Please may it all be coming down in them and may the voters at last see the reality of what these anti democracy and immoral people have done and tried to do to all of us “we the people “ Thanks Heather for all you’re doing to open eyes 👏💐🇺🇸
Thank you, Lynell, for posting this link. The meat packing story is infuriating. It’s the story of my own family, the loss of businesses built by families over generations. Heart-breaking.
Hey, Nancy; you're welcome. We need to break the hearts of those monopolies. Your reply signals my resolve to push my Congress people to push for it...sooner rather than later.
In a feed lot, then to monopolies that run meat packing, out to consumers with even higher prices to buy beef full of hormones and antibiotics. The American way. If you buy meat, try to find a small local farm that does it right and yes you will pay more and get a tastier cut that was raised correctly. Here in Oregon we have a problem with lack of meat processors who will do "small orders". Some of it is caused by stupid government rules making it more difficult and some by processors who according to our pork guy, are a holes. He has had a hellish year. Raises heritage hogs and chickens in pastures. Sadly, our last meat guy and his wife were murdered viciously by his problematic home schooled son and his manipulative girlfriend.
I'm so sorry about the murder. Family murders are especially tragic. And I agree with you about the small local farms. I wonder if those "stupid government rules' are related in any way to other government rules that allow for industry consolidation. Blessings,
I think a school district would have caught the problem. He was always surly when we dealt with him....selling his folks' products. They were deeply religious and had a prayer circle before slaughtering the animals. They raised their animals right. Then we had a brief stint with another farm whose plans were bigger than their ability to fulfill them. I had to badger the guy finally to get a refund on product not delivered. Our Saturday market has pork, lamb, beef, chicken, and sometimes buffalo. Then there is the wonderful Bodhi Bakery. We get there to be nearly first in line because they sell out quickly.
Ya ya Kathleen, hhahaa I remember that saying - appropriate 'Then'. But, now? Surely you jest! However, I would only add that if yer in the Party of the Big aRse, you've got way more than your share. hahahoho.
Mother Nature's way of turning us into vegetarians? Alpha-gal syndrome is a recently identified type of food allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals. In the United States, the condition is most often caused by a Lone Star tick bite. The bite transmits a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into the person's body.Oct 8, 2021
I totally agree with you in the hope that this is the reckoning that we have been waiting for and also in your thanking HCR for all she has done to keep us informed daily. If only more people would read her words, they would know that this is not all Biden's fault and is once again showing the rotted greed of big corporations and the Congress people who ply them with $$.
On one of Heather's podcasts, she reminded viewers how many thousands of people watch/read/listen to her. We are the communication vehicle. Heather has done her job masterfully.
I do post this on my Facebook feed every day. I also have suggested that those on the far left read it. I doubt they have. My dyed in the wool R ex-classmate in Elkhart is anti being educated about issues (might cause her to change her mind) and so if she sees this, she probably removes it.
I do too. On FB and Twitter, and it makes me feel like I'm doing something concrete. I switch from Friends to Public for the audience. And I keep holding the energy of more people learning the truths we need to know.
Chaplain Terry, I shared your words with my activist group and encouraged them to follow you on FB and Twitter. Hope it’s ok to post here on the eve of Women’s March…
“Here's my take on Roe. I'm posting wherever I can. "I was a nun in 1968. I thought abortion was murder - a sin. Then I learned that when abortion is illegal, rich women fly and poor women, AND NOW CHILDREN, die. Anti-choice laws promote a different kind of murder, a murder of real women and children. And that's the real sin.”
Kathy I'm honored and grateful. Thank you! This helps because I live in DC and I wanted to attend the demonstration, but until my hip surgery I'm just not stable enough to be at a protest. You're reminding me to post again. Blessings and many happy moments.
But they won’t. The deafness I encounter on a daily basis is astounding. BIden is to blame for everything. Just saw a post on nextdoor yesterday about how our Jan 6 patriots are being held unconstitutionally. And the posts about the 2000 mules….
I don’t know if televised hearings will sway them, a la Nixon. I hope, but the cognitive dissonance and refusal to even entertain the truth is discouraging. It would probably help if the hearings aren’t translated by Tucker and Sean.
Yes, you are right when you say that many won't have any part of the truth. There again, I think that holding Donald Trump and members of Congress accountable would go a long way in starting the country to heal . I have jokingly said that secession may be the answer because the divide is so deep but maybe it is not so funny.
Marlene, you probably already know that Northern California and Southern Oregon have their loyal State of Jefferson supporters, proposing to split the states, creating a new State, seceding from their respective states. There have been serious efforts to create this state since 1941. Red or Blue? From Wikipedia, the last word!!!:
“The 2016 presidential election results, showing a strong Republican presence in the proposed State of Jefferson…
After the 2016 presidential election, it was noted that most of the rural California counties which would belong to the State of Jefferson were won in a landslide by Republican nominee Donald Trump, whereas Democrat Hillary Clinton enjoyed an unprecedented level of support in the rest of California, indicating a growing demographic and political divide between the proposed State of Jefferson and the rest of California.[citation needed] While Clinton beat Trump by almost 80 points in San Francisco, he led her by more than 50 points in Lassen County.[37][38] The election of Trump led to calls for a secession of California and a similar proposal in Oregon, where Clinton won the popular vote while Trump captured the majority of counties.[39][40][41]”
Irenie-we in NH have a group called The Free State Project which is ultra libertarian. They've managed to worm their way into the legislature and have allied w/Republicans. In Croydon, a few of them went so far as to completely eliminate the town police and subverted a town meeting by proposing cutting public school funding by half after many folks had left. Fortunately the town folks were able to have a discussion about the impact on schools and brought that bill up for a vote a second time and handily overturned that move. At the State legislature, not so much. They've passed atrocious bills and have utterly ignored massive public input against some of those bills. (An alliance from hell!)
Barbara, you illustrate why voters, residents, citizens must pay attention. It’s not easy. Libertarians have dismantled projects and policies for the people. In some places, infiltrated. And just the name, “Free State Project” is (should be) a red flag. Voter beware.
Yep, I know that, Irenie. We have the Central Valley where the farmers are and they are (were) governed by good ole Nunes in the Fresno area and McCarthy in Stockton. Many many migrant workers there who have been poisoned by chemicals that get sprayed on the crops. Oregon, Washington, CA, maybe parts of VA., and NY should clasp hands and form our own country.
Marlene, we have McClintock who is a do nothing bright Red Congressman. I’m so sorry for the farmers and farm workers who are exposed daily to cancer causing and dangerous chemicals. It’s criminal that these chemicals are legal when for years we have had more than enough data, research, evidence, proof that they are deadly. In Mexico and other countries that use Monsanto products, the people graffiti skulls and skeletons and anti-Monsanto slogans. The people there have no choice. I buy organic and I can afford it. More because I’m hoping the farm workers won’t be exposed to poisons. But they are often too expensive for families or low income consumers. “Environmental Working Group” is a great educational and activist group working to help consumers and our planet. https://www.ewg.org/
IIRC, Congress must approve any secession to form new split states. You know they never will cuz California is the cash cow for so many mostly-red states.
Judith, This secession initiative has been in the works for decades. Just putting up signs and canvasing satisfies some of these proponents. Many of them are the MAGA crew who still wave their flags in more rural areas, ready for the next election.
Victoria, I have also “played” with the idea of secession, (obviously this is not happening, which is why it’s playing) but it seems the repugs are on the way to that possibility. Maybe temporarily, since they cannot be trusted to stick with their stories. The “one true thing” the power hungry repugs have in common is their fealty to TFG. Maybe not through a declared civil war, or through decree, but through their choices in sabotage, lies and obstruction.
Agreed. As distressing as it is to get this information, it is vital to our understanding of America right now. Will the voters respond? I hope so. I'll be walking in the Women's March here in Oakland tomorrow. I just can't sit this one out. Happy Friday, All!
There’s one in Martinez too. People marching there will get on buses that will take them to the State Capitol in Sacramento. Martinez is Contra Costa County’s county seat.
Are the Tyson and other meat packing workers unionized? Or are they the same economically vulnerable immigrant laborers we were introduced to by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in 9th grade History class?
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."- Upton Sinclair
The meat packers unions all got busted up in the ‘80s and ‘90s after Reagan made an example of the air traffic controllers. Monopolies and the idea of the corporate raider also became popular again about the same time. For some strange reason, we refuse to learn our lessons when we see or experience bad behavior by republicans as well as some of our own. Just call us Dems Charlie Brown as we watch Republicans Lucy pull the football away from CB once again, all the while insisting that that’s not really what’s going on.
Thank you for this brief encapsulation.👍I have been gagging for decades over the so-called Sainthood of Ronnie! He started the 40 year decline in workers' power that has brought the middle and working classes so low. And don't even get me started on the poor! With his stupid, but very effective "welfare queens"!
So here we are, pretty much in the same place workers were in 100 years ago. Time to enforce antitrust laws and go after the robber barons again. We've let things slide much too far.
What is the state of Taft-Hartley anyway? I assumed it was dead, buried and long forgotten since we’ve gotten back to monopolies again. By the way, I just read where Musk is starting to waffle on his Twitter deal.
Headline from today's WaPo article on this: "Elon Musk says Twitter deal is on hold, putting bid on shaky ground. The Tesla chief executive later said he is ‘still committed’ and a person familiar with the talks said they are ongoing"
I remember when Rayguns hosted Death Valley Days years before he became president. I'll be the profits of the company that made Twenty Mule Team Borax were huge. (In case you don't know, that was a major product advertised on the show by that Grade B actor.)
I call him Ray Gun. I blame him for getting the ball rolling on so many problems we see today including housing, homelessness, and mental health. I do bring him up when people are whining about these problems. May he be burning in hell.
Watched it for over half my life. Almost expected for there to be a plane crash because of Reagan’s rash act. Almost wished for it, ashamed to say. But who couldn’t see where it would lead…
I can’t agree. There are millions who are up in arms. We’re running for office and working for others who are. We’re in the streets, particularly since the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade appeared. Don’t give up! Never give up!
Yup! Heading to the D.C. Women's March tomorrow with my granddaughter. Cobbling 2 back-to-back signs, mostly inspired by Heather's letters. One gem turned up on the Episcopal Church web site: 'The Episcopal Church honors an individual's right to make an informed decision about abortion. The church is a pro-choice denomination and belongs to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.' That is the centerpiece of the poster 'Faith is a personal choice protected by our Constitution.' Rain predicted; off to the laminating print shop.
Go for it! This morning, my wife went out for a walk and emailed me a photo of a sign in a window that read, "If I make my uterus a corporation, will you stop regulating it?"
Absolutely perfect and appropriately in-their-face! Thank you for posting it, Jon, and tell your wife thanks. I am unable to go to WaDC this week, even though a couple of activist orgs here are offering free bus transportation. Makes me sad not to be there. Would really love it if somebody going could make a little sign with the uterus logo and put my name at the bottom?
Good for you heading to DC. Living now in DE makes it more possible to attend DC marches, and I’d be going if I could deal better with the expected weather. Thanks for the Episcopal update, too. They’ve got it right. Good luck tomorrow!
A poster I saw last fall: "We need to talk about the elephant in the WOMB" [giant outline of uterus and fallopian tubes with GOP Elephant inside between "talk about" and "the elephant in the WOMB"]
The Republicans are holding the football because 60% of white voters (and almost nobody else) handed it to them. They were able to do that, despite being a 20 point minority of the electorate because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and anti-democratic defects in the Constitution. Democrats cannot do anything about any of those problems. Not with messaging, not with policy proposals, not with legislation. Their only hope is to overcome voter suppression by monumental get-out-the-vote efforts, and even if by some miracle they succeed, the 60% of white voters who want minority rule will still be doing everything they can to gum up the works, and since they comprise 40% of the electorate, they have plenty of gum. The 60% of white voters who vote Republican are the problem, the whole problem, and nothing but the problem.
Yes, I know this. I live in NC. We were overtaken by the republicans in the 2010 red wave. They did a number on our redistributing maps as you may remember.
The meat-packing plants are horrible, unsafe places to work. I had an English student, an immigrant from Ethiopia and the mother of 4 children, who worked at JBS for awhile. It was brutal and dehumanizing.
Exactly. People tend to focus on how bad it is for the animals (which I am in total agreement with) but it's also traumatic for the workers. Meat, eggs and dairy. All bad in any but the small scale farming.
Here in upstate New York, many small-scale farmers, including livestock producers, saw a boost in sales during the pandemic. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Same here in Vermont, Ellen. We even have a coalition of folks (including legislators) looking forward at how VT can meet future possibility of being food-sufficient is that becomes necessary. It's exciting to be able to eat local foods most of the time.
And, our (ie, the US of A) efforts to address those things are underfunded, therefore relatively ignored, or just presented as.., 'the problem'. Especially today, by the blowhards and pinheads of the Big aRse party. You might want to recognize them in more intellectual terms...like: Flat Earth Boneheads for Jesus - Under god. Aaaahh-Men. Ooops there's that word "men" again..., that's where The Beef is.
Here in Iowa, Tyson's plants are non-union, with many immigrant workers. Working conditions were dreadful during the early spread of Covid 19, with numerous workers falling ill and some passing. Safety protocols were inadequate to stem the spread. But workers had to show up, or lose their jobs.
These meat packing corporations hold a monopoly. Jon Tester in Montana has been asking for an investigation into why there are so few, and huge, managing meat products from ranchers. Their profit hits the consumer.
Tester is liked but how do you feel about Steve Daines of Montana? You know, the sea turtle genius. I really think that his latest outburst is an attempt to launch himself into the national consciousness as another forget me not Republican.
We probably just need to follow the money as HCR talked about. I think a lot of us have felt we consumers have been taken advantage of time and again. It also seems there are constant recalls of meat products (particularly ground beef).
I also have a good friend in Iowa who said a lot of family members in the meat packing plants were also less skilled workers in nursing homes. But that is a whole other kettle of fish.
Farmed salmon are not worth eating either....total mush. Fresh salmon right now is really expensive....last time I looked about $36 a pound. We buy black cod when we can get it....less expensive, good nutritional profile, and very tasty.
I grew up in the midwest where we only had canned salmon. I came to Oregon in 1968 and I don't ever remember that price. Fortunately, my LMT likes to fish, so he sometimes shares his bounty including salmon.
Yikes! Eye-opening that early in the pandemic, meat-packing workers forced by economic necessity to work in contagion conditions were also doing less skilled work in nursing homes! No wonder Covid ripped through workers and patients!
My older brother’s assisted living place required employees to commit to working there exclusively. Not at multiple homes. Resulted in only a couple of cases.
The dog of monopoly caught the car. Like so many industries, every recession results in the consolidation, and over decades has forced the smaller business’s to close or sell out to larger. So when Republicans claim pro business, what they really mean is pro big business, pro monopoly, pro my business at small biz owners expense.
But when there is a bacteria outbreak at the major baby formula producer, we don’t hear from companies spokesman nor CEO. Instead they blame the regulator and current President for Public Health and regulatory rules that keep infants safe from getting sick and/or dying.
