Are the American people waking up yet or will they allow Trump to completely decimate the country in order to get rid of immigrants and own the libs? After all, he just said into a mic that he does not care about the financial situation of American people.
If the Dems are smart, that's their commercial for every MAGA candidate: _______loves and supports Trump 100% but neither supports you or your family: show Trump saying quote.
I've said it before but I think old fashioned billboards would be a good addition as a means of messaging -- you can't help but see one when you pass, whereas you may not watch the channel with the commercials. Does Fox even allow anti-Trump ads to play?
I could not agree more. Billboards work. Our son, John, was in marketing for a billboard company in Northern California and "research shows" that they work.
The question was: where's the evidence showing that mere billboard can somehow undo 25 years of indoctrination and brainwashing, when it comes to GOP voters?
In my many years' experience, people in the advertising business are not too concerned with motives or ethics (unfortunately). If you have the money, they'll sell you whatever you want. As an ad agency owner I worked for often said with respect to race or politics, "I see only one color: green."
Outdoor advertising companies don't really have the ability or desire to filter the content displayed on their boards. In virtually all cases, an advertising agency contacts the billboard owner to check availability and rent the desired board on behalf of the agency's client. The board owner doesn't even know who the client is.
I agree that it will take time. But with 30% of the population entirely brainwashed, the root cause of the problem will persist (and probably get worse). So we cannot afford to ignore them.
In the meantime, the problem is almost as bad when it comes to the other two-thirds. Half of them don't even vote, and those who do don't understand that "democracy" means "compromising", so they tend to adopt no consistent voting behavior... . And if the main issue is political literacy and the absence of real debates across the spectrum, we can as well include GOP voters too (in a respectful way, as illustrated by Adam Mockler's discussions at MAGA rallies, for instance).
AMEN! That says it all right there. Perfect! He has surpassed Woodrow Wilson's presidentcy with bigotry and corruption. He is a total waste of human flesh.
To your point Kathy, those are becoming more effective as he waffles over Cuba and has ICE scooping more Cuban-Americans off our streets.
South Florida is exactly where these billboards need to be seen. Up and down I-95, Palmetto Expressway, I-75, SR 836 and SR595. In both English and Spanish!
One sign every 20 miles should make a difference. Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties alone account for ~30% the 25MM FL population.
Dave.., we've got some MAGites.., but when you only have a population of 1.3 million people (since 1960), thirty-percent isn't a lot of people. So your chances of running into one of those dolts is a lot less likely than living in some state with 8 million of them. Here in Maine, we've got some rough roads, mosquitos, black flies, no-see-ums, ticks, and mud season. Keeps things to a dull roar.
In upper NYS they are doing that and putting lighted signs up over the overpasses. The Front Page is the blog I follow - Glens Falls - Queensbury etc. They are a different district than I am (politically). But the 3 former news editors who write on there cover a lot.
KMD, while it's true that some states prohibit the erection of NEW billboards, I'm not aware of any municipality that has made owners of existing billboards tear them down.
Where traditional billboards are not available, there are other options for outdoor advertising, such as bus stop benches and shelters. Outdoor advertising is valid and cost-effective. One just has to be creative in finding the opportunities to use it.
I was so happy when that law passed, and I remain so. I drive the length of Route 95 twice a year and am reminded of what a benefit it is. However, we won't let Chump go unshown as what he is.
I agree, lauriemcf! I'm in the advertising business. To a large extent, electronic media has become irrelevant. Time was, there were three television networks. If an advertiser bought time on those networks or their local affiliates, the "airwaves" were covered. Today, there are hundreds of cable/satellite channels and as many streaming channels. It is not financially feasible to have a meaningful representation on every electronic outlet. Because once that 30-second ad has aired, it's gone forever. It must be repeated every hour or so, every day all day to actually make an impression on the audience. Even with billions spent on political advertising, it's not enough to reach everyone.
Then, there's the content issue. Old-school advertisers love 30-second or one-minute electronic ads because they can please the candidate by slinging buckets of mud or touting the candidate's achievements, ignoring the reality that the audience mentally tunes out.
Contrast that with the billboard. The advertiser has 3.5 seconds to convey a message. That's how long it takes to drive past a billboard, unless one is lucky enough to get one near a traffic signal. That means the message should be no longer than 6 words. BUT ... If those six words are hard-hitting and the graphic is eye-grabbing, more impact can be made on the driver than a whole day of electronic advertising. Also, drivers tend to follow the same routes day after day. So that billboard – if it's well done – stands there reminding them of the message daily. All for a fraction of the cost of electronic media.
Electronic media presented thousands of dishonest ads during hundreds of football and baseball games during the fall campaign of 2024, spreading false comments and disinformation about Kamala Harris and the economy over and over. Not to mention Joe Rogan's podcast which has 30 million followers, mostly male 18-24. I don't think any of this was "irrelevant."
Brian, I think we're talking about different kinds of relevance. Of course electronic media plays a role in a total marketing strategy (if the advertiser has the budget). But an ADVERTISER* cannot efficiently penetrate a market using only electronic media.
When I talk about relevance, I'm talking about advertising spending as a factor in an advertiser's overall marketing spend. For reasons I described, electronic is a poor value. Advertisers spend billions on electronic media because they're afraid not to. But the truth is they really don't know how effective their advertising spending is. The numbers media outlets feed them are utterly bogus, no matter how "scientific" they appear to be. Audience-share reports, such as the venerable "Nielsen" ratings are absolutely unreliable.
If a business has boatloads of money to spend on marketing its product, sure, spend some in electronic media. It can't hurt.
*A podcaster is not an advertiser. Podcasters and social media influencers are a whole different ball of wax.
BTW, running political ads during sports broadcasts is a perfect example of wasting other people's money just because you have it to waste. Beer-swilling, hot-wings-munching televiewers are a bad demographic because they're not serious, reliable voters. For a limited budget, political ads should run during and adjacent to news programming.
Seriously? Beer-swilling, hot-wings munching… What a ridiculous stereotype. You’re talking about an audience of over 70 million. A large chunk of them male 18-24. Guess which demographic came out strongest for the orange idiot. I agree with much of what you said but you shit the bed in that last observation.
My husband and I have come up with what we believe would be effective on billboards: _________(fill in with any given negative Trump administration action) Is UnAmerican. It's Not US.
After Lady Bird Johnson worked so hard to get rid of huge highway billboards? Never! We can CARRY OUR SIGNS and write GOTV postcards, join our local Indivisible or start a chapter with friends
Virginia, thank you for mentioning the postcarding. While it has to be done on the volunteer (AKA you and me!) covering the cost of postage, and often of the cards as well, I got upset with money donated to the DNC not going to the candidates I wanted to support. I will FOREVER regret all the cards I wrote for Fetterman, but for the most part, I'm happy to KNOW how my money is used.
There is also a letter writing campaign where you can apply for the supplies and postage (VoteFwd.org). They have links to purchase postcards, or you can order on Etsy.
Yeah, postage is expensive. So how about THIS crazy idea?: ask whomever might gift you for whatever reason to gift you postage stamps?
There is research that handwritten postcards do sway voters. I like postcardstovoters.org because you can do as few as FIVE postcards! (Some organizations will send you cards, but have a minimum of 100 to write.)
First: TonyTheDemocrat; you must send a print sample, but then 5 cards any time he has them. Have just finished about 100 (10 per day)for 2 Supreme Court judges in GA. Tony gives, no voter names,
no sticker addresses, but biographies and importance of the race, three sentences to write and extra addables as you wish. I mostly get postcards through Etsy sales and shill for stamps (92, social security and teacher state survivor pension). My Indivisible chapter helps as does seeing people I write or wrote for on TV. Some win their local or state elections!
Have decided to support senators I want to win instead of the DSCC. That way my small donations go exactly where I want them to.
Now to work on 100 cards with sticker addresses that I decided were “necessary” to pay for. The “War Effort” of WWII is a living memory from second grade in 1942!
Susan Shea, haven’t you seen any of the candidates you wrote for on TV? My favorite forever was writing about 400 postcards for Senators Warnock and Ossoff in 2020 and seeing both win. Will write again for Ossoff given the opportunity!
Have just written for two Supreme Court judges in GA, seen them on TV, and have hopes for both on May 19.
Susan, its been awhile, but votefwd.org did share their research to those who were signed up.
Perhaps I have innate curiosity but while I toss all campaign mail, I confess I'd read something handwritten. (Like I read the bio's people post. I, too, am an author though yet to be published👋🏼)
True story from my history: years ago I dated a man whose hobby was collecting postage cancellation marks. I never paid attention to those until he showed me his scrapbook collections. It was clear that we weren't meant for each other, as he never bothered to read the messages on the postcards (he mostly had postcards) while I was uninterested in the cancellation marks!
There should be billboards at every World Cup Game, at every baseball game,
Everywhere there should be notices that Donald Trump does not care about the financial problems of the American people. Bibi conned him into attacking Iran.
There was no "imminent" threat. FAKE NEWS !
Trump is the biggest imbecile on the planet and everyone knows it.
It is looking like the Trump Inflation Cycle will continue into November. As painful as it is, it will motivate more people to get to the polls to express their anger at this maladministration and the cowardly enablers in the Republican Congress. We can do our duty by reminding the voters in every way possible WHY they are angry and WHO is the cause of that anger. Too many people do not recognize WHAT it is that is making their lives miserable. And there is right wing media busily twisting facts to confuse them.
I’m rather stunned that after reading about the ongoing horror and corruption that we’re being subjected to, and the impending economic devastation that will come from the continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz - all caused by Trump and the racist white nationalist Confederates of MAGA and the weak controlled opposition of the Dem leadership - that the main thing being discussed here is the efficacy of billboards.
Yes to buying your own postcards and stamps rather than funding DNC.
Show support from those who are showing some spine and actually challenging the demented policies that are shredding our assets (our allies, reputation and material wealth in parks and green energy) for the profits of the few.
Pick your issues and encourage your STATE legislators (blue or red) to protect your state’s interests from federal exploitation. Tell them you don’t want to go back to Jim Crow, and you want your neighbors treated respectfully when they are in need of help.
Many red state legislators don’t like federal government making them cheat or abuse their constituents and getting them brave enough to stand against T-tyranny is demonstrably possible. Blue legislators at the state level can actually choose to redirect state resources to state level institutions and protect their constituents from federal confiscation and destruction of services.
When even Chuck Schumer, the DSCC, and DNC are smart enough to join Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, in uniting for leading Democratic Maine US Senate candidate Graham Platner ...
Winner in the category of "Dems Who Help Elect Republicans" - Gov. Janet Mills and her Inner Circle Fifth Column for Susan Collins. With special recognition in a supporting role to bright bulb luminary former state legislator Lynn "I was never going to vote for Platner" Bromley.
Janet Mills’ inner circle reluctant to join Democrats in rallying behind Graham Platner
With Platner as likely Democratic nominee, Maine voters grapple with their choices • Maine Morning Star
"Some of Mills’ supporters are sticking with her. South Portland resident Lynn Bromley said she will be casting her primary vote for the governor, who will still appear on the ballot, and won’t vote for Platner in the general election.
“I was never going to vote for Platner,” said Bromley.
When asked whether not voting for Platner would give Collins a leg up, Bromley said she’s not worried about that..."
lin* - the old Democratic circular firing squad still lives in Maine. Oy. As a former Mainer, I wonder if Bromley also voted for Eliot Cutler?! And she is paying penance?
Ah, the Power Limiting Litmus Test that Democrats seem to be so good at applying. AKA, shooting self in foot. Prime example: those in Michigan who would not vote for Harris because of the administration's lack of action on Gaza.
How did that work out for Gaza? Can't wait for the seaside resort to be built.
Platner has a "checkered past" that includes a controversial tattoo and some blurts on SM many years ago. Neither of those make me comfortable at all. But if that is the worst we can find on any given politician, he's doing quite well.
Mills seems to have been a good governor. Now this old guy is saying to her: "Step away, step back and please let a new generation take the lead. This is a time for Progressive Revolution. Not the same old slow incremental evolution."
Earth to Maine voters: "Susan Collins is an enabler of a monster and an enemy of humanity. That is your national responsibility. Vote her out - whatever it takes."
Thank you!!! 100% agreement! I hate it when the upper echelon of Dems drag out their tired old "purity tests". I don't believe in perfection--NO ONE is perfect. But Platner speaks well, expresses his policy agendas with clarity, has worked hard to meet with Mainers in many small towns in every corner of the State and is honest enough to admit that he did some stupid, uninformed things when he was younger.
It is not hard to believe Platner's remarks and posts happened during the years when he was in the Marines during and after his tours in the Middle East or afterwards when he was struggling with PTSD. I married a former marine who is Vietnam vet and trust me, I have heard countless stories of the dumb, drunken things they did while on leave or the difficulties they had to deal with when they came home. I'm thankful that my guy sought counseling and actively worked to repair his mental state.
The Uncommitted Movement was a great tragedy for its supporters, the Palestinians, the Harris campaign, the Democratic party, and the nation. It was a sound idea for the primary. It was counter productive in the general election. It did not have to turn out that way.
Power without conscience breeds injustice, but conscience without power is a sermon no one hears ... The lesson isn’t that protest fails. It’s that protest without power hits a ceiling.
— Waleed Shahid
The Biden administration, especially Anthony Blinken, disastrously failed to rein in the genocidal Netanyahu regime. Harris failed to dissociate herself from the Biden-Blinken agenda. The Democratic party refused Palestinian Americans a voice for peace at the Convention.
And despite some Uncommitted founders pleading with followers to ultimately vote for Harris, those who understood the need to Vote Blue No Matter Who were drowned out by such as Jill Stein - who swept in like a vampire out of Putin hell, to help elect Trump.
lin, I am reading a history of the Palestinians, 1917-2017. All that we see now is a continuation of US policy for all that time. Nobody in that time managed to rein in Israel. It would take a lot of work to get us out of supporting Israel. I am not saying we should not try, but only that it would be difficult. I do agree about Jill not green Stein. I know someone who voted for her this time around. Friend of a friend, so I do not have to deal with her.
Have you met and/or personally spoken with Mr. Platner? I have. I do not think he is or will ever be the unhinged DINO Fetterman turned out to be. Mr. Platner is an oyster farmer in the very small town of Sullivan. It is further downeast than Ellsworth--therefore out of the major influence of tourism--and trends extremely red. My best friend from college with whom I have stayed in close touch with lo these many many years, has a large satchel of cousins and second cousins who live in Sullivan and nearby towns. She says they all LOVE Platner. If his 'trending red' Sullivan neighbors, who know him personally, like Platner then I am very inclined to believe he is the real deal.
