I don't know how you do this every night, Heather, but thank you. I had a 14 hour day, and I am now able to read your Letter and know both what has transpired and its contextualized importance. I am so much better informed than I was when I had no source for threading the key ideas together, and that feels vital. Now to go preorder your new book!! (Congratulations!)
'We just announced our plan to retake the House on Maddow: We’re focusing on The Unrepresentatives – the 18 Republicans from Biden 2020 districts – to expose their promotion of the MAGA agenda, hold them accountable and defeat them in 2024. Join us.'
'Right now, we are facing the interlocking catastrophes of a rigged democracy, global pandemic, unimaginable and growing wealth inequality, racial injustice, and the escalating impacts of the climate crisis. We’re fighting back. People like you are leading local Indivisible groups in every single state. Be part of history—join the Indivisible movement.'
Dear Heather, I know you've been working on this all day and it is past midnight where you live. Thank you for keeping at this day after day for all of us who read you religiously and thank you for weaving such convoluted happenings into the two page, single spaced document that I copy, paste and format so I can take it to bed and read it without my computer. Bless your heart! Bless your knowledge! Bless your commitments! I'm always happy too when you take a night off.
Thank God! Can you imagine where we would be without her?! I'm so grateful for her and her knowledge and wisdom. I'm sure I would be inconsolable and so depressed... more than I am....
She will usually post a couple hours beforehand. I also go watch after the fact, since I seem to have a battery of responsibilities at the times she gives them live.
It used to be set but since she has gone back to teaching, the book and her new marriage to Buddy it has been impossible. Currently she tries to keep us informed. Last night while she was in NYC....she gave the chat at 5pm. However, you can always see the video as soon as she is finished. I found it last night on her Facebook page. It was great! I hope you can pull it up!
I just see the announcement on face book after she has gone live. I usually watch the recording. I try not to visit her FB page. I find very few FB political sites a safe space. Been blocking too many trolls and bots on HCRs, so I usually just watch her recording after it is up and posted.
My most educational political site on FB is Jesse Kumin's Best Democracy site. He does a lot to educate people on things few know about, such as proportional representation and how democracy gets subverted in single member districts and gerrymandering is so effective at stifling democracy when there are only two cartel parties. That's more a numeracy awareness thing than a party critique. People on that site are there to share and learn, and it's non-partisan. It's also well monitored too, so partisan trolls trying to divide people and get them fighting don't last long.
If Heather didn't have this email site, I might go on FB for it for a while, but I ended up leaving Bernie Sanders' sites when they got trolled by partisan stooges. Life's too short to waste time with sites polluted by them. I find this email site the higher quality of the two as result of the people who frequent it.
I started typing up one of my trademark rants, then I realized I was writing a very similar rant to one of my recently published rants, so I just went and tracked down that one and am reposting it, because it looks like it got stuck way down in its section on the original date, and I'm lazy and want sleep.
You know what gets me going? The trope the phony debt hawks (everyone from Joe Manchin on right) trot out to frame their stinginess as compassion: "We just can't leave this mountain of debt to the next generation." How solemnly delivered these words always are. How eminently reasonable the speaker of them always imagines themselves. They always - always - follow this up with how we need to make some "hard choices" to "be responsible."
Except the right choice isn't hard to see. There are only two choices: cut programs, or raise revenue.
DEAR SWEET GOSH AND HIS SON JEEPERS... ****RAISE REVENUE!!!!!****
Almost every domestic program currently in place suffers from the problems of underfunding and redundant red tape, not superfluousness. It's not just SS & Medicare; almost every domestic program is there for a clearly identified reason, took a heck of a lot of effort to establish, and would be missed by a lot of suddenly sad and angry people if it went away, even if they didn't know it existed prior to it going away. The Repubs - cowards all, really - know this. When it comes time to cut, they can't seem to face the potential consequences. But the only alternative to piling on more debt is unthinkable to them.
RAISE REVENUE.
You care about what you're leaving to future generations? Ask THEM what they think about the issue, why dontcha? I'm younger than almost every member of Congress, so let me briefly appoint myself spokesperson. Or actually, I don't have to. We already collectively spoke our opinion through our votes last election, and the one before that, and the one before that. Our opinion is that we want more programs, not fewer, we want them to be more robust and directly effective, and we want you to do this while ALSO lowering the debt by doing the only obviously remaining option:
RAISE REVENUE.
Preferably on people who could dance gleefully around a bonfire of Ben Franklins bills each night and never burn enough to have to part with their planet-ruining jet. But, hey, I'll pitch in too. Whatever.
But if you refuse to drop the horsesh!t that to RAISE REVENUE is some kind of sacrilege, kindly shut your condescending mouth, because we all know who is "responsible" for this debt, and it is you and your rich corporate friends.
In the name of dear sweet Yaweh, Allah, Vishnu, and Buddah, and whatever moon wizard they still pray to in some corner of the Amazon, RAISE REVENUE READ MY NIKES THEY SAY "JUST DO IT" I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU
Thank goodness President Biden gets this and is finding ways to communicate it clearly. I intend to help him do so. We all should.
I like your imagery of the Franklin bonfire, Will. Nice delivery. If I may make a suggestion, employ that agile CPU of yours to quantify this further. For example, how many thousand years would it take Elon Musk to burn a stack of wadded up fifties (or is it C notes - been a long time since I've seen one) twelve feet high, every night, to reduce his estimated net worth by one percent, assuming no accrued interest, or would he ever cut into his stash at today's T-bill interest rate? I'd like to know.
Doing such an exercise involving the wealth of Mr. Musk is, I fear, impossible. He is so erratic that he could go from owning Jupiter on Tuesday to toting a bindle by Thursday. Hard to work with anything other than imaginary numbers in this context.
I just looked “Bindle” up too. Love the vocabulary lessons. I can picture E Musk going bankrupt and carrying his possessions out of his office in a bindle. Deposed.
Love your comment about possible toxic fumes. But, it just flashed on me where 'C-note' has to have originated - Roman numeral C for 100. Never gave it a thought before!
Thank you, Will. Sure wish I could share with others your remarkable and refreshing, clarifying and humorous observations of our reality. Sleep well. Good night.
Clicking on one heart seems hardly sufficient to express my approval for this “rant”, young Will. You are wise beyond your years. I eagerly anticipate each of your posts.
Bravo for being "lazy", Will! You drove the point home masterfully, BUT it then begs the question: "WHY are Republicans so averse to raising said revenue??" It seems such a no-brainer on the face of it. In another post from a little while back you (I think it was you) went off on what seems to comprise the philosophical reasons Republicans have for refusing to fund government programs. (I remember cheering every sentence...) It perfectly encapsulated the absolute basics of their belief-system, points which HCR has alluded to in their historical perspective in earlier Letters. "Hand-outs", their perception of government aid, smack of their rather narrow-minded, simplistic definition of "socialism". (I lived under European-style democratic socialism for 18 years, thank you, and believe me, it doesn't at all bear any resemblance to what they seem to think it is.) I think if we, Democrats, Progressives, the President, etc. etc. can keep banging on about raising revenue to fund the government, MAYBE the message will start to reach some of them. Slow and steady wins the race...
Just keep in mind that when there are substantial "handouts", they are first in line...think about the pandemic payments and how much of it went to people who didn't need it or maybe think about the fraudster Rick Scott.
Good point. We need to lead with those economic messages/solutions and the note how the social issue we hold near and dear to our hearts and lead with will be solved or addressed. Counter on economics and tag in the values issues we are all about.
Oh my, what an excellent post. Yes, raise revenue. And stop helping those who don't need help. I did smile, but I am tired of all the complaining all the while the party of death has no plan. Also the people who complain are the first in line when there is a significant hand out to be had.
I'm not usually a fan of reruns Will but, in this case, I'm glad you gave in and reposted because I missed it the first time out. With your permission, I'll copy and post this on my Substack letter because it's almost exactly what needs to be said and loudly spread around.
Will, please SHARE THIS beyond the confines of this medium. Your voice is powerful and it needs to be heard. Share it LOUD, share it PROUD, share it EVERYWHERE you can think of that might have effect!
And do so by collecting all taxes due ... especially from those who got in the habit of "make the feds tell me the deductions are not permitted" mindset. You know who you are, yee who worship at the feet of Trump business practices.
“Speaking of Trump’s presidency, Tucker wrote: ‘We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.’”
What do you bet most Republicans who say they like Trump’s achievements secretly agree? But Trump’s cult must be “respected.”
Then there was HCR’s mention of the PBS report on thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of pro-Trump bots launched likely within this country to make Trump seem more popular than he really is. (And disparage Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.)
"What do you bet most Republicans who say they like Trump’s achievements secretly agree?"
Uh, absolutely nothing, because I don't have enough money to waste on such a guaranteed loss. The minions really do think he's the greatest; they have a whole different definition of "achievement." Liberals consider achievements to be the implementation of policies that further social and economic well-being, while the MAGAts consider an achievement to be any instance of the people they hate being suitably bullied. Working in a public place prior to 2020, I can testify to overhearing more than one conversation among tfg supporters commiserating very confidently over all he is accomplishing, how great everything is he represents, how the media just keeps lying about how popular he is, and how there is no way he was not winning again unless those Democrats find a way to steal it. This is in the Bay Area, mind you, and these folks rarely dressed the part. I genuinely was taken aback in '21 at how few rank-and-file Dems realized how primed rank-and-file Repubs were for the big lie, the basis of which they had already adopted way before the fact.
Yes, the Hatred Barfers at Fox see tfg as a disaster, but - again - not in the same way liberals do. We see him as a disaster for *the country*, because that is what we care about. The Hate Barfers see him as a disaster for *themselves*, because that is what they care about. They are willful propagandists for the oligarchy, and tfg's evil is so over-the-top obvious that as long as he is their mascot, the majority of voters will stay repulsed and keep voting in the other party, the members of whom are not too keen on the oligarchy the Hate Barfers have sworn their allegeince to. Sucks for them. Boo hoo.
Living just outside a small, red town, in a Southern ruby red state, I can attest to the conversations Wil speaks of, since I hear them around me here - in the grocery store, at the pharmacy, etc. These people must have the IQ of sheetrock!
Wait, wait! Sheetrock is stable, useful and necessary. Surely something like that doesn't deserve to be maligned by comparing it to the MAGA base. Other than that observation I completely agree.😄
It is frustrating to face a wall of what feels like ignorance and ego...it seems the cry sounds like "What about me?" ...and that it's the whole picture....when the web that connects all is thinking in terms of "us".