See how it works? When ur in power defund, or unwind, or don’t enforce regulation that is there to protect people. When your out of power criticize with claims that governent is ineffective, overreaching, at fault, but they are really the ones that refused to solve the problem by ignoring it in the first time lace. What’s this contradiction called? Do we have a name for it?
Excuse me... I need to go 'take a republican'. Thank you. Uh Oh.. I was just advised that I should say: "I need to LEAVE a republican" .., not "take" one.
The story of corruption in the USA is long, many sided and deep. I don't know the beginning of Abbott's/Texas first moves on the wallets and lives of the people. Here's a big story. Abbott figures largely, but he was not alone.
'A few years ago, a series of newspaper articles shone a harsh spotlight on the foster care system in Texas. Investigative journalists with the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News documented stomach-churning stories of cruelty and neglect made possible by an overstretched and underfunded child-welfare system. Turnover among case workers at Child Protective Services was sky-high, in part because of staggering caseloads that virtually guaranteed at-risk kids would fall through the cracks. In 2015, a federal judge wrote that Texas’s system was one in which “rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm.” In 2016 alone, 217 kids died of abuse and neglect in Texas.'
'Governor Greg Abbott pledged to take urgent action to overhaul the “broken system.” Lawmakers berated child-welfare leaders during committee hearings at the Capitol, providing clips to be used in local TV news broadcasts. “Nothing is more important than protecting the children of Texas,” said Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In a letter to the head of CPS, Patrick wrote that the state leaders would “not tolerate” the agency’s “totally unacceptable” failures any longer.'
'It was a good show. Such a good show, in fact, that it was almost possible to quiet some nagging questions: Didn’t the politicians pass the rules and budgets that starved CPS and kept it from retaining a competent workforce? Didn’t the policymakers have much better access to the inner workings of the foster care system than any reporter? Weren’t those in power ultimately responsible?'
'The systemic problems that were hurting and killing so many kids were outlined in a 1996 report commissioned by Governor George W. Bush, a 2004 report by the comptroller’s office, and a 2010 report commissioned by Governor Rick Perry. Little changed then, nor in 2017. That year the Legislature put a bit more money into CPS, and Patrick urged churches to adopt more foster kids in a video he posted on his website. Lawmakers also partially privatized the system despite warnings from some advocates that doing so would create dangerous conflicts of interest. By 2020 the agency was in another crisis, with children removed from their parents sleeping in agency offices in record numbers for lack of any other place to send them.'
'That’s the way our state government works, more often than not. Elected leaders do their best to ignore real problems that only they can solve, …' When someone forces them to acknowledge what isn’t working—as was done in the case of CPS by a crusading federal judge, journalists, and advocates—many state officials profess to be shocked by the shoddiness of the systems they oversee. And then, more often than not, they make token changes and move on.'
'But what if something were to happen that exposed Texans from all over the state and all walks of life to that ineptitude? On the night of Sunday, February 14, as Texas plunged into darkness and cold, as the lights and water went out, state government’s incompetence stopped being somebody else’s problem.'
'More than 4.5 million customers in Texas were without power during the peak of outages in the state this week, as freezing temperatures hit parts of the country.'
'The winter storm caused by the collapse of the polar vortex, likely influenced by climate change, will almost certainly go down in the record books as the most expensive natural disaster in the state’s history, outpacing the $125 billion toll of Hurricane Harvey. It could also prove to be even deadlier than Harvey, which took about a hundred lives. It will take some time to calculate how many died during Texas’s Lost Week, but it seems possible it will be significantly higher once indirect deaths are included.'
'An 11-year-old boy in Conroe died of hypothermia under a pile of blankets in his family’s mobile home, soon after having played in snow for the first time. A 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran went to his truck to fetch his last oxygen tank and froze there. An 8-year-old girl who died was one of 580 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in Harris County alone, as Texans turned to generators and car engines in an attempt to stay warm. One doubts that these Texans, and those needing dialysis and chemotherapy, would be glad to go even longer without electricity if that’s what it takes “to keep the federal government out of their business,” as former governor Perry, one of the key architects of the state’s failed electricity grid, defiantly told Fox News.'
'The number of deaths will be roughly calculable, eventually, as will the economic losses, but the psychological damage is harder to quantify, though no less important. For those who lost power, water, and cell service, the experience was briefly that of being part of a collapsing civilization. It came after a year of a pandemic and an economic crash that have already put Texans under almost unbearable pressure.
'(Ted Cruz had flown to Cancún amid the worst of the crisis.)'
'Most importantly, the pain fell across geographic and socioeconomic divides. The suffering, of course, wasn’t evenly distributed—it never is—but it nonetheless included many middle-class and affluent folks who have previously had little reason to doubt the state’s ability to protect them. Poor Texans may be more used to having the power cut, but the experience of leaving a once-comfortable suburban home to find firewood for heat was probably a bit more eye-opening.'
'The winter storm that brought all this about, though severe by Texas standards, would have qualified as a brisk weekend in some parts of the country that wouldn’t experience so much as a flicker of their lights. Someone had blood on their hands. But who?'
'Texans looking to their governor for answers heard little, at first. A day and a half into the crisis, on Tuesday night, Abbott finally surfaced to be interviewed in the friendly environs of Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. Abbott pinned the blame on wind turbines. The blackouts, he told Hannity, showed “how the Green New Deal,” and the rise of renewable energy, “would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” (This was a few hours after the eleven-year-old boy froze to death in Conroe.) “Our wind and our solar, they got shut down and they were collectively more than ten percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis,” he said.'
'This was a lie. It was a convenient lie, because it slotted the disaster into a familiar front of the culture war—green energy versus fossil fuels, New York socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez versus Texas. This mess was environmentalists’ fault, somehow.
'Who, then, is to blame? Just as with the child-welfare system, the buck stops with state government—with lawmakers and governors past and present. For one, ERCOT is overseen by the Texas Public Utility Commission, whose three commissioners are appointed by the governor. He is the elected official most directly accountable for their performance and, through them, the performance of ERCOT.'
'The utility commissioners are the sorts of figures a governor appoints when he wants people to toe the party line, individuals with close ties to him and to the industry they’re empowered to regulate. The current chairman, DeAnn Walker, was a senior adviser to Abbott prior to joining the board. Before that, she was the director of regulatory affairs at CenterPoint Energy, the Houston electricity and gas giant. Another commissioner, Arthur D’Andrea, has been working for Abbott in various capacities since Abbott was attorney general, most recently as a lawyer in the governor’s office.'
'The commissioners are paid more than $200,000 annually, but face little scrutiny. Last summer, the commission disbanded its oversight and enforcement division, which among other things investigates deceptive practices by electricity retailers, apparently because it was acting as a check on the commission’s power. And in November, the commission unilaterally junked its relationship with the Texas Reliability Entity, an independent monitoring organization that makes sure electric companies follow state guidelines. Predictably, Abbott and his allies have directed fire at ERCOT, not his apparatchiks on the commission.'
'Deregulation also made the grid less robust and less resilient. By design, ERCOT has no “capacity market,” whereby electricity producers are paid to ensure generating capacity on future dates. Instead, the energy-only system relies on high wholesale power prices to encourage more generators to come online when demand rises. (That’s why some Texans with contracts pegged to the wholesale market have been getting post-freeze electricity bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.) The reliability of the Texas grid has always been an open question: we’ve seen relatively brief blackouts in winter storms and summer heat waves, but there have always been warnings of something worse.' (TexasMonthly) If you have read The Texas Monthly more that twice in a year you are out of luck reading the entire article because of paywall. Unfortunately, I am not a subscriber, so unable to gift.
Oh Fern, this should be loudly broadcasted throughout the land!! The usual suspects are guilty Guilty GUILTY! I so pray that members and former members of the Pro-Rape Party give Abbott the axe.
Marlene, You shouted it exactly; there was a time, a long time ago, when PBS and and local educational stations covered corruption and the culprits to some degree, not enough, but some. We need investigative journalism, regularly on local and national network tv, on social media, cable, newspapers... all over the ___damn place! Bring back LOCAL NEWS - rural and urban!
I posted this link elsewhere; here it is again. I can't remember if it answers the question why so few (greed, is my assumption) but it does explain how it happened.
I was going to say shameful, but it is corrupt. Our ignorant, and greedy, politicians bear much of the blame. Bought off, and controlled by PACs and mega producers, these crooks belong in jail with swinging door regulators and CEOs.
Just one more reason to finally cut the last of processed beef from my diet. Sickening in so many ways.
I only buy beef and pork locally. Mostly chicken as well, although I do buy pre-coked Costco chickens occasionally. I buy a half-beef annually that is raised by an organic farm under organic conditions, except that the butchering process is done on site (again under organic conditions, but not up to "federal code") in that the animals are not transported and terrified but butchered on their farm.
I do not buy "ground beef" ....UNLESS... I'm the BB'Q guy, then I figure all the beer we're gonna consume will save us. Yuhh., not a pleasant thought. Chicken is almost as bad. I'm for "local" too!
I just watched that video and I wondered who the farmers blame in Congress? I had seen another Vox special on this very subject go on full force attack against these beef packing companies but also on chicken companies too. They hit Perdue (Purdue?) up pretty hard. This was good, Lynell. I try and eat only organic chicken or wild fish. Stopped red meat almost 40 years ago.
That's a good question, Marlene. I suspect they are Republicans who aren't properly vetting their representatives. Just my guess.
I, too, saw something about the chicken industry and the hogs, too.
We eat organic chicken, too, mostly, and buy eggs locally. And we still eat red meat occasionally. We are lucky where I live to have a couple of sources for local beef.
I doubt she’s ever read it or anything that has meaning or makes you actually think. But as soon as someone points it out to her and gives her a book report...it will be headed to the bonfire
Ha.. Ted, The only thing on Christy Noem's agenda is that she is obviously constipated in the worst way. She needs to go to the Womens Room and relieve some republicanism. Flush hard.
Karen Perhaps an itty-bitty better than “The Jungle?” I haven’t read lately of fingers and wedding bands in sausage. What’s much worse is the monopolization of the food industry, especially in meat and poultry. The absence of unions and the sweetheart inspections by the government make the food industry is disgusting area of human exploitation and, not infrequently, excremental food. Workers of the food industry unite!
“In a new contract secured last summer, the union gained substantial raises from JBS, the Brazilian conglomerate that owns the plant. Colorado passed legislation mandating paid sick leave, after the state shut the plant for more than a week last year. Inside the slaughterhouse, dividers and partitions have been installed to help maintain social distancing.
wages jumped from about $18 an hour to more than $26 under the new contract.
The Greeley plant, which paid $2,100 bonuses to workers who got the coronavirus shots, has achieved an 80 percent rate of vaccination, Ms. Richardson added. The facility has increased wages more than 50 percent over the past five years.“
There was a more recent discussion of the processing of meat workers experience in either The Omnivore's Dilemma or Fast Food Nation. It might be the later where I recall the disgusting reality of the meat workers being discussed. I read them a long time ago. However, not as long ago as The Jungle. All of these books show the meat industry industry to be an awful one to work in.
I felt physically ill reading this. Not that I didn't know about the meatpacking plants. There were many stories about the horror of it all back then. But rereading about it tonight, on this day where one million COVID deaths are beginning to be marked, a vastly underestimated one million, and decades ahead of us of repercussions from this criminally exploited pandemic -- on this day, reading about the pure evil (let's call it what it is) of the people who run these companies, KILLING thousands of their workers and family members of workers, traumatizing hundreds of thousands more, it hits me somehow more deeply.
And Abbot. Them I did not know about. Baby formula! It's Dickensian.
I used to get angry at corruption at the FDA, back when I was aware of some nasty hanky panky leading to drugs being pushed through that should not have been. I can still get angry at that, especially regarding one drug that affected me personally. But I had no idea that it was something of a privilege to be able to be angry at unacceptable but run-of-the-mill governmental agency corruption, no idea what it would be like to live through times when these agencies would be weaponized to a degree that I'd have thought not possible in this country.
At moments it does feel like we are at the beginning of the reckoning of forty years of decisions. But most of the time it feels like I am experiencing what many people must have felt in Europe as Hitler gained more and more power, complete with a new understanding of why Jews could not believe it would ever get "that" bad.
You have read my mind. From Craig Turner, Twitter, 2018 “A few years ago I was watching a documentary about the Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. At one point during the documentary, they were interviewing a former concentration camp guard. He was telling of how he was amazed at the disbelief of the Jews that were being led into the gas chambers and before firing squads. He said he heard them murmuring the same phrases over and over…he kept hearing them say ‘I can’t believe this is happening, How can this be happening? Why is this happening?’
The guard said that every time he heard them mumbling these questions as they were being led to their deaths, the same response would go through his mind….for 10 years we have been telling you that we hated you…for 10 years we’ve been telling you that we were coming for you…why didn’t you believe us?” Well, prison guard, I can answer that. It’s hard for normal, non-cultists to believe that fellow humans can epitomize abject evil. Let us never forget. Ukrainians know first hand…
Well said. When someone tells you who they are (or what they believe) believe them. When you see their actions and beliefs in action, believe them.
I believe the time may have come when we need a brief (dare I say Twitter ready/compliant statement) regarding that with respect to each of the horrible things going on in Florida and Texas (which seem to be competing for the worst on earth) and with SCROTUS, not to mention the seditious congress critters.
There is always a mix of what people believe. In Europe, plenty of Jews wanted to leave but either lacked any money for travel or could not find a country to let them in. Think of the kindertransports, special trains that saved some Jewish children. Their families saw clearly what was happening, and saved who they could.
At the same time, you are right that “ it can’t happen here” blinders have been active in this country for a long time. Democracy won’t save itself. We have to save it.
And we liberal white people — well, OK, I, really — didn’t believe black Americans when they were telling us that racism is as horrible as ever — maybe worse, in some ways, so devious. I think you’re right, Jeri and Joan, we just didn’t believe human beings could be that evil, that “it can’t happen here,” that I don’t have any racists in my social circle, that you’re being too sensitive, that they’re spouting hyperbole, blah blah blah.
I feel like such an idiot — I didn’t see any of this coming.
Early on in the pandemic, they tracked traffic from meat packing plants. I think they used cell phones. The way that map lit up was both impressive and scary.
So well put, Nomi. I just pray enough of us are aware of the warning signs RIGHT NOW and are prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure that nazi atrocity can NEVER AGAIN happen. I so hope we citizens are not fooled, are not believing “it would ever get ‘that’ bad.”
Title of this track? “Where Have You Gone, Merrick Garland?”
The Department of Justice is the only entity that can bring about the kind of shock therapy that America needs. I applaud the 1/6 Committee for their latest bold move in subpoenaing 5 co-members of the House. But they will not come, gambling that they are going to regain power and their stunning contempt of Congress will be a piece of history that is theirs to bury.
I read the same cycle of comments day after day. Two or three point out the particular horror of the moment. One or two upbraid them in a polite way and tell them to organize or to vote. Then it’s off on another tangent of preaching to the choir, followed by another exhortation.