Even if some of the young candidates wash out, remember that AOC was not taken seriously by many Democratic Leaders. Neither was Barak Obama, or for that matter, was Bill Clinton. Give them a chance! How could they possibly be worse than some of the awful right wing
MME --I agree about the stroke/Fetterman. He had such an about face compared to how passionate he seemed to be for Democratic policies. I have high hopes for Platner.
(I don't believe I have welcomed you here, as I am the self-appointed Walmart greeter of the forum. GLAD TO HAVE YOU HERE! Every person who signs on here is growing this community, and the number of trolls appearing to undermine us show how scared the Right is.
And I can't resist 🎶where did our blue sky go?🎶(I have a huge curiosity/interest in people, so I always look at the little bios. 🌞)
.... my god how amazing it must be to have never ever made a single mistake in your entire life.
I never realized that teachers were such bastions of perfection.
I see that you have obviously read all of Platner's writings from 25 years ago. Have you considered paying any attention to what he's actually running on?
I will GLADLY vote for Platner. I was going to anyway. Is he perfect? No. But neither am I. Does he believe in taxing the billionaires? the promotion of worker's rights? Medicare for all? Climate Change/clean energy infrastructure? overturning Citizen's United and other dark money sources? Breaking up the monopolys? Ending the ICE and passing real immigration reform? Defending and supporting public schools? and much much more..
I agree with all those things. Mills did not. She believed in status quo and the promotion of capitalism as our saviors.
I was going to vote for Platner from the time he put his platform onto the internet.
Heck I was going to vote for Platner from the first time I saw his yearbook picture. "Most Likely to Start a Revolution" FREE KOSOVA CHECHENYA KASHMIR PALESTINE KURDISTAN TIBET his picture says. He was woke when you were still forcing kids into straight lines and giving them detention for 'voting wrong' in the mock election.
So maybe.. just for a freaking day.. you could give up the freaking Nazi bull@#$% over a stupid tattoo.
LOL Getting a Nazi tattoo is not a 'mistake'. It's a revelation of one's true thoughts and feelings. Talk is cheap (especially when one wants to get elected). Actions (like getting a Nazi tattoo) speak louder than words.
I think that's a distinct possibility. I'm surprised the word desperate hasn't been mentioned. When I hear folks saying Platner is the right choice, they sound desperate, as they point out he is "the only choice."
It's 6 months til the election, and perhaps there will be other, better choices by then. I admit it's a long shot, but Platner looks like a long shot, too.
EXACTLY! Platner had a literal Nazi tattoo for decades!!!! He claims he didn't know what it meant but evidence shows that might be BS. He makes me very nervous as I get the feeling that he would throw women, POC, gays, etc right under the bus if he could get more money for white working class guys like himself. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.
Gee... funny how the tables have turned. Two weeks ago you were screaming at me for daring to vote for Platner instead of Mills... not allowed to argue with daddy DSCC. Have to vote for whomever they put up otherwise I'm a dirty Trumper.
I didn't even have to vote against her and she's already gone.
We will see more of this. No matter how hard you try to keep the corporations in power. Maybe not this year.. but it's happening whether you like it or not.
I just hope it happens before the AIPAC crowd's (Schumer, King, Kaine, Hassan, etc) removal of my health insurance finishes me off.
Another Maine voice - I heard Platner speak at a small gathering recently. I was a bit hesitant to support him but now have no reservations to vote for him. I have supported Mills but her time in politics has passed. She voted against the people’s will for a moratorium on AI data centers and had always voted against tribal
sovereignty for the Wabanaki Nations. Time for new blood in the democratic party! As far as Collins is concerned, I have never supported her! She hasn’t had a town meeting in over 25 yrs. She only rarely voted for a democratic bill when she was sure the Republicans had the vote. She wanted to look “moderate”, but she plays the political game and is as MAGA as they come. She also has 2 million plus dollars of dark money supporting her in this campaign from the Pine Tree Results PAC. None of that money comes from Maine voters. Look them up.
64% of Platner’s money is coming from donations under $200 and many from Maine individuals.
Platner has a very good chance of beating Collins!!!!
lin+ up above someone is encouraging people to write chalk messages. If you are willing, can you post about your chalking history with regards to Leonard Leo?
The best consideration of chalking is by the legal scholar Marie A. Failinger, who wrote the comprehensive survey of chalking and Constitutional law.
TALKING CHALK: DEFACING THE FIRST AMENDMENT IN THE PUBLIC FORUM
- Marie A. Failinger
"By contrast, whether they are chalk art or chalk political messages, chalk drawings on sidewalks communicate ideas, ideas which those who walk over them might find offensive or unsettling. And, when chalking is done in conjunction with a protest that already seems to unsettle people’s everyday habits, such as the protests in Occupy Minneapolis, such a benign practice may seem particularly unsettling. That is to say, chalking might do precisely what the First Amendment expects of the use of public property: it might talk to citizens about our most pressing problems and help citizens decide how they should use their fundamental rights for the betterment of our culture. To prevent the use of this commonly employed medium of expression, to arrest people for drawing in chalk on a sidewalk, evidences an underlying contempt for the value of speech that finds no harbor in Supreme Court jurisprudence."
I use chalk paint - ground chalk blended with water. It takes less water than you might think. Use a bit too much, let sit overnight and drain off the extra - think thick yogurt. I use black board chalk - sidewalk chalk is made to wash away very easily.
Know your state and local laws. Consult with local police. Only chalk on public sidewalks and streets. Avoid chalking in front of private homes and businesses - when possible, unless protesting them.
Even when you are doing everything right, be prepared to be targeted and to have to defend yourself either physically or legally. Work with someone else if possible. Wear a GoPro. Document your work. Do not be baited by people who don't like what you are doing - do not engage, certainly do not argue, you have more important work to do. Monitor local social media if you can stand it and only if you can make certain you do not engage. In the nastier parts of Bar Harbor society - officials and private individuals- indulge each other's violent and ill informed impulses on social media. Even on the town council. And in the media. Document the threats.
And be prepared to have wonderful people tell you how much they like your work and to share stories of their activism.
Schumer has always been a progressive, and the DNC has to find a democratic compromise between all the different wings of the Democratic Party (or, by now, all pro-democracy voters). So IMHO this isn't a matter of being "smart", it's perfectly in line with what both have always done.
Schumer has described himself as a "liberal" and as "an angry centrist." His critics point to his bent towards Wall Street. He refused to support Democratic primary winner Zohran Mamdani - who won anyway. Platner is up against more formidable opposition. The Schumer effect is still an obstacle.
Schumer twisted Janet Mills' arm until she threw her hat in the ring. His team helped with the opposition research strategy Mills based her failed bid on - and which Collins is amplifying. But his tattoo, but his tweets ... hopefully Mainers will prioritize Platner's solid Democratic platform, built on FDR's New Deal.
With all due respect, this is just one of the many things that are wrong with the US as a whole today.
Politicians are REPRESENTATIVES. They do not express their own personal, individual opinions. And yet, for decades now, even liberal media have portrayed them in this way. Result? No one still thinks about them as strategists, and everyone "psychologizes" them. The only question still asked, when it comes to a politician, is: is he sincere/genuine or is he corrupt? And each time he's not IMMEDIATELY going for the most progressive option, many (most?) progressives conclude that that must say something about who he fundamentally IS, and that he IS not a progressive.
It's this kind of cynicism and political illiteracy on the left that made Kamala Harris lose and therefore neofascism win.
Let's take Mamdani for instance. Please explain HOW the Senate Minority leader could have publicly supported Mamdani WHILE still perfectly doing his job (= representing all blue states, not just the progressive Democrats)?
There are few candidates who can represent ALL their constituents. Expecting a congressperson to be that perfect drone who has no personal principles is asking for more of what the Republicans have served up.
Schumer is not a progressive but at least he's never had a Nazi tattoo. Platner scares me. But then I will not vote for anyone who will not treat and does not think all Americans deserve to be treated equally even if they are women, black, gay or Jewish but other Dems might not care about that so long as they *say* the right things. Not being a person who believes in the superiority of the white "race" is a hard deck for me but it might not be for other Dem voters.
Unlike Hero Kelly and Orator Booker, Schumer approved of only 2 of Trump's Cabinet. Both were collegial votes. Schumer was not Republican rubber stamp nor selling his vote for campaign money.
I was laughing the other day as Heather described how Trump was using UFOs to distract from the mess that he created. Schumer was talking about the UFOs that day and how great it was that the files were released. LOL He might not be selling his vote but he has undoubtedly helped Trump with his tepid "leadership".
Seems you know a lot about Chuck. Can you explain the Bailey’s? I am genuinely curious since everything I have read from sources such as the Guardian and the NYT’s explains them but “they” still don’t make sense to me.
I’d appreciate it, if you have the time. Cheers! :)
Love the "if," Dana, in your "If the Dems are smart."
We can be sure they're smart in the sense of all the standardized testing they in the meritocracy weathered to occupy so many offices, bureaucracies, and other elite networks.
But how much evidence do we see in them of familiarity with the novels, memoirs, histories, and other arts keeping them in touch with our devastated working classes?
Well for those who want a small beginning list and important part of anyone who works in public service if not to have read or listened to these works at the very least be aware of these and do so so many others. Because the internet and AI are not integrated and comprehensive a list is time consuming because one needs to get all the various literary components together. This is my brief but interesting search on Phil’s comment.
Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Gut Elise Calett Goldbach
A New England Girlhood
Lucy Larsom
Working Studs Terkl and the musical Working
The Unquiet Earth
Denise Giridina
Nickled and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreicht
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
James Agee and Walker Evans
Black Elk Speaks
John Neihardt
Smoke Signals
Sherman Alexi
Farewell to Manzabar
Jeanne Watatusuki
Citizen 63600
Mine Okubu
George Takei works
WPA Oral History Projects
Including Zora Neal Hurston
Cross City in Dixie County recordings
Girl of the Limberlost
Gene Porter Stanton
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
Many many more. The White House Administration and Staff as well as every employee in the Capitol Building and every citizen has access to the Library of Congress and every small or big library or bookstore around them.
The Sophie Smith Collection at Smith College and other academic and or personal collections are a treasure trove of small and big historical information of all kinds.
Apologies for any typing errors as usual. Read , read, or even borrow a book without reading more than ten pages! The process in and of itself can be life changing. How many Senators have a library card? How many White House Administration staff have one that they have used? Has Mr Kennedy ever been in or researched the vast collection in our National Medical Library?
From your George Takei, works, Mary, I'd specify "They Called Us Enemy."
This is a manga, with his own English text, and his personal experiences as a child with two siblings and parents locked up in the internment camps into which the U.S. military forced over 110,000 Japanese-Americans in WWII.
Thanks because of my tendency to reverse names like that sometimes get reversed. There is a rest stop in Indiana on I 90 named for her and still some small parks as well. Thanks.
I would have probably said "Were the Dems smart" instead. I have been too underwhelmed by them for the past year to expect much! The party needs new messages (look at what Mamdani is posting every day, letting people know he is a mayor of the people.) I don't know if what he is doing is indeed that or not, but the perception is that he is doing the right things. And perception is 70% of any cause.
Spare us the hand-wringing over the working class. The GOP is only interested in the working class when they can exploit the anger and desperation of the working class to advance the interests of the 1%.
See Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police." Especially stats in appendices.
Also, EUWDTB, go to Scott Galloway's current updating on the widening of the wealth gap, the failure of schools to teach whole books.
This may be news to you, too, but your computer likely has a search engine. You needn't rely on the innocent "any evidence" ploy when you may enter key search words and find worlds of info on things of which self-satisfaction and status quo acceptance leaves you "comfortably numb," ignorant.
Don't know about anyone else, but I'm so sick and tired of a president that hates the people he's supposed to be looking out for, and saying it to the country repeatedly. THAT'S what should be plastered on billboards nationwide. And maga, they are totally out of it if they think he gives a damn about them. I wish they would wake up.
The sad part is they love the guy because they know he hates the same people they do (women, brown and black people, educated people, etc). The even sadder part is they do NOT realize that he hates and has nothing but contempt for them as well.
First of all, 30% of the country actively supports the GOP, including Trump. For more than two decades now, it's the kind of Trump tweets that have been their "daily news". This IS the "alternative facts" bubble that they live in.
So the dumbest thing to do for a Democrat would be to just go against what GOP voters believe and then, a decade after he became president, STILL believe that this is how we're going to turn the country around.
The second mistake is that you imagine that the problem is ONLY Trump. But after Trump, neofascist tech billionaires will support Vance (who already has the support of "Christian" nationalists too, so of two of THE main pillars of today's neofascist GOP). And many rank and file are ready to step up too.
What this means is that we finally have to do what all citizens of all thriving democracies do: only WE can save the country, not elected representatives (whose job it is to put what we want into bills and pass them, through compromising). And you save it through engaging in real, respectful debates with those who disagree with us. And yes, knowing that it hasn't been done anymore for quite a long time, it will also take quite some time before a democratic society is restored.
This IS the problem though: democratic civil society has disappeared. No leader can ever bring it back on his own (let alone through ads...).
Exactly. P25 (Heritage Foundation and America First Foundation; both of them together delivered most of the senior WH staff; same neofascist "Christian" nationalist ideology) plus the neofascist tech billionaires (Musk, Thiel, Sacks, etc.).
Democrats who approved Brooke Rollins for Agriculture, who is a Founder of America First: BOOKER, BALDWIN, BENNETT., CORTEZ-MASTO, Durbin, , GALLEGO, HASSAN, HEINRICH, HICKENLOOPER, KLOBUCHAR, Peters, ROSEN, Shaheen, SLOTKIN, SCHIFF, OSSOFF, WARNOCK, WELCH.
Like it or not, we live in a representative democracy in which all power rests with those that we elect. From a practical standpoint, the only way to have the power to change anything is to elect more people who will pursue your agenda than those on the other side. We have been engaging in real debates literally for 100s of years and yet, here we are. Your argument also ignores the fact of racism and sexism in this country. There is a huge overlap between MAGA and the hard-core racists. If you have the stomach some day, look up the history of lynchings in the US. Some of the photos show happy smiling families standing in front of the murdered bloodied mutilated bodies of black people. Do you think this hatred died with the people in the photos or does it continue on today in their kids, grandkids and great grandkids? Are we going to be able to 'chat away' this hatred? Trump was/is a reaction to Obama as much as anything but beyond that, this began with the founding of the country and our complete inability to deal with our 'original sins'. John Brown was hung for treason. Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and leaders of a literal armed rebellion against the rightful US government, were not. Mere years after the bloodiest war in US history, the very same Oligarchs who led the attack against the US were back in positions of power in the US government. We would be a very different were that not the case. The beat goes on...