Maybe one way is to make the web visible..literally, draw it out, to see and show what connects to what....
Excellent analysis, Will. I wholeheartedly agree. I know some cultists and they don’t give a damn about policy. I doubt some even know what that means. They care about “owning the libs”, and saving their guns - even though not a single one can name any person who ever actually took their guns - making sure schools don’t teach anything bad about whites people, ad nauseum. They “care” on a very different level.
The Salem Keizer school district revealed their new pick of superintendent last night and the first comment on one post included the word woke. Then this toad got some negative response and claimed his only interest was the students and the staff since she has not had teaching or principal experience. I call bull pucky. She is clearly inclusive and dear me, we can't have that. She will be coming for a week each month before takes over this summer to visit classrooms and staff as she is aware she needs to see classrooms and what happens in buildings. I wish her well as the local MAGAs are already dissing her.
I very much enjoy the passion of your writing - its exuberance of expression contributes deeply to the stirring of thought and feeling in other readers, myself included. Thank you Will.
In reading this train of comments (your first and second and those that follow), I feel, perhaps wrongly, note of condescension towards Trump’s followers and a sense of mystification towards Trump that he could accrue so many so loyal. Those emotions flow through me as well until I am finally stop and look at reality. Then it becomes deeply problematic.
1.
Trump is a political genius of the highest, yet most malign order. We must accept that he has a mental tuning fork of the most sublime - he hits with almost monotonous regularity notes at the exact pitch his listeners want to hear. To us it is a single note only - a curdling tone poem of grievance. But his viewers hear many shades in it and generally the shading fits the moment exactly. Thus he holds them. He will be remembered as a force for evil such as America has never produced. He should long ago have been cut down, wrapped in orange and bundled off the stage. But his hold is so fierce that those charge with enforcing the law do so with a timidity that is despicable. It is beyond extraordinary to me that he may/will run in 2024, with the implicit sanction of the Department of Justice. It seems that all of America is subconsciously conspiring to bring this match closer and closer to the barrel of gasoline just to see what will result from such an anarchic explosion. This is led by Trump’s followers of course, but there are millions of other Americans who share this national tendency to at least watch the country edging towards some new precipice. The American way is to wriggle out at the last second in some Houdini-esque manner, so that an epic national cataclysm is averted. But tripping merrily up to the edge as former President’s diehards do, or merely following behind in numb bewilderment marked by spasms of fear, as many Democrats are so inclined, can only happen so often before there is a grievous miscalculation.
We see it now in miniature with the debt ceiling crisis. This is being followed as avidly as most Americans do climate change. “Oh yeah, its out there, but not today. Why lose sleep over it?” One of the classic American stock characters in comedy is Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann - you will remember his catchphrase as “What? Me worry?”
Of course on a much bigger level, the 2024 election looms. “But it feels so far off...I won’t lose sleep over it tonight.”
It only takes one bad slip and everything unravels.
2.
A word about Trump’s followers. They are (mostly) not morons. They have a long-nourished deep seated antipathy to Washington, the East in general and California. They are the biggest victims of the scourge of inequality and the inexorable automation of work. Many are poor. Many have suffered physical injuries from their work. Millions know people who have died from deaths of despair - suicide, alcoholism, or drugs. As a class they had given up hope. I mentioned yesterday that the ruling philosophy, inevitable in such circumstances, is “Fuck it! What worse can happen”? They’ve been screwed as a class. They’d given up on America and the rest of us never realized. And then TFG came along and validated their every disappointment and nourished what for them is a cathartic hatred.
They are, to my amazement, still behind him today. This alone gives them a pent-up potency that we should fear.
---
Of course Trump appears ludicrous and desperate and dumb and pathetic - to us. But not to them. And not only does he have his base, he has manœuvred the GOP into surrendering the reins of party power to him. He just has to stay out of jail.
And here is Professor Cox Richardson’s group - a large one, acquired through her (also very American) combination of genius, unflagging effort, perspicacity and loyalty. She is a national treasure.
This group is not marching in lockstep. It is screaming every day. It is activist. It is in it for the long haul. You represent the cream of America - but cream has a best by date and it is rapidly approaching.
In this almost unimaginable scene, the Americans as a whole are not at all similar to the French. Right now that country is locked in a ferocious struggle - whether or not the age of their version of Old Age Security will be raised - to 64, as Macron wants, by two years. It seems kind of paltry. But French citizens, bolstered by their powerful unions are intent on shutting down the country. Today 1.2 million are marching. It’s not a weekend. Flights to France are being cancelled because workers have closed airports. It is the *sixth* time of the year that there has been a day of national strike. That’s called pressure.
I wish America had some of this “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.” spirit.
What would happen if, day after day after day, the Department of Justice was ringed by thousands of protesters, calling for Trump’s indictment or Garland’s metaphoric head on a platter?
I know I’m preaching to the fully converted. I regret that, but I am sick, sick, sick of this slow march to the gallows. There will be pain.
I’ve gone way over any reasonable word count and will, in response, refrain from commenting for a few days. You are an icon of America at its best.
Eric, I can't say that I agree with all you say here, but it's nice to have some substance to grab my mind and give it a work-out for a change, instead of reading post after post of similar non-observations of nothing much at all- or stuff that has been gone over and over and over. Thanks. Going to fix lunch and spend some time pondering what you wrote, to see what my mind comes up with (and I'm pretty sure it will come up with something, because there are just enough jagged edges that strike me as possibly misfit pieces of the puzzle. Maybe I'll post, but today is another busy day for me as I prepare my house for something exciting (heat pumps!).
Yesterday my amazing wood guy brought me a cord of dry firewood, just in time, it appears: we are in for another cold spell, and right now the wood is my source of heat. I spent yesterday eve cleaning up the pile (it won't get stacked until proper spring arrives) and covering it with a large tarp, weighted against the wind. Suspect that once I eat lunch, and take care of the other tasks, I'll be done for the day. So maybe I'll just repeat thanks, and go do that.
Would love a comment. I sometimes feel that there are some dubious points in my comments. But so many comments are simply earnest agreement - sincerely felt no doubt - that I feel the conversation needs a contrarian kick.
Then I wonder if I’m trying to push round pegs into square holes.
Will, there is so much support for tfg amongst my former work cohort in law enforcement that it makes me sick. I don't see any of them sporting MAGAt hats or the like, but they sure think he is pro- law enforcement so it is all golden.
Ally - I'm curious. Are they all for more guns & less regulations - which, I might add, makes them as unsafe as the rest of us folks?
Beats me what makes people think hes pro - law enforcement considering all the illegal activity hes done thruout his "business"??? career. Guess its like the rest of the Repubs - law enforcement is fantastic as long as its directed at the little people.
They are abso-f'n-lutely for more guns. Every last one of them. They believe with all their stony* hearts that they need to be able to rise up against a tyrannical government that will "take" their "liberty" away. When I point out that what their preferred candidate (deSatan at the moment) wants to eliminate any protections I have (as a lesbian in an almost 40 year relationship who could get legally recognized married a scant 15 years ago) they tell me all sorts of "well, not you, but drag queens" trope.
As for how exactly they can justify tfg's legal status, it is a kind of mental gymnastics that I do not understand.
*I was going to say "hateful", but I had a conversation last week with another of my retired cohort where he demonstrated that "hate" was not the right word, at least for him. So I went with "stony".
Even tho its not to their benefit or even their safety - but then it doesnt sound like your "cohorts" are feeling like serving & protecting anything other than themselves. Frankly, why in the world the Repubs are so dam AFRAID of drag queens escapes me. I guess, tho, that's a bigger & louder "meme"? Which kind of hides the real actual crappy stuff they are doing & want to do.
Yes, Will, as economist JK Galbraith said about selfishness, conservatives are searching for a moral justification for it. They found it with Ayn Rand, Trump, DeSantis, Tucker, and the whole community of willful propagandists for oligarchy. There’s Racists for Oligarchy, Homophobes for Oligarchy, Christians for Oligarchy, Anti-Vaxxers for Oligarchy, Misogynists for Oligarchy, and Climate Deniers for Oligarchy, to name a few.
How many true believers are there, versus people who join a cult to see if it makes them feel better and they like the company? Go figure, people who for Obama twice, switching to Trump? Every election brings me anxiety because I don’t know if enough people can resist propaganda and a societal acceptance that greed is good and selfishness is a virtue.
I would just like a retort to those Republicans I know who say Trump did so much for us! What was that I ask? How do you measure anything he did? By the bottom line of your investment portfolio or retirement fund or your home equity? I believe it's all about the $$$$. What would you say Will?
The Trump tax cuts of 2017 were supposed to pay for themselves. Did they? No, they added to the national debt. The tax cuts for corporations were written to be permanent, but those for ordinary individuals will expire beginning in 2025.
Firstly, I bet that now the truth comes out about what *ucker Carlson really said about tfg, his (tucker's) fans will possibly think that some 'Democrat' (if not President Biden himself) created this 'blatant lie', as this miserable TV presenter mislead and misleads his audience whenever he opens his foul mouth.
Secondly, tfg's narcissist self-adulation and delusion of grandeur started when he announced his candidacy for president in 2015, paying hundreds of people to attend his appearance at *rump tower, continuing with vastly exaggerated numbers of attendees at his 'coronation' and many other made -up numbers of supporters, like the bots mentioned by HCR/PBS. When will he be indicted for the hundreds of crimes he has committed to Americans, with the exceptions of his henchmen and those who are still on his payroll?
From what I can see, *rump's self-adulation and self promotion goes way back, to at least when he pulled some slight of hand on the Wollman skating rink in the 80's and got a lot of stolen praise and celebrity for it; and no doubt long before. But yeah, if anything is untethered narcissism has only become more extreme over time. He is the Big Lie personified.
I mentioned this a couple days ago...Fulton DA Willis is safe for the time being. The bill says the following with regard to the establishment of the committee that would be given oversight over DAs:
"The commission shall commence by October 1, 2023, and the rules and regulations promulgated by such commission shall be established no later than April 1, 2024. 𝐍𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒. [Emphasis mine] The commission shall not receive complaint submissions regarding misconduct that occurred prior to July 1, 2023, unless such alleged misconduct is related to a continuous pattern of conduct that continues beyond that date."
It seems highly unlikely that any "complaints of misconduct" related to DA Willis could be used to remove her for indicting T***p. If Willis obtains an indictment of Trump in the next few months, she will have a year to prosecute the case before a complaint can be filed against her. (Her term expires in December '24.) Also, be reminded that Willis's removal would be highly unlikely if the special grand jury recommended the indictment, as seems to be the case at present.