Progressive Americans have had, at a minimum, six years of abuse, torment, and degradation. People are tired, worn to the bone with with criminality posing as leadership or leadership-hopefuls. (The primaries now are a particularly nauseating example of the GOP running wild in the streets. It just gets worse and worse, as so many Americans support those who take the most extreme and ugly positions in order to get the power they crave.
People have already done so much organizing, so much protesting. Their fries are being only faintly heard. The last tangible victory was the midterms.
For those of you imploring others to organize/vote etc, there is much to admire. But you’ve been doing it forever and the message is now worn and barely heard. Certainly the other side is not running in fright. They strut sickeningly.
Your government could help you. But, do what they might, the Republicans plus one block every attempt and further defeats are registered. Thus comes more discouragement which brings about more cries to stay in the game. It’s hard right now to rise up.
But there is one area of government, the Department of Justice, which could provide a jolt of energy to weary souls and (finally!) tremors of fear to the swaggering right.
But they do not act and time is running out. The next six weeks go the House Committee. They will rock the boat fiercely, but their power is only that of suasion, and they are not going to persuade the country. The DOJ will defer to them. It’s inconceivable they would start indictments then, thus diverting the nation’s attention.
Then there are 2-3 months in which we can hope that Garland et al will finally act. In order to have any hope of stopping this avalanche into a jungle of proto-fascism, the indictments must come out in broad swathes, not leaving out Trump itself. The crimes have been reported ad nauseam. We all know that key Republicans perpetrated sedition against the country. At some point in time 2 + 2 does equal 4.
If Garland doesn’t act between the end of the hearings and Labor Day, then the door slams shut, firmly and I believe finally. The midterms will be a devastating slaughter. Trump and his acolytes will have won.
And spare me the canard that you only get one shot at the king, that the DOJ is getting its ducks in a row. You have to swing for the fences when you’re down by 3 in the ninth with two out. You don’t need Garland up there, hoping for a walk.
Indictments would bring back every progressive’s flagging energy. There would be storms of protest against whatever the crime du jour was. Long lines would form to vote in November.
The country just might be saved.
Where Have You Gone, Merrick Garland?
You guys in this forum who have worked so faithfully, organized, spent your money, voted with your conscience, and grieved repeatedly - you now need some help. It can only come from him.
The message is still being heard, Eric. By people who are new and still feeling their way. The people who were early on this forum are out there putting those thoughts into action, in various ways, bit and small. Some still post from time to time (like I do).
I share your feelings of frustration when the conversation seems to be going in circles. When that happens, I skim a lot, especially when the conversation turns abstract and pedantic. Sometimes the discussion seems dominated by a few people who like the sound of their own voices and form their own little cliques within the forum.
I keep coming back here because I am inspired by the growth I've seen in so many of the folks who get the points Heather and other observers make- and then take them to the ground in their own lives and places. I cherish those people: they keep me going.
Right now, I need to take a break from most of my activities (including working in the garden - wah!) because of the heat and the fact that I have physical limitations that flare up from time to time. I don't quit, though. And I can see the small things I am able to do make a difference. Soon I may have to make some decisions about my role, and make some shifts in what I do and how I do it. Doesn't mean I'm giving up. Means I'm growing and changing.
One last thought before I get on with my day: You obviously care passionately about what is happening to our democracy. Please do not think that because you can't see something, it's not happening. Each of the things you mention are important. No one of them is enough. Dig a little deeper, and enlarge your scope of view. I agree with everything you say about what is needed. I would posit that there are people out there working on those very things. I can't comment on Merrick Garland, because I can neither make assumption about what is behind that scene, nor can I read the future. But I do see things winding their way in the direction we've all been hoping for.
Maggie, thank you so much for the compliment. Sorry to say, I don't have a formal blog right now. Though I do write every day, online and off, I'm afraid my production is rather random for a consistent blog just now.
I think my spinning and weaving blog is still active, and it includes a fair amount of philosophy and musings on various topics along with the weaving, wool processing, and such. But I haven't done much with it for a couple of years. My spinning wheel broke down just before the pandemic hit. I've not been able to get it repaired yet, so the bins of wool sit there, unworked, along with the thoughts they spark, while I do other things!
I am saving many of the bits and pieces that I write here and other places, and someday want to put together a volume of essays (after a lot of rewriting so things hold together!).
I am not American. But my son teaches at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and I have fierce worries for him - he is tenured and there is no school outside the US that does what he does, so I think he’s there more or less permanently.
Surely you realize that I have some idea of the scope of the judicial process. I know there are tens of thousands of people who are a part of it.
But the guy at the top sets the tone and direction and thus the proverbial buck starts and ends with him.
Swap out Merrick Garland and swap in, oh say, Jamie Raskin. Would America and the DOJ be in this position? I suggest not.
Eric, I don't read the comments often, so this is not a broken record to me. I have defended the DOJ (and the state and city level investigations of Trump et al) for the reasons that you're well aware of. But you've convinced me that the fast approaching midterms overrides the usual wisdom, that swinging for the fences is imperative. I've been stuck on the possibility of conviction, but you make a good argument that that doesn't matter now. (The "never before" argument never held ground with me: We've also "never before" had an attempted coup, let alone one led by a president.) A quick Google search tells me many agree with you, although I'm not seeing enough talk about the criticalness of an indictment before the midterms.
Hi, the link works. I read what I could before panic took over reading the specifics of what's likely to happen if we lose the House. I know I said I did a Google search, and I did. But I have to greatly limit what I read now. Health is at stake. I read Heather's letter every day, but that is usually it.
I’m sorry that your health is at stake. And it makes me burn to think that this long period of egotistical, unconscionable behavior has effects, such as on your health, has.
They must be stopped.
I hope you find solace in other good parts of life.
Oh dear. I know I sounded hopeless here. I am not hopeless. I do not know what's going to happen. Nor do I believe anything is "over." Nothing is ever over, even when the very worst occurs. But, truly, I don't believe anything is a forgone conclusion. Things shift in unexpected ways. All the time. This letter just took me down tonight. Some of them do that.
You sound completely honest and with a need to share your emotions as well as your thoughts. It does not sound hopeless. I never feel that way, either, after reading Professor Richardson’s Letters and other Substacks which lay out relevant information. I think it’s empowering to get some facts and and an accurate rendering of sequence of events. It can be very emotional also. Salud, Nomi!
I go through those cycles too, Nomi. We're human. And we need to talk about those feelings too. I can't say how helpful some of the folks here have been, coming to my rescue when I am in the dumps, so that I can get up and figure out what I *can* do. Thanks for doing the same, and making it possible for others to feel safe when they need to reach out from pain or frustration or exhaustion. Bless you.
Yes, when you publicly display your vulnerability, even in a relatively good group, it's usually quite a mixed experience. But sometimes I seem to have to. And I try to remember that there are others feeling similarly. <3
We're all waking up to the fact we've been living for some time in a dystopian science fiction novel come to life that neither Philip K. Dick or William Gibson could have imagined on their best days.
I often have the same feeling, TC. But I also see, almost every day, things that reflect some of the best sci-fi written by others, mostly brilliant women that in early days did not get the attention they deserved. Followed by some remarkable women of today, often from "marginalized" cultures, drawing on the traditions of those cultures envisioned in a different kind of future. I celebrate the way these writers enlarge how we might think about, not only the future, but how we do things right now. A bunch of different possibilities that we overlook because we are so accustomed to only one kind of thinking.
As I read this letter, I began to feel the way I did when I was much younger and the Watergate affair began to unravel. Sooner or later somebody will come clean and Trump will be history.
Trump personally is on his way out. The danger now is from the inheritors of the hate machine he energized. Desantis and Abbott are competing for most authoritarian governor. The Supreme Court is living a fever dream of theocracy.
We are not done with this yet. If we each do our part, however big (like HCR) or tiny ( mainly I write GOTV postcards), we can swing the pendulum back. 70 per cent of the country agrees with us! Keep on with whatever actions you can and will do!
I hope you are correct, but this gave me a moment of pause: a week ago, I stopped at a large post office and asked to purchase a roll of postcard stamps. They had NONE. The clerk said to try this week (decided to just order online) and asked, how many rolls do you want? I said one, he said, they are coming in buying multiples, 3, 5, even sometimes 10 rolls of 100. I am praying it is for the good fight.
No more John Deans. What bothers me more than I can articulate are all the books that are being published now, after the fact, by people supposedly aware of the moral corruption of the Trump administration. Where were these authors, and their condemnation, when the events were happening? They have put personal profit before our country.
It does indeed feel like the beginning of a reckoning. But how far will it go and to what effect? With so many in the country seriously deluded by lies and/or distracted by soaring gasoline and other prices, will the reckoning truly hold people, enough people, to actual serious account? I remain confident of significant legal consequences for Jan. 6 — the system is working, though at a pace that until recently only made the perpetrators happy. But they're now tied to the railroad tracks and hear the train whistle blaring.
But with so many voters disengaged or hopelessly blind to the truths that the good professor illuminates night after long night, it's hard to be confident that a political reckoning of historic proportions is in the offing. Let's hope it is for those who have rigged the co-dependent systems of government and big business.
We keep learning over and over that unfettered capitalism is like the proverbial plague of locusts that consumes anything it can in the name of profit, and then more profit. To mix metaphors, it reminds me of a classmate in the sixth grade at a barbecue. He ate hotdog after hotdog, wandered away to throw up, and came back and ate some more. A disgusting image for sure. But not as disgusting at the rampant price gouging causing economic anguish for millions as companies reap record profits.
If the Democrats want huge and lasting change, they need to rally around the idea of combatting runaway corruption and greed, campaigning with a barn-burning fervor that somehow always escapes them. What we need, frankly, are real bad asses.
Michael Bales "If the Democrats want huge and lasting change..."
I think this comes out of a group mindset that mistakenly believes the path to success in American politics is to be taken “seriously,”
[T]oo often liberals address bad conservative ideas with piles of charts and figures and policy papers, and even in short form communications like a tweet, they load them up with so much data it is overwhelming.
What really works is simple: Tell people what will happen if conservative ideas are enacted.
You have said it, Ron, and it cannot be said enough.
Reasoning with America's and Americans' would-be owners is a stupid waste of time. They use only gut-twisting arguments to get their way. Only punch-in-the-guts reality can get round that.
Sadly, the only thing taken seriously these days are tweets. No complex thought can possibly win the day; it has to be blunt, brutal, and to the point.
We're aiming at the wrong audience. Aim for those who are more likely to at least listen. Dumping won't catch them. But as said before, by hammering on what the radical right is creating in real life can. Not sure what you mean by "brutal", but I suspect that going that route will simply turn possible prospects off. Yes, bluntly honest and to the point, but better include some recognition and hope and the possibility of acceptance or we'll lose them.
Good post, Ron. Right on the nailhead. I hope people will pay attention to what organizations of women are doing- and people of color. They are approaching things in just that way. Telling stories is a powerful way of making a point. If the only perspective you get is from some of the more abstract (and repetitive) circular to-the-choir posts on this forum or any other, and from some of the high-profile media outlets, you miss an awful lot of what is going on our there. Ha- take a look at some of Marcus Flowers ads! Brilliant. Really listen to what people are saying at the state level, instead of letting the crap drown it out. That's one thing we CAN control: what we let between our ears and how we choose to respond.
More than a few, Joe is alone in the effort, well maybe not alone, but seems that all the barn burners have a particular barn in their sights, not the whole kit and kaboodle of evil.
No they won’t. Peter. And that’s the nut of it, isn’t it. It folds in the comment from another commentor today about how the Nazi guard listened in amazement to the Jews being led into a gas chamber talking amongst themselves, incredulous that that could not believe this was happening. So many Americans are that way. So many are tuned out. So many believe the warnings are like the “Boy who cried Wolf”. And most just looked around and saw their friends and colleagues not worried, so they were not going to be alarmist and worry. Yet, the very real dismantling was going on in front of them. Just like now.
Ummmm. Excuse me. I am one badass and always have been. A bit scared, but NOT AFRAID. And I do not need a souped up trump train truck or tacky banners or alternate American flags. And I know you are one, Hale. It starts with us and then we elect only ones that see that in us.
My voice, my heart, my spirit, my resourcefulness, my respect put me in the badass club.
The problem is of course what enforcement if any will accompany those subpoenas. At this point have any, even one, of the subpoenas served to anyone above the rubes and nitwits of January 6 lead to any consequences? It is just kabuki theatre. The Dems issue their subpoenas and the traitors and insurrectionists ignore them. After a while the traitors will take back congress through rigged elections and that will be that. Though you can bet once back in power the GQP won’t be so tentative about dealing with their enemies.
Great visualization to manifest. All of them in cuffs...heading off to their new abodes for 20 years. Use their spoils of the war against democracy to pay for their gruel. Let the rats run rampant with them. Like with like. They want Dickensian, give them Dickensian.
The J6 Committee does not have that power. Once they refer all their investigations to the DOJ---then the power unfolds for criminal and seditious activity. Be patient dear friends. And try to focus on getting out huge numbers of voters and how we are going to change take America forward. Get out to the National Women's March tomorrow and let all the impregnators that want to destroy America that we don't think so! And we are mad as hell. The marches need HUGE numbers. We need to be strong and brave like Ukrainians. This is OUR country and the white, patriarchy caste system is screaming its death knell. We NEED Every able-bodied person to protest the destruction of our rights and our democracy. Please use your power well while you still have it.
I’d like to yank the undergarments of some white male legislators and their pasty faced sweaty guv into some tight wedgies. It is totally out of right field. DeSanitize got very very quiet when pressed on abortion. He has too many suburban moms to think about that freely support abortion…..privately.
The DOJ has does nothing so far to enforce ignored subpoenas. It seems clear cut and nonpartisan to enforce the repercussions of unlawful behavior and yet they’ve done nothing in that regard. Why should folks be hopeful that DOJ is going to actually hold the coup organizers accountable?
But...are there really no consequences? Isn't failure to comply with a subpoena a grave offence? Otherwise it would simply be an invitation to participate?
'Mutiny On The Bounty, Anne-Louise - if they take back congress and the courts, who can stop them from changing the laws to favor their advantage - and pardoning their fellows while prosecuting and suppressing those who oppose? Time to see if the complex laws of this government can protect and defend the rule of law itself - and what, in fact, that law supports and represents ....
And Anne-Louise points to the unimaginable consequences of failure to ensure that protection and defense.
Yes unimaginable.
*
To civilized readers my rage this morning will have seemed both uncivilized and partisan.
I don't care what it seems, I care for no party, I care for Life, I care for all I love, for humankind, for living beings, for the miraculous planet we are so blessed to share.
Next time I get called to jury duty at 26th & California, I'm ignoring it. That may sound racist, it is not meant to be, I just don't want to drive through areas where people are constantly having shoot outs.
Folks on Nicole Wallace yesterday were saying that these rethuglicans are now in a bind. If they ignore the subpoenas, then they'll never be able to subpoena their colleagues IF the rethuglicans retake the House. And if McCarthy ignores the subpoena he lessens his chance to become speaker for the same reasons. What I'd love is for all of them to be referred to the DOJ . That just makes the mess even messier for them.