Here in the OC (California), there are two Republican candidates battling it out for a single Congressional seat that are trying to out-MAGA each other. Redistricting put them in the same district, so Ken Calvert and Young Kim, both incumbents, are "accusing" each other of not being loyal enough to the Orange Menace. It's almost comical, and I'm just happy they are not running in my district! Although maybe they will split the MAGA vote and the district will be so sick of them both that a Democrat could win the seat. We can hope.
Yes, yes: all of the above. But let's be smart - and practical, not ideological, not just nay-saying. The people are ready for change, just as we were in 1890 and 1930. We need leaders, bold leaders who can unite people, not further divide us. The oligarchs are smart, powerful and in a good position right now. We need to be strategically smarter - much smarter and more decisive than we were in 2021-2024. I'm being vague here on purpose. You know what I mean, hopefully.
The Dems, as far as I can tell, are mostly the opposite of smart. After all, they are more interested in shutting down people like AOC than in prosecuting every damn House and Senate seat.
I have noticed a tendency of the Dems to eat their young. The old guard wants to hold onto power so is suspicious of and jealous of any new raising stars. I guess because they are humans who tend to want to hold onto power. In my own mind, I am not sure where I stand in the 'most Americans are really progressives' versus the 'most Americans are really moderates' debate. On my more cynical days, I think Americans are just greedy and they only care about their One True God $$$$. It would explain why we worship bilionaires (AKA money addicts) and businessmen over great thinkers who do things like cure cancers. I still can't comprehend how the religion of Jesus Christ (who was not known as a guy who cared much about money) has morphed in this country to be as much about being prosperous as about loving thy neighbor.
Guess what; there are Democrats pushing younger people into running, myself included. Platner is an example in Maine! REP Elfreths is my rep in the HOUSE and I wanted her there because she is young, certainly in relation to me! But she cares about seniors too.
You need to develop a stronger skin because within all parties people at different strata of the party criticize others! Even their own. If you believe in AOC , for example you can donate exclusively to her and participate in positive campaigns for her instead of pitching fits that others may not like her! Remember that each of us has a unitary vote yet we each have a voice to support the candidates we choose. I will bet you that the people who might criticize AOC (I personally think she is great) will NOT see your post on here and change their minds. Just a thought if you want to support her yourself!
Why do you ask...if the Dems are smart? Are you participating as a Democrat or independent on here? In other words are you part of the group,? That's a great suggestion just Own It. Say WE should use this.... do you see the difference?
The thing I love about social media is that no matter what you say or in what group, you will be attacked/argued with unnecessarily. LOL My political affliations are irrelevant as the use of "if _____ was smart" is a commonly used expression which not at all implies that _______ is not smart. Also, the WE in this case should be ANY American who cares about this country and wants to see it continue as a democracy instead of one of the two baseball teams (both of which frequently disappoint) that we are forced to join at 18. Do *you* see the difference? Besides which, unless I actually worked the Democratic Party and was in a position to buy tv ads, it seems kind of SILLY to say 'we'. ;)
NO YOU are pointing fingers at a group. You are saying 'they' or 'them' so if you do not identify with a group of like minded voters, whether Democrats or Independents, the point is you are POINTING fingers at a group. BTW if you want change, the combo of that GROUP is going to make changes, so decide which side you are on, OK? So maybe you are an unhappy Republican? That group is dragging its feet in the CONGRESS and earning its $175K for NOT doing their job. I want people who will work for ALL OF US! I hope you do too!
My loyalty is to democracy, the US Constitution, the rule of law, and my ideals which include equality for all persons including women, POC, gays, etc. If a politician does something that I think is immoral and/or unethical, I want them punished regardless of their party affliation. I have absolutely ZERO loyalty to political parties! PS: I have been a registered Democrat for the last 40+ years. I was not pointing fingers. You are wrong because you did not understand my post.
Imagine a leader saying he doesn’t care about you as citizens and still be there….I think he’s realized its his last days since he’s touching 80 and maybe he really just thinks he’s playing a game…WITH PEOPLES LIVES!
"Care," "realized," "think": 3 verbs you've applied to trump that are not applicable. The space that used to hold his brain is empty and the space that was intended to hold his heart has apparently always been low-functioning. Trump is not like any human I can think of. Even more terrifying than having such a creature giving orders is that people are actually obeying him. I thought about that when I saw the clip of his motorcade driving THROUGH THE REFLECTING POOL. 10 or 15 or how ever many it was--they FILLED the pool--huge, heavy, gas-guzzling machines driving through that small space for no discernible reason. There had to be a driver in each of those, and most likely a toadie or two who has some position in the regime. What kind of person would get into a car to DRIVE THROUGH THE REFLECTING POOL? Of course it is another symbol of what trump's done to us, like the partially destroyed White House. No more reflecting from that pool, no more thought in Washington. I have never been so depressed as I have been the past year and a half, watching my country disintegrate before my eyes.
Indeed. I am depressed every single day. I fight it off as well as I can because I refuse to let that base turds destroy me and all our lives! I think of Winston Churchill: "When you're going through hell, keep going!"
There many CEOs in this country very much like Trump; ruthless sociopaths who enjoy stepping on the backs of those they can use. The big difference is that in general, they are probably smarter than Trump--admittedly, it would be difficult to be more ignorant than Trump and manage to keep an executive position in the private sector--and keep their obvious sociopathy tucked away and make little noise or news.
Trump and Think should never appear in the same sentence. It’s a lie. Hoping the billionaires will recognize this in China. Of course they may help him give Taiwan away if they find it financially rewarding.
Me too. Sometimes I try to muster up some of my former optimism and within minutes it dissipates when I realize the amount of destruction this regime has done in a short time and as I approach retirement, I’m scared and not optimistic at all.
Get to work, PT. There is so much to do to fight the mess! I couldn’t survive the ICE sirens 24/7 if I weren’t writing GOTV postcards (no garden space). With climate change, if you have space, plant a garden! You will need to eat no matter what.
Remember Chairman Mao who In 1966 launched the Cultural Revolution, which was marked by violent class struggle, destruction of historical artifacts, and Mao's cult of personality. China under his leadership has been described as a totalitarian regime which resulted in tens of millions of deaths, mainly through famine, as well as political persecution, prison labor, and executions. Mao died in 1976 at age 82.
I was able to travel to China in the early 90s and at one museum we saw pictures of large dump trucks filled to overflowing with the carcasses of millions of small birds. Some official, motivated by the Great Leap Forward project, thought it would be a good idea to kill all the little birds in grain fields to keep them from pecking at the grain. As it turned out, those little birds also ate insects that destroy crops. Birds killed, predators gone, insects abound, crops decimated, people starved.
Hmmm ... RFKjr is now in charge of the nation's health and thinks snorting cocaine off toilet seats, swimming in sewage and drinking unpasteurized milk are A-Okay, but vaccines are bad.
Lee Zeldin has overturned more than 500 Environmental Protection Agency rules since being appointed, and still at it.
its like one of those Squid Games episodes where the richie richs who have nothing in life left, now tend to f w people’s lives, preying on those who need help the most!
I should do a piece on this w squid games since i was trying to find something real connected to the series side of rich men/women povs.
A message to America from your never 51st state to the north.
I was told recently about a study revealing a defect in my humanity called “suicidal empathy.” According to the study, I have so much empathy that I’ll be killing myself or others. My accuser, believing the study, couldn’t believe my response. I, a person with too much empathy, laugh out loud when I’m told by a study that my empathy is an imminent threat to the lives of others. Something didn’t add up.
I don’t know anyone with too much empathy despite becoming aware of the “empathy is dangerous” concept almost 50 years ago. I still remember reading the words “Capitalism and Freedom” on the cover of a bright green paperback book on every desk as we walked into the first day of an introduction to economics course. I thought the book would be covered in the course, but it was never mentioned. Not once.
I didn’t read the whole book, but I read enough to explain my paradoxical response to being accused of having no empathy about having too much empathy, and I thought I’d share the explanation I gave to my surprised accuser.
“I understood your message. FYI, you’re not the first person to send that message, and I’m not the first person to disagree.
“For example, I agree (and you disagree) with Adam Smith. He described his disagreement in his book, A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). His message was that things are bad because people don’t have enough empathy for each other, and he argued that we should. He described the benefit of having enough empathy in his next book, The Wealth of Nations (1776).
“And he was proven correct when people followed his advice and it worked. So, they gave Smith’s advice a name. They called it ‘capitalism.’
“Milton Friedman disagreed with Smith and agreed with you in his book, Capitalism and Freedom (1962). His argument was that capitalism, instead of being about the wealth of nations, should be about how fewer people get more money. I assume he was thinking that capitalism is too hard, and that it would be so much easier for him without morality.
“So, in 1776, Americans hated kings, and they solved the “king” problem by adopting capitalism. Then in 1962, Friedman sowed the seed that recreated the problem that everyone thought capitalism had solved.
“Now America is back to having the same king problem it had before the American Revolution. Well not quite the same because the king was in England back then.”
Then I reminded my accuser of something the two of us had discussed in a previous dialogue when I told him that morality is “nonpartisan” (the winner is the winner, and no cheating allowed!), and immorality is “partisan” (do as I say and not as I do).
And then I said, “Isn’t it ironic?”
I laughed out loud in an online reply to my accuser’s comment and I’m still waiting for his response.
I’m not bragging. In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed to realize that I failed to notice the same idea repeatedly expressed for the same half century every time I’ve heard Bob Marley’s voice singing, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Isn't it empathy, most of all, that sociopaths/psychopaths lack. They may clever enough to sense what someone is experiencing, but they don't sympathize. Trump doesn't really care (about others) does he? Not in a humane way in any case.
Good question. My potentially erroneous understanding is that a psychopath is born without empathy, empathy is removed from a sociopath due to a traumatic experience (like being a child of a psychopath), and a generic narcissist is someone who has an unhealthy addiction to a "lack of empathy" behavior pattern.
By default, a lack of empathy is perceived as attractive because it has a small short-term benefit, and empathy is perceived as repulsive because it has a small short-term cost. By exception, a lack of empathy is perceived as repulsive because it has an enormous long-term cost, and empathy is perceived as attractive because it has an enormous long-term benefit. The “exception” is called “deliberate practice.” It’s like hot sauce. After a while, you like the pain.
The original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" perfectly gets lack of empathy.
That is, James, the townspeople who've already "gone to sleep" have a perfectly rational explanation in it for how much better life is once people have rid themselves of capacity to feel anything.
Psychopath and sociopath are not clinical terms, but I think most people have some idea of what the terms refer to and why it's a problem, so I think that they are useful. It "downside" of maintaining a egalitarian society, such as has been our ideal, is that it takes emotional and other work, engagement, and self discipline on an ongoing basis, and bullying or cheating gets dramatic results fast; yet at the cost of enshitifying one's own society.
The "downside" of maintaining a physical body, such as has been our ideal, is that it takes physical and other work, engagement, and self discipline on an ongoing basis, and laziness or "I cheated on my healthy diet" gets dramatic "not-discomfort" results fast; yet at the cost of enshitifying one's own physical fitness. So ... yes, I understand and agree with the message.
With respect to the medium, meaning the choice of words used to express the message, I understand but disagree with the choice. Maybe "difficulty" as opposed to "downside." Or maybe "upside." Given the choice between "downside" and "upside," I'd take Option 2.
I have only one question for people of lances and windmills. For people chasing pathways of the mind. Do you know any good stories for us children? Is there a good one about dollars and sense? I know I know that’s two. Do you know the one about the six little children watching the hen who might lay an egg? Oh, sorry, now there are only five of them.
I’ve sat in that chair on the mountain top. The one with glass feet. The tremors of your thundercloud raising my hearts beat. My Osborne measuring the glimmering strikes that light up the night’s sky rending darkness split asunder. I welcome your booming thunder. If you come to Heaven before me, thank Leonard Cohen for his poetry. And thank you, sir. Your story was the best.
JL-Sociopaths/psychopaths not only don’t care, they are excited by the chaos, cruelty and suffering. Look at the celebrations when they blow up boats, drop bombs and terrorize people, communities and nations.
Those who have antisocial personality disorder, the more technical term, are not necessarily predatory, but the ones who are can fit right into the muwa-ha-ha evil-villain stereotype, as Trump surely demonstrates. I don't believe in a devil, but I see why people do. Competition can be and is a good thing in the mix with compassion and fair play, but lacking compassion or conscience, it becomes what we call "evil"; and history presents no end of examples. In The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde I think R.L. Stevenson "got it" that "Hyde" is part of human nature, and holds a strange and terrifying appeal. Yet we humans are endowed with powers to recognize and reject it.
I think that the existence of actual mirror neurons is controversial, but clearly we have mirror something that gives meaning to life, and expands ans enriches what a friend calls our individual "puniverse". Mindfulness. Love. What Joe McCarthy nemesis Joseph Welch called "decency". It's not just a nicety. Our species may fail to endure without it.
I just relearned about them. Interesting and perhaps a hopeful and helpful way of creating more kindness and awareness. At this point any tool is helpful .
I think he only cares about money and his ego. He is a very incomplete human. I'm still trying to understand why he has followers - I'm thinking low IQ.
I see counterexamples, and IQ seems to me only loosely paired with wisdom. One can certainly be clever, yet not wise, and not decent. In the decency race the tortoise may outpace the hare.
I think we all want to be valued, but there are some beneficial and some toxic strategies for pursuing that. Lord Acton was not the first to observe that "power tends to corrupt", and it was an issues our society's very human founders wrestled with. I think that Trump would have been dismissed as a jerk had he not been born to great wealth, and money is a form of power. Despots use flattery, extortion, and "divide and conquer" to manipulate the human need for sense of agency. From history we know how it works, yet so often fail to stop it. The claim of "supremacy" is part of the tell; "master race", master sex, "true American" or whatever, master faith, etc., etc. "As I would not be a slave, I would not be a master".
You can read some of our great, essaying journalists who have traveled, observed, interviewed widely among the millions damaged by our elites who offshored the millions of U.S. working-class jobs:
memoirs like Mary Karr’s “The Liars’ Club,” Joan Didion’s “Where I Was From,” Jeannette Walls’ “The Glass Castle,” Sarah Kendzior’s “The Last American Road Trip,” Tia Levings’ “A Well-Trained Wife,” Erin Gruwell’s “The Freedom Writers Diary,” and Beth Macy’s “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”;
essay collections such as Arlie Russell Hochschild’s “Stolen Pride,” Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America”; Sarah Smarsh’s “Bone of the Bone, and George Packer’s “The Unwinding.”