The nation's founders never could have anticipated the plight that threatens us all — one political party deciding not to govern and instead working fervently to tear down the federal government and, in the process, dismantling democracy. And most of the party's supporters really don't understand the game in which they are mere useful pawns, a game that threatens to upend or even ruin their lives.
All the while, the big money interests pulling the strings to power this wrecking ball strive to become unfettered by government to amass riches beyond the billions they already control.
Over the last 15 years I have read much of John Adams writings and his two biographies, one by Catherine Drinker Bowen and the more well known one by McCollough (Bowen's is much better).
But, John Adams did anticipate the possibility our current plight, and went out of his way to invent an apparatus to overcome what we face.
1) In his voluminous "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" he outlines the many past governments that WERE corrupt and failed the people. Indeed, if high school classes ONLY, for four years of history, taught from JUST this book, students would understand the entire world today much better.
2) In Luke Mayville's writings about John Adams: "Fear of the Few".
3) The Massachusetts's Constitution, 1780, sets out true representative government with checks and balances that have held the corrupt at bay for 300 years.
John Adams is one of the founding fathers that withstands the time test when it comes to a sincerely thoughtful man attempting to do the right thing and having read stacks and stacks of works from the past to sort out what WAS right.
Adams invention of truly representative government in the form of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, seven years before the US constitution was modeled on that document, stands as a huge human achievement.
Lastly, but not least, he found and married a woman he stayed true to. Now, this seemingly irrelevant fact is often included in biographies BUT not directly related to his "founding father" status. But? I would argue that this one fact about Adams says it all. He sought what was fair to others, and, he was fair to others. Always.
Nor could they have even imagined, in their wildest most paranoid dreams, that elements of one party working in concert over a long term (two decades) to systematically pull down pillars of the best governing conception ever known and practiced, that should have been adequately protected by the checks and balances they wisely agreed to. The heathens have been hacking at those pillars for longer than we were consciously aware.
“This is the final battle,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday. “They know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it.”
Planning is already underway for 2025 should Mr. Trump win the White House again. Advisers have discussed reimposing a Trump-era executive order, known as Schedule F, that would give the president vast power to replace what have traditionally been civil service workers embedded across the federal bureaucracy.’ (NYTimes)
“I will totally obliterate the deep state,” he said, “I will fire …” he went on, before being interrupted by applause and “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” chants. “I will fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system like it has never been weaponized before.”
“This is the final battle,” “They know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it.”
There is no final battle in this war. Our loins are girded. We are a bloodied nation no man can split asunder. We stand watch to eternity. Fight us at your own peril. Go ahead be stupid. Good luck. We will care for your children. You on the other hand, not so much.
Biden is right; the Republicans have no budget. They have no platform. Their one and only goal is to make it impossible for Democrats to govern, paint them as failures, and dupe enough gerrymandered voters into voting the Republicans into power.
And it’s all coming apart at the seams. Fox News (Hah!) Channel is caught outright lying to its audience. CPAC this year was a bad joke that nobody went to. TFG is losing more of his mojo every day inspiring primary challenges that are likely to succeed. His diehard MAGA core will stick with him even as the jail cell door clangs shut guaranteeing a split Republican vote in 2024. The new radical wing of the Republican Party suffers from almost daily foot-in-mouth disease. (Memo to Lauren Boebart , MTG, et al; best leave Pete Buttigieg alone. He’s smarter than all of you put together and he bites back.)
The Republican Party stumbles and crumbles toward the 2024 elections making Democrats look more and more like the adults in the room.
Can't wait for the upcoming press conference where a bunch of Repubs spend an hour angrily pointing at a giant pie chart propped up on an easel, except the chart is just a solid circle that says "MONEY!"
At least the grand part is way long gone. With their embrace of Confederate Wannabee unregulated militias, they are, pretty thoroughly, "The Party of Anti-Lincoln".
The GOP's willingness to burn down the house because they don't like the curtains would absolutely become a generational problem.
It amazes me that the GOP is willing to wear this as their answer to.....what exactly? Is this their familiar go to, "owning the Libs" ?
I was surprised at McConnells' response to the release of the videos to FOX "News". I figured he would be more of the "if I ignore it, they can't blame me stance" kind of guy.
The Democrats need to keep up the beat down of the MAGAS on their self destruction tour.
Republican leadership is obliged to keep casting the same spells over and over to keep their base in line. Now that it's all lies, all the time, is that a superpower or a vulnerability? I think it's both. We've seen how big lies can push societies over the edge; but it also keeps getting harder to maintain lie, after lie, after lie, especially with their opposition is free to run interference. They already sound shaky. Perhaps one well-place thoroughly concerted push? Even a Turtle can burp.
Good to see Pres. Biden speaking out and making his case. But he should be doing it not only in the NYT, but also in all the medium-sized and small town papers and media around the country. Get all his people and Democrats everywhere out into the country and talking up his program. Not everyone reads the NYT or WAPO. Thank you, Heather, for all you do.
Alternatively, all the small and medium-sized papers could just... you know.... cover what he is saying. Unprompted. Under the umbrella of... you know... news. He is, after all... you know... the president. Seems like his positions on major issues might be worth informing people about. If informing people is still even vaugely their business model.
I would say it’s quite clear that small and medium-sized newspapers (owned by majority conservative corporations) are simply in the business of business. Those words between paid advertisements? Fluff and filler. Veneer over plywood.
And not even pretty veneer at that. My formerly wonderful local paper (the Eugene Register Guard) is now a Gannett piece of carp. They got rid of "letters to the editor" because it was listed as the main reason people cancelled their subscriptions (or so they said). Now, there's not even an op-ed page except on Sunday.
"The Republican Party is in its current chaos in part because it has been boxed in by the former president. Trump’s base has forced party leaders to take impossible extremists stands like, for example, a showdown over the debt ceiling. New materials released tonight in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the Fox News Network confirm that Fox News Channel executives and hosts did not believe that Trump won the election in 2020, although they continued to push that lie on their channel to hold Trump viewers."
When will this end?! The repub party seems intent on ruining America. I honestly don't feel like there are ANY reasonable/rational r's in office at the moment. Some of them make reasonable/conciliatory statements on occasion, but none of them have the fortitude to do what is right.
This is exhausting and it shouldn't be. :-( I can't wait for trump to go away...
"The repub party seems intent on ruining America."
It seems to me that their more fundamental agenda, certainly for their plutocratic sponsors, is domination, capture of absolute power. Ruination is mostly a side effect, although some of the more sociopathic get a charge from that too. The aim to be the bullies of the schoolyard, and to take all the good stuff for themselves.
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.” - John Adams
Where to start? That’s the question every day. As you, Professor, share the repub dirty tricks, obstruction and lies, it’s still reassuring to see you highlight the good policies and programs President Biden and the Democrats and a very few repubs are planning and implementing for the people. One concern is how much will repubs claim are their ideas or conversely bash the proposals and bills. One day at a time. In the mean time, repubs continue to push their agenda against women, making the abortion pills harder to access. And Walgreens is helping them out by planning to drop these pills in states where repubs threaten legal action. But here’s good news: In a Tweet yesterday Gov. Newsom wrote “California won’t be doing business with @Walgreens-or any other company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk.” And included a link to the news coverage. It’s time for Democrats and the Public to pushback on the destructive and biased repub actions and policies that are blatantly against women. Boycott businesses that cave to repub threats. “Walgreens and mifepristone: Abortion pill move leads California to cut ties…”https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161590750/california-walgreens-mifepristone-abortion-pill
I've already signed petitions to boycott Walgreens, and one of the first was called by Michael Moore a couple days ago. Also furnished a letter to their CEO informing him I'm not patronizing his stores. Those who want to actually do something need not even sign a petition. Being supportive is easy. Just don't shop there, no matter what state that you live in. No need to tell anyone, march and risk being beaten by rogue cops, or ask anyone's permission. Just don't shop there. Walgreen's and their stockholders will feel it, and so will the jackass attorney generals who pressed the chain into doing something so damaging and intrusive.
My local pharmacy used to be associated with a regional chain of stores called "BiMart". Locally owned and operated, there are a "membership" store (I got my BiMart card when I was 18 for $2; the price is now $5, and I believe they waive the fee if the applicant is disabled or on food stamps).
Governor Brown (D Oregon) signed some bill that had the disastrous effect of most of the pharmacies having to close; it was based on a corporate tax plan that harmed the pharmacy operations, which were not as profitable as the other parts of the corporation). They transferred all the pharmacy operations to Walgreens. It has been a fiasco since then, frankly. This action by Walgreens is the final straw, and I will no longer support the pharmacy there. The letter will go out today explaining just why I am not going to patronize Walgreen's in any way, shape, or form.
Walgreen’s ownership are a bunch of wusses pretending they are intimidated by, e.g., DeSantis telling them no mailing any “woke” drugs..prescription or not. They are fully on board with Handmaid’s Tale.
Salud, Ally, my fierce friend.
ps tell your law enforcement friends that trump violence is a far f*cking cry from law enforcement and community policing.
Woke drugs?! I wonder what’s in the medicine cabinets and on the bookshelves of these holy elected officials and their followers. The anti-WOKE movement is nothing but a cover for every ISM that discriminates and controls people, especially women, people of color, non-Christians and children. Racial and Social Justice are foundational. Social Justice issues like Abortion and Medicine, Voting, Education and Libraries and Books, now are examples that are often controversial Instead of seen as rights. “The 1619 Project” by Nicole Hannah-Jones is a classic example and one of the first “woke” books to be banned in many southern states, including some colleges. Instead it should be required reading and I highly recommend it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project
For the ones still talking to me, I do that on a somewhat regular basis.
Salud. I'm planning my pre- Saint Patrick's Day menus and will be practicing Shepherd's Pie tonight. I believe I will raise a glass of Irish whiskey for a toast as I do so.
An addition to your Sheperd's pie recipe would be to add some Kerrygold Cheddar to the mashed potatoes. Cheddar in mashed potatoes is a wonderful thing. Here's a link for Guiness Bread w/Molasses recipe. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/guinness_bread_with_molasses/
I did that; it was my Mom’s “secret ingredient” for her version of the pie. Next up for this weekend: Guinness Stew. I’m also brining a brisket for corned beef.