And also regarding McCarthy’s enforcing subpoenas: remember McConnell’s rule for when a Supreme Court justice can be picked? The rule applies to democrats only. Same with enforcing subpoenas: there will be no complying now because the jan 6 committee is “political.” But when they are back in power, as they have already said, they are going to impeach biden. The doj will be weaponized again in their favor. They will indeed enforce their own subpoenas.
And TRAITOR Thomas has the gall to whine as news reports “Clarence Thomas says he worries respect for institutions is eroding.” That’s what galls me most.
I believe that reflects our liberal bias towards lawful behavior. We would be in that bind! But not the GQP. McCarthy’s chances of becoming speaker actually increase by ignoring the subpoenas because it makes him more trumpian. Right now the danger for him is in angering his radical caucus by doing what we would consider the rational thing. And even if they were referred now to the DOJ, given a)the plodding pace of the DOJ , and b) the apparent timidity of Garland to prosecute anyone of consequence, again there is little to worry about- the best course for the once again is to wait it out.
Pam I applaud your rational thinking. HOWEVER, McConnell was not rational when he deep sixed Garland a year before presidential elections and then jammed Barrett on to the Stench Court after Trump lost in 2020. For Republicans and Stench Court justices there are no precedents—as they shoot from the hip.
Exactly. We keep expecting rational behavior from the GQP because we are rational. They however are simply transactional. They do in the moment what advances their cause regardless of any other considerations. Time and again we are befuddled by this and left further behind.
No more befuddling from us!! The Pro-Rape Party has revealed itself in more ways than one now. We also know that religious groups, such as The strong Catholic lobbyists have their finger in the pudding regarding supreme court justices. No more playing NICE!
President Trump and his economic team see “no need to hastily rewrite the federal government’s antitrust rules,” … in 2020. They saw no problem with the fact that monopolies hurt the consumers, even after shortages had been rampant during the pandemic. Follow the money.
I've been saying for the past 2 years that the bandaid has finally been ripped off of all the policies promoted by the Republicans for the past 40 years. Nice to see that I'm tracking the same timeline as the Professor.
YOU are the badass, Christine! I love this! You know, I have always tried to be a good role model for young people. But right now, the world needs badass women to stand up to the white, seditious impregnators and just say NO! We are taking the world back from you because y'all have failed so treasonously..
I’ve been immersed in public education for decades. I’ve turned out some excellent critical thinkers. Standing up to the white seditious males making mincemeat of freedoms is being a good role model. Especially if you are a badass.
Okay, and was a Montessori teacher and owned a school for 15 years. Have been a therapist for mostly teens for 25 years. I want to retire so I can turn my "blank slate" around and speak out against tyranny. Let''s roll, Christine!
Good news on the home front: My F-i-L moves to a memory care facility today. His wife got him in via a Veterans' benefit situation. I just hope he is able to stay there. (I call her his wife because I am 7 months younger than she is...)
Ally, I wish you could have felt my heart while reading your message. Thank you. With your younger M-i-L, wife, F-i-L and you - in spirt - truly. Good for her and all of you. Secularly expressed, Bless the family.
I’m trying to start a club forum within the forum here. Badass Club. Drawing on my organizing days during past decades when going to a concert was helluva lot better than a stupid trump train rally.
I am encouraged that the January 6 committee and the Department of Justice are bringing the full force of the law to the insurrection and Trump's willful violations of national security. I fear that laws can only be enforced if most people believe they're valid, including the rich and powerful. So many lines have been crossed and so many empowered people and their followers are committed to a polar-opposite version of what's legitimate. I am hopeful but not optimistic. Let's get out the vote to keep Democrats in power.
It is good to find you searching through the debris to find us; the weary, the heartsick, fearful and angry; the traitors, saboteurs, the weak, the cheats and the liars; onward to the healers, the steadfast and the lonely. It is picture not put together.
Is it possible that the repugs’ strategy to dump the Dems and Democracy and take over once and for all is fueled by a simple strategy? Distraction? Nothing fully accomplished with a “stolen election,” and always an upcoming election, an insurrection requiring impeachment, 1/6 committees, justice Dept focused on the insurrection, refused subpoenas, SCOTUS leaks, overturning Roe v Wade, Abortion arguments, banned books, CRT, Russia, Putin, Ukraine with some repugs taking Putin’s side and don’t say his name but the reason for everything: TFG. Oh, and COVID, inflation and conspiracy theories, masks and vaccines. Baby formula. The list is endless. Block and Obstruct.
An article from 2021 on political and social media distraction in The Guardian:
“In TS Eliot’s words, we are “distracted from distraction by distraction”. The unsettling possibility is that if you’re convinced that none of this is a problem for you – that social media hasn’t turned you into an angrier, less empathic, more anxious or more numbed-out version of yourself – that might be because it has.”
We were built for these times. WE can do this. Together. Stick together and conquer. Numbers, Noise. Keep ideas flowing of the mass changes we need to implement once justice is served.
Absolutely. The radical right bumps us from one distraction to another (with the help of some of the media) to avoid having our focus on the key underlying problem, which is them. They may be embarrassed by Greene but not enough to ensure she is disempowered. She is too useful as a distraction, along with all those "what abouts" that keep getting thrown out. Not least of which is the non-news foo-fa-fa about Sen Cain to undercut his reputation as an honorable republican. And so on and so on . . .
On Baby Formula increased production & volume distribution, the Biden Team has coordinated with Gerber & Ricketts on the production side & Target and other national outlets that have powerful distribution networks. Bottlenecks need to be identified along with any unfair business practices.
The bitch In my assisted living who wears a tee shirt with Joe as a parasite on the front. Her apt door is festooned with chump and MAGAt paraphernalia. She has one of the most expensive apts and wears a smirk all the time.
“In 2013, WH Group (formerly known as Shuanghui International Holdings) purchased Smithfield for $4.7 billion; including debt, the deal valued the firm at $7.1 billion, then the largest acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese business”
In addition to keeping plants open, increased processing speeds on the lines and cut inspections of food safety
“Recent Waivers Part of Broader Slaughter Deregulation at USDA
Line speed increases and federal inspector reductions are part of a broader USDA overhaul of meat processing regulations that predates the current crisis. Called the New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) and the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS), these inspection regimes aim to reduce the number of USDA inspector spot-checks and move more safety testing off-site…Most critically, NPIS and NSIS shift some federal inspector duties to plant employees, which, critics argue, amounts to self-regulation.”
I'm speechless. Not about anything the dumpster (I never say his name) would do but at the level of corruption that seems to escalate exponentially on a daily basis. All of us need to be screaming about it at the top of our lungs!
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those legislators to respond by scheduling their appearance dates before the select committee on Jan 6; I'll be surprised if they don't simply refuse, attempt to call the committee's bluff, risk the referral of their refusal to the Justice Department for contempt of congress charges, then watch the Justice Department sit on it's hands fretting over a precedent setting move to hold congressmen accountable to their peers. The thing about justice, whether with a capital J or lower case j; it proceeds far too slowly to have much effect in the near term. Politics can be near-instantaneous in cause/effect, and certainly one can expect whatever cause/effect that can happen WILL happen by the next election, in this case November of this year. It's useful to remember that the ENTIRE House of Representatives stands for re-election every 2 years and 2022 is no exception. McCarthy and his buddies need to be held politically liable for their conduct with respect to the events of 2020-2021 surrounding the last election. If their hands are clean, then they should have nothing to fear from testifying before their peers on the committee. That seems like a stronger position than simply labeling the efforts as biased, politically motivated and refusing to participate. However, if the strongest position is actually playing to one's base, then their response will be totally predictable. I can't wait for the time when the pols recognize and are obliged to respond to the non-partisan voting block, which they will increasingly need as party politics becomes increasingly absurd.
I heard that the 1/6 committee heavily researched the laws/constitution about the aspect of bringing their colleagues to testify by subpoena. Jamie Raskin is a real constitutionalist, so you can be sure the committee has tried to dot every I/cross every T before issuing those subpoenas
“It's useful to remember that the ENTIRE House of Representatives stands for re-election every 2 years and 2022 is no exception.” I remember flying to Mexico in 2016 and complaining to my seatmate about TFG. She was from El Salvador and reminded me that we have elections every two to four years here in the states. So she wasn’t worried.
Please may it all be coming down in them and may the voters at last see the reality of what these anti democracy and immoral people have done and tried to do to all of us “we the people “ Thanks Heather for all you’re doing to open eyes 👏💐🇺🇸
Yes, Susan! And may all the guilty parties start singing loud and clear!
Thank you, Heather, for a meaty and informative letter!
"Meaty:
of or like meat.
abounding in meat.
rich in content or thought-provoking matter; full of substance:
a meaty topic for discussion."
Any way you slice it, Rowshan, Heather makes the cut!
Yes, but "WHERE'S THE BEEF?!?!?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E
Thank you, Lynell, for posting this link. The meat packing story is infuriating. It’s the story of my own family, the loss of businesses built by families over generations. Heart-breaking.
And the loss of small farm towns. Heart-breaking, and Nation-breaking.
Hey, Nancy; you're welcome. We need to break the hearts of those monopolies. Your reply signals my resolve to push my Congress people to push for it...sooner rather than later.
😥🤨🤢🤨😥
Thank you
In a feed lot, then to monopolies that run meat packing, out to consumers with even higher prices to buy beef full of hormones and antibiotics. The American way. If you buy meat, try to find a small local farm that does it right and yes you will pay more and get a tastier cut that was raised correctly. Here in Oregon we have a problem with lack of meat processors who will do "small orders". Some of it is caused by stupid government rules making it more difficult and some by processors who according to our pork guy, are a holes. He has had a hellish year. Raises heritage hogs and chickens in pastures. Sadly, our last meat guy and his wife were murdered viciously by his problematic home schooled son and his manipulative girlfriend.
I'm so sorry about the murder. Family murders are especially tragic. And I agree with you about the small local farms. I wonder if those "stupid government rules' are related in any way to other government rules that allow for industry consolidation. Blessings,
It has to do with, in this case, being a FDA approved slaughter establishment and maybe something with the state of Oregon.
How horrible, Michele. I wish...
I think a school district would have caught the problem. He was always surly when we dealt with him....selling his folks' products. They were deeply religious and had a prayer circle before slaughtering the animals. They raised their animals right. Then we had a brief stint with another farm whose plans were bigger than their ability to fulfill them. I had to badger the guy finally to get a refund on product not delivered. Our Saturday market has pork, lamb, beef, chicken, and sometimes buffalo. Then there is the wonderful Bodhi Bakery. We get there to be nearly first in line because they sell out quickly.
😥😥😥
Ya ya Kathleen, hhahaa I remember that saying - appropriate 'Then'. But, now? Surely you jest! However, I would only add that if yer in the Party of the Big aRse, you've got way more than your share. hahahoho.
Yes, I jest ... ☺️😊☺️
🤣
:-)
Mother Nature's way of turning us into vegetarians? Alpha-gal syndrome is a recently identified type of food allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals. In the United States, the condition is most often caused by a Lone Star tick bite. The bite transmits a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into the person's body.Oct 8, 2021
That. Is disgusting.
Tell Murdoch, Koch and the Pope!
🤣
I fear that it is a concert that will be cancelled due to no shows
Or… they will all “not recawl.”
I totally agree with you in the hope that this is the reckoning that we have been waiting for and also in your thanking HCR for all she has done to keep us informed daily. If only more people would read her words, they would know that this is not all Biden's fault and is once again showing the rotted greed of big corporations and the Congress people who ply them with $$.
On one of Heather's podcasts, she reminded viewers how many thousands of people watch/read/listen to her. We are the communication vehicle. Heather has done her job masterfully.
I do post this on my Facebook feed every day. I also have suggested that those on the far left read it. I doubt they have. My dyed in the wool R ex-classmate in Elkhart is anti being educated about issues (might cause her to change her mind) and so if she sees this, she probably removes it.
I do too. On FB and Twitter, and it makes me feel like I'm doing something concrete. I switch from Friends to Public for the audience. And I keep holding the energy of more people learning the truths we need to know.
Chaplain Terry, I shared your words with my activist group and encouraged them to follow you on FB and Twitter. Hope it’s ok to post here on the eve of Women’s March…
“Here's my take on Roe. I'm posting wherever I can. "I was a nun in 1968. I thought abortion was murder - a sin. Then I learned that when abortion is illegal, rich women fly and poor women, AND NOW CHILDREN, die. Anti-choice laws promote a different kind of murder, a murder of real women and children. And that's the real sin.”
Kathy I'm honored and grateful. Thank you! This helps because I live in DC and I wanted to attend the demonstration, but until my hip surgery I'm just not stable enough to be at a protest. You're reminding me to post again. Blessings and many happy moments.
Healing thoughts, Chaplain Terry. Please keep posting whenever you’re able. Your perspective is so important..and powerful !
Hope you heal soon, Chaplain.
Totally appropriate, in my opinion!!
But they won’t. The deafness I encounter on a daily basis is astounding. BIden is to blame for everything. Just saw a post on nextdoor yesterday about how our Jan 6 patriots are being held unconstitutionally. And the posts about the 2000 mules….
I don’t know if televised hearings will sway them, a la Nixon. I hope, but the cognitive dissonance and refusal to even entertain the truth is discouraging. It would probably help if the hearings aren’t translated by Tucker and Sean.
Yes, you are right when you say that many won't have any part of the truth. There again, I think that holding Donald Trump and members of Congress accountable would go a long way in starting the country to heal . I have jokingly said that secession may be the answer because the divide is so deep but maybe it is not so funny.
I am hoping CA secedes, eventually.
Marlene, you probably already know that Northern California and Southern Oregon have their loyal State of Jefferson supporters, proposing to split the states, creating a new State, seceding from their respective states. There have been serious efforts to create this state since 1941. Red or Blue? From Wikipedia, the last word!!!:
“The 2016 presidential election results, showing a strong Republican presence in the proposed State of Jefferson…
After the 2016 presidential election, it was noted that most of the rural California counties which would belong to the State of Jefferson were won in a landslide by Republican nominee Donald Trump, whereas Democrat Hillary Clinton enjoyed an unprecedented level of support in the rest of California, indicating a growing demographic and political divide between the proposed State of Jefferson and the rest of California.[citation needed] While Clinton beat Trump by almost 80 points in San Francisco, he led her by more than 50 points in Lassen County.[37][38] The election of Trump led to calls for a secession of California and a similar proposal in Oregon, where Clinton won the popular vote while Trump captured the majority of counties.[39][40][41]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state)
Irenie-we in NH have a group called The Free State Project which is ultra libertarian. They've managed to worm their way into the legislature and have allied w/Republicans. In Croydon, a few of them went so far as to completely eliminate the town police and subverted a town meeting by proposing cutting public school funding by half after many folks had left. Fortunately the town folks were able to have a discussion about the impact on schools and brought that bill up for a vote a second time and handily overturned that move. At the State legislature, not so much. They've passed atrocious bills and have utterly ignored massive public input against some of those bills. (An alliance from hell!)
