐘💨
How soon can we take back the Oval Office ? By 2028 it may be too late. Why are we dithering? The democracy is gone.
"Why are we dithering? The democracy is gone."
We are not dithering and we are not giving up in advance.
Neither is the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democratic state governments, Democratic candidates, Federal and state jurists, ProPublica and investigative journalists throughout media, HCR, Joyce Vance, Marc Elias, Malcolm Nance, Steve Brodner, Ann Telnaes, Jess Craven, Robert Hubbell et al ... and millions of us across the nation.
And Juries like in New Mexico.
Gone if WE let it happen. Read Joyce's book "Giving Up is Unforgivable".
We will get there. We will. We will gather at the cafe for coffee as soon as we can.
Virginia, the democracy is gone until it's rebuilt. We know now, more than ever since Lincoln, what is meant by democracy.
To protect the South Vietnamese, we went to war.
Our casualities produced horrifying awe.
For the people of Afghanistan, we went to war,
Our gruesome casualies appear among our country’s lore.
For Israel, Trump has thrown our country to war,
You must remind me again, What for?
Outrageous that this war was started on the whim of one man without consulting, let alone getting approval from Congress or the American people. Even Repub Chairs of Armed Services don’t know what’s going on! This is an illegal, incompetent and unplanned disaster. Where is Congress? Where is oversight?
Ending the War Hinges on Bridging the Gap Between Trump's Delusions and Iran's Resolve
- Haaretz
What an insightful way to express the challenges that we face. What will it take for Trump's delusions to evaporate so that the rest of the world can move forward, once again, towards peace?
Chloroform.
Good one James!
😆