And there are movies, songs, novels, histories, too.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining the campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Would someone kindly encourage Donald Trump to come over and visit me so I can walk him out back and shove his ass down a hole previously dug out by a groundhog and I promise to let him up every day to fed on cabbage chips until I eventually pour gasoline down the hole and light it on fire.
Per Google AI search: "Based on information available as of May 2026, several Epstein survivors who were previously identified as "Jane Doe" in legal filings have stepped forward, with different individuals residing in various locations."
IF any survivors are resident(s) of the state of California persons have a powerful legal tool available per the CCPA, the California Privacy Act which was effective over 5 years ago on 1/1/2020. This CA law is enforced by a CA Agency not the consumer.
Further to Heather's post tonight, "Roza" (formerly Jane Doe):
According to testimonies during a Congressional hearing in Florida on May 12, 2026, a survivor identified as "Roza" revealed her name was disclosed in Department of Justice (DOJ) files, speaking out about her abuse during the time Epstein was under house arrest. Effective action can be taken now to remedy such travesties.
Under the CCPA, residents of CA can have their names & personal information removed from any database and/ or not sold to 3rd parties.
I am a 4th generation Californian. Over the decades California has accepted refugees from different states time-and-tmie again. Be certain surviviors 'do not have to live like a refugee'.
Well, if their spiritual leaders (!) have told them the rapture is at hand, they've stopped concerning themselves with the quality of their lives - and everybody else's.
Heather, as Anne-Louise has alluded and I constantly harp on, 85% of Donald's base are evangelical. This is a documented fact. Kindly stay with me through this analysis.
There is an essential difference between "mainline" Christians (United Methodists, Lutherans, most Presbyterians, etc.) and evagelicals (Baptists, pentecostals, most non-denominationals, etc.).
Mainline Christians emphasize community, charity, making the world a better place in this life.
By contrast, evangelicals emphasize a "personal relationship with Jesus." The entirety of their faith is avoiding condemnation to hell and getting into heaven. For the evangelical, this life is an inconvenience that must be endured in order to get to those heavenly mansions after they die. A gospel ditty says it perfectly: "This world is not my home. I'm just a-passin' through."
So when Donald tells his followers, "This financial hardship you're experiencing is temporary. It'll be worth it when all the people of color are gone and we're not threatened by 'shithole' countries," they believe him.
In three hours, the President posted fifty‑five times. Fifty‑five. That is not a flurry. That is a full-blown social media assault. In that concentrated spree, we were treated to AI images of “Dumacrats Love Sewage,” invented quotes from dead senators, and a personal insult cocktail strong enough to stun a rhino. Policy decisions? Foreign crises? Economy? Optional. Meme warfare? Mandatory. The Founders did not anticipate this. Somewhere, Machiavelli is facepalming. Somewhere, James Madison is sighing. Fifty‑five posts. Three hours. Zero governance.
Watching the President treat the country like a 24‑hour influencer livestream is mesmerizing in its absurdity. Every like, retweet, and share is more important than an actual cabinet meeting. Reality bows politely while the algorithm hums approval. Social media has become the executive branch, and civics textbooks quietly weep in the corner. The American people watch, trapped between horror and involuntary laughter, as the highest office in the land is reduced to a nonstop commentary feed. The President measures success in impressions, hashtags, and viral outrage, leaving constitutional duty behind AI-generated sewage memes. Fifty‑five posts. Three hours. Still, we call this “productivity.” If chaos is the medium, the presidency has become art.
The worst part about this is that very few media outlets are going to publish his deranged babble-bibble in its unabridged, unedited, uncut edition. Heather's one of the few who consistently quote him directly, letting the effect sink in with her readers. MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace reported on it substantively -- and without even checking, I'm bettering hamberders to donuts, Faux News didn't point out what you just did.
Somewhere, James Madison is vomiting, while Thomas Jefferson is going "are you fucking kidding me?"
Michael, having watched my mother, who was by many opinions other than mine, brilliant and accomplished, descend into the profound incapacity of dementia before her demise, Donald's descent is familiar. Except he was a learning-disabled failure to start with.
I have read that one of the addictive features of social media is the "dopamine hit" a user gets when their post is "liked" or shared.
Donald has always been motivated by his "pleasure center," but other parts of his brain were functioning at least in a limited manner. Now, as parts of Donald's brain are shut down by dementia, he still retains his pleasure-seeking abilities. Getting "likes" and reposts of his social media posts are providing those pleasure impulses he can't get elsewhere.
Thank you for sharing your pain and disgust ....so well presented....as is your custom.
I pray for relief from this episode of "political horror and shameful disgust" voted FOR by many of our citizens.
From what "hell hole" was such a creature taken before being placed in the office of President of the United States of America??? He and his greedy minions destroy everything they touch! Disruption is everywhere!!!!
In some places, there are weekly protests; however, "local" news has disappeared in many places and the MSM increasingly does not cover protests (for example, in rural areas hosting data centers or warehouses slated to become concentration camps). Also, there's human burnout. People have jobs and now are rationing their gasoline usage so don't always choose to travel to protest sites. Outrage gets channeled in other ways, such as calls/letters to our elected un-representatives.
You need to stop blaming "the American people" because the vast majority of us are fighting like hell. You need to blame the Republicans in Congress who could stop him TODAY, but refuse to do so.
Trump didn't even receive 50% of the vote. More people voted for someone OTHER than Trump. It's the way the electoral college works that put him in the oval.
As hard as it is to believe (actually, extremely hard), there are people out there hoping for a red wave in November and think that T's only concern is the welfare of the USA. It is absolutely frightening that there are people in this country, that even when hit over the head the man's own words, still think he is represents the USA. This is not the country I thought I have lived in for the past 76 years.
Unfortunately, what it takes to get the attention of a large swath of the American people is the economic crisis that Trump’s corruption and incompetence have caused. I always agree with Professor Richardson, but I think that what may be an even bigger story than Trump’s mental illness is that he just won the popular vote a year and a half ago and still has the support of the vast majority of Republicans—despite his mental illness, breath-taking corruption and incompetence and a tanking economy.
The "American people" aren't the problem because we're not in a position to do anything about Trump, his lackeys, or his handlers until November. The awakening has to take place in Congress and the best tool we have is the telephone which we should all be using daily to give them a wakeup call demanding Trump's removal via impeachment or the 25th Amendment.
Now that I have viewed what Trump said, I suppose that one should point out that what he was saying that the economic effects of the war on Americans did not factor into his decisions on how to prosecute the war. I appreciate that this might seem like a fine point given Trump's previous admissions about his unhappiness about the federal government having to contribute to social security, day care, Medicaid and Medicare and his obsession with expensive vanity projects.
It seems to me also that Trump is aware of the economic costs of the war at least insofar as it affects his ability to hold on to power at the midterm elections. For example, he's considering suspending the federal gas tax. Congress would need to approve this and they've never done it before because it would take revenue from the Highway Trust Fund and there's no guarantee that retailers would pass the savings on to consumers. It seems to be gesture politics at its worst, but that's essentially Trump's modus operandi.
It's nevertheless a sign that the administration has finally been forced into accepting the economic downsides of the war instead of downplaying the economic effects, as secretary of state Marco Rubio did recently
The plain purpose of the war was initially to boost his pathetic ego; now the purpose of continuing it is to avoid humiliation because the dark void of his bottomless ego can't accept defeat and certainly not to admit a mistake.
Eisenhower warned us of the dangers posed by the military-industrial complex. Essentially that means that war is profitable and given that wealth is power, the need to wage war is too heavily weighted to wealth accumulation rather than principle.
The arms industry has multiple levers to pull. First, they sell capability to politicians. “Our weapons, our military strength, can make this easy” is whispered by lobbyists. Second, “political engineering”, is that arms manufacturing is spread among all states. This gives legislators incentives to support the arms industry as jobs for their constituents. And those legislators will stay in office by supporting the arms industry.
Every war since WW2 has been by choice and what we have learned is that hardware alone is not enough to win. The resulting insurgencies and asymmetrical warfare have a vote, too. But, no matter the results and messy withdrawals, the arms industry profits. That is, war pays more than peace or diplomacy.
And who pays? All of us by shifting our monies via taxes to a small cadre of people for arms companies and their ancillary businesses. And cuts to government services make this even worse.
Perhaps I have oversimplified the problem as there are many complicating factors. Still, “follow the money” is one of the best ways to understand why we are in this untenable situation today. The administration, Trump really, has profited immensely from this war. They have real estate deals, crypto money and outsized bribes to influence war making decisions. Combine that with an ignorant executive and his sycophants driven by promises of a powerful autocracy, fascist really, we have waded into exactly what Eisenhower warned us against.
See my post. A lot of us are already working to this end if you see the no Kings rallies, may day actions and votes on the national and local levels. What are you doing?
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining the campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
I will now that tolerable weather has arrived, go downtown and sit with a sign in front of the federal court building in Hartford a few times a week. The sign will say: “Voter Suppression is Un-American .” And I’ll be ther alone a few hours each week.
We need a lot more than one person doing this, and all of these people in the south should be Quoting the law which allows "Any citizen of the "red" state to question the status of ANY NUMBER of registered voters, and requiring that all questioned be removed from the voting rolls" These laws are used by the VIGILANTES to remove legitimate voters from the red state voting rolls. see gregpalast.com
The only insurrection was the George Floyd riots. Because the left couldn’t wait for justice so they took it in their own hands as they normally do and they’re starting to do all over again now. They couldn’t wait for the jury. They went out and caused $2 billion of damage injured 1000 policeman burnt down police precinct took over city blocks and lit fires all over the country that my friend is an insurrection.
Oh, I get it now you must be one of those gullible idiots that thinks that 1500 unarmed people are going to overthrow the government of the United States and alter the results of an election. Can’t get any more gullible than that.
Don't engage a psychotic idiot. Don't wrestle with a pig. Don't try to teach it to sing. It's here for ONE reason only. Just ONE. It wants your attention. It feeds off your rage. Don't give it to him. Thank you for your attention to this matter...
Stay abroad and out of touch please. It was bad as Heather picking up tidbits instead of the entire picture. You read my lips, Russell. UNARMED CITIZENS. WOULD YOU PLEASE SHARE WITH ME HOW THIS GROUP OF 1500 WAS GOING TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OR OVERTURN AN ELECTION I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THEORY ON THIS WHICH WOULD BASICALLY PLACE YOU IN AN INSANE ASYLUM.
Did you happen to see the Capitol police escorting people inside the Capitol as well? Did you happen to know that there were 30 some odd FBI agents that weren’t supposed to be there incognito And here’s the best one I have a nice treat for you. Here’s Nancy Pelosi taking blame on camera with her daughter. We’re not supplying enough capital police. Ooooops
you know you came on here you had a pretty good idea or two, but you have been downhill since then big time. It’s really a shame.
Russell, it’s over the war is over when Trump says it’s over it’ll be the shortest war ever fought by America and the first war America is one since World War II How about that?
And the reason he is the story every single day is because he’s currently the most positively influential human being on planet earth. So thank you for giving him his due.
BUT IT was OK when Ginsburg was in there and it was all left huh? That was OK ! Turn around is fair play. There are 7 states in the northeast. That have not one single congressional district that’s red even though the population is split 6040 Between Red and blue. NOT ONE.
I voice text everything so I’m not sure the link an issue you’re referring to if you’d like to refresh my memory please feel free to do so and I will correct the voice texting mistake
You’re so funny and so laughable and so incredibly naïve it’s un Believable 80% of the public In Poll after poll after Poll thinks that men should not participate in women’s sports, but not your congressional leaders. Oooooops
And 76% of the public poll after Poll after Poll thinks that voter ID should be required, but not your Democrats. Ooooops again
So much for your theoretical theory
ONCE AGAIN, HERE’S YOUR GROUP.
Bottom of the meme is cut off, but it says if we could do this, we would save democracy. And now I actually have the audacity to try to do some of this stuff and then call it a democracy
Hey Heather, if you want to see mentally unwell just stand in front of a mirror for a few seconds. One of the most brilliant men on planet earth. One of the most successful men on planet Earth and the best president of your life!! Elected twice by a majority of the voting public not the 1.6% of the Democrats that you represent here. Oooooops. Awwwwwww. But the good news that I’m glad you finally understand capitalism you feed your lemmings whatever you want they follow you like Remora on a shark. And you rip them off for five bucks a month
once a respected historian, now nothing more than a radical liberal activist in my opinion
Don ‘t bother Mike. He or “it” is a troll. Ignore. Skip past any and everything it writes. Not worth your or anybodies time. Kathryn is dead on. Personally I doubt it’s human and is more likely a bot.
Does it matter? Awareness is the key. If you’re smart Mike, then at least you’d be aware of what you’re not aware of which is a lot
I’m sure you’re a really nice guy with really good intentions, but you’re only getting half the information distorted tainted information all the time You need to change the channel and see what else is out there in the world
If you’re reading what I wrote, it’s making all the sense that is necessary. It’s putting an idea in your head or at least in front of your face to contemplate that’s it no other sense needs to be made If you agree if you disagree fine but at least perhaps you’ll think about it instead of being totally closed minded
Almost every single negative thought about Donald Trump has nothing to do with this presidency Nothing Just his behavior before we became president
Not the stealing or self dealing? Not the concentration camps? Not the tariffs? Not the war with Iran? Not the threats against NATO allies? Not the defunding of social programs by DOGE? Not the weaponization of the law?
It’s all just personal distaste for an individual?
Rick, pls forgive me for commenting "off topic;" I often get lost in these threads...but I seem to recall that you decried the fact that "7 Northeastern States" had zero GOP representatives in their US delegations. Since I agree that "one-party-rule" is bad, I thought about it...and wondered whether you feel the same way @ one-party GOP congressional delegations as you do about one-party Dem delegations...b/c, as I'm sure you know, the former are more numerous than the latter. (If I'm not mistaken, there are no GOP reps from the 6 New England states, and only one GOP Senator...while Delaware, NM & Hawaii have zero GOP representation in Congress; meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that ND, SD, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, WVA & Alaska have zero Dem representation in their congressional delegations.) Or maybe I'm wrong...maybe I missed a state...or mischaracterized a state as having a one-party US delegation...but my question to you remains the same: inasmuch as NO state is 100% (or even 80%) GOP or Dem (except DC, which isn't a state & has no voting reps/Sens in Congress), does it disturb you ONLY if a state's congressional delegation is one-party Dem? I'm genuinely curious. Thx!