Ugh Ugh UGH!!
Barbara, you illustrate why voters, residents, citizens must pay attention. It’s not easy. Libertarians have dismantled projects and policies for the people. In some places, infiltrated. And just the name, “Free State Project” is (should be) a red flag. Voter beware.
Yep, I know that, Irenie. We have the Central Valley where the farmers are and they are (were) governed by good ole Nunes in the Fresno area and McCarthy in Stockton. Many many migrant workers there who have been poisoned by chemicals that get sprayed on the crops. Oregon, Washington, CA, maybe parts of VA., and NY should clasp hands and form our own country.
Marlene, we have McClintock who is a do nothing bright Red Congressman. I’m so sorry for the farmers and farm workers who are exposed daily to cancer causing and dangerous chemicals. It’s criminal that these chemicals are legal when for years we have had more than enough data, research, evidence, proof that they are deadly. In Mexico and other countries that use Monsanto products, the people graffiti skulls and skeletons and anti-Monsanto slogans. The people there have no choice. I buy organic and I can afford it. More because I’m hoping the farm workers won’t be exposed to poisons. But they are often too expensive for families or low income consumers. “Environmental Working Group” is a great educational and activist group working to help consumers and our planet. https://www.ewg.org/
IIRC, Congress must approve any secession to form new split states. You know they never will cuz California is the cash cow for so many mostly-red states.
Judith, This secession initiative has been in the works for decades. Just putting up signs and canvasing satisfies some of these proponents. Many of them are the MAGA crew who still wave their flags in more rural areas, ready for the next election.
That is correct, Victoria. Salud.
Victoria, I have also “played” with the idea of secession, (obviously this is not happening, which is why it’s playing) but it seems the repugs are on the way to that possibility. Maybe temporarily, since they cannot be trusted to stick with their stories. The “one true thing” the power hungry repugs have in common is their fealty to TFG. Maybe not through a declared civil war, or through decree, but through their choices in sabotage, lies and obstruction.
This is indeed disheartening. Actually, horrifying is a better word. Keep focussed.
My prayer for today as well
Agreed. As distressing as it is to get this information, it is vital to our understanding of America right now. Will the voters respond? I hope so. I'll be walking in the Women's March here in Oakland tomorrow. I just can't sit this one out. Happy Friday, All!
There’s one in Martinez too. People marching there will get on buses that will take them to the State Capitol in Sacramento. Martinez is Contra Costa County’s county seat.
Are the Tyson and other meat packing workers unionized? Or are they the same economically vulnerable immigrant laborers we were introduced to by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in 9th grade History class?
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."- Upton Sinclair
The meat packers unions all got busted up in the ‘80s and ‘90s after Reagan made an example of the air traffic controllers. Monopolies and the idea of the corporate raider also became popular again about the same time. For some strange reason, we refuse to learn our lessons when we see or experience bad behavior by republicans as well as some of our own. Just call us Dems Charlie Brown as we watch Republicans Lucy pull the football away from CB once again, all the while insisting that that’s not really what’s going on.
Thank you for this brief encapsulation.👍I have been gagging for decades over the so-called Sainthood of Ronnie! He started the 40 year decline in workers' power that has brought the middle and working classes so low. And don't even get me started on the poor! With his stupid, but very effective "welfare queens"!
So here we are, pretty much in the same place workers were in 100 years ago. Time to enforce antitrust laws and go after the robber barons again. We've let things slide much too far.
What is the state of Taft-Hartley anyway? I assumed it was dead, buried and long forgotten since we’ve gotten back to monopolies again. By the way, I just read where Musk is starting to waffle on his Twitter deal.
Of course. He’s a waffler and a twitterer.
Headline from today's WaPo article on this: "Elon Musk says Twitter deal is on hold, putting bid on shaky ground. The Tesla chief executive later said he is ‘still committed’ and a person familiar with the talks said they are ongoing"
Reagan was, in my father's words, "an amiable dolt."
I remember when Rayguns hosted Death Valley Days years before he became president. I'll be the profits of the company that made Twenty Mule Team Borax were huge. (In case you don't know, that was a major product advertised on the show by that Grade B actor.)
Your father was a wise man.
That he was.
I call him Ray Gun. I blame him for getting the ball rolling on so many problems we see today including housing, homelessness, and mental health. I do bring him up when people are whining about these problems. May he be burning in hell.
And mental health! I was working at a psychiatric hospital when he “set them free.” A lot needed to be fixed, but he just decimated the system.
My ex brother in law was doing the same. He lost his job and never really got to do what his job was really about after that.
That happened where I was when it became a corporation with a CEO who knew zero about medicine or mental health.
I like it(Ray Gun). I hate 20/20 hindsight but here we see he was another useful tool in the republican game plan.
Watched it for over half my life. Almost expected for there to be a plane crash because of Reagan’s rash act. Almost wished for it, ashamed to say. But who couldn’t see where it would lead…
All the lemmings couldn't see it, and they can't see it now, even as they rush toward the edge of the cliff...
I can’t agree. There are millions who are up in arms. We’re running for office and working for others who are. We’re in the streets, particularly since the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade appeared. Don’t give up! Never give up!
Yup! Heading to the D.C. Women's March tomorrow with my granddaughter. Cobbling 2 back-to-back signs, mostly inspired by Heather's letters. One gem turned up on the Episcopal Church web site: 'The Episcopal Church honors an individual's right to make an informed decision about abortion. The church is a pro-choice denomination and belongs to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.' That is the centerpiece of the poster 'Faith is a personal choice protected by our Constitution.' Rain predicted; off to the laminating print shop.
Go for it! This morning, my wife went out for a walk and emailed me a photo of a sign in a window that read, "If I make my uterus a corporation, will you stop regulating it?"
Oh, that’s rich.
That's a really good one. I just might make a sign using that for tomorrow's march.
HA! Good one! My sign will be “the GOP = the PRO-RAPE PARTY”!
Truly funny.
Absolutely perfect and appropriately in-their-face! Thank you for posting it, Jon, and tell your wife thanks. I am unable to go to WaDC this week, even though a couple of activist orgs here are offering free bus transportation. Makes me sad not to be there. Would really love it if somebody going could make a little sign with the uterus logo and put my name at the bottom?
My husband’s idea for a sign here in Florida:
Abortion Bans = More baby Gaetz 😱😂
Priceless!
🤣🤣🤣
I'll be marching in Oakland as well. Love the Episcopal church sign!
Good for you heading to DC. Living now in DE makes it more possible to attend DC marches, and I’d be going if I could deal better with the expected weather. Thanks for the Episcopal update, too. They’ve got it right. Good luck tomorrow!
A poster I saw last fall: "We need to talk about the elephant in the WOMB" [giant outline of uterus and fallopian tubes with GOP Elephant inside between "talk about" and "the elephant in the WOMB"]
Priceless!
Yes, that one has been around for quite some time.
Good for you!! I took both of my daughters in 2019, to DC’s March!
I do agree, jon. I get nervous seeing so many on this forum so pessimistic.
I see the people who vote one issue as the problem. The 100+ people I know who voted for tfg all vote one issue.
But boy do they holler when things go bad.
Same issue for all 100?
The Republicans are holding the football because 60% of white voters (and almost nobody else) handed it to them. They were able to do that, despite being a 20 point minority of the electorate because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and anti-democratic defects in the Constitution. Democrats cannot do anything about any of those problems. Not with messaging, not with policy proposals, not with legislation. Their only hope is to overcome voter suppression by monumental get-out-the-vote efforts, and even if by some miracle they succeed, the 60% of white voters who want minority rule will still be doing everything they can to gum up the works, and since they comprise 40% of the electorate, they have plenty of gum. The 60% of white voters who vote Republican are the problem, the whole problem, and nothing but the problem.
Yes, I know this. I live in NC. We were overtaken by the republicans in the 2010 red wave. They did a number on our redistributing maps as you may remember.
More gaslighting by the R's and corporations and #45. Not to mention that #46 seems to be doing some, also.
The meat-packing plants are horrible, unsafe places to work. I had an English student, an immigrant from Ethiopia and the mother of 4 children, who worked at JBS for awhile. It was brutal and dehumanizing.
Exactly. People tend to focus on how bad it is for the animals (which I am in total agreement with) but it's also traumatic for the workers. Meat, eggs and dairy. All bad in any but the small scale farming.
❤️
One reason why it’s meat no more for me, there are more reasons…
I support local farmers.
Here in upstate New York, many small-scale farmers, including livestock producers, saw a boost in sales during the pandemic. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Same here in Vermont, Ellen. We even have a coalition of folks (including legislators) looking forward at how VT can meet future possibility of being food-sufficient is that becomes necessary. It's exciting to be able to eat local foods most of the time.
I've eaten less and less meat the more I learn about how these corporations operate.
And, our (ie, the US of A) efforts to address those things are underfunded, therefore relatively ignored, or just presented as.., 'the problem'. Especially today, by the blowhards and pinheads of the Big aRse party. You might want to recognize them in more intellectual terms...like: Flat Earth Boneheads for Jesus - Under god. Aaaahh-Men. Ooops there's that word "men" again..., that's where The Beef is.
You heard it here first!
Here in Iowa, Tyson's plants are non-union, with many immigrant workers. Working conditions were dreadful during the early spread of Covid 19, with numerous workers falling ill and some passing. Safety protocols were inadequate to stem the spread. But workers had to show up, or lose their jobs.
Evil and then some
Flat Earth Rules. Show up or die. Show up and die. You have a choice, amigo.
These meat packing corporations hold a monopoly. Jon Tester in Montana has been asking for an investigation into why there are so few, and huge, managing meat products from ranchers. Their profit hits the consumer.
I really like Jon Tester. He’s a farmer who farms his own land and takes care of the people who work for him.
Tester is liked but how do you feel about Steve Daines of Montana? You know, the sea turtle genius. I really think that his latest outburst is an attempt to launch himself into the national consciousness as another forget me not Republican.
I honestly don’t know anything about Daines but thanks for alerting me of him.
Just looked Daines up! What an absolutely gem he is, right? 🤬🤬
It’s your fault. He was born in Van Nuys. Must have been at the Budweiser brewery.
Shit!
We probably just need to follow the money as HCR talked about. I think a lot of us have felt we consumers have been taken advantage of time and again. It also seems there are constant recalls of meat products (particularly ground beef).
I also have a good friend in Iowa who said a lot of family members in the meat packing plants were also less skilled workers in nursing homes. But that is a whole other kettle of fish.
I wondered where some came from…
“Forks over knives”
“Game Changer”
Available on Netflix.
Bring back Wild Salmon and the Buffalo.
Farmed salmon are not worth eating either....total mush. Fresh salmon right now is really expensive....last time I looked about $36 a pound. We buy black cod when we can get it....less expensive, good nutritional profile, and very tasty.
I remember wild salmon at .39 cents a bound. Sustainable. inexpensive. Healthy. But Ranchers don’t want that.
I grew up in the midwest where we only had canned salmon. I came to Oregon in 1968 and I don't ever remember that price. Fortunately, my LMT likes to fish, so he sometimes shares his bounty including salmon.
Yikes! Eye-opening that early in the pandemic, meat-packing workers forced by economic necessity to work in contagion conditions were also doing less skilled work in nursing homes! No wonder Covid ripped through workers and patients!
My older brother’s assisted living place required employees to commit to working there exclusively. Not at multiple homes. Resulted in only a couple of cases.
The dog of monopoly caught the car. Like so many industries, every recession results in the consolidation, and over decades has forced the smaller business’s to close or sell out to larger. So when Republicans claim pro business, what they really mean is pro big business, pro monopoly, pro my business at small biz owners expense.
But when there is a bacteria outbreak at the major baby formula producer, we don’t hear from companies spokesman nor CEO. Instead they blame the regulator and current President for Public Health and regulatory rules that keep infants safe from getting sick and/or dying.
See how it works? When ur in power defund, or unwind, or don’t enforce regulation that is there to protect people. When your out of power criticize with claims that governent is ineffective, overreaching, at fault, but they are really the ones that refused to solve the problem by ignoring it in the first time lace. What’s this contradiction called? Do we have a name for it?
There should be one, more specific than standard profanity. Maybe someday “Republican” will be the word people use.
Excuse me... I need to go 'take a republican'. Thank you. Uh Oh.. I was just advised that I should say: "I need to LEAVE a republican" .., not "take" one.
Yes. A shit show.
Yes Christine (FL) Please, flush hard! It's a longways to Mara lago... err ahhhh Is the septic system still clogged...?
Works for me, Christine!
The story of corruption in the USA is long, many sided and deep. I don't know the beginning of Abbott's/Texas first moves on the wallets and lives of the people. Here's a big story. Abbott figures largely, but he was not alone.
'A few years ago, a series of newspaper articles shone a harsh spotlight on the foster care system in Texas. Investigative journalists with the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News documented stomach-churning stories of cruelty and neglect made possible by an overstretched and underfunded child-welfare system. Turnover among case workers at Child Protective Services was sky-high, in part because of staggering caseloads that virtually guaranteed at-risk kids would fall through the cracks. In 2015, a federal judge wrote that Texas’s system was one in which “rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm.” In 2016 alone, 217 kids died of abuse and neglect in Texas.'
'Governor Greg Abbott pledged to take urgent action to overhaul the “broken system.” Lawmakers berated child-welfare leaders during committee hearings at the Capitol, providing clips to be used in local TV news broadcasts. “Nothing is more important than protecting the children of Texas,” said Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. In a letter to the head of CPS, Patrick wrote that the state leaders would “not tolerate” the agency’s “totally unacceptable” failures any longer.'
'It was a good show. Such a good show, in fact, that it was almost possible to quiet some nagging questions: Didn’t the politicians pass the rules and budgets that starved CPS and kept it from retaining a competent workforce? Didn’t the policymakers have much better access to the inner workings of the foster care system than any reporter? Weren’t those in power ultimately responsible?'
'The systemic problems that were hurting and killing so many kids were outlined in a 1996 report commissioned by Governor George W. Bush, a 2004 report by the comptroller’s office, and a 2010 report commissioned by Governor Rick Perry. Little changed then, nor in 2017. That year the Legislature put a bit more money into CPS, and Patrick urged churches to adopt more foster kids in a video he posted on his website. Lawmakers also partially privatized the system despite warnings from some advocates that doing so would create dangerous conflicts of interest. By 2020 the agency was in another crisis, with children removed from their parents sleeping in agency offices in record numbers for lack of any other place to send them.'
'That’s the way our state government works, more often than not. Elected leaders do their best to ignore real problems that only they can solve, …' When someone forces them to acknowledge what isn’t working—as was done in the case of CPS by a crusading federal judge, journalists, and advocates—many state officials profess to be shocked by the shoddiness of the systems they oversee. And then, more often than not, they make token changes and move on.'
'But what if something were to happen that exposed Texans from all over the state and all walks of life to that ineptitude? On the night of Sunday, February 14, as Texas plunged into darkness and cold, as the lights and water went out, state government’s incompetence stopped being somebody else’s problem.'