Ed Nuhfer: It would be very instructive to learn what other businesses Walgreens owns. For instance, I don't live anywhere near a "Walgreens", but there is a Walmart in this city, easily accessible. I hate going there, and only do so under some duress! -- buying only what I would have to search for (well out of my way) in several elsewheres.
Here's a partial answer to my question (thanks to Mrs. Google): "Walmart Canada is a Canadian retail corporation and the subsidiary of U.S.-based multinational retail conglomerate Walmart. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, it was founded on March 17, 1994, with the purchase of the Woolco Canada chain from the F. W. Woolworth Company."
It is complicated. Walgreen's bought out all the CVS store locations in my state, replaced a bunch with Walgreen's stores but the CVS moved into Target's store locations and operates their pharmacies there now..
If the FTC allows Kroger and Albertsons to merge, you'll see a monopoly of the food chain like you have never seen before in anything. One company will end up owning a huge number of big name stores that you probably thought were competitors. They are not. Sadly, one has to go to independent news sites beyond HCR's to learn about other aspects of government not serving the people. Mainstream corporate media isn't doing it and we can't expect her to do everything. No one does a better job staying up to date on the special areas she does address.
Thanks so much, Ed, for the info. "Complicated" is an understatement, it seems. Since I'm a dual citizen, living in Nova Scotia since 1987, I keep up politically as carefully as I can (HCR, MSNBC, PBS, Wapo, NYT, and links that come across my Factbook "desk" from interesting and diligent friends), but it's a lot to handle. The business hairballs are above my pay grade, I'm afraid, unless it's really big news (Twitter) and hits MSM in a major way. HCR has the treasured ability to put things succinctly and interestingly.
Wow. Kudos to you for keeping up! Some of my best friends from CA now live in Newfoundland. All the photos they send back make me want to go there. For a video broadcast resource that goes much broader than HRC and covers many issues she cannot, try Breaking Points. They broadcast regularly through YouTube and their videos are indexed so you don't need to waste time on issues of no interest.
Michael Moore shared copies of the threatening letters that attorneys general sent to Walgreens, warning them not to allow mail order sales of mifepristone. They are truly despicable. I found it interesting that one of the AGs is from Kansas, the state where voters rejected a ballot measure that would have removed protections for abortion rights from the state constitution.
Check to see if there's a Costco in your area. It's a membership "warehouse" store with pharmacy. http://costco.com Here's the link to their Pharmacy page.
Costco began in the San Diego area as the Price Club, founded by Sol Price (a local entrepreneur and philanthropist) and has stores internationally.
Before recommending Costco to all of you, I looked at their Company Information page to get an idea of how widespread the Costco stores may be before recommending and was tickled to read this: "The company's first location, opened in 1976 under the Price Club name, was in a converted airplane hangar on Morena Boulevard in San Diego." I shopped there and had no idea. But it *was* a huge and cavernous metal box!
Costco is membership owned which I like. Its stores are also worldwide and several websites describe it as one of the most ethical retailers, with sustainable practices. A model for retail. It’s not Amazon!!!https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/the-costco-model
Thanks, Irenie. Unfortunately, relative to how little I buy at CVS vs. $60 annual membership for Costco plus the drive to the nearest Costco, I can't afford to make a change. I doubt I spend $60/yr at CVS and Kaiser is my pharmacy.
Anyone know how Kaiser is addressing the Mifepristone issue? Not that I'm going to drop Kaiser....
Judith, that’s a good question. I have Kaiser Northern California, too. Let’s find out. They are significant and there is the question of other insurers also. I know what you mean about the Costco membership cost and the savings. My credit card bonus pays for it. And a friend shops for me unless I buy online.
There are all kinds of Costco jokes on the web about like going to Costco for something like a box of Kleenex and coming home with three paper mill factories in your truck. :)
I have a friend who visits here from Mexico and loves going there as almost a recreational experience. For some reason, I just never have gone, but with your recommendation I now will. There is one not far away and one under construction in my area. Amazing what a jostling from an email conversation will produce. Thanks, Judith!
Those jokes have more than a grain of truth. Back before Price Club became Costco, I had a membership (early 1980s), I remember succumbing to some of the great deals for things I hadn't gone there shopping for.
Glad to know I've added something practical to the conversation.
Watching the Republicans bicker, squabble, and cast shade on anything the Dems and Biden do has been somewhat agonizing as i wait for the other shoe to drop! Caught in so many blatant lies the Republicans still are shrill enough to keep the attention of the MSM away from matters of substance. I am so eager for the cult of Trump and all who have acquiesced to it to be sent packing by voters.
It's shocking to see the private comments of the Fox opinion hosts expressing the same feelings most of America has for Trump. All this time I thought they were all best buddies. It was also astounding to hear Rupert Murdoch say something to the effect of being afraid to cross Trump. They are but mortals.
And he must have been a confidential source for the FBI/CIA or something to know he’s untouchable. It’s the only way to explain the teflon-quality of his actions. “Something” always gets in the way of holding him accountable. Always. Crack that code-of-silence and you get a lot explained.
It is hard to believe that Republicans will fare well in the 2024 elections. There’s no more platform, there’s no more message of hope for a better life, there’s only hate. The only places I see Trump signs and flags are on the richest homes and the poorest shacks.
With that said, it is important to note that when reports of bots on social media amplify the MAGA Republican base, American voters mustn’t get discouraged. DEMOCRATS ARE THE NEW SILENT MAJORITY! There are plenty more of us, or else why would we ever win at all? It’s time Democrats stand and be proud of what we stand for - a society that is strong, compassionate, and fair to all - in the law and in taxation.
EDIT: I offer this suggestion to all who spend their time on social media. It’s time for Dems to fight back. I’m not saying that you should engage the bots or the memes that are so crowded with comments. Rather, you should go after political pages - the House Oversight Committee or the House Republicans pages and start asking for the budget. Also if you have a Republican rep, ask him/her on their page - where’s the budget? They are the weak links, not the general public.
Thank you, Heather ,for making me hope that we are approaching a point where the mendacity and lies of the Republicans are no longer going to be able to be ignored by a large enough majority of Americans to get us back on safe ground. I am not hoping to see any of the MAGAts change but there will no longer be any way an independent can support the Republicans.
Big big posters and billboards should be put up in every shithole state that has Repub governors, congresspeople, and senators. Those will get their attention!
I agree, Marlene. Billboards, billboards, billboards. Paper the red states. But, please, make them the old fashioned kind - not the electronic ones that change messages before you can absorb them, especially when you’re traveling at 65MPH.
Some, like my dad, get NYT articles about it from me. I can’t control whether or not he reads them. I never get a comment from him about them, so I expect his reading them is as likely as me reading an opinion piece for the WSJ.
I don't know how you do this every night, Heather, but thank you. I had a 14 hour day, and I am now able to read your Letter and know both what has transpired and its contextualized importance. I am so much better informed than I was when I had no source for threading the key ideas together, and that feels vital. Now to go preorder your new book!! (Congratulations!)
INDIVISIBLE!
'We have a plan to flip the House.'
'We just announced our plan to retake the House on Maddow: We’re focusing on The Unrepresentatives – the 18 Republicans from Biden 2020 districts – to expose their promotion of the MAGA agenda, hold them accountable and defeat them in 2024. Join us.'
https://www.indivisible.org/
'DEFEAT MAGA. SAVE DEMOCRACY.'
'Right now, we are facing the interlocking catastrophes of a rigged democracy, global pandemic, unimaginable and growing wealth inequality, racial injustice, and the escalating impacts of the climate crisis. We’re fighting back. People like you are leading local Indivisible groups in every single state. Be part of history—join the Indivisible movement.'
https://www.indivisible.org/
Dear Heather, I know you've been working on this all day and it is past midnight where you live. Thank you for keeping at this day after day for all of us who read you religiously and thank you for weaving such convoluted happenings into the two page, single spaced document that I copy, paste and format so I can take it to bed and read it without my computer. Bless your heart! Bless your knowledge! Bless your commitments! I'm always happy too when you take a night off.
Plus an excellent hour-long Q&A educational segment on Facebook.
I don't go to Facebook... are they anywhere else?
she does a podcast weekly it seems.."Now & Then"
thanks for this info!!
Wow! I had no idea. Thanks so much!
If you have Spotify, it is there live plus all previous podcasts there. It’s listed as Now and Then, Cafe Hour
Yes! This is huge because she has such a large audience. A terrific public service
Can you imagine when she (if) suggests how we might mobilize if (god forbid) we had to?!
I've had trouble keeping track of HCR's lectures on Facebook. Is there a set time?
I know once she was back teaching her schedule changed...
thanks
I usually watch it later instead of live. Heather is always there for us!
Thank God! Can you imagine where we would be without her?! I'm so grateful for her and her knowledge and wisdom. I'm sure I would be inconsolable and so depressed... more than I am....
She will usually post a couple hours beforehand. I also go watch after the fact, since I seem to have a battery of responsibilities at the times she gives them live.
Sometimes I get confused, there are several pages with her name on them. Can you please tell me what the 'name' her lectures are on...?
Thanks!
https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson
Thanks!
It used to be set but since she has gone back to teaching, the book and her new marriage to Buddy it has been impossible. Currently she tries to keep us informed. Last night while she was in NYC....she gave the chat at 5pm. However, you can always see the video as soon as she is finished. I found it last night on her Facebook page. It was great! I hope you can pull it up!
Thanks! As soon as my husband is 'off the clock' we're going to watch it!
Her politics chat is at 7 ET on Tuesday.
Yesterday it was at 5.
Thank you!
I just see the announcement on face book after she has gone live. I usually watch the recording. I try not to visit her FB page. I find very few FB political sites a safe space. Been blocking too many trolls and bots on HCRs, so I usually just watch her recording after it is up and posted.
I understand what you mean about FB, but for me HCR is worth the risk.
My most educational political site on FB is Jesse Kumin's Best Democracy site. He does a lot to educate people on things few know about, such as proportional representation and how democracy gets subverted in single member districts and gerrymandering is so effective at stifling democracy when there are only two cartel parties. That's more a numeracy awareness thing than a party critique. People on that site are there to share and learn, and it's non-partisan. It's also well monitored too, so partisan trolls trying to divide people and get them fighting don't last long.
If Heather didn't have this email site, I might go on FB for it for a while, but I ended up leaving Bernie Sanders' sites when they got trolled by partisan stooges. Life's too short to waste time with sites polluted by them. I find this email site the higher quality of the two as result of the people who frequent it.
Thank you for that.
me too!