Find me any respected historian (and the professor certainly is one) who has anything good to say about Trump. He's the biggest idiot ever to occupy the office of the president and he's a disgrace to that office and an embarrassment to all Americans.
By the way, Heather Obama was not only somebody that Trump hated but somebody that hated America named Barack Obama… one of the most divisive presidents in our history, even fueling the war in Iran today by sending a couple billion dollars in cash to Iran to enrich their uranium. Ooooops
The obituaries you’ll find will often lead with CNN. They’ll talk about the billions, the America’s Cup, the Braves, Jane Fonda, and so on. They’ll mention, somewhere toward the bottom, that he owned a lot of land and liked bison. Maybe a line about the UN Foundation. Then they’ll move on.
💕 I want to talk about a cartoon.
Captain Planet told me, in terms a six-year-old could understand, that the natural world was worth fighting for. That pollution wasn’t just ugly — it was wrong. That the people destroying the earth weren’t just careless — they were villains. And that ordinary people, kids even, had a responsibility to stop them.
No other network would have aired that show. A children’s program that named corporate polluters as villains and told kids they had a moral obligation to fight them — on commercial television, in the 1990s?
Turner understood something that most people in conservation still don’t. Policy protects land. Culture is what makes people care whether it’s protected. You can pass every law in the world, but if the next generation doesn’t feel the obligation in their bones — if they never learned, somewhere, somehow, that the natural world has a claim on their conscience — the laws won’t hold. Someone will come along and tear them down, and nobody will stop them, because nobody will care enough to try.
Captain Planet was Turner’s answer to that problem. The bison were his physical connection to the land.
He was a complicated man. Eccentric. Brash. Difficult, by many accounts. I didn’t know him personally. But I know his work. He gave a billion dollars to the United Nations, a third of his fortune, because Congress wouldn’t pay its dues. He built a conservation foundation that put $400 million into protecting land and recovering species over three decades. He shamed other billionaires into giving their money away while they were still alive. And his work — the land he saved, the species he brought back, the values he planted in a generation of kids who didn’t know they were being shaped — is as important to the conservation movement as anything done by anyone with a government title.”
I want to add another philanthropist and that is Sir David Attenborough who just turned 100 and has been trying to save our beautiful planet for a good deal of his lifetime. I believe he had great influence over Turner.
Reading the Turner obituaries It struck me how he spent his money. Yes, Ted had his yachts and his girlfriends. But he gave much of his money on things that helped the world. Not on vanity projects.
Thank you for these insights re the complicated man that was Ted Turner. I did not know about his gift to UN. Bill Gates also was a generous donor to UN and known for his philanthropy. All of these gestures for the common good should be the focus of all members of government right now, regardless of political affiliation. Make the focus clear as mid-terms approach. What is really important and necessary to the well-being of the people and where they live. All the people as defined in the Constitution. All the lands which comprise this country. So that all can breathe the air and live in peace!
Robert Reich posted the details of a conversation with unnamed political operatives, who lay out what's likely to happen soon --- at some point JD Wanker will approach the Speaker, after promising Marco the VP slot and assuring Pete Kegsbreath he won't be fired -- with an Article 25 maneuver, which will get the Speaker's blessing.
They all know the rage-tweeting baboon is a total albatross around their necks. Even Repulsican gerrymanders won't stop the blue wave from coming -- they can see that, too.
Whether that's comforting or not is another question, of course. But remember that JD is about as charismatic as a small bowl of cold, wriggling eels. No magic MAGA mojo, high or low, anywhere to be found. A repulsive ick on steroids.
But as Martin Luther once said centuries before, pray like everything depended on God alone, but work as though everything depended on you. Let's make the election a truly 'too big to rig' event and render them all inoperative for the next 2 years.
Seems like as likely a scenario as any. His handlers will only prop up trump in front of a camera as long as he serves them some purpose. His increasingly obvious madness will force them to make a move to remove him as a figurehead pretty soon. It's just terrible to think of the damage he has already done and the lives he's ruined or ended. At this point I'm too worn out to speculate about what horrors will follow him, but it seems there is no way forward until he's gone, one way or another.
The problem with this is that Wanker will do exactly as Ford did with Nixon. And the LAST thing this country needs right now is for the poster child for corruption to be pardoned. If we are to truly move on and wise up from this absurdity, this man, and his minions, need to be punished to the full extent of the law.
I get so optimistic thinking that everyone is as fed up with this regime as I am and as all the people on this substack are. Then it hits me that there are people out there who still love Trump and the bs that he and his racist bunch of pigs are pulling. I sincerely hope for a blue wave that overwhelms any gerrymandering but then I think of those people and become depressed again.
Take some heart. The clump of clods surrounding the Manchurian Cantaloupe grows thinner by the day. There's a rage out there brewing. Let's just hope it doesn't self-destruct.
I think it’s good news, if they pull it off. We’re finally, finally!, reaching the point where even the toadies can’t sustain the insanity for much longer. Of course, if he decided to do us all a favor and leave the planet on his own, say 35,000 feet over the Pacific on his way back, that would be more than ok too. Other than Gruppenfuhrer Miller and maybe Russell Vought, neither of whom will rise any further with Maybelline Eyes in charge, no one else in this clown car of a regime is as bad as Stinky Diapers. Given the circumstances and possible outcomes, I think we’re at a time when any change is better than the status quo.
The notion of "The Devil you know is better than the one you don't" comes to mind. If the Article 25 maneuver happens, they'll plan it before 20 Jan 2027 so JD Wanker (like in Ted Lasso, I wonder if JD knows the meaning of 'Wanker') gets by the 22nd Amendment should he win (Opps ... be certified by the electoral college) in a presidential election. Just typing out that thought makes me want to vomit.
Given the constant demonstrations of his cognitive incapacity, I'm very, very surprised that the media doesn't seem to be paying much attention to Senators Whitehouse and Reed reading into the congressional record the recent letter 36 mental professionals wrote to explain their psychiatric concerns about Trump.
We've been getting this info by dribs and drabs and hearing it all recounted at once is mind boggling!! Doesn't this remind you of our decades-long battle with the tobacco industry??? Same stages. But they learned by their previous battles how to be even more effective. I hope a lot of people listen to this!
Fred, you’re actually talking about dementia or Alzheimer’s or some other mental defect while Biden demonstrated being non compos mentis for almost 2 years and this is what you’re talking about holy shit.
ICYMI: Today (5/12/26) Heather posted a Politics Chat in which she clearly describes what gerrymandering is and what the various court decisions and legislative redistricting is doing, that your voting is more important than ever, that all is not lost unless you give up and/or obey in advance (as the fascists and oligarchs want you to do). If you are not familiar with the story of Fannie Lou Hamer, Heather gives a very poignant description along with other matters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9qatSWt2xQ
My response to the white supremicist John Roberts’ Supreme Court:
WHY THE SOUTH STAYED RACIST AFTER THE CIVIL WAR/AND RACE IS A MYTH
RE: The Civil War and Abraham Lincoln are favorite topics of Heather’s and she is an esteemed expert on post-Civil War Reconstruction.
I spent my early childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia and the middle school part of my childhood in a small (pop. 2,000) town in South Carolina. This was during segregation. In the South Carolina town there was a small town square with all the businesses around the outside and the government building in the center. I never ever saw a dark skinned person anywhere near the square. The public elementary school was relatively new but the middle-high school building was quite old wth cracks in the concrete on the outside walls. The level of the academic teaching reflected the condition of the building. There was no civics class. This was replaced by South Carolina history which mainly covered the role of Francis Marion, the “swamp fox”, in the Revolutionary war, glorified that South Carolina was the first state to cede from the Union and fire on Fort Sumter to begin the Civil War, the bravery of Confederate soldiers and generals, the horrors of General Sherman’s destructive march through Georgia, the burning of Atlanta, Reconstruction and the “damned Yankee carpetbaggers”, the corruption of the government, the cracks in the marble steps of the State House in Columbia, SC allegedly caused by “Yankee carpetbaggers” rolling whiskey barrels up them to use for debaucheries in the State House, etc.. In public places there were signs designating water fountains and bathrooms as “WHITES ONLY”. My South Carolina experience was at a time when the movie version of “Gone With The Wind” starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara was popular and playing in all the theaters. Given that people of color in this country started out as slaves, the bottom of the social hierarchy (analogous to the “Untouchables” or Dalits in the Hindu caste hierarchy in India) and that racial discrimination and hatred were inculcated in the white Southern society for generations, it is not surprizing that it still exists even after a Civil War resulting in the deaths of over 600,000 people and the 1960’s Civil Rights Laws and movements. Anthropologists say that tribalism was selected for in our evolution as a species because our ability to band together to achieve a goal gave us a selective advantage over other human species. So racial prejudice does not automatically disappear just because laws are enacted or wars are won.
I am a “white man” and was a civil rights worker in the 1960s. We registered voters and tried to do sit-ins in Greensboro, NC. We were spit on, assaulted with obscenities and sometimes physically and our lives were threatened (at a time when people like us were actually being killed/murdered by racists - eg. the childhood friend of Professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and two other civil rights workers were violently murdered in Mississippi for their participation in voter registration, Medgar Evers, Emmitt Till, Roman Ducksworth, Jr., Henry Dee, Charles Eddie Moore, etc.. Being immersed in an “us vs. them” battle, white vs. people of color, is not conducive to a flourishing society and contradicts basic scientific findings. More than 30 years ago the science of genetics/genealogy proved that we are all the same species (sapiens) by tracing single nucleotide polymorphisms (heritable spontaneous single base changes) in the Y chromosome DNA in men and in the mitochondrial DNA of women (all of your mitochondrial DNA comes from your mother). Men were traced back to a single man in east Africa (“The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey” by geneticist Spencer Wells. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQAdPvKG4-U). And women were traced back to a single woman in the same region of east Africa (“The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry” by University of Oxford emeritus professor Bryan Sykes) And by “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari, Professor of history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. So we all have the same ancestors.The production of melanin (the pigment that colors your skin) in skin cells is regulated by 150-200 genes. All of us have some of them - some more than others. Since the time of Claude Levi-Strauss and before, mainstream anthropologists have suspected the existence of the recent recognition that “race is a social construction” or as anthropologist and human population geneticist, John H. Relethford somewhat differently states it: Race is a “culturally constructed label that crudely and imprecisely describes real variation”. Anthropological studies have taken groups of thousands of people and divided them up into “racial” groups and found that there were more phenotypic differences within each group than there were between the groups. Race is a myth that is used to promulgate tribalism and divisiveness. We are all the same species with ultimately the same ancestors. Celebrate our different cultures and diversity as an asset. Some cognitive scientists reason that “race” is an error of metacognition - like believing that the sun orbits the earth (a widespread belief in the Middle Ages that Galileo was imprisoned for contradicting). People argued that because you can see it coming up on the eastern horizon, passing overhead and going down on the western horizon - so it must be going around/orbiting the earth. In any event freedom of travel and “interracial”/intercultural mating is rehomogenizing the perceived “racial” attributes (phenotypic characteristics) of our species. I don’t think “white supremacists” have any chance of changing this. We need to tolerate and appreciate the value of our diversity. Tribalism, racism and cults are self-destructive. We are all part of the same family of ancestors that comprise humanity, sapiens. To have a democracy and a thriving society we need to come together as “We the People”. E Pluribus Unum.
Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson’s recent lecture at Yale Law School: James A. Thomas Lecture: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOIzg3X5M2Y
Interesting posting, especially your educational experiences in South Carolina. After listening to a story on the news about the redistricting in the former Confederate states, I said to my husband, " Those states cannot let go of the Lost Cause."
I think it’s reasonable to say now that we can conclude to a mathematical certainty that about 35% of the American electorate is made up of bigots. That’s one of the first merit badges that a Nazi recruit earns at Boot Camp.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining the campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
I will add that after we impeach Trump and his cronies, we need to be looking at the SCOTUS.
Agree with your post about race as a social construct, though let’s also remember that this is now the reasoning that racists are using to take away our tools to fight racism. They’re saying “we are all the same so we don’t need to protect certain races.” This reasoning ignores the fact that the social construct of race and racism has created inequities for generations, and those inequities require strategic protections and conscious frameworks to fix and move towards equity.
There are so many similarities between the N@zis in Germany and American enslavement/Jim Crow. The similarities are striking (probably because the N@zis studied and modeled their system after ours). But the biggest difference is that Germany accounted for their actions. America hasn’t. They don’t have statues of nazis.. they have memorials to the victims. We have statues of confederates. They don’t have swasticas on their flags. State flags have the confederate flag incorporated into their flags. Germany paid reparations, America hasn’t. We have public schools and private universities named after confederates. They strategically educate their children about Nazis and antisemitism starting at a very young age… America continues to tell a nationalist founding story to our children—the founders are portrayed as almost god like with just a few character flaws (that oopsie slavery thing). Our children are told that the founding and constitution was the the model democracy that all others should follow—ignoring that 20% of Americans were enslaved at that time (after being human trafficked), millions had fallen to genocide, the constitution protected the enslavERs at the time of our founding and there are still anti-democratic elements in our constitution left as a reminder of our past. We have never dealt with our past and now it comes back to haunt us.
The founding story that should be taught to our children is that we were founded as a country with apartheid and genocide but resistance movements over hundreds of years brought us to closer to the ideal of democracy and equality. Our founding story is really in those resistance movements, not our founding.
And the NY Times reports that intelligence officials have leaked classified information showing that Iran continues to have access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. It still fields about 70& of its pre-war mobile launchpads and retains about 70% of its missile stockpile. Enriched uranium still exists and lies buried under the rubble, making it virtually impossible to extract and de-process.
The fact that this information was leaked to the New York Times tells you everything you need to know. It's the CIA's way of voting 'no confidence' in this dishonest, incompetent, North Korean-happy talk administration.
The right descriptor for this $38 billion fiasco would be Operation Epic Fuckup.
The most disturbing thing about this this regime is relatively little visible resistance from agencies being grotesquely misused. I am hoping that some integrity remains while keeping a low profile.
Trump and the regime are so arrogantly, incompetent, so reckless and delusional, causing endless fiascoes and quagmires that they've earned the label and military acronym, SNAFU...situation normal, all fucked up...
FUBAR is exactly right. This expression came from the US Navy during WWII. I like it because it is so comprehensive and applies so completely to the trump administration.
Does anyone know who is generating the AI images that the president is posting? They seem pretty sophisticated… More sophisticated than the orange man seems capable of generating. Honestly, he’s not that creative. They are juvenile, yes, and morally repugnant. Does he actually master the technology? I’m curious that he is capable of generating these images all day and all night… Especially at night.