'More than 4.5 million customers in Texas were without power during the peak of outages in the state this week, as freezing temperatures hit parts of the country.'
'The winter storm caused by the collapse of the polar vortex, likely influenced by climate change, will almost certainly go down in the record books as the most expensive natural disaster in the state’s history, outpacing the $125 billion toll of Hurricane Harvey. It could also prove to be even deadlier than Harvey, which took about a hundred lives. It will take some time to calculate how many died during Texas’s Lost Week, but it seems possible it will be significantly higher once indirect deaths are included.'
'An 11-year-old boy in Conroe died of hypothermia under a pile of blankets in his family’s mobile home, soon after having played in snow for the first time. A 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran went to his truck to fetch his last oxygen tank and froze there. An 8-year-old girl who died was one of 580 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in Harris County alone, as Texans turned to generators and car engines in an attempt to stay warm. One doubts that these Texans, and those needing dialysis and chemotherapy, would be glad to go even longer without electricity if that’s what it takes “to keep the federal government out of their business,” as former governor Perry, one of the key architects of the state’s failed electricity grid, defiantly told Fox News.'
'The number of deaths will be roughly calculable, eventually, as will the economic losses, but the psychological damage is harder to quantify, though no less important. For those who lost power, water, and cell service, the experience was briefly that of being part of a collapsing civilization. It came after a year of a pandemic and an economic crash that have already put Texans under almost unbearable pressure.
'(Ted Cruz had flown to Cancún amid the worst of the crisis.)'
'Most importantly, the pain fell across geographic and socioeconomic divides. The suffering, of course, wasn’t evenly distributed—it never is—but it nonetheless included many middle-class and affluent folks who have previously had little reason to doubt the state’s ability to protect them. Poor Texans may be more used to having the power cut, but the experience of leaving a once-comfortable suburban home to find firewood for heat was probably a bit more eye-opening.'
'The winter storm that brought all this about, though severe by Texas standards, would have qualified as a brisk weekend in some parts of the country that wouldn’t experience so much as a flicker of their lights. Someone had blood on their hands. But who?'
'Texans looking to their governor for answers heard little, at first. A day and a half into the crisis, on Tuesday night, Abbott finally surfaced to be interviewed in the friendly environs of Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. Abbott pinned the blame on wind turbines. The blackouts, he told Hannity, showed “how the Green New Deal,” and the rise of renewable energy, “would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” (This was a few hours after the eleven-year-old boy froze to death in Conroe.) “Our wind and our solar, they got shut down and they were collectively more than ten percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis,” he said.'
'This was a lie. It was a convenient lie, because it slotted the disaster into a familiar front of the culture war—green energy versus fossil fuels, New York socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez versus Texas. This mess was environmentalists’ fault, somehow.
'Who, then, is to blame? Just as with the child-welfare system, the buck stops with state government—with lawmakers and governors past and present. For one, ERCOT is overseen by the Texas Public Utility Commission, whose three commissioners are appointed by the governor. He is the elected official most directly accountable for their performance and, through them, the performance of ERCOT.'
'The utility commissioners are the sorts of figures a governor appoints when he wants people to toe the party line, individuals with close ties to him and to the industry they’re empowered to regulate. The current chairman, DeAnn Walker, was a senior adviser to Abbott prior to joining the board. Before that, she was the director of regulatory affairs at CenterPoint Energy, the Houston electricity and gas giant. Another commissioner, Arthur D’Andrea, has been working for Abbott in various capacities since Abbott was attorney general, most recently as a lawyer in the governor’s office.'
'The commissioners are paid more than $200,000 annually, but face little scrutiny. Last summer, the commission disbanded its oversight and enforcement division, which among other things investigates deceptive practices by electricity retailers, apparently because it was acting as a check on the commission’s power. And in November, the commission unilaterally junked its relationship with the Texas Reliability Entity, an independent monitoring organization that makes sure electric companies follow state guidelines. Predictably, Abbott and his allies have directed fire at ERCOT, not his apparatchiks on the commission.'
'Deregulation also made the grid less robust and less resilient. By design, ERCOT has no “capacity market,” whereby electricity producers are paid to ensure generating capacity on future dates. Instead, the energy-only system relies on high wholesale power prices to encourage more generators to come online when demand rises. (That’s why some Texans with contracts pegged to the wholesale market have been getting post-freeze electricity bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.) The reliability of the Texas grid has always been an open question: we’ve seen relatively brief blackouts in winter storms and summer heat waves, but there have always been warnings of something worse.' (TexasMonthly) If you have read The Texas Monthly more that twice in a year you are out of luck reading the entire article because of paywall. Unfortunately, I am not a subscriber, so unable to gift.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/responsible-texas-blackouts/
Oh Fern, this should be loudly broadcasted throughout the land!! The usual suspects are guilty Guilty GUILTY! I so pray that members and former members of the Pro-Rape Party give Abbott the axe.
Marlene, You shouted it exactly; there was a time, a long time ago, when PBS and and local educational stations covered corruption and the culprits to some degree, not enough, but some. We need investigative journalism, regularly on local and national network tv, on social media, cable, newspapers... all over the ___damn place! Bring back LOCAL NEWS - rural and urban!
Definitely!!
Plain old-fashioned self-serving hypocrisy.
Republicanism?
Flat Earthers, sans a leader (at the moment). That's "republicanism" personified.
I posted this link elsewhere; here it is again. I can't remember if it answers the question why so few (greed, is my assumption) but it does explain how it happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E (Vox)
I was going to say shameful, but it is corrupt. Our ignorant, and greedy, politicians bear much of the blame. Bought off, and controlled by PACs and mega producers, these crooks belong in jail with swinging door regulators and CEOs.
Just one more reason to finally cut the last of processed beef from my diet. Sickening in so many ways.
Meat gone, not missed,
Me too. 10 years and I haven’t died of protein deficiency.
30-plus years for me!
❤️
I only buy beef and pork locally. Mostly chicken as well, although I do buy pre-coked Costco chickens occasionally. I buy a half-beef annually that is raised by an organic farm under organic conditions, except that the butchering process is done on site (again under organic conditions, but not up to "federal code") in that the animals are not transported and terrified but butchered on their farm.
We, too, have local options, run by folks who have been in the business for many years.
My local butcher shop is Union, and offers a Military and First Responder discount (very few places recognize first responders…)
I do not buy "ground beef" ....UNLESS... I'm the BB'Q guy, then I figure all the beer we're gonna consume will save us. Yuhh., not a pleasant thought. Chicken is almost as bad. I'm for "local" too!
❤
I think science has proven that diets high in processed meat, are much more likely to get and die from cancer and/or heart attacks.
Thanks for sharing Lynell.
You're very welcome, Trisha!
I just watched that video and I wondered who the farmers blame in Congress? I had seen another Vox special on this very subject go on full force attack against these beef packing companies but also on chicken companies too. They hit Perdue (Purdue?) up pretty hard. This was good, Lynell. I try and eat only organic chicken or wild fish. Stopped red meat almost 40 years ago.
That's a good question, Marlene. I suspect they are Republicans who aren't properly vetting their representatives. Just my guess.
I, too, saw something about the chicken industry and the hogs, too.
We eat organic chicken, too, mostly, and buy eggs locally. And we still eat red meat occasionally. We are lucky where I live to have a couple of sources for local beef.
We too, can get local foods and many grocery stores here supply them.
I’m pretty sure it’s “The Jungle” No unions in sight. Corruption and cruelty at it’s best
Or more appropriately at it’s worst
I wonder if it’s on Christy Noem’s “to be banned list”
I doubt she’s ever read it or anything that has meaning or makes you actually think. But as soon as someone points it out to her and gives her a book report...it will be headed to the bonfire
Unf**kingbelievable
I can’t stand hearing her name which conjures up watching her at any lecturn being loathsome.
Goebbels's grand daughter.
Ha.. Ted, The only thing on Christy Noem's agenda is that she is obviously constipated in the worst way. She needs to go to the Womens Room and relieve some republicanism. Flush hard.
Probably...the Gnome is one of the worst. My husband has relatives in South Dakota who regularly report (as in one almost daily) on her vile doings.
Karen Perhaps an itty-bitty better than “The Jungle?” I haven’t read lately of fingers and wedding bands in sausage. What’s much worse is the monopolization of the food industry, especially in meat and poultry. The absence of unions and the sweetheart inspections by the government make the food industry is disgusting area of human exploitation and, not infrequently, excremental food. Workers of the food industry unite!
At the JBS plant in Greeley, CO.
“In a new contract secured last summer, the union gained substantial raises from JBS, the Brazilian conglomerate that owns the plant. Colorado passed legislation mandating paid sick leave, after the state shut the plant for more than a week last year. Inside the slaughterhouse, dividers and partitions have been installed to help maintain social distancing.
wages jumped from about $18 an hour to more than $26 under the new contract.
The Greeley plant, which paid $2,100 bonuses to workers who got the coronavirus shots, has achieved an 80 percent rate of vaccination, Ms. Richardson added. The facility has increased wages more than 50 percent over the past five years.“
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/business/meat-factories-covid.html
And how were their profits affected??? Not at all, I suspect
Which is actually great news. It proves a company can treat its employees well and still prosper. Spread the word!
Profit is not a four letter word.
Profit is what makes our economy among the strongest in the world.
Profit is fine, but not unreasonable profit at the expense of both workers and consumers. Price gouging is what makes profit dirty.
Especially when they kick us when we’re down!
But isn’t greed the operative word
Ms. Rose, Mr. Spencer’s point, I believe, is that the Greeley plant’s owners lost NOTHING while making their workers’ lives so much better.
It’s the massive bonuses for the essentially all white and male management that is problematic.
This link is off your link, H.H., and mirrors the September 2021 Vox article, posted elsewhere on this page:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/beef-prices-cattle-ranchers.html?
👍🏼
Thanks!
So glad you asked, Ted:
https://www.ufcw.org/who-we-represent/packing-and-processing/
Biden's State of the Union address about meat packers (political?):
https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/biden-calls-out-meat-packers-sotu
Vox's September 2021 expose about the Big Four - 14 minutes (nonpolitical?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_hCLjUrK1E
Thanks!
There was a more recent discussion of the processing of meat workers experience in either The Omnivore's Dilemma or Fast Food Nation. It might be the later where I recall the disgusting reality of the meat workers being discussed. I read them a long time ago. However, not as long ago as The Jungle. All of these books show the meat industry industry to be an awful one to work in.
That book electified my as a kid.
Yes!
It's quite likely Tyson and the other companies have no unions.
I felt physically ill reading this. Not that I didn't know about the meatpacking plants. There were many stories about the horror of it all back then. But rereading about it tonight, on this day where one million COVID deaths are beginning to be marked, a vastly underestimated one million, and decades ahead of us of repercussions from this criminally exploited pandemic -- on this day, reading about the pure evil (let's call it what it is) of the people who run these companies, KILLING thousands of their workers and family members of workers, traumatizing hundreds of thousands more, it hits me somehow more deeply.
And Abbot. Them I did not know about. Baby formula! It's Dickensian.
I used to get angry at corruption at the FDA, back when I was aware of some nasty hanky panky leading to drugs being pushed through that should not have been. I can still get angry at that, especially regarding one drug that affected me personally. But I had no idea that it was something of a privilege to be able to be angry at unacceptable but run-of-the-mill governmental agency corruption, no idea what it would be like to live through times when these agencies would be weaponized to a degree that I'd have thought not possible in this country.
At moments it does feel like we are at the beginning of the reckoning of forty years of decisions. But most of the time it feels like I am experiencing what many people must have felt in Europe as Hitler gained more and more power, complete with a new understanding of why Jews could not believe it would ever get "that" bad.
You have read my mind. From Craig Turner, Twitter, 2018 “A few years ago I was watching a documentary about the Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. At one point during the documentary, they were interviewing a former concentration camp guard. He was telling of how he was amazed at the disbelief of the Jews that were being led into the gas chambers and before firing squads. He said he heard them murmuring the same phrases over and over…he kept hearing them say ‘I can’t believe this is happening, How can this be happening? Why is this happening?’
The guard said that every time he heard them mumbling these questions as they were being led to their deaths, the same response would go through his mind….for 10 years we have been telling you that we hated you…for 10 years we’ve been telling you that we were coming for you…why didn’t you believe us?” Well, prison guard, I can answer that. It’s hard for normal, non-cultists to believe that fellow humans can epitomize abject evil. Let us never forget. Ukrainians know first hand…
Well said. When someone tells you who they are (or what they believe) believe them. When you see their actions and beliefs in action, believe them.
I believe the time may have come when we need a brief (dare I say Twitter ready/compliant statement) regarding that with respect to each of the horrible things going on in Florida and Texas (which seem to be competing for the worst on earth) and with SCROTUS, not to mention the seditious congress critters.
There is always a mix of what people believe. In Europe, plenty of Jews wanted to leave but either lacked any money for travel or could not find a country to let them in. Think of the kindertransports, special trains that saved some Jewish children. Their families saw clearly what was happening, and saved who they could.
At the same time, you are right that “ it can’t happen here” blinders have been active in this country for a long time. Democracy won’t save itself. We have to save it.
And we liberal white people — well, OK, I, really — didn’t believe black Americans when they were telling us that racism is as horrible as ever — maybe worse, in some ways, so devious. I think you’re right, Jeri and Joan, we just didn’t believe human beings could be that evil, that “it can’t happen here,” that I don’t have any racists in my social circle, that you’re being too sensitive, that they’re spouting hyperbole, blah blah blah.
I feel like such an idiot — I didn’t see any of this coming.
“Don’t mourn, organize!”
Thank you for your honesty, SL. And for bringing the point back to the point.
Hi, yes, I do know this. I only meant that I now understand better those who could not see, could not believe it would continue to get worse.
Early on in the pandemic, they tracked traffic from meat packing plants. I think they used cell phones. The way that map lit up was both impressive and scary.
I remember seeing those maps. Scary as hell.
So well put, Nomi. I just pray enough of us are aware of the warning signs RIGHT NOW and are prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure that nazi atrocity can NEVER AGAIN happen. I so hope we citizens are not fooled, are not believing “it would ever get ‘that’ bad.”
Again. Makes me shudder.
Time to play my broken record again.
Title of this track? “Where Have You Gone, Merrick Garland?”
The Department of Justice is the only entity that can bring about the kind of shock therapy that America needs. I applaud the 1/6 Committee for their latest bold move in subpoenaing 5 co-members of the House. But they will not come, gambling that they are going to regain power and their stunning contempt of Congress will be a piece of history that is theirs to bury.
I read the same cycle of comments day after day. Two or three point out the particular horror of the moment. One or two upbraid them in a polite way and tell them to organize or to vote. Then it’s off on another tangent of preaching to the choir, followed by another exhortation.
Progressive Americans have had, at a minimum, six years of abuse, torment, and degradation. People are tired, worn to the bone with with criminality posing as leadership or leadership-hopefuls. (The primaries now are a particularly nauseating example of the GOP running wild in the streets. It just gets worse and worse, as so many Americans support those who take the most extreme and ugly positions in order to get the power they crave.