There used to be set times, but that's variable now that she's back to teaching.
Me too but I think it is still on Tuesday afternoons.
Thank you! And does she still do the Thursday lecture?
She does those live hour-long Facebook segments twice a week.
Plus her Tuesday podcasts with Joanne Freeman: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/now-then/id1567665859
Plus she just finished her latest book.
Plus she just resumed teaching after her sabbatical last year.
I just can't do Facebook.
Neither can I
When does Heather sleep?
I started typing up one of my trademark rants, then I realized I was writing a very similar rant to one of my recently published rants, so I just went and tracked down that one and am reposting it, because it looks like it got stuck way down in its section on the original date, and I'm lazy and want sleep.
You know what gets me going? The trope the phony debt hawks (everyone from Joe Manchin on right) trot out to frame their stinginess as compassion: "We just can't leave this mountain of debt to the next generation." How solemnly delivered these words always are. How eminently reasonable the speaker of them always imagines themselves. They always - always - follow this up with how we need to make some "hard choices" to "be responsible."
Except the right choice isn't hard to see. There are only two choices: cut programs, or raise revenue.
DEAR SWEET GOSH AND HIS SON JEEPERS... ****RAISE REVENUE!!!!!****
Almost every domestic program currently in place suffers from the problems of underfunding and redundant red tape, not superfluousness. It's not just SS & Medicare; almost every domestic program is there for a clearly identified reason, took a heck of a lot of effort to establish, and would be missed by a lot of suddenly sad and angry people if it went away, even if they didn't know it existed prior to it going away. The Repubs - cowards all, really - know this. When it comes time to cut, they can't seem to face the potential consequences. But the only alternative to piling on more debt is unthinkable to them.
RAISE REVENUE.
You care about what you're leaving to future generations? Ask THEM what they think about the issue, why dontcha? I'm younger than almost every member of Congress, so let me briefly appoint myself spokesperson. Or actually, I don't have to. We already collectively spoke our opinion through our votes last election, and the one before that, and the one before that. Our opinion is that we want more programs, not fewer, we want them to be more robust and directly effective, and we want you to do this while ALSO lowering the debt by doing the only obviously remaining option:
RAISE REVENUE.
Preferably on people who could dance gleefully around a bonfire of Ben Franklins bills each night and never burn enough to have to part with their planet-ruining jet. But, hey, I'll pitch in too. Whatever.
But if you refuse to drop the horsesh!t that to RAISE REVENUE is some kind of sacrilege, kindly shut your condescending mouth, because we all know who is "responsible" for this debt, and it is you and your rich corporate friends.
In the name of dear sweet Yaweh, Allah, Vishnu, and Buddah, and whatever moon wizard they still pray to in some corner of the Amazon, RAISE REVENUE READ MY NIKES THEY SAY "JUST DO IT" I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU
Thank goodness President Biden gets this and is finding ways to communicate it clearly. I intend to help him do so. We all should.
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Good night.
I like your imagery of the Franklin bonfire, Will. Nice delivery. If I may make a suggestion, employ that agile CPU of yours to quantify this further. For example, how many thousand years would it take Elon Musk to burn a stack of wadded up fifties (or is it C notes - been a long time since I've seen one) twelve feet high, every night, to reduce his estimated net worth by one percent, assuming no accrued interest, or would he ever cut into his stash at today's T-bill interest rate? I'd like to know.
Doing such an exercise involving the wealth of Mr. Musk is, I fear, impossible. He is so erratic that he could go from owning Jupiter on Tuesday to toting a bindle by Thursday. Hard to work with anything other than imaginary numbers in this context.
Thanks for the new word: BINDLE, a bag, sack or carrying device stereo, typically used by the commonly American subculture of hobos.
I just looked “Bindle” up too. Love the vocabulary lessons. I can picture E Musk going bankrupt and carrying his possessions out of his office in a bindle. Deposed.
Great post! Thanks for the Belly Laugh this morning. I'll need to clean up the mess of coffee I just blew out on my keyboard, Thank you very much.
C-notes. I don't see them often either but they make an impression when you wave them around before burning them.
A note of caution, however, the fumes may be toxic due to the ink and some of the anti-counterfeiting measures that are part of each bill.
Love your comment about possible toxic fumes. But, it just flashed on me where 'C-note' has to have originated - Roman numeral C for 100. Never gave it a thought before!
Ha!
Thank you, Will. Sure wish I could share with others your remarkable and refreshing, clarifying and humorous observations of our reality. Sleep well. Good night.
Clicking on one heart seems hardly sufficient to express my approval for this “rant”, young Will. You are wise beyond your years. I eagerly anticipate each of your posts.
Bravo for being "lazy", Will! You drove the point home masterfully, BUT it then begs the question: "WHY are Republicans so averse to raising said revenue??" It seems such a no-brainer on the face of it. In another post from a little while back you (I think it was you) went off on what seems to comprise the philosophical reasons Republicans have for refusing to fund government programs. (I remember cheering every sentence...) It perfectly encapsulated the absolute basics of their belief-system, points which HCR has alluded to in their historical perspective in earlier Letters. "Hand-outs", their perception of government aid, smack of their rather narrow-minded, simplistic definition of "socialism". (I lived under European-style democratic socialism for 18 years, thank you, and believe me, it doesn't at all bear any resemblance to what they seem to think it is.) I think if we, Democrats, Progressives, the President, etc. etc. can keep banging on about raising revenue to fund the government, MAYBE the message will start to reach some of them. Slow and steady wins the race...
Just keep in mind that when there are substantial "handouts", they are first in line...think about the pandemic payments and how much of it went to people who didn't need it or maybe think about the fraudster Rick Scott.
Excellent follow up.
Good point. We need to lead with those economic messages/solutions and the note how the social issue we hold near and dear to our hearts and lead with will be solved or addressed. Counter on economics and tag in the values issues we are all about.
Never seen that put so simply and oh SO true!
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Salud, Will.
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Oh my, what an excellent post. Yes, raise revenue. And stop helping those who don't need help. I did smile, but I am tired of all the complaining all the while the party of death has no plan. Also the people who complain are the first in line when there is a significant hand out to be had.
Will, this is *brilliant*. (And though mirrors my own thinking, you've expressed it far better than I ever could.)
Same, Doug. Will does have a way with words.
I'm not usually a fan of reruns Will but, in this case, I'm glad you gave in and reposted because I missed it the first time out. With your permission, I'll copy and post this on my Substack letter because it's almost exactly what needs to be said and loudly spread around.
Will, please SHARE THIS beyond the confines of this medium. Your voice is powerful and it needs to be heard. Share it LOUD, share it PROUD, share it EVERYWHERE you can think of that might have effect!
Well said and well reiterated again, Will, Thanks for the lovely Rant. I Like It!
And do so by collecting all taxes due ... especially from those who got in the habit of "make the feds tell me the deductions are not permitted" mindset. You know who you are, yee who worship at the feet of Trump business practices.
Brilliant. Thanks, Will.
All I can say is wow. Using a phrase from many years ago ,you hit the ball out of the park.
May I share your post in other online groups?
Sure
Thank you!
“Speaking of Trump’s presidency, Tucker wrote: ‘We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.’”
What do you bet most Republicans who say they like Trump’s achievements secretly agree? But Trump’s cult must be “respected.”
Then there was HCR’s mention of the PBS report on thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of pro-Trump bots launched likely within this country to make Trump seem more popular than he really is. (And disparage Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.)
"What do you bet most Republicans who say they like Trump’s achievements secretly agree?"
Uh, absolutely nothing, because I don't have enough money to waste on such a guaranteed loss. The minions really do think he's the greatest; they have a whole different definition of "achievement." Liberals consider achievements to be the implementation of policies that further social and economic well-being, while the MAGAts consider an achievement to be any instance of the people they hate being suitably bullied. Working in a public place prior to 2020, I can testify to overhearing more than one conversation among tfg supporters commiserating very confidently over all he is accomplishing, how great everything is he represents, how the media just keeps lying about how popular he is, and how there is no way he was not winning again unless those Democrats find a way to steal it. This is in the Bay Area, mind you, and these folks rarely dressed the part. I genuinely was taken aback in '21 at how few rank-and-file Dems realized how primed rank-and-file Repubs were for the big lie, the basis of which they had already adopted way before the fact.
Yes, the Hatred Barfers at Fox see tfg as a disaster, but - again - not in the same way liberals do. We see him as a disaster for *the country*, because that is what we care about. The Hate Barfers see him as a disaster for *themselves*, because that is what they care about. They are willful propagandists for the oligarchy, and tfg's evil is so over-the-top obvious that as long as he is their mascot, the majority of voters will stay repulsed and keep voting in the other party, the members of whom are not too keen on the oligarchy the Hate Barfers have sworn their allegeince to. Sucks for them. Boo hoo.
Living just outside a small, red town, in a Southern ruby red state, I can attest to the conversations Wil speaks of, since I hear them around me here - in the grocery store, at the pharmacy, etc. These people must have the IQ of sheetrock!
Wait, wait! Sheetrock is stable, useful and necessary. Surely something like that doesn't deserve to be maligned by comparing it to the MAGA base. Other than that observation I completely agree.😄
LOL....the IQ of sheetrock.
It is frustrating to face a wall of what feels like ignorance and ego...it seems the cry sounds like "What about me?" ...and that it's the whole picture....when the web that connects all is thinking in terms of "us".
Maybe one way is to make the web visible..literally, draw it out, to see and show what connects to what....
Excellent analysis, Will. I wholeheartedly agree. I know some cultists and they don’t give a damn about policy. I doubt some even know what that means. They care about “owning the libs”, and saving their guns - even though not a single one can name any person who ever actually took their guns - making sure schools don’t teach anything bad about whites people, ad nauseum. They “care” on a very different level.
The Salem Keizer school district revealed their new pick of superintendent last night and the first comment on one post included the word woke. Then this toad got some negative response and claimed his only interest was the students and the staff since she has not had teaching or principal experience. I call bull pucky. She is clearly inclusive and dear me, we can't have that. She will be coming for a week each month before takes over this summer to visit classrooms and staff as she is aware she needs to see classrooms and what happens in buildings. I wish her well as the local MAGAs are already dissing her.
Right, and the MAGAs sure don't understand the economy and the implications if the U.S. fails to pay its bills.
I very much enjoy the passion of your writing - its exuberance of expression contributes deeply to the stirring of thought and feeling in other readers, myself included. Thank you Will.