My guess is there's a team of technologically-savvy people employed by the regime to feed weird images to trump around the clock, but especially at night. He's been trained to pick those he finds appealing and attach them to his postings.
This thought has been growing in my mind also, Kathryn. Who can believe that tRump himself has the capacity to produce all the memes that “he” posts?! Idiotic though they are these take some time and thinking (?) to build. There may be AI shortcuts, but can you imagine this fool being on that edge? Likewise for the posts themselves. I’d bet that these are mostly “created” by some sort of team trained in the Goebbels school of propaganda and public manipulation (as sad as it is to believe that so many yanks can be ‘taken in’). It would be most interesting to know who these people are and who is paying them.
It's just a bunch of 13 year old boys - wanna-be Nazis that sleep all day and game all night on their computers while with playing with AI to generate these adolescent fantasies.
Thanks Heather for detailing Trump's racist and hateful tirade last night along with his demented and laughable self congratulatory posts. You are providing a great service to readers. This story of Trump's obvious dangerous mental decline and his hatred for everything this country represents should have been the lead story today from every news service. Trump represents an immediate threat to the well being of the people of the United States as well as humanity at large. Too bad no one in his circle cares enough to urge his emergency involuntary commitment to a locked psychiatric facility. Grateful for your insights today Heather.
Your framing is correct, but there is a deeper constitutional failure, and it is not the president’s condition. It is the systematic abdication of congressional oversight that has allowed an unwell chief executive to operate without constraint.
We are witnessing the collapse of the separation of powers as a working system. A Republican Majority Congress that refuses to restrain, or acknowledge presidential incapacity is no longer functioning as the first branch of a "We the People" government. It has become an integral extension of the executive, and that is the true constitutional emergency.
Only the Congressional majority, one committed to evidence, governance, and the rule of law, can reconstitute the checking function which appears to have evaporated. Without a Congressional majority, that is willing to carry out their Oath of Office, there is no mechanism to restore oversight, no capacity to defend the administrative state, and no path to reestablish the constitutional equilibrium that has been lost.
This moment is about institutional survival. If Americans want a functioning Republic rather than a performative- personality‑driven regime, the next Congress must be capable of acting as an independent branch. That requires electing a Democratic majority in November.
And this is the thought that needs to be amplified EVERYWHERE!! The problem IS what used to be the Republican party. And it now needs to be eradicated - ON ALL LEVELS!!! People need to be made to understand the damage being done, beginning at the local levels, then on to the state levels, before it ever shows itself nationally. Get these Nazis out at your local level, and the cascading effect will benefit everyone in short order. Start locally!
>>>The New York Times journalists report that one of the options for settling with Trump would be for the IRS to drop any audits of Trump, his family members, or his businesses. Since 1977, IRS policy has been to conduct a mandatory audit of the sitting president every year...<<<
That, right there, is the only reason that Trump is suing. It's his typical game... threatening with the big hammer to get the action he wants. He most definitely doesn't want anyone poking around in the highly illegal financial activities and shady deals perpetrated by him and his family.
Who among us has not experienced the call of greed, and yet set some limit for it? Unbalanced, I think it becomes an illness.
The scheming villain in a cautionary movie famously said "Greed is good", and Republicans picked it up as a motto, trying to normalize it; though they backed away from saying out loud during the Great Recession, in trying to be less brazen about it. Greed is gain by depriving others of their due; and that is not good. It's what the fuss was about in The Declaration of Independence.
Trump: "I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody." , well there it is in a nutshell, cuckoo,cuckoo. Stop playing nice people, he does not give a shit about you. Mind you the people that should be reading this aren't.
It took the Hungarians 16 years to realize the true horror of their dictator. Does anyone think Republicans and independents will be any quicker? I am afraid much worse things have to happen before law-abiding citizens actually do anything effective about the situation.
Luckily Magyar was able to travel around the whole country of around 10 million people. That would be like visiting the whole state of Illinois, most of which is in Chicagoland. Much harder in the US, but still necessary. It is ironic that the Iranian Lego propaganda videos probably reach more people than anything most of the Dems are doing to speak against Trump. I know there are Dems who have been very active and activist and I am grateful for them. The rest do not seem to know how to operate in a Oligarchic -Kakistocracy with an Autocrat for a leader. Magyar did. He understood all of the corruption and made plans to block it. Currently he is not only looking at getting money back from the crooks in the Orbán regime, but also those in the government that transitioned from communist to capitalist after the end of he Soviet Union.
Your book, How the South Won the Civil War, is proving accurate daily. We are moving toward confederacy again. Tennessee shows it. Louisiana proves it. Texas confirms it. Virginia had off year elections and shows that, if given the chance, a solid majority of people wish to go the opposite direction. Even so, our global shame flies to China to humiliate himself, and perhaps us, with his flailing dark triad personality. It seems painfully obvious that Trump removal is the only sane option. Only the lust for continuous power prevents Republicans from acting on this, and that "power" derives from the accumulated wealth of the billionaire class. What they don't see is that the mass of wealth stolen from the poor, the working class, and the environment, shrinks the foundation supporting the entire system. It will collapse. History shows it. How bad a fall, and how many will die with it, is presently unknowable, but the process scares me beyond anything I have seen in the last 70 years.
I'd not, Wayne, attribute "power" but to "the accumulated wealth of the billionaire class."
Yes, we need to correct their massive theft of American wealth. But this could never have happened in the first place if our schools had kept to our humanities as central to them.
Instead, reading, discussing, and writing essays based on whole books disappeared from U.S. schools. Testing in their place took over. All machine-gradable. All based on the rationality conceits of abstracting, grouping, categorizing, and mechanical, 1-2-3 linearity as the only causality.
Massive, dehumanized impotence followed.
The rising up of the people of Minneapolis/St. Paul shows that our anesthetization is not total. The spontaneous resistance of American small towns everywhere against the ICE gulag of Donald's illegal, tortuous concentration camps shows American decency yet extant even in largely rural, red areas.
Are the American people waking up yet or will they allow Trump to completely decimate the country in order to get rid of immigrants and own the libs? After all, he just said into a mic that he does not care about the financial situation of American people.
If the Dems are smart, that's their commercial for every MAGA candidate: _______loves and supports Trump 100% but neither supports you or your family: show Trump saying quote.
I've said it before but I think old fashioned billboards would be a good addition as a means of messaging -- you can't help but see one when you pass, whereas you may not watch the channel with the commercials. Does Fox even allow anti-Trump ads to play?
Indivisible has billboards running now in areas where DHS is trying to buy warehouses to turn into concentration camps.
Correctomente.
I could not agree more. Billboards work. Our son, John, was in marketing for a billboard company in Northern California and "research shows" that they work.
Did he also research whether anti-Trump billboards inside Trump country work?
The Scots put up billboards calling him a cocksplat and flew the Mexican flag over his golf hotel.
Jen Andrews, I’m smiling ear to ear. I happen to be second gen Scottish: a MacRae who were known as warriors: Fortitudine.
That seems to be a genetic trait even today
as the gang of idiot traitors walk backwards
pinning the tail on the donkey to each other.
Their followers also walk backwards addicted to the game time.
Oh, Jen, I can't stop laughing! "cocksplat"? OMG- that is perfect! May I use that- with reference to your wise missive?
And, how many MAGA voters did that convince to no longer vote for the GOP?
Billboards have owners. Owners decide who to rent the space to.
The question was: where's the evidence showing that mere billboard can somehow undo 25 years of indoctrination and brainwashing, when it comes to GOP voters?
In my many years' experience, people in the advertising business are not too concerned with motives or ethics (unfortunately). If you have the money, they'll sell you whatever you want. As an ad agency owner I worked for often said with respect to race or politics, "I see only one color: green."
Outdoor advertising companies don't really have the ability or desire to filter the content displayed on their boards. In virtually all cases, an advertising agency contacts the billboard owner to check availability and rent the desired board on behalf of the agency's client. The board owner doesn't even know who the client is.
You cannot win over MAGA. It’s the swing voters you’re aiming for.
I agree that it will take time. But with 30% of the population entirely brainwashed, the root cause of the problem will persist (and probably get worse). So we cannot afford to ignore them.
In the meantime, the problem is almost as bad when it comes to the other two-thirds. Half of them don't even vote, and those who do don't understand that "democracy" means "compromising", so they tend to adopt no consistent voting behavior... . And if the main issue is political literacy and the absence of real debates across the spectrum, we can as well include GOP voters too (in a respectful way, as illustrated by Adam Mockler's discussions at MAGA rallies, for instance).
Good question for Penny. Could you ask him?
good question
Billboard ad campaign in Miami-Dade targets President Trump, calling him 'wannabe dictator'
https://www.wlrn.org/government-politics/2025-05-09/billboard-dictator-trump-miami
He's no longer a "wannabe". The Republican Congress and the corrupt Supreme Court of John Roberts have allowed him to become a dictator.
100%
How about covering the country with Don’t let Trump and MAGA bury the Epstein truth” billboards. Or similar?
AMEN! That says it all right there. Perfect! He has surpassed Woodrow Wilson's presidentcy with bigotry and corruption. He is a total waste of human flesh.
I wish only they'd used a current photo, such as the one of him sleeping during a meeting.
To your point Kathy, those are becoming more effective as he waffles over Cuba and has ICE scooping more Cuban-Americans off our streets.
South Florida is exactly where these billboards need to be seen. Up and down I-95, Palmetto Expressway, I-75, SR 836 and SR595. In both English and Spanish!
One sign every 20 miles should make a difference. Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties alone account for ~30% the 25MM FL population.
how about a digital one in Times Square or Vegas showing the waste of taxpayer dollars as it climbs every day!!
Yes -- like they do with the "your share of the national debt" clock!
yes! And it actually should be done for every government! Municipal, State/Provincial or Federal.
The people need to see the real numbers,real time
In some states, like my state of Maine, Billboards are not allowed on the roads.
We just visited Maine last week. Platner signs everywhere. Bless you people
PS, We marveled at how friendly you are; our waitress said “yup, Mainers”
Dave.., we've got some MAGites.., but when you only have a population of 1.3 million people (since 1960), thirty-percent isn't a lot of people. So your chances of running into one of those dolts is a lot less likely than living in some state with 8 million of them. Here in Maine, we've got some rough roads, mosquitos, black flies, no-see-ums, ticks, and mud season. Keeps things to a dull roar.
We were at Acadia/Bar Harbor for 4 days camping at the KOA. Sampled most of the seafood and chowder available. What a treat
hang banners on the overpasses?
In upper NYS they are doing that and putting lighted signs up over the overpasses. The Front Page is the blog I follow - Glens Falls - Queensbury etc. They are a different district than I am (politically). But the 3 former news editors who write on there cover a lot.
Go see these on the Robert Hubbell substack. He's posting these daily
Indivisible is doing that regularly in MA.
I didn't know that. But perhaps some signage somewhere else?
Coloured chalk on the pavement! Only RAIN can stop street artists from creating BIG BOLD ‘BANANA REPUBLIC’ USA , and 🚫👑 messages.
Just be careful! 😃
And don't do it outside Susan Collins' house or she will try to have you arrested.
I agree, but hopefully lin+ (commentor here) will see your post and talk about what happened to them with Leonard Leo.
A ‘ Big Bold Banana Republic’ run by big bold banana republicans (read MAGAts), is what we have now.
WTactualF?
skywriting.
love that idea!
On a still day. Otherwise it can be illegible before the word is even complete. And expensive.
BUT Maine has active Bridge brigades and town protests.
KMD, while it's true that some states prohibit the erection of NEW billboards, I'm not aware of any municipality that has made owners of existing billboards tear them down.
Where traditional billboards are not available, there are other options for outdoor advertising, such as bus stop benches and shelters. Outdoor advertising is valid and cost-effective. One just has to be creative in finding the opportunities to use it.
I was so happy when that law passed, and I remain so. I drive the length of Route 95 twice a year and am reminded of what a benefit it is. However, we won't let Chump go unshown as what he is.
we have buildings.
Love this KMD!
I agree, lauriemcf! I'm in the advertising business. To a large extent, electronic media has become irrelevant. Time was, there were three television networks. If an advertiser bought time on those networks or their local affiliates, the "airwaves" were covered. Today, there are hundreds of cable/satellite channels and as many streaming channels. It is not financially feasible to have a meaningful representation on every electronic outlet. Because once that 30-second ad has aired, it's gone forever. It must be repeated every hour or so, every day all day to actually make an impression on the audience. Even with billions spent on political advertising, it's not enough to reach everyone.
Then, there's the content issue. Old-school advertisers love 30-second or one-minute electronic ads because they can please the candidate by slinging buckets of mud or touting the candidate's achievements, ignoring the reality that the audience mentally tunes out.
Contrast that with the billboard. The advertiser has 3.5 seconds to convey a message. That's how long it takes to drive past a billboard, unless one is lucky enough to get one near a traffic signal. That means the message should be no longer than 6 words. BUT ... If those six words are hard-hitting and the graphic is eye-grabbing, more impact can be made on the driver than a whole day of electronic advertising. Also, drivers tend to follow the same routes day after day. So that billboard – if it's well done – stands there reminding them of the message daily. All for a fraction of the cost of electronic media.
Electronic media presented thousands of dishonest ads during hundreds of football and baseball games during the fall campaign of 2024, spreading false comments and disinformation about Kamala Harris and the economy over and over. Not to mention Joe Rogan's podcast which has 30 million followers, mostly male 18-24. I don't think any of this was "irrelevant."
Brian, I think we're talking about different kinds of relevance. Of course electronic media plays a role in a total marketing strategy (if the advertiser has the budget). But an ADVERTISER* cannot efficiently penetrate a market using only electronic media.
When I talk about relevance, I'm talking about advertising spending as a factor in an advertiser's overall marketing spend. For reasons I described, electronic is a poor value. Advertisers spend billions on electronic media because they're afraid not to. But the truth is they really don't know how effective their advertising spending is. The numbers media outlets feed them are utterly bogus, no matter how "scientific" they appear to be. Audience-share reports, such as the venerable "Nielsen" ratings are absolutely unreliable.
If a business has boatloads of money to spend on marketing its product, sure, spend some in electronic media. It can't hurt.
*A podcaster is not an advertiser. Podcasters and social media influencers are a whole different ball of wax.
BTW, running political ads during sports broadcasts is a perfect example of wasting other people's money just because you have it to waste. Beer-swilling, hot-wings-munching televiewers are a bad demographic because they're not serious, reliable voters. For a limited budget, political ads should run during and adjacent to news programming.