People have already done so much organizing, so much protesting. Their fries are being only faintly heard. The last tangible victory was the midterms.
For those of you imploring others to organize/vote etc, there is much to admire. But you’ve been doing it forever and the message is now worn and barely heard. Certainly the other side is not running in fright. They strut sickeningly.
Your government could help you. But, do what they might, the Republicans plus one block every attempt and further defeats are registered. Thus comes more discouragement which brings about more cries to stay in the game. It’s hard right now to rise up.
But there is one area of government, the Department of Justice, which could provide a jolt of energy to weary souls and (finally!) tremors of fear to the swaggering right.
But they do not act and time is running out. The next six weeks go the House Committee. They will rock the boat fiercely, but their power is only that of suasion, and they are not going to persuade the country. The DOJ will defer to them. It’s inconceivable they would start indictments then, thus diverting the nation’s attention.
Then there are 2-3 months in which we can hope that Garland et al will finally act. In order to have any hope of stopping this avalanche into a jungle of proto-fascism, the indictments must come out in broad swathes, not leaving out Trump itself. The crimes have been reported ad nauseam. We all know that key Republicans perpetrated sedition against the country. At some point in time 2 + 2 does equal 4.
If Garland doesn’t act between the end of the hearings and Labor Day, then the door slams shut, firmly and I believe finally. The midterms will be a devastating slaughter. Trump and his acolytes will have won.
And spare me the canard that you only get one shot at the king, that the DOJ is getting its ducks in a row. You have to swing for the fences when you’re down by 3 in the ninth with two out. You don’t need Garland up there, hoping for a walk.
Indictments would bring back every progressive’s flagging energy. There would be storms of protest against whatever the crime du jour was. Long lines would form to vote in November.
The country just might be saved.
Where Have You Gone, Merrick Garland?
You guys in this forum who have worked so faithfully, organized, spent your money, voted with your conscience, and grieved repeatedly - you now need some help. It can only come from him.
The message is still being heard, Eric. By people who are new and still feeling their way. The people who were early on this forum are out there putting those thoughts into action, in various ways, bit and small. Some still post from time to time (like I do).
I share your feelings of frustration when the conversation seems to be going in circles. When that happens, I skim a lot, especially when the conversation turns abstract and pedantic. Sometimes the discussion seems dominated by a few people who like the sound of their own voices and form their own little cliques within the forum.
I keep coming back here because I am inspired by the growth I've seen in so many of the folks who get the points Heather and other observers make- and then take them to the ground in their own lives and places. I cherish those people: they keep me going.
Right now, I need to take a break from most of my activities (including working in the garden - wah!) because of the heat and the fact that I have physical limitations that flare up from time to time. I don't quit, though. And I can see the small things I am able to do make a difference. Soon I may have to make some decisions about my role, and make some shifts in what I do and how I do it. Doesn't mean I'm giving up. Means I'm growing and changing.
One last thought before I get on with my day: You obviously care passionately about what is happening to our democracy. Please do not think that because you can't see something, it's not happening. Each of the things you mention are important. No one of them is enough. Dig a little deeper, and enlarge your scope of view. I agree with everything you say about what is needed. I would posit that there are people out there working on those very things. I can't comment on Merrick Garland, because I can neither make assumption about what is behind that scene, nor can I read the future. But I do see things winding their way in the direction we've all been hoping for.
Lovely, encouraging post. :)
Maggie, thank you so much for the compliment. Sorry to say, I don't have a formal blog right now. Though I do write every day, online and off, I'm afraid my production is rather random for a consistent blog just now.
I think my spinning and weaving blog is still active, and it includes a fair amount of philosophy and musings on various topics along with the weaving, wool processing, and such. But I haven't done much with it for a couple of years. My spinning wheel broke down just before the pandemic hit. I've not been able to get it repaired yet, so the bins of wool sit there, unworked, along with the thoughts they spark, while I do other things!
I am saving many of the bits and pieces that I write here and other places, and someday want to put together a volume of essays (after a lot of rewriting so things hold together!).
What is your “you” reference. Are you not of this country? Or do not believe in the process of the judicial branch? It’s not one person.
I am not American. But my son teaches at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and I have fierce worries for him - he is tenured and there is no school outside the US that does what he does, so I think he’s there more or less permanently.
Surely you realize that I have some idea of the scope of the judicial process. I know there are tens of thousands of people who are a part of it.
But the guy at the top sets the tone and direction and thus the proverbial buck starts and ends with him.
Swap out Merrick Garland and swap in, oh say, Jamie Raskin. Would America and the DOJ be in this position? I suggest not.
Eric, I don't read the comments often, so this is not a broken record to me. I have defended the DOJ (and the state and city level investigations of Trump et al) for the reasons that you're well aware of. But you've convinced me that the fast approaching midterms overrides the usual wisdom, that swinging for the fences is imperative. I've been stuck on the possibility of conviction, but you make a good argument that that doesn't matter now. (The "never before" argument never held ground with me: We've also "never before" had an attempted coup, let alone one led by a president.) A quick Google search tells me many agree with you, although I'm not seeing enough talk about the criticalness of an indictment before the midterms.
Elie Honig, a former prosecutor, wrote upon this in Cafe Insider. It’s a paywall site, but I found this site which may be open.
https://cafe.com/elies-note/note-from-elie-merrick-garland-is-running-out-of-time/
I hope you are able to get it.
Hi, the link works. I read what I could before panic took over reading the specifics of what's likely to happen if we lose the House. I know I said I did a Google search, and I did. But I have to greatly limit what I read now. Health is at stake. I read Heather's letter every day, but that is usually it.
But I get it. Thank you.
I’m sorry that your health is at stake. And it makes me burn to think that this long period of egotistical, unconscionable behavior has effects, such as on your health, has.
They must be stopped.
I hope you find solace in other good parts of life.
❤️
I agree wholeheartedly!
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Oh dear. I know I sounded hopeless here. I am not hopeless. I do not know what's going to happen. Nor do I believe anything is "over." Nothing is ever over, even when the very worst occurs. But, truly, I don't believe anything is a forgone conclusion. Things shift in unexpected ways. All the time. This letter just took me down tonight. Some of them do that.
You sound completely honest and with a need to share your emotions as well as your thoughts. It does not sound hopeless. I never feel that way, either, after reading Professor Richardson’s Letters and other Substacks which lay out relevant information. I think it’s empowering to get some facts and and an accurate rendering of sequence of events. It can be very emotional also. Salud, Nomi!
United 🗽
To what you, Christine, and Nomi have written...
A hundred million ❤s
And more and more and MORE..........
Empowering. Yes. Agree with Peter.
We get it.
Me too
I go through those cycles too, Nomi. We're human. And we need to talk about those feelings too. I can't say how helpful some of the folks here have been, coming to my rescue when I am in the dumps, so that I can get up and figure out what I *can* do. Thanks for doing the same, and making it possible for others to feel safe when they need to reach out from pain or frustration or exhaustion. Bless you.
Yes, when you publicly display your vulnerability, even in a relatively good group, it's usually quite a mixed experience. But sometimes I seem to have to. And I try to remember that there are others feeling similarly. <3
👍🏼
Yup.
We're all waking up to the fact we've been living for some time in a dystopian science fiction novel come to life that neither Philip K. Dick or William Gibson could have imagined on their best days.
Margaret Atwood did a pretty good job!
Indeed she did and is still churning
Plenty of us have felt this way since the Reagan years.
🙋♀️
I often have the same feeling, TC. But I also see, almost every day, things that reflect some of the best sci-fi written by others, mostly brilliant women that in early days did not get the attention they deserved. Followed by some remarkable women of today, often from "marginalized" cultures, drawing on the traditions of those cultures envisioned in a different kind of future. I celebrate the way these writers enlarge how we might think about, not only the future, but how we do things right now. A bunch of different possibilities that we overlook because we are so accustomed to only one kind of thinking.
👍🏼
so true.
As I read this letter, I began to feel the way I did when I was much younger and the Watergate affair began to unravel. Sooner or later somebody will come clean and Trump will be history.
“From your mouth to God’s ears” as the saying goes.
Updated: from your keyboard to God’s eyes
Love it
Ditto what Candace said
Trump personally is on his way out. The danger now is from the inheritors of the hate machine he energized. Desantis and Abbott are competing for most authoritarian governor. The Supreme Court is living a fever dream of theocracy.
We are not done with this yet. If we each do our part, however big (like HCR) or tiny ( mainly I write GOTV postcards), we can swing the pendulum back. 70 per cent of the country agrees with us! Keep on with whatever actions you can and will do!
I hope you are correct, but this gave me a moment of pause: a week ago, I stopped at a large post office and asked to purchase a roll of postcard stamps. They had NONE. The clerk said to try this week (decided to just order online) and asked, how many rolls do you want? I said one, he said, they are coming in buying multiples, 3, 5, even sometimes 10 rolls of 100. I am praying it is for the good fight.
It does sound good….I’m pretty sure there aren’t that many tourists sending post cards!
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll get more stamps sooner this round.
Mostly Field Team 6 or Activate America. Sometimes Postcards to Voters. If you need links, say so and I’ll find them on my other gadget.
Watergate was Peanuts compared to Trumps sins.
True, but I was thinking more of the process than the crimes.
👍🏼
I remember, then there were men with integrity. No more John Deans
No more John Deans. What bothers me more than I can articulate are all the books that are being published now, after the fact, by people supposedly aware of the moral corruption of the Trump administration. Where were these authors, and their condemnation, when the events were happening? They have put personal profit before our country.
Greed is not only good, it metastasizes
Faster, faster...
We can only hope.
It does indeed feel like the beginning of a reckoning. But how far will it go and to what effect? With so many in the country seriously deluded by lies and/or distracted by soaring gasoline and other prices, will the reckoning truly hold people, enough people, to actual serious account? I remain confident of significant legal consequences for Jan. 6 — the system is working, though at a pace that until recently only made the perpetrators happy. But they're now tied to the railroad tracks and hear the train whistle blaring.
But with so many voters disengaged or hopelessly blind to the truths that the good professor illuminates night after long night, it's hard to be confident that a political reckoning of historic proportions is in the offing. Let's hope it is for those who have rigged the co-dependent systems of government and big business.
We keep learning over and over that unfettered capitalism is like the proverbial plague of locusts that consumes anything it can in the name of profit, and then more profit. To mix metaphors, it reminds me of a classmate in the sixth grade at a barbecue. He ate hotdog after hotdog, wandered away to throw up, and came back and ate some more. A disgusting image for sure. But not as disgusting at the rampant price gouging causing economic anguish for millions as companies reap record profits.
If the Democrats want huge and lasting change, they need to rally around the idea of combatting runaway corruption and greed, campaigning with a barn-burning fervor that somehow always escapes them. What we need, frankly, are real bad asses.
Oh and it's the same old story
Ever since the world began
Everybody got the runs for glory
Nobody stop and scrutinize the plan
Nobody stop and scrutinize the plan
Michael, first you write "Let's hope...", then, in your final paragraph, that Dems "need to"...
That's losers' language.
Dems' language -- losers' language.
Peashooters against ORGANIZED CRIME, against HIGHLY ORGANIZED CRIMINALS.
As helpless as the meat packers against those who OWN them.
To the MOBSTERS and their "Party" Americans are just MEAT ON THE HOOF.
No one and nothing on the planet can be safe until they are locked up, shackled and dressed in the color of their boss's face.
Preferably in GITMO.
Michael Bales "If the Democrats want huge and lasting change..."
I think this comes out of a group mindset that mistakenly believes the path to success in American politics is to be taken “seriously,”
[T]oo often liberals address bad conservative ideas with piles of charts and figures and policy papers, and even in short form communications like a tweet, they load them up with so much data it is overwhelming.
What really works is simple: Tell people what will happen if conservative ideas are enacted.
For example...
https://oliverwillis.substack.com/p/one-weird-trick-to-destroy-conservatives?s=r
You have said it, Ron, and it cannot be said enough.
Reasoning with America's and Americans' would-be owners is a stupid waste of time. They use only gut-twisting arguments to get their way. Only punch-in-the-guts reality can get round that.
❤️
Sadly, the only thing taken seriously these days are tweets. No complex thought can possibly win the day; it has to be blunt, brutal, and to the point.
Like Michael says, badass. Not to be presumptuous, Ally, but I penciled your name in already on the badass list.
We're aiming at the wrong audience. Aim for those who are more likely to at least listen. Dumping won't catch them. But as said before, by hammering on what the radical right is creating in real life can. Not sure what you mean by "brutal", but I suspect that going that route will simply turn possible prospects off. Yes, bluntly honest and to the point, but better include some recognition and hope and the possibility of acceptance or we'll lose them.
❤️
Good post, Ron. Right on the nailhead. I hope people will pay attention to what organizations of women are doing- and people of color. They are approaching things in just that way. Telling stories is a powerful way of making a point. If the only perspective you get is from some of the more abstract (and repetitive) circular to-the-choir posts on this forum or any other, and from some of the high-profile media outlets, you miss an awful lot of what is going on our there. Ha- take a look at some of Marcus Flowers ads! Brilliant. Really listen to what people are saying at the state level, instead of letting the crap drown it out. That's one thing we CAN control: what we let between our ears and how we choose to respond.
He nails it.
so rally around the Women's March tomorrow - take to the streets to show you're not taking it sitting down. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Yay, Jeff!! More men! More men!
And we need to Shut. Fox. Down. All propaganda machines that keep feeding their cult to keep them in sheep mode.
More than a few, Joe is alone in the effort, well maybe not alone, but seems that all the barn burners have a particular barn in their sights, not the whole kit and kaboodle of evil.
Not yet, perhaps, but beware! They will not stop until they are stopped.
No they won’t. Peter. And that’s the nut of it, isn’t it. It folds in the comment from another commentor today about how the Nazi guard listened in amazement to the Jews being led into a gas chamber talking amongst themselves, incredulous that that could not believe this was happening. So many Americans are that way. So many are tuned out. So many believe the warnings are like the “Boy who cried Wolf”. And most just looked around and saw their friends and colleagues not worried, so they were not going to be alarmist and worry. Yet, the very real dismantling was going on in front of them. Just like now.
❤️
Spot on. And today, many just don't give a damn.
👍🏼
Real badasses? Hell yeah!
“the proverbial plague of locusts”
Yep. I vote that my ass is revved up and I am a bad ass.
Who else?
Salud Michael. (I already wrote your name on the badass list.)
Join here!
I think we've got 'em, but not self-destructively reckless.
We do? Who?
You don't think there are any? Warren, Klobuchar, Beto, AOC, just to start with.
Guess the term bad-ass threw me off. Klobuchar and Warren definately!
Need more of them to be vocal every day. And louder.
Ummmm. Excuse me. I am one badass and always have been. A bit scared, but NOT AFRAID. And I do not need a souped up trump train truck or tacky banners or alternate American flags. And I know you are one, Hale. It starts with us and then we elect only ones that see that in us.
My voice, my heart, my spirit, my resourcefulness, my respect put me in the badass club.
Who else? Join here on this forum!