In reading this train of comments (your first and second and those that follow), I feel, perhaps wrongly, note of condescension towards Trump’s followers and a sense of mystification towards Trump that he could accrue so many so loyal. Those emotions flow through me as well until I am finally stop and look at reality. Then it becomes deeply problematic.
1.
Trump is a political genius of the highest, yet most malign order. We must accept that he has a mental tuning fork of the most sublime - he hits with almost monotonous regularity notes at the exact pitch his listeners want to hear. To us it is a single note only - a curdling tone poem of grievance. But his viewers hear many shades in it and generally the shading fits the moment exactly. Thus he holds them. He will be remembered as a force for evil such as America has never produced. He should long ago have been cut down, wrapped in orange and bundled off the stage. But his hold is so fierce that those charge with enforcing the law do so with a timidity that is despicable. It is beyond extraordinary to me that he may/will run in 2024, with the implicit sanction of the Department of Justice. It seems that all of America is subconsciously conspiring to bring this match closer and closer to the barrel of gasoline just to see what will result from such an anarchic explosion. This is led by Trump’s followers of course, but there are millions of other Americans who share this national tendency to at least watch the country edging towards some new precipice. The American way is to wriggle out at the last second in some Houdini-esque manner, so that an epic national cataclysm is averted. But tripping merrily up to the edge as former President’s diehards do, or merely following behind in numb bewilderment marked by spasms of fear, as many Democrats are so inclined, can only happen so often before there is a grievous miscalculation.
We see it now in miniature with the debt ceiling crisis. This is being followed as avidly as most Americans do climate change. “Oh yeah, its out there, but not today. Why lose sleep over it?” One of the classic American stock characters in comedy is Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann - you will remember his catchphrase as “What? Me worry?”
Of course on a much bigger level, the 2024 election looms. “But it feels so far off...I won’t lose sleep over it tonight.”
It only takes one bad slip and everything unravels.
2.
A word about Trump’s followers. They are (mostly) not morons. They have a long-nourished deep seated antipathy to Washington, the East in general and California. They are the biggest victims of the scourge of inequality and the inexorable automation of work. Many are poor. Many have suffered physical injuries from their work. Millions know people who have died from deaths of despair - suicide, alcoholism, or drugs. As a class they had given up hope. I mentioned yesterday that the ruling philosophy, inevitable in such circumstances, is “Fuck it! What worse can happen”? They’ve been screwed as a class. They’d given up on America and the rest of us never realized. And then TFG came along and validated their every disappointment and nourished what for them is a cathartic hatred.
They are, to my amazement, still behind him today. This alone gives them a pent-up potency that we should fear.
---
Of course Trump appears ludicrous and desperate and dumb and pathetic - to us. But not to them. And not only does he have his base, he has manœuvred the GOP into surrendering the reins of party power to him. He just has to stay out of jail.
And here is Professor Cox Richardson’s group - a large one, acquired through her (also very American) combination of genius, unflagging effort, perspicacity and loyalty. She is a national treasure.
This group is not marching in lockstep. It is screaming every day. It is activist. It is in it for the long haul. You represent the cream of America - but cream has a best by date and it is rapidly approaching.
In this almost unimaginable scene, the Americans as a whole are not at all similar to the French. Right now that country is locked in a ferocious struggle - whether or not the age of their version of Old Age Security will be raised - to 64, as Macron wants, by two years. It seems kind of paltry. But French citizens, bolstered by their powerful unions are intent on shutting down the country. Today 1.2 million are marching. It’s not a weekend. Flights to France are being cancelled because workers have closed airports. It is the *sixth* time of the year that there has been a day of national strike. That’s called pressure.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/07/nationwide-strikes-in-france-over-plan-to-raise-pension-age-to-64
I wish America had some of this “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.” spirit.
What would happen if, day after day after day, the Department of Justice was ringed by thousands of protesters, calling for Trump’s indictment or Garland’s metaphoric head on a platter?
I know I’m preaching to the fully converted. I regret that, but I am sick, sick, sick of this slow march to the gallows. There will be pain.
I’ve gone way over any reasonable word count and will, in response, refrain from commenting for a few days. You are an icon of America at its best.
Eric, I can't say that I agree with all you say here, but it's nice to have some substance to grab my mind and give it a work-out for a change, instead of reading post after post of similar non-observations of nothing much at all- or stuff that has been gone over and over and over. Thanks. Going to fix lunch and spend some time pondering what you wrote, to see what my mind comes up with (and I'm pretty sure it will come up with something, because there are just enough jagged edges that strike me as possibly misfit pieces of the puzzle. Maybe I'll post, but today is another busy day for me as I prepare my house for something exciting (heat pumps!).
Yesterday my amazing wood guy brought me a cord of dry firewood, just in time, it appears: we are in for another cold spell, and right now the wood is my source of heat. I spent yesterday eve cleaning up the pile (it won't get stacked until proper spring arrives) and covering it with a large tarp, weighted against the wind. Suspect that once I eat lunch, and take care of the other tasks, I'll be done for the day. So maybe I'll just repeat thanks, and go do that.
Would love a comment. I sometimes feel that there are some dubious points in my comments. But so many comments are simply earnest agreement - sincerely felt no doubt - that I feel the conversation needs a contrarian kick.
Then I wonder if I’m trying to push round pegs into square holes.
Good luck with your heating! :)
Time for no more cold weather.
Food for thought, especially about condescension. Caution heard.
Hate Barfers--spot on description! I am stealing this....
I'd always used "hate spewers" but I kinda like "hate barfers".
Hear Hear!
Will, there is so much support for tfg amongst my former work cohort in law enforcement that it makes me sick. I don't see any of them sporting MAGAt hats or the like, but they sure think he is pro- law enforcement so it is all golden.
Ally - I'm curious. Are they all for more guns & less regulations - which, I might add, makes them as unsafe as the rest of us folks?
Beats me what makes people think hes pro - law enforcement considering all the illegal activity hes done thruout his "business"??? career. Guess its like the rest of the Repubs - law enforcement is fantastic as long as its directed at the little people.
Walter Rhein has a way of putting this into words. He doesn't hold back:
https://aninjusticemag.com/we-dont-hate-you-because-you-re-white-we-hate-you-because-you-re-racist-71300b95a21d
They are abso-f'n-lutely for more guns. Every last one of them. They believe with all their stony* hearts that they need to be able to rise up against a tyrannical government that will "take" their "liberty" away. When I point out that what their preferred candidate (deSatan at the moment) wants to eliminate any protections I have (as a lesbian in an almost 40 year relationship who could get legally recognized married a scant 15 years ago) they tell me all sorts of "well, not you, but drag queens" trope.
As for how exactly they can justify tfg's legal status, it is a kind of mental gymnastics that I do not understand.
*I was going to say "hateful", but I had a conversation last week with another of my retired cohort where he demonstrated that "hate" was not the right word, at least for him. So I went with "stony".
Even tho its not to their benefit or even their safety - but then it doesnt sound like your "cohorts" are feeling like serving & protecting anything other than themselves. Frankly, why in the world the Repubs are so dam AFRAID of drag queens escapes me. I guess, tho, that's a bigger & louder "meme"? Which kind of hides the real actual crappy stuff they are doing & want to do.
Yes, Will, as economist JK Galbraith said about selfishness, conservatives are searching for a moral justification for it. They found it with Ayn Rand, Trump, DeSantis, Tucker, and the whole community of willful propagandists for oligarchy. There’s Racists for Oligarchy, Homophobes for Oligarchy, Christians for Oligarchy, Anti-Vaxxers for Oligarchy, Misogynists for Oligarchy, and Climate Deniers for Oligarchy, to name a few.
How many true believers are there, versus people who join a cult to see if it makes them feel better and they like the company? Go figure, people who for Obama twice, switching to Trump? Every election brings me anxiety because I don’t know if enough people can resist propaganda and a societal acceptance that greed is good and selfishness is a virtue.
"Conservatives are searching for a moral justification for selfishness". Thank you for posting this understanding.
I would just like a retort to those Republicans I know who say Trump did so much for us! What was that I ask? How do you measure anything he did? By the bottom line of your investment portfolio or retirement fund or your home equity? I believe it's all about the $$$$. What would you say Will?
3
The Trump tax cuts of 2017 were supposed to pay for themselves. Did they? No, they added to the national debt. The tax cuts for corporations were written to be permanent, but those for ordinary individuals will expire beginning in 2025.
I understand that Carol, but these Trumpolites don't see the whole picture.
Agreed. Is it blindness, or do they just have their eyes shut tight?
They are worried about their constituents and their votes.
Firstly, I bet that now the truth comes out about what *ucker Carlson really said about tfg, his (tucker's) fans will possibly think that some 'Democrat' (if not President Biden himself) created this 'blatant lie', as this miserable TV presenter mislead and misleads his audience whenever he opens his foul mouth.
Secondly, tfg's narcissist self-adulation and delusion of grandeur started when he announced his candidacy for president in 2015, paying hundreds of people to attend his appearance at *rump tower, continuing with vastly exaggerated numbers of attendees at his 'coronation' and many other made -up numbers of supporters, like the bots mentioned by HCR/PBS. When will he be indicted for the hundreds of crimes he has committed to Americans, with the exceptions of his henchmen and those who are still on his payroll?
From what I can see, *rump's self-adulation and self promotion goes way back, to at least when he pulled some slight of hand on the Wollman skating rink in the 80's and got a lot of stolen praise and celebrity for it; and no doubt long before. But yeah, if anything is untethered narcissism has only become more extreme over time. He is the Big Lie personified.
Truth! His shouting matches with Mayor Ed Koch kept him in the headlines.
He may not end up prosecuted in GA because of its new law to protect him.
I mentioned this a couple days ago...Fulton DA Willis is safe for the time being. The bill says the following with regard to the establishment of the committee that would be given oversight over DAs:
"The commission shall commence by October 1, 2023, and the rules and regulations promulgated by such commission shall be established no later than April 1, 2024. 𝐍𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒. [Emphasis mine] The commission shall not receive complaint submissions regarding misconduct that occurred prior to July 1, 2023, unless such alleged misconduct is related to a continuous pattern of conduct that continues beyond that date."
It seems highly unlikely that any "complaints of misconduct" related to DA Willis could be used to remove her for indicting T***p. If Willis obtains an indictment of Trump in the next few months, she will have a year to prosecute the case before a complaint can be filed against her. (Her term expires in December '24.) Also, be reminded that Willis's removal would be highly unlikely if the special grand jury recommended the indictment, as seems to be the case at present.