Seriously? Beer-swilling, hot-wings munching… What a ridiculous stereotype. You’re talking about an audience of over 70 million. A large chunk of them male 18-24. Guess which demographic came out strongest for the orange idiot. I agree with much of what you said but you shit the bed in that last observation.
Agree. And defacing them would take time and conspicuous effort.
Hang a banner!
I have been saying this for some time too! Seems quite possible it would be cheaper than tv ads! AND far more effective. In their FACES!
My thoughts exactly!
My husband and I have come up with what we believe would be effective on billboards: _________(fill in with any given negative Trump administration action) Is UnAmerican. It's Not US.
I think billboards could be effective!
After Lady Bird Johnson worked so hard to get rid of huge highway billboards? Never! We can CARRY OUR SIGNS and write GOTV postcards, join our local Indivisible or start a chapter with friends
Whatever works til we are RID OF HIM.
Virginia, thank you for mentioning the postcarding. While it has to be done on the volunteer (AKA you and me!) covering the cost of postage, and often of the cards as well, I got upset with money donated to the DNC not going to the candidates I wanted to support. I will FOREVER regret all the cards I wrote for Fetterman, but for the most part, I'm happy to KNOW how my money is used.
There is also a letter writing campaign where you can apply for the supplies and postage (VoteFwd.org). They have links to purchase postcards, or you can order on Etsy.
Yeah, postage is expensive. So how about THIS crazy idea?: ask whomever might gift you for whatever reason to gift you postage stamps?
There is research that handwritten postcards do sway voters. I like postcardstovoters.org because you can do as few as FIVE postcards! (Some organizations will send you cards, but have a minimum of 100 to write.)
First: TonyTheDemocrat; you must send a print sample, but then 5 cards any time he has them. Have just finished about 100 (10 per day)for 2 Supreme Court judges in GA. Tony gives, no voter names,
no sticker addresses, but biographies and importance of the race, three sentences to write and extra addables as you wish. I mostly get postcards through Etsy sales and shill for stamps (92, social security and teacher state survivor pension). My Indivisible chapter helps as does seeing people I write or wrote for on TV. Some win their local or state elections!
Have decided to support senators I want to win instead of the DSCC. That way my small donations go exactly where I want them to.
Now to work on 100 cards with sticker addresses that I decided were “necessary” to pay for. The “War Effort” of WWII is a living memory from second grade in 1942!
I wonder.I write hundreds of postcards in 2018, 2020 and 2024. Indivisible said research showed they work. But no one shared that research.
Susan Shea, haven’t you seen any of the candidates you wrote for on TV? My favorite forever was writing about 400 postcards for Senators Warnock and Ossoff in 2020 and seeing both win. Will write again for Ossoff given the opportunity!
Have just written for two Supreme Court judges in GA, seen them on TV, and have hopes for both on May 19.
Susan, its been awhile, but votefwd.org did share their research to those who were signed up.
Perhaps I have innate curiosity but while I toss all campaign mail, I confess I'd read something handwritten. (Like I read the bio's people post. I, too, am an author though yet to be published👋🏼)
True story from my history: years ago I dated a man whose hobby was collecting postage cancellation marks. I never paid attention to those until he showed me his scrapbook collections. It was clear that we weren't meant for each other, as he never bothered to read the messages on the postcards (he mostly had postcards) while I was uninterested in the cancellation marks!
There should be billboards at every World Cup Game, at every baseball game,
Everywhere there should be notices that Donald Trump does not care about the financial problems of the American people. Bibi conned him into attacking Iran.
There was no "imminent" threat. FAKE NEWS !
Trump is the biggest imbecile on the planet and everyone knows it.
Yes and they all should have the true figures of what this administration has cost us
It is looking like the Trump Inflation Cycle will continue into November. As painful as it is, it will motivate more people to get to the polls to express their anger at this maladministration and the cowardly enablers in the Republican Congress. We can do our duty by reminding the voters in every way possible WHY they are angry and WHO is the cause of that anger. Too many people do not recognize WHAT it is that is making their lives miserable. And there is right wing media busily twisting facts to confuse them.
I’m rather stunned that after reading about the ongoing horror and corruption that we’re being subjected to, and the impending economic devastation that will come from the continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz - all caused by Trump and the racist white nationalist Confederates of MAGA and the weak controlled opposition of the Dem leadership - that the main thing being discussed here is the efficacy of billboards.
Yes to buying your own postcards and stamps rather than funding DNC.
Show support from those who are showing some spine and actually challenging the demented policies that are shredding our assets (our allies, reputation and material wealth in parks and green energy) for the profits of the few.
Pick your issues and encourage your STATE legislators (blue or red) to protect your state’s interests from federal exploitation. Tell them you don’t want to go back to Jim Crow, and you want your neighbors treated respectfully when they are in need of help.
Many red state legislators don’t like federal government making them cheat or abuse their constituents and getting them brave enough to stand against T-tyranny is demonstrably possible. Blue legislators at the state level can actually choose to redirect state resources to state level institutions and protect their constituents from federal confiscation and destruction of services.
Quite sure that it is the Governors in Red States that are prohibiting billboards.
Show all the ways Trump serves himself and distorts our government to serve himself, while ignoring others suffering when not gleefully causing it.
"If the Dems are smart ..."
When even Chuck Schumer, the DSCC, and DNC are smart enough to join Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, in uniting for leading Democratic Maine US Senate candidate Graham Platner ...
Winner in the category of "Dems Who Help Elect Republicans" - Gov. Janet Mills and her Inner Circle Fifth Column for Susan Collins. With special recognition in a supporting role to bright bulb luminary former state legislator Lynn "I was never going to vote for Platner" Bromley.
Janet Mills’ inner circle reluctant to join Democrats in rallying behind Graham Platner
.https://www.bangordailynews.com/2026/05/12/politics/elections/janet-mills-inner-circle-reluctant-to-support-graham-platner-joam40zk0w/.
With Platner as likely Democratic nominee, Maine voters grapple with their choices • Maine Morning Star
"Some of Mills’ supporters are sticking with her. South Portland resident Lynn Bromley said she will be casting her primary vote for the governor, who will still appear on the ballot, and won’t vote for Platner in the general election.
“I was never going to vote for Platner,” said Bromley.
When asked whether not voting for Platner would give Collins a leg up, Bromley said she’s not worried about that..."
.https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/05/11/with-platner-as-likely-democratic-nominee-maine-voters-grapple-with-their-choices/.
lin* - the old Democratic circular firing squad still lives in Maine. Oy. As a former Mainer, I wonder if Bromley also voted for Eliot Cutler?! And she is paying penance?
Ah, the Power Limiting Litmus Test that Democrats seem to be so good at applying. AKA, shooting self in foot. Prime example: those in Michigan who would not vote for Harris because of the administration's lack of action on Gaza.
How did that work out for Gaza? Can't wait for the seaside resort to be built.
Platner has a "checkered past" that includes a controversial tattoo and some blurts on SM many years ago. Neither of those make me comfortable at all. But if that is the worst we can find on any given politician, he's doing quite well.
Mills seems to have been a good governor. Now this old guy is saying to her: "Step away, step back and please let a new generation take the lead. This is a time for Progressive Revolution. Not the same old slow incremental evolution."
Earth to Maine voters: "Susan Collins is an enabler of a monster and an enemy of humanity. That is your national responsibility. Vote her out - whatever it takes."
Thank you!!! 100% agreement! I hate it when the upper echelon of Dems drag out their tired old "purity tests". I don't believe in perfection--NO ONE is perfect. But Platner speaks well, expresses his policy agendas with clarity, has worked hard to meet with Mainers in many small towns in every corner of the State and is honest enough to admit that he did some stupid, uninformed things when he was younger.
It is not hard to believe Platner's remarks and posts happened during the years when he was in the Marines during and after his tours in the Middle East or afterwards when he was struggling with PTSD. I married a former marine who is Vietnam vet and trust me, I have heard countless stories of the dumb, drunken things they did while on leave or the difficulties they had to deal with when they came home. I'm thankful that my guy sought counseling and actively worked to repair his mental state.
Liberals’ purity tests are part of the reason we have Dumpy.
no kidding!
Platner! Let's check him out. While we still have the right to vote.
The Uncommitted Movement was a great tragedy for its supporters, the Palestinians, the Harris campaign, the Democratic party, and the nation. It was a sound idea for the primary. It was counter productive in the general election. It did not have to turn out that way.
Power without conscience breeds injustice, but conscience without power is a sermon no one hears ... The lesson isn’t that protest fails. It’s that protest without power hits a ceiling.
— Waleed Shahid
The Biden administration, especially Anthony Blinken, disastrously failed to rein in the genocidal Netanyahu regime. Harris failed to dissociate herself from the Biden-Blinken agenda. The Democratic party refused Palestinian Americans a voice for peace at the Convention.
And despite some Uncommitted founders pleading with followers to ultimately vote for Harris, those who understood the need to Vote Blue No Matter Who were drowned out by such as Jill Stein - who swept in like a vampire out of Putin hell, to help elect Trump.
Don't forget that with Musk's help, Trump fucking cheated!!!
lin, I am reading a history of the Palestinians, 1917-2017. All that we see now is a continuation of US policy for all that time. Nobody in that time managed to rein in Israel. It would take a lot of work to get us out of supporting Israel. I am not saying we should not try, but only that it would be difficult. I do agree about Jill not green Stein. I know someone who voted for her this time around. Friend of a friend, so I do not have to deal with her.
Do not forget the Israeli Left.
Fetterman...Platner
Have you met and/or personally spoken with Mr. Platner? I have. I do not think he is or will ever be the unhinged DINO Fetterman turned out to be. Mr. Platner is an oyster farmer in the very small town of Sullivan. It is further downeast than Ellsworth--therefore out of the major influence of tourism--and trends extremely red. My best friend from college with whom I have stayed in close touch with lo these many many years, has a large satchel of cousins and second cousins who live in Sullivan and nearby towns. She says they all LOVE Platner. If his 'trending red' Sullivan neighbors, who know him personally, like Platner then I am very inclined to believe he is the real deal.
Even if some of the young candidates wash out, remember that AOC was not taken seriously by many Democratic Leaders. Neither was Barak Obama, or for that matter, was Bill Clinton. Give them a chance! How could they possibly be worse than some of the awful right wing
“representatives” currently in power?
In Fetterman's case I believe there's physical damage due to stroke involved. Not sure what to make of Platner.
Fetterman ran down to Mar a Lago.
MME --I agree about the stroke/Fetterman. He had such an about face compared to how passionate he seemed to be for Democratic policies. I have high hopes for Platner.
(I don't believe I have welcomed you here, as I am the self-appointed Walmart greeter of the forum. GLAD TO HAVE YOU HERE! Every person who signs on here is growing this community, and the number of trolls appearing to undermine us show how scared the Right is.
And I can't resist 🎶where did our blue sky go?🎶(I have a huge curiosity/interest in people, so I always look at the little bios. 🌞)
The Nazi tattoo gives me pause to say the least. https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
.... my god how amazing it must be to have never ever made a single mistake in your entire life.
I never realized that teachers were such bastions of perfection.
I see that you have obviously read all of Platner's writings from 25 years ago. Have you considered paying any attention to what he's actually running on?
I will GLADLY vote for Platner. I was going to anyway. Is he perfect? No. But neither am I. Does he believe in taxing the billionaires? the promotion of worker's rights? Medicare for all? Climate Change/clean energy infrastructure? overturning Citizen's United and other dark money sources? Breaking up the monopolys? Ending the ICE and passing real immigration reform? Defending and supporting public schools? and much much more..
I agree with all those things. Mills did not. She believed in status quo and the promotion of capitalism as our saviors.
I was going to vote for Platner from the time he put his platform onto the internet.
Heck I was going to vote for Platner from the first time I saw his yearbook picture. "Most Likely to Start a Revolution" FREE KOSOVA CHECHENYA KASHMIR PALESTINE KURDISTAN TIBET his picture says. He was woke when you were still forcing kids into straight lines and giving them detention for 'voting wrong' in the mock election.
So maybe.. just for a freaking day.. you could give up the freaking Nazi bull@#$% over a stupid tattoo.
LOL Getting a Nazi tattoo is not a 'mistake'. It's a revelation of one's true thoughts and feelings. Talk is cheap (especially when one wants to get elected). Actions (like getting a Nazi tattoo) speak louder than words.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
I think that's a distinct possibility. I'm surprised the word desperate hasn't been mentioned. When I hear folks saying Platner is the right choice, they sound desperate, as they point out he is "the only choice."
It's 6 months til the election, and perhaps there will be other, better choices by then. I admit it's a long shot, but Platner looks like a long shot, too.
It's a month to the Primary. I somehow don't think there will be a different option before then.
Platner isn't just ahead of Mills in the polls. He's ahead of Collins. (Mills wasn't)
That's not what a 'long shot' looks like.
EXACTLY! Platner had a literal Nazi tattoo for decades!!!! He claims he didn't know what it meant but evidence shows that might be BS. He makes me very nervous as I get the feeling that he would throw women, POC, gays, etc right under the bus if he could get more money for white working class guys like himself. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/graham-platner-nazi-tattoo-evidence-kfile-invs
😠😠😠😠😠😠
Gee... funny how the tables have turned. Two weeks ago you were screaming at me for daring to vote for Platner instead of Mills... not allowed to argue with daddy DSCC. Have to vote for whomever they put up otherwise I'm a dirty Trumper.
I didn't even have to vote against her and she's already gone.
We will see more of this. No matter how hard you try to keep the corporations in power. Maybe not this year.. but it's happening whether you like it or not.
I just hope it happens before the AIPAC crowd's (Schumer, King, Kaine, Hassan, etc) removal of my health insurance finishes me off.
Another Maine voice - I heard Platner speak at a small gathering recently. I was a bit hesitant to support him but now have no reservations to vote for him. I have supported Mills but her time in politics has passed. She voted against the people’s will for a moratorium on AI data centers and had always voted against tribal
sovereignty for the Wabanaki Nations. Time for new blood in the democratic party! As far as Collins is concerned, I have never supported her! She hasn’t had a town meeting in over 25 yrs. She only rarely voted for a democratic bill when she was sure the Republicans had the vote. She wanted to look “moderate”, but she plays the political game and is as MAGA as they come. She also has 2 million plus dollars of dark money supporting her in this campaign from the Pine Tree Results PAC. None of that money comes from Maine voters. Look them up.
64% of Platner’s money is coming from donations under $200 and many from Maine individuals.
Platner has a very good chance of beating Collins!!!!
Pine tree are the people building concentration camps.
lin+ up above someone is encouraging people to write chalk messages. If you are willing, can you post about your chalking history with regards to Leonard Leo?