(Heart)
The problem is of course what enforcement if any will accompany those subpoenas. At this point have any, even one, of the subpoenas served to anyone above the rubes and nitwits of January 6 lead to any consequences? It is just kabuki theatre. The Dems issue their subpoenas and the traitors and insurrectionists ignore them. After a while the traitors will take back congress through rigged elections and that will be that. Though you can bet once back in power the GQP won’t be so tentative about dealing with their enemies.
The lack of compliance with subpoenas, and with no consequences for the noncompliance, confounds me.
My fav pic from Nixon years, John Mitchell in cuffs. My fav sound, Martha Mitchell screaming from the rafters
Great visualization to manifest. All of them in cuffs...heading off to their new abodes for 20 years. Use their spoils of the war against democracy to pay for their gruel. Let the rats run rampant with them. Like with like. They want Dickensian, give them Dickensian.
❤️
The contrast between Martha Mitchell and Melania is stark. As for John Mitchell, he was ready to take a bullet for his early-day Trump.
The J6 Committee does not have that power. Once they refer all their investigations to the DOJ---then the power unfolds for criminal and seditious activity. Be patient dear friends. And try to focus on getting out huge numbers of voters and how we are going to change take America forward. Get out to the National Women's March tomorrow and let all the impregnators that want to destroy America that we don't think so! And we are mad as hell. The marches need HUGE numbers. We need to be strong and brave like Ukrainians. This is OUR country and the white, patriarchy caste system is screaming its death knell. We NEED Every able-bodied person to protest the destruction of our rights and our democracy. Please use your power well while you still have it.
You are a badass, Pensa. I’m nominating you for the club. Can you chair Vermont’s division?
Okay, yes, I feel up to it today, Christine! I am in. Are you the Chair in FL? Man, we have to undergird your state...
I’d like to yank the undergarments of some white male legislators and their pasty faced sweaty guv into some tight wedgies. It is totally out of right field. DeSanitize got very very quiet when pressed on abortion. He has too many suburban moms to think about that freely support abortion…..privately.
Hey, don't hold back, Christine! Let. It Out!
Taking my Walker to the Ft Worth protest.
Yay, Jeri!! Will feel all your spirits with us across the nation!
The DOJ has does nothing so far to enforce ignored subpoenas. It seems clear cut and nonpartisan to enforce the repercussions of unlawful behavior and yet they’ve done nothing in that regard. Why should folks be hopeful that DOJ is going to actually hold the coup organizers accountable?
Because Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff have asked us to be patient.
💙
But...are there really no consequences? Isn't failure to comply with a subpoena a grave offence? Otherwise it would simply be an invitation to participate?
'Mutiny On The Bounty, Anne-Louise - if they take back congress and the courts, who can stop them from changing the laws to favor their advantage - and pardoning their fellows while prosecuting and suppressing those who oppose? Time to see if the complex laws of this government can protect and defend the rule of law itself - and what, in fact, that law supports and represents ....
"Protect and defend the rule of Law itself."
That says it all.
And Anne-Louise points to the unimaginable consequences of failure to ensure that protection and defense.
Yes unimaginable.
*
To civilized readers my rage this morning will have seemed both uncivilized and partisan.
I don't care what it seems, I care for no party, I care for Life, I care for all I love, for humankind, for living beings, for the miraculous planet we are so blessed to share.
You get my vote, Peter!!!
If they take back Congress, the whole structure disintegrates, the Lincoln Memorial crumbles. They must not take back Congress.
Next time I get called to jury duty at 26th & California, I'm ignoring it. That may sound racist, it is not meant to be, I just don't want to drive through areas where people are constantly having shoot outs.
Folks on Nicole Wallace yesterday were saying that these rethuglicans are now in a bind. If they ignore the subpoenas, then they'll never be able to subpoena their colleagues IF the rethuglicans retake the House. And if McCarthy ignores the subpoena he lessens his chance to become speaker for the same reasons. What I'd love is for all of them to be referred to the DOJ . That just makes the mess even messier for them.
And also regarding McCarthy’s enforcing subpoenas: remember McConnell’s rule for when a Supreme Court justice can be picked? The rule applies to democrats only. Same with enforcing subpoenas: there will be no complying now because the jan 6 committee is “political.” But when they are back in power, as they have already said, they are going to impeach biden. The doj will be weaponized again in their favor. They will indeed enforce their own subpoenas.
And TRAITOR Thomas has the gall to whine as news reports “Clarence Thomas says he worries respect for institutions is eroding.” That’s what galls me most.
I believe that reflects our liberal bias towards lawful behavior. We would be in that bind! But not the GQP. McCarthy’s chances of becoming speaker actually increase by ignoring the subpoenas because it makes him more trumpian. Right now the danger for him is in angering his radical caucus by doing what we would consider the rational thing. And even if they were referred now to the DOJ, given a)the plodding pace of the DOJ , and b) the apparent timidity of Garland to prosecute anyone of consequence, again there is little to worry about- the best course for the once again is to wait it out.
McCarthy must be re-elected to his House seat every two years. Anyone following his campaign or know what his margin was in 2020?
Pam I applaud your rational thinking. HOWEVER, McConnell was not rational when he deep sixed Garland a year before presidential elections and then jammed Barrett on to the Stench Court after Trump lost in 2020. For Republicans and Stench Court justices there are no precedents—as they shoot from the hip.
Exactly. We keep expecting rational behavior from the GQP because we are rational. They however are simply transactional. They do in the moment what advances their cause regardless of any other considerations. Time and again we are befuddled by this and left further behind.
No more befuddling from us!! The Pro-Rape Party has revealed itself in more ways than one now. We also know that religious groups, such as The strong Catholic lobbyists have their finger in the pudding regarding supreme court justices. No more playing NICE!
Yes I sure would like to see them all corralled in a jail cell az they await to testify.
Enemies defined as all Dems, and Ginni Thomas has been in charge of the elite list for years, likely back a decade or more
President Trump and his economic team see “no need to hastily rewrite the federal government’s antitrust rules,” … in 2020. They saw no problem with the fact that monopolies hurt the consumers, even after shortages had been rampant during the pandemic. Follow the money.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/business/trump-economy-monopoly.amp.html
And here lies the fault, well, at least the clown with the flame thrower
Last paragraph “It sure feels…” —-rem acu tetigisti, Professor. Thank you today as every day.
I've been saying for the past 2 years that the bandaid has finally been ripped off of all the policies promoted by the Republicans for the past 40 years. Nice to see that I'm tracking the same timeline as the Professor.
Somebody tell Rupert
Somebody cuff Rupert as King of Sedition and Neurolinguistic Programmer of the Twitter cult.
or the MAGA cult & Donor Class Greed?
How’s this. Rupert Russian tacky warship…..go f*ck yourself.
YOU are the badass, Christine! I love this! You know, I have always tried to be a good role model for young people. But right now, the world needs badass women to stand up to the white, seditious impregnators and just say NO! We are taking the world back from you because y'all have failed so treasonously..
I’ve been immersed in public education for decades. I’ve turned out some excellent critical thinkers. Standing up to the white seditious males making mincemeat of freedoms is being a good role model. Especially if you are a badass.
Okay, and was a Montessori teacher and owned a school for 15 years. Have been a therapist for mostly teens for 25 years. I want to retire so I can turn my "blank slate" around and speak out against tyranny. Let''s roll, Christine!
'Rem acu tetigisti'
foreign term; Etymology: Latin
translation: you have touched the point with a needle; you have hit the nail on the head
Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking that up! Boy, is it spot on!
Hi Ally. Good to see you. I looked it up!
Good news on the home front: My F-i-L moves to a memory care facility today. His wife got him in via a Veterans' benefit situation. I just hope he is able to stay there. (I call her his wife because I am 7 months younger than she is...)
Ally, I wish you could have felt my heart while reading your message. Thank you. With your younger M-i-L, wife, F-i-L and you - in spirt - truly. Good for her and all of you. Secularly expressed, Bless the family.
Thank you. Debbie is a good friend as well as his wife.
Goodonya Fern. I didn’t have time.
I’m trying to start a club forum within the forum here. Badass Club. Drawing on my organizing days during past decades when going to a concert was helluva lot better than a stupid trump train rally.
We'll talk on TAFM, where it's real private, right!!!
I am encouraged that the January 6 committee and the Department of Justice are bringing the full force of the law to the insurrection and Trump's willful violations of national security. I fear that laws can only be enforced if most people believe they're valid, including the rich and powerful. So many lines have been crossed and so many empowered people and their followers are committed to a polar-opposite version of what's legitimate. I am hopeful but not optimistic. Let's get out the vote to keep Democrats in power.
Gary I am reminded of my mother, who spoke of ‘wait-and-see pudding.’ I hope that the batter doesn’t turn out just to be blather.
So, the wordsmith comes to us with wit and deep feeling. Salud, Keith.
It is good to find you searching through the debris to find us; the weary, the heartsick, fearful and angry; the traitors, saboteurs, the weak, the cheats and the liars; onward to the healers, the steadfast and the lonely. It is picture not put together.
Er, yes Important final point.
Is it possible that the repugs’ strategy to dump the Dems and Democracy and take over once and for all is fueled by a simple strategy? Distraction? Nothing fully accomplished with a “stolen election,” and always an upcoming election, an insurrection requiring impeachment, 1/6 committees, justice Dept focused on the insurrection, refused subpoenas, SCOTUS leaks, overturning Roe v Wade, Abortion arguments, banned books, CRT, Russia, Putin, Ukraine with some repugs taking Putin’s side and don’t say his name but the reason for everything: TFG. Oh, and COVID, inflation and conspiracy theories, masks and vaccines. Baby formula. The list is endless. Block and Obstruct.
An article from 2021 on political and social media distraction in The Guardian:
https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/07/on-earth-4000-weeks-so-why-lose-time-online-distraction-oliver-burkeman
“In TS Eliot’s words, we are “distracted from distraction by distraction”. The unsettling possibility is that if you’re convinced that none of this is a problem for you – that social media hasn’t turned you into an angrier, less empathic, more anxious or more numbed-out version of yourself – that might be because it has.”
How can we deal with so many issues?
Thanks for this useful reminder of that classic tactic common to crooked politicians and bank robbers: creating diversions.
Such a flood tide of these since late 2016 that it has become hard to discern the terrible reality.
If it were only being conned...
Democracy is not a spectator sport. Get out on the streets tomorrow....!
https://www.womensmarch.com/
Absolutely! I haven’t missed a March yet. And I’m not alone. We won’t be silenced. Still, the imbalance of power (corruption) is more than a concern.
We were built for these times. WE can do this. Together. Stick together and conquer. Numbers, Noise. Keep ideas flowing of the mass changes we need to implement once justice is served.
Absolutely. The radical right bumps us from one distraction to another (with the help of some of the media) to avoid having our focus on the key underlying problem, which is them. They may be embarrassed by Greene but not enough to ensure she is disempowered. She is too useful as a distraction, along with all those "what abouts" that keep getting thrown out. Not least of which is the non-news foo-fa-fa about Sen Cain to undercut his reputation as an honorable republican. And so on and so on . . .
Whataboutisms👎🏼
The strategy for the evil wing of the Republican Party. Is there any other…
Good question, Irenie. One at a time, sadly, and we have a glut of issues to choose from.
Yes, Ally, and just keep on keeping on.
On Baby Formula increased production & volume distribution, the Biden Team has coordinated with Gerber & Ricketts on the production side & Target and other national outlets that have powerful distribution networks. Bottlenecks need to be identified along with any unfair business practices.
Yes Pres Biden Team.
Yup, "Who can get mad at Joe Biden?"
The bitch In my assisted living who wears a tee shirt with Joe as a parasite on the front. Her apt door is festooned with chump and MAGAt paraphernalia. She has one of the most expensive apts and wears a smirk all the time.
“In 2013, WH Group (formerly known as Shuanghui International Holdings) purchased Smithfield for $4.7 billion; including debt, the deal valued the firm at $7.1 billion, then the largest acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese business”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferwang/2020/04/16/the-chinese-billionaire-whose-company-owns-troubled-pork-processor-smithfield-foods/?sh=5c80b5e62c55
In addition to keeping plants open, increased processing speeds on the lines and cut inspections of food safety
“Recent Waivers Part of Broader Slaughter Deregulation at USDA
Line speed increases and federal inspector reductions are part of a broader USDA overhaul of meat processing regulations that predates the current crisis. Called the New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) and the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS), these inspection regimes aim to reduce the number of USDA inspector spot-checks and move more safety testing off-site…Most critically, NPIS and NSIS shift some federal inspector duties to plant employees, which, critics argue, amounts to self-regulation.”
https://www.foodandpower.net/latest/2020/04/09/usda-continues-to-lift-meat-processing-line-speed-limits-during-pandemic-threatening-frontline-workers-and-consumers
New Oligarch Inspection System, effectively (NOISE)
And you eat this stuff?? (no, I'm not a vegan).
No, but just a vegetarian. Can no longer ingest such pain and suffering…
🤬🤬🤬
Self-deregulation
😳
I'm speechless. Not about anything the dumpster (I never say his name) would do but at the level of corruption that seems to escalate exponentially on a daily basis. All of us need to be screaming about it at the top of our lungs!
Scream tomorrow at a protest near you! Resist. This is about autocracy and corporatocracy vs. democracy.
Capitalism is such a great invention, right? The few control and no competition
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for those legislators to respond by scheduling their appearance dates before the select committee on Jan 6; I'll be surprised if they don't simply refuse, attempt to call the committee's bluff, risk the referral of their refusal to the Justice Department for contempt of congress charges, then watch the Justice Department sit on it's hands fretting over a precedent setting move to hold congressmen accountable to their peers. The thing about justice, whether with a capital J or lower case j; it proceeds far too slowly to have much effect in the near term. Politics can be near-instantaneous in cause/effect, and certainly one can expect whatever cause/effect that can happen WILL happen by the next election, in this case November of this year. It's useful to remember that the ENTIRE House of Representatives stands for re-election every 2 years and 2022 is no exception. McCarthy and his buddies need to be held politically liable for their conduct with respect to the events of 2020-2021 surrounding the last election. If their hands are clean, then they should have nothing to fear from testifying before their peers on the committee. That seems like a stronger position than simply labeling the efforts as biased, politically motivated and refusing to participate. However, if the strongest position is actually playing to one's base, then their response will be totally predictable. I can't wait for the time when the pols recognize and are obliged to respond to the non-partisan voting block, which they will increasingly need as party politics becomes increasingly absurd.
Ah... if only the danger we face were nothing more than absurd party politics...
I heard that the 1/6 committee heavily researched the laws/constitution about the aspect of bringing their colleagues to testify by subpoena. Jamie Raskin is a real constitutionalist, so you can be sure the committee has tried to dot every I/cross every T before issuing those subpoenas
“It's useful to remember that the ENTIRE House of Representatives stands for re-election every 2 years and 2022 is no exception.” I remember flying to Mexico in 2016 and complaining to my seatmate about TFG. She was from El Salvador and reminded me that we have elections every two to four years here in the states. So she wasn’t worried.