Thank you so much, Bruce. I needed to see this.
Only bots could love chump, the MAGAts are just cult zombies
I can just imagine voice-over’s at the end of trump commercials: “This ad was paid for by ‘Bots4Trump - a 501-3c organization”.
The nation's founders never could have anticipated the plight that threatens us all — one political party deciding not to govern and instead working fervently to tear down the federal government and, in the process, dismantling democracy. And most of the party's supporters really don't understand the game in which they are mere useful pawns, a game that threatens to upend or even ruin their lives.
All the while, the big money interests pulling the strings to power this wrecking ball strive to become unfettered by government to amass riches beyond the billions they already control.
Michael,
Over the last 15 years I have read much of John Adams writings and his two biographies, one by Catherine Drinker Bowen and the more well known one by McCollough (Bowen's is much better).
But, John Adams did anticipate the possibility our current plight, and went out of his way to invent an apparatus to overcome what we face.
1) In his voluminous "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" he outlines the many past governments that WERE corrupt and failed the people. Indeed, if high school classes ONLY, for four years of history, taught from JUST this book, students would understand the entire world today much better.
2) In Luke Mayville's writings about John Adams: "Fear of the Few".
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24540274
3) The Massachusetts's Constitution, 1780, sets out true representative government with checks and balances that have held the corrupt at bay for 300 years.
John Adams is one of the founding fathers that withstands the time test when it comes to a sincerely thoughtful man attempting to do the right thing and having read stacks and stacks of works from the past to sort out what WAS right.
Adams invention of truly representative government in the form of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, seven years before the US constitution was modeled on that document, stands as a huge human achievement.
Lastly, but not least, he found and married a woman he stayed true to. Now, this seemingly irrelevant fact is often included in biographies BUT not directly related to his "founding father" status. But? I would argue that this one fact about Adams says it all. He sought what was fair to others, and, he was fair to others. Always.
Yes. And if he would have gone one step further and “remembered the ladies” we would be better off.
Absolutely true.
But, no person is completely free to do everything they think should be done at various points in history.
Had John Adams added women to his MA constitution as voters, that Constitution would have been shut out by the people of that time.
John Adams would have remained unknown to everyone because? He would have been viewed as a heretic.
Thanks be to Abigail Adams for that quote… “Remember the ladies” she told him.
Wow Luke Mayville and John Adams -from this little red state we Thank you!
Fascinating. I would edit "Fear of the Few" to "Fear the Few." And add, "Defeat Them."
Sounds good to me Michael.
Nor could they have even imagined, in their wildest most paranoid dreams, that elements of one party working in concert over a long term (two decades) to systematically pull down pillars of the best governing conception ever known and practiced, that should have been adequately protected by the checks and balances they wisely agreed to. The heathens have been hacking at those pillars for longer than we were consciously aware.
“This is the final battle,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday. “They know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it.”
Planning is already underway for 2025 should Mr. Trump win the White House again. Advisers have discussed reimposing a Trump-era executive order, known as Schedule F, that would give the president vast power to replace what have traditionally been civil service workers embedded across the federal bureaucracy.’ (NYTimes)
“I will totally obliterate the deep state,” he said, “I will fire …” he went on, before being interrupted by applause and “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” chants. “I will fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system like it has never been weaponized before.”
“This is the final battle,” “They know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it.”
Terrifying.
I truly don’t understand why some blow this off as hyperbole.
It's quaint that the GOP for decades crowed about being the party of law and order.
There is no final battle in this war. Our loins are girded. We are a bloodied nation no man can split asunder. We stand watch to eternity. Fight us at your own peril. Go ahead be stupid. Good luck. We will care for your children. You on the other hand, not so much.
Deliberate and calculated
Yes. They are pawns who are receiving money from the super-rich so that they can soon become millionaires and billionaires.
Juust a quick quip: perhaps we could call them "mere useful prawns on the barby." we could call it a remark in "better taste".
That got a chuckle. Thankfully, no coffee spray.
Biden is right; the Republicans have no budget. They have no platform. Their one and only goal is to make it impossible for Democrats to govern, paint them as failures, and dupe enough gerrymandered voters into voting the Republicans into power.
And it’s all coming apart at the seams. Fox News (Hah!) Channel is caught outright lying to its audience. CPAC this year was a bad joke that nobody went to. TFG is losing more of his mojo every day inspiring primary challenges that are likely to succeed. His diehard MAGA core will stick with him even as the jail cell door clangs shut guaranteeing a split Republican vote in 2024. The new radical wing of the Republican Party suffers from almost daily foot-in-mouth disease. (Memo to Lauren Boebart , MTG, et al; best leave Pete Buttigieg alone. He’s smarter than all of you put together and he bites back.)
The Republican Party stumbles and crumbles toward the 2024 elections making Democrats look more and more like the adults in the room.
"It’s a circle he is unlikely to be able to square." Love that well known geometry analogy!
The speaker has painted himself in a corner and he is being outsmarted by Biden in such a beautiful way!
Beautiful indeed, but I don’t think that outsmarting Kevin McCarthy is a heavy lift, especially for a wily old pol like Biden.
Perhaps not, but I just love the way Biden does it
Me too.
👊 Me 3!!
Can't wait for the upcoming press conference where a bunch of Repubs spend an hour angrily pointing at a giant pie chart propped up on an easel, except the chart is just a solid circle that says "MONEY!"
Better yet, Have Katie Porter standing next to them with her white board explaining what they are doing and asking them questions about it :D
Ooh, YES!
I'd watch that!
Yes!
Ah, brings to mind Goemert’s infamous chart with strings to “prove “ Hilary was guilty re:Benghazi. Laughed till I cried at that one.
The "GOP" just doesn't add up.
The GOP no longer exists…
At least the grand part is way long gone. With their embrace of Confederate Wannabee unregulated militias, they are, pretty thoroughly, "The Party of Anti-Lincoln".
...or as we say down here in a land with a dearth of geometric-ians, "that dog won't hunt..."
Thank you Heather.
The GOP's willingness to burn down the house because they don't like the curtains would absolutely become a generational problem.
It amazes me that the GOP is willing to wear this as their answer to.....what exactly? Is this their familiar go to, "owning the Libs" ?
I was surprised at McConnells' response to the release of the videos to FOX "News". I figured he would be more of the "if I ignore it, they can't blame me stance" kind of guy.
The Democrats need to keep up the beat down of the MAGAS on their self destruction tour.
Be safe. Be well.
Republican leadership is obliged to keep casting the same spells over and over to keep their base in line. Now that it's all lies, all the time, is that a superpower or a vulnerability? I think it's both. We've seen how big lies can push societies over the edge; but it also keeps getting harder to maintain lie, after lie, after lie, especially with their opposition is free to run interference. They already sound shaky. Perhaps one well-place thoroughly concerted push? Even a Turtle can burp.
Nice metaphor, JL. I'm going to have to start using my "sippy cup" for coffee if this keeps up!!
Same, Rebekha. Also, coffee spray is hard to clean off the monitor.
Worse if it gets into the keyboard!
True that!!!
You as well, friend.
Do keep up the beat down , Dems.
Daily.
Salud, Linda.
🗽
Good to see Pres. Biden speaking out and making his case. But he should be doing it not only in the NYT, but also in all the medium-sized and small town papers and media around the country. Get all his people and Democrats everywhere out into the country and talking up his program. Not everyone reads the NYT or WAPO. Thank you, Heather, for all you do.
Alternatively, all the small and medium-sized papers could just... you know.... cover what he is saying. Unprompted. Under the umbrella of... you know... news. He is, after all... you know... the president. Seems like his positions on major issues might be worth informing people about. If informing people is still even vaugely their business model.
I would say it’s quite clear that small and medium-sized newspapers (owned by majority conservative corporations) are simply in the business of business. Those words between paid advertisements? Fluff and filler. Veneer over plywood.
And not even pretty veneer at that. My formerly wonderful local paper (the Eugene Register Guard) is now a Gannett piece of carp. They got rid of "letters to the editor" because it was listed as the main reason people cancelled their subscriptions (or so they said). Now, there's not even an op-ed page except on Sunday.
Definitely agree. Also AM radio. Here in Iowa that seems to be the "news source" for most rural folk.
If rank and file Dems don’t help, we are sunk. Yet my pot is empty.
"The Republican Party is in its current chaos in part because it has been boxed in by the former president. Trump’s base has forced party leaders to take impossible extremists stands like, for example, a showdown over the debt ceiling. New materials released tonight in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against the Fox News Network confirm that Fox News Channel executives and hosts did not believe that Trump won the election in 2020, although they continued to push that lie on their channel to hold Trump viewers."
When will this end?! The repub party seems intent on ruining America. I honestly don't feel like there are ANY reasonable/rational r's in office at the moment. Some of them make reasonable/conciliatory statements on occasion, but none of them have the fortitude to do what is right.
This is exhausting and it shouldn't be. :-( I can't wait for trump to go away...
"The repub party seems intent on ruining America."
It seems to me that their more fundamental agenda, certainly for their plutocratic sponsors, is domination, capture of absolute power. Ruination is mostly a side effect, although some of the more sociopathic get a charge from that too. The aim to be the bullies of the schoolyard, and to take all the good stuff for themselves.
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.” - John Adams
John knew our cretins
Don‘t hold your breath
Where to start? That’s the question every day. As you, Professor, share the repub dirty tricks, obstruction and lies, it’s still reassuring to see you highlight the good policies and programs President Biden and the Democrats and a very few repubs are planning and implementing for the people. One concern is how much will repubs claim are their ideas or conversely bash the proposals and bills. One day at a time. In the mean time, repubs continue to push their agenda against women, making the abortion pills harder to access. And Walgreens is helping them out by planning to drop these pills in states where repubs threaten legal action. But here’s good news: In a Tweet yesterday Gov. Newsom wrote “California won’t be doing business with @Walgreens-or any other company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk.” And included a link to the news coverage. It’s time for Democrats and the Public to pushback on the destructive and biased repub actions and policies that are blatantly against women. Boycott businesses that cave to repub threats. “Walgreens and mifepristone: Abortion pill move leads California to cut ties…”https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161590750/california-walgreens-mifepristone-abortion-pill
I've already signed petitions to boycott Walgreens, and one of the first was called by Michael Moore a couple days ago. Also furnished a letter to their CEO informing him I'm not patronizing his stores. Those who want to actually do something need not even sign a petition. Being supportive is easy. Just don't shop there, no matter what state that you live in. No need to tell anyone, march and risk being beaten by rogue cops, or ask anyone's permission. Just don't shop there. Walgreen's and their stockholders will feel it, and so will the jackass attorney generals who pressed the chain into doing something so damaging and intrusive.
My local pharmacy used to be associated with a regional chain of stores called "BiMart". Locally owned and operated, there are a "membership" store (I got my BiMart card when I was 18 for $2; the price is now $5, and I believe they waive the fee if the applicant is disabled or on food stamps).
Governor Brown (D Oregon) signed some bill that had the disastrous effect of most of the pharmacies having to close; it was based on a corporate tax plan that harmed the pharmacy operations, which were not as profitable as the other parts of the corporation). They transferred all the pharmacy operations to Walgreens. It has been a fiasco since then, frankly. This action by Walgreens is the final straw, and I will no longer support the pharmacy there. The letter will go out today explaining just why I am not going to patronize Walgreen's in any way, shape, or form.
Walgreen’s ownership are a bunch of wusses pretending they are intimidated by, e.g., DeSantis telling them no mailing any “woke” drugs..prescription or not. They are fully on board with Handmaid’s Tale.
Salud, Ally, my fierce friend.
ps tell your law enforcement friends that trump violence is a far f*cking cry from law enforcement and community policing.
🗽
Woke drugs?! I wonder what’s in the medicine cabinets and on the bookshelves of these holy elected officials and their followers. The anti-WOKE movement is nothing but a cover for every ISM that discriminates and controls people, especially women, people of color, non-Christians and children. Racial and Social Justice are foundational. Social Justice issues like Abortion and Medicine, Voting, Education and Libraries and Books, now are examples that are often controversial Instead of seen as rights. “The 1619 Project” by Nicole Hannah-Jones is a classic example and one of the first “woke” books to be banned in many southern states, including some colleges. Instead it should be required reading and I highly recommend it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project
For the ones still talking to me, I do that on a somewhat regular basis.
Salud. I'm planning my pre- Saint Patrick's Day menus and will be practicing Shepherd's Pie tonight. I believe I will raise a glass of Irish whiskey for a toast as I do so.
An addition to your Sheperd's pie recipe would be to add some Kerrygold Cheddar to the mashed potatoes. Cheddar in mashed potatoes is a wonderful thing. Here's a link for Guiness Bread w/Molasses recipe. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/guinness_bread_with_molasses/
I did that; it was my Mom’s “secret ingredient” for her version of the pie. Next up for this weekend: Guinness Stew. I’m also brining a brisket for corned beef.
Great menu for St Paddy’s day, Ally.
🗽💜
Agree! Take labor unions as an example, if they weren't organized or striking *heaven forbid*, members boycotted those corporations
Ed Nuhfer: It would be very instructive to learn what other businesses Walgreens owns. For instance, I don't live anywhere near a "Walgreens", but there is a Walmart in this city, easily accessible. I hate going there, and only do so under some duress! -- buying only what I would have to search for (well out of my way) in several elsewheres.
Here's a partial answer to my question (thanks to Mrs. Google): "Walmart Canada is a Canadian retail corporation and the subsidiary of U.S.-based multinational retail conglomerate Walmart. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, it was founded on March 17, 1994, with the purchase of the Woolco Canada chain from the F. W. Woolworth Company."
Turns out, this is a complicated question.
It is complicated. Walgreen's bought out all the CVS store locations in my state, replaced a bunch with Walgreen's stores but the CVS moved into Target's store locations and operates their pharmacies there now..
If the FTC allows Kroger and Albertsons to merge, you'll see a monopoly of the food chain like you have never seen before in anything. One company will end up owning a huge number of big name stores that you probably thought were competitors. They are not. Sadly, one has to go to independent news sites beyond HCR's to learn about other aspects of government not serving the people. Mainstream corporate media isn't doing it and we can't expect her to do everything. No one does a better job staying up to date on the special areas she does address.
Thanks so much, Ed, for the info. "Complicated" is an understatement, it seems. Since I'm a dual citizen, living in Nova Scotia since 1987, I keep up politically as carefully as I can (HCR, MSNBC, PBS, Wapo, NYT, and links that come across my Factbook "desk" from interesting and diligent friends), but it's a lot to handle. The business hairballs are above my pay grade, I'm afraid, unless it's really big news (Twitter) and hits MSM in a major way. HCR has the treasured ability to put things succinctly and interestingly.
Wow. Kudos to you for keeping up! Some of my best friends from CA now live in Newfoundland. All the photos they send back make me want to go there. For a video broadcast resource that goes much broader than HRC and covers many issues she cannot, try Breaking Points. They broadcast regularly through YouTube and their videos are indexed so you don't need to waste time on issues of no interest.
I definitely will follow your lead. Thanks, Ed Nuhfer!
Michael Moore shared copies of the threatening letters that attorneys general sent to Walgreens, warning them not to allow mail order sales of mifepristone. They are truly despicable. I found it interesting that one of the AGs is from Kansas, the state where voters rejected a ballot measure that would have removed protections for abortion rights from the state constitution.
Good morning Irenie. Great post and wonderful motivation to buoy us up in these trying times.
Check to see if there's a Costco in your area. It's a membership "warehouse" store with pharmacy. http://costco.com Here's the link to their Pharmacy page.
Costco began in the San Diego area as the Price Club, founded by Sol Price (a local entrepreneur and philanthropist) and has stores internationally.
Before recommending Costco to all of you, I looked at their Company Information page to get an idea of how widespread the Costco stores may be before recommending and was tickled to read this: "The company's first location, opened in 1976 under the Price Club name, was in a converted airplane hangar on Morena Boulevard in San Diego." I shopped there and had no idea. But it *was* a huge and cavernous metal box!
Costco is membership owned which I like. Its stores are also worldwide and several websites describe it as one of the most ethical retailers, with sustainable practices. A model for retail. It’s not Amazon!!!https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/the-costco-model
Thanks, Irenie. Unfortunately, relative to how little I buy at CVS vs. $60 annual membership for Costco plus the drive to the nearest Costco, I can't afford to make a change. I doubt I spend $60/yr at CVS and Kaiser is my pharmacy.
Anyone know how Kaiser is addressing the Mifepristone issue? Not that I'm going to drop Kaiser....
Judith, that’s a good question. I have Kaiser Northern California, too. Let’s find out. They are significant and there is the question of other insurers also. I know what you mean about the Costco membership cost and the savings. My credit card bonus pays for it. And a friend shops for me unless I buy online.
There are all kinds of Costco jokes on the web about like going to Costco for something like a box of Kleenex and coming home with three paper mill factories in your truck. :)
I have a friend who visits here from Mexico and loves going there as almost a recreational experience. For some reason, I just never have gone, but with your recommendation I now will. There is one not far away and one under construction in my area. Amazing what a jostling from an email conversation will produce. Thanks, Judith!
Those jokes have more than a grain of truth. Back before Price Club became Costco, I had a membership (early 1980s), I remember succumbing to some of the great deals for things I hadn't gone there shopping for.
Glad to know I've added something practical to the conversation.
Watching the Republicans bicker, squabble, and cast shade on anything the Dems and Biden do has been somewhat agonizing as i wait for the other shoe to drop! Caught in so many blatant lies the Republicans still are shrill enough to keep the attention of the MSM away from matters of substance. I am so eager for the cult of Trump and all who have acquiesced to it to be sent packing by voters.
Climate disturbance is the tyrannosaurus in the room.
Nature bats last. Here today, gone tomorrow...
It's shocking to see the private comments of the Fox opinion hosts expressing the same feelings most of America has for Trump. All this time I thought they were all best buddies. It was also astounding to hear Rupert Murdoch say something to the effect of being afraid to cross Trump. They are but mortals.
DT can't be lacking in blackmail material to pin on all and sundry...
I've often wondered about that or if it is also the threat of having his minions threaten and harass whoever he points them to.
Part and parcel of the racketeer's playbook.
Or fear of the possibility that he might come up with a scathing nickname that endures forever.
And he must have been a confidential source for the FBI/CIA or something to know he’s untouchable. It’s the only way to explain the teflon-quality of his actions. “Something” always gets in the way of holding him accountable. Always. Crack that code-of-silence and you get a lot explained.
That and/or Putin's black shamans...
Afraid of Trump or afraid of losing money; sadly, probably the latter, woe to America.
It is hard to believe that Republicans will fare well in the 2024 elections. There’s no more platform, there’s no more message of hope for a better life, there’s only hate. The only places I see Trump signs and flags are on the richest homes and the poorest shacks.
With that said, it is important to note that when reports of bots on social media amplify the MAGA Republican base, American voters mustn’t get discouraged. DEMOCRATS ARE THE NEW SILENT MAJORITY! There are plenty more of us, or else why would we ever win at all? It’s time Democrats stand and be proud of what we stand for - a society that is strong, compassionate, and fair to all - in the law and in taxation.
EDIT: I offer this suggestion to all who spend their time on social media. It’s time for Dems to fight back. I’m not saying that you should engage the bots or the memes that are so crowded with comments. Rather, you should go after political pages - the House Oversight Committee or the House Republicans pages and start asking for the budget. Also if you have a Republican rep, ask him/her on their page - where’s the budget? They are the weak links, not the general public.
Thank you for the suggestions, Jane. My senators and representative are all Democrats, so this windmill I can joust at.
Well said!!
Thank you, Heather ,for making me hope that we are approaching a point where the mendacity and lies of the Republicans are no longer going to be able to be ignored by a large enough majority of Americans to get us back on safe ground. I am not hoping to see any of the MAGAts change but there will no longer be any way an independent can support the Republicans.
How does the message get to Magats when they ONLY watch faux and faux will never air anything about the Dominion trial?
Big big posters and billboards should be put up in every shithole state that has Repub governors, congresspeople, and senators. Those will get their attention!
Maddog.pac does that
I have never heard of them but thanks, Jeri! Thought only The Lincoln Project and MoveOn did that.
I agree, Marlene. Billboards, billboards, billboards. Paper the red states. But, please, make them the old fashioned kind - not the electronic ones that change messages before you can absorb them, especially when you’re traveling at 65MPH.
Yeah -- they'll use them for target practice. Not that I'm cynical or anything. . . .
Some, like my dad, get NYT articles about it from me. I can’t control whether or not he reads them. I never get a comment from him about them, so I expect his reading them is as likely as me reading an opinion piece for the WSJ.