The best consideration of chalking is by the legal scholar Marie A. Failinger, who wrote the comprehensive survey of chalking and Constitutional law.
TALKING CHALK: DEFACING THE FIRST AMENDMENT IN THE PUBLIC FORUM
- Marie A. Failinger
"By contrast, whether they are chalk art or chalk political messages, chalk drawings on sidewalks communicate ideas, ideas which those who walk over them might find offensive or unsettling. And, when chalking is done in conjunction with a protest that already seems to unsettle people’s everyday habits, such as the protests in Occupy Minneapolis, such a benign practice may seem particularly unsettling. That is to say, chalking might do precisely what the First Amendment expects of the use of public property: it might talk to citizens about our most pressing problems and help citizens decide how they should use their fundamental rights for the betterment of our culture. To prevent the use of this commonly employed medium of expression, to arrest people for drawing in chalk on a sidewalk, evidences an underlying contempt for the value of speech that finds no harbor in Supreme Court jurisprudence."
.https://wvlawreview.wvu.edu/files/d/2a9f11ed-dc2f-4002-a5b2-90ec77d0fe73/failinger.pdf.
I use chalk paint - ground chalk blended with water. It takes less water than you might think. Use a bit too much, let sit overnight and drain off the extra - think thick yogurt. I use black board chalk - sidewalk chalk is made to wash away very easily.
Know your state and local laws. Consult with local police. Only chalk on public sidewalks and streets. Avoid chalking in front of private homes and businesses - when possible, unless protesting them.
Even when you are doing everything right, be prepared to be targeted and to have to defend yourself either physically or legally. Work with someone else if possible. Wear a GoPro. Document your work. Do not be baited by people who don't like what you are doing - do not engage, certainly do not argue, you have more important work to do. Monitor local social media if you can stand it and only if you can make certain you do not engage. In the nastier parts of Bar Harbor society - officials and private individuals- indulge each other's violent and ill informed impulses on social media. Even on the town council. And in the media. Document the threats.
And be prepared to have wonderful people tell you how much they like your work and to share stories of their activism.
Thank you, lin! I knew you faced quite a battle that newer folks on the forum would be unfamiliar with.
Make sure she used the newly decorated "WHITES ONLY" restroom, gender doesn't matter, stalls have doors (that lock!). hahahaaaa.
Schumer has always been a progressive, and the DNC has to find a democratic compromise between all the different wings of the Democratic Party (or, by now, all pro-democracy voters). So IMHO this isn't a matter of being "smart", it's perfectly in line with what both have always done.
"Schumer has always been a progressive ... "
Never.
Schumer has described himself as a "liberal" and as "an angry centrist." His critics point to his bent towards Wall Street. He refused to support Democratic primary winner Zohran Mamdani - who won anyway. Platner is up against more formidable opposition. The Schumer effect is still an obstacle.
Schumer twisted Janet Mills' arm until she threw her hat in the ring. His team helped with the opposition research strategy Mills based her failed bid on - and which Collins is amplifying. But his tattoo, but his tweets ... hopefully Mainers will prioritize Platner's solid Democratic platform, built on FDR's New Deal.
With all due respect, this is just one of the many things that are wrong with the US as a whole today.
Politicians are REPRESENTATIVES. They do not express their own personal, individual opinions. And yet, for decades now, even liberal media have portrayed them in this way. Result? No one still thinks about them as strategists, and everyone "psychologizes" them. The only question still asked, when it comes to a politician, is: is he sincere/genuine or is he corrupt? And each time he's not IMMEDIATELY going for the most progressive option, many (most?) progressives conclude that that must say something about who he fundamentally IS, and that he IS not a progressive.
It's this kind of cynicism and political illiteracy on the left that made Kamala Harris lose and therefore neofascism win.
Let's take Mamdani for instance. Please explain HOW the Senate Minority leader could have publicly supported Mamdani WHILE still perfectly doing his job (= representing all blue states, not just the progressive Democrats)?
There are few candidates who can represent ALL their constituents. Expecting a congressperson to be that perfect drone who has no personal principles is asking for more of what the Republicans have served up.
Schumer is not a progressive but at least he's never had a Nazi tattoo. Platner scares me. But then I will not vote for anyone who will not treat and does not think all Americans deserve to be treated equally even if they are women, black, gay or Jewish but other Dems might not care about that so long as they *say* the right things. Not being a person who believes in the superiority of the white "race" is a hard deck for me but it might not be for other Dem voters.
Yeah. No. Please do not use low information opposition research to virtue slam other Democrats.
Your purity tests help put and keep Republicans in power.
Unlike Hero Kelly and Orator Booker, Schumer approved of only 2 of Trump's Cabinet. Both were collegial votes. Schumer was not Republican rubber stamp nor selling his vote for campaign money.
I was laughing the other day as Heather described how Trump was using UFOs to distract from the mess that he created. Schumer was talking about the UFOs that day and how great it was that the files were released. LOL He might not be selling his vote but he has undoubtedly helped Trump with his tepid "leadership".
Seems you know a lot about Chuck. Can you explain the Bailey’s? I am genuinely curious since everything I have read from sources such as the Guardian and the NYT’s explains them but “they” still don’t make sense to me.
I’d appreciate it, if you have the time. Cheers! :)
Schumer progressive? Huh?
In what universe has Schumer "...always been a progressive." ???? Not in my memory! He's a centrist and a rather ineffective one, at that.
Any concrete evidence?
Love the "if," Dana, in your "If the Dems are smart."
We can be sure they're smart in the sense of all the standardized testing they in the meritocracy weathered to occupy so many offices, bureaucracies, and other elite networks.
But how much evidence do we see in them of familiarity with the novels, memoirs, histories, and other arts keeping them in touch with our devastated working classes?
Well for those who want a small beginning list and important part of anyone who works in public service if not to have read or listened to these works at the very least be aware of these and do so so many others. Because the internet and AI are not integrated and comprehensive a list is time consuming because one needs to get all the various literary components together. This is my brief but interesting search on Phil’s comment.
Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Gut Elise Calett Goldbach
A New England Girlhood
Lucy Larsom
Working Studs Terkl and the musical Working
The Unquiet Earth
Denise Giridina
Nickled and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreicht
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
James Agee and Walker Evans
Black Elk Speaks
John Neihardt
Smoke Signals
Sherman Alexi
Farewell to Manzabar
Jeanne Watatusuki
Citizen 63600
Mine Okubu
George Takei works
WPA Oral History Projects
Including Zora Neal Hurston
Cross City in Dixie County recordings
Girl of the Limberlost
Gene Porter Stanton
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
Many many more. The White House Administration and Staff as well as every employee in the Capitol Building and every citizen has access to the Library of Congress and every small or big library or bookstore around them.
The Sophie Smith Collection at Smith College and other academic and or personal collections are a treasure trove of small and big historical information of all kinds.
Apologies for any typing errors as usual. Read , read, or even borrow a book without reading more than ten pages! The process in and of itself can be life changing. How many Senators have a library card? How many White House Administration staff have one that they have used? Has Mr Kennedy ever been in or researched the vast collection in our National Medical Library?
I rest my case for now.
From your George Takei, works, Mary, I'd specify "They Called Us Enemy."
This is a manga, with his own English text, and his personal experiences as a child with two siblings and parents locked up in the internment camps into which the U.S. military forced over 110,000 Japanese-Americans in WWII.
Yes and there was a play as well. He has been fierce!
Gene Stratton Porter, I think.
Thanks because of my tendency to reverse names like that sometimes get reversed. There is a rest stop in Indiana on I 90 named for her and still some small parks as well. Thanks.
I would have probably said "Were the Dems smart" instead. I have been too underwhelmed by them for the past year to expect much! The party needs new messages (look at what Mamdani is posting every day, letting people know he is a mayor of the people.) I don't know if what he is doing is indeed that or not, but the perception is that he is doing the right things. And perception is 70% of any cause.
Spare us the hand-wringing over the working class. The GOP is only interested in the working class when they can exploit the anger and desperation of the working class to advance the interests of the 1%.
It's not just about the working class, "bitchybitchybitchy."
It's also about the self-destruction and public irresponsibility by Dems so willing to go along with their own elitist, money-only status quo.
And what does that literature have to do with getting people out to vote who said they were Democrats yet sat home when the 2024 election occurred?
Any evidence to back up your claim?
See Diane Ravitch's "The Language Police." Especially stats in appendices.
Also, EUWDTB, go to Scott Galloway's current updating on the widening of the wealth gap, the failure of schools to teach whole books.
This may be news to you, too, but your computer likely has a search engine. You needn't rely on the innocent "any evidence" ploy when you may enter key search words and find worlds of info on things of which self-satisfaction and status quo acceptance leaves you "comfortably numb," ignorant.
Don't know about anyone else, but I'm so sick and tired of a president that hates the people he's supposed to be looking out for, and saying it to the country repeatedly. THAT'S what should be plastered on billboards nationwide. And maga, they are totally out of it if they think he gives a damn about them. I wish they would wake up.
Then help me and others get out the vote Celeste. This is the bottom line. The Dems need the receipts this Nov.
The sad part is they love the guy because they know he hates the same people they do (women, brown and black people, educated people, etc). The even sadder part is they do NOT realize that he hates and has nothing but contempt for them as well.
hang the current chaos on every republican in every commercial, every rally, every press conference.
That would never work.
First of all, 30% of the country actively supports the GOP, including Trump. For more than two decades now, it's the kind of Trump tweets that have been their "daily news". This IS the "alternative facts" bubble that they live in.
So the dumbest thing to do for a Democrat would be to just go against what GOP voters believe and then, a decade after he became president, STILL believe that this is how we're going to turn the country around.
The second mistake is that you imagine that the problem is ONLY Trump. But after Trump, neofascist tech billionaires will support Vance (who already has the support of "Christian" nationalists too, so of two of THE main pillars of today's neofascist GOP). And many rank and file are ready to step up too.
What this means is that we finally have to do what all citizens of all thriving democracies do: only WE can save the country, not elected representatives (whose job it is to put what we want into bills and pass them, through compromising). And you save it through engaging in real, respectful debates with those who disagree with us. And yes, knowing that it hasn't been done anymore for quite a long time, it will also take quite some time before a democratic society is restored.
This IS the problem though: democratic civil society has disappeared. No leader can ever bring it back on his own (let alone through ads...).
trump is the distraction. Period, full stop. He distracts while the real damage is being done through the well placed P25 personnel.
Exactly. P25 (Heritage Foundation and America First Foundation; both of them together delivered most of the senior WH staff; same neofascist "Christian" nationalist ideology) plus the neofascist tech billionaires (Musk, Thiel, Sacks, etc.).
Democrats who approved Brooke Rollins for Agriculture, who is a Founder of America First: BOOKER, BALDWIN, BENNETT., CORTEZ-MASTO, Durbin, , GALLEGO, HASSAN, HEINRICH, HICKENLOOPER, KLOBUCHAR, Peters, ROSEN, Shaheen, SLOTKIN, SCHIFF, OSSOFF, WARNOCK, WELCH.
SCHUMER + 26 other Democrats said NO.
And?
Is Natalie P25? She of the nocturnal Truth Social entertainments?
Like it or not, we live in a representative democracy in which all power rests with those that we elect. From a practical standpoint, the only way to have the power to change anything is to elect more people who will pursue your agenda than those on the other side. We have been engaging in real debates literally for 100s of years and yet, here we are. Your argument also ignores the fact of racism and sexism in this country. There is a huge overlap between MAGA and the hard-core racists. If you have the stomach some day, look up the history of lynchings in the US. Some of the photos show happy smiling families standing in front of the murdered bloodied mutilated bodies of black people. Do you think this hatred died with the people in the photos or does it continue on today in their kids, grandkids and great grandkids? Are we going to be able to 'chat away' this hatred? Trump was/is a reaction to Obama as much as anything but beyond that, this began with the founding of the country and our complete inability to deal with our 'original sins'. John Brown was hung for treason. Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and leaders of a literal armed rebellion against the rightful US government, were not. Mere years after the bloodiest war in US history, the very same Oligarchs who led the attack against the US were back in positions of power in the US government. We would be a very different were that not the case. The beat goes on...
Here in the OC (California), there are two Republican candidates battling it out for a single Congressional seat that are trying to out-MAGA each other. Redistricting put them in the same district, so Ken Calvert and Young Kim, both incumbents, are "accusing" each other of not being loyal enough to the Orange Menace. It's almost comical, and I'm just happy they are not running in my district! Although maybe they will split the MAGA vote and the district will be so sick of them both that a Democrat could win the seat. We can hope.
Yes, yes: all of the above. But let's be smart - and practical, not ideological, not just nay-saying. The people are ready for change, just as we were in 1890 and 1930. We need leaders, bold leaders who can unite people, not further divide us. The oligarchs are smart, powerful and in a good position right now. We need to be strategically smarter - much smarter and more decisive than we were in 2021-2024. I'm being vague here on purpose. You know what I mean, hopefully.
- and thank you, Heather, as always.
The Dems, as far as I can tell, are mostly the opposite of smart. After all, they are more interested in shutting down people like AOC than in prosecuting every damn House and Senate seat.
I have noticed a tendency of the Dems to eat their young. The old guard wants to hold onto power so is suspicious of and jealous of any new raising stars. I guess because they are humans who tend to want to hold onto power. In my own mind, I am not sure where I stand in the 'most Americans are really progressives' versus the 'most Americans are really moderates' debate. On my more cynical days, I think Americans are just greedy and they only care about their One True God $$$$. It would explain why we worship bilionaires (AKA money addicts) and businessmen over great thinkers who do things like cure cancers. I still can't comprehend how the religion of Jesus Christ (who was not known as a guy who cared much about money) has morphed in this country to be as much about being prosperous as about loving thy neighbor.
Guess what; there are Democrats pushing younger people into running, myself included. Platner is an example in Maine! REP Elfreths is my rep in the HOUSE and I wanted her there because she is young, certainly in relation to me! But she cares about seniors too.
You need to develop a stronger skin because within all parties people at different strata of the party criticize others! Even their own. If you believe in AOC , for example you can donate exclusively to her and participate in positive campaigns for her instead of pitching fits that others may not like her! Remember that each of us has a unitary vote yet we each have a voice to support the candidates we choose. I will bet you that the people who might criticize AOC (I personally think she is great) will NOT see your post on here and change their minds. Just a thought if you want to support her yourself!
Why do you ask...if the Dems are smart? Are you participating as a Democrat or independent on here? In other words are you part of the group,? That's a great suggestion just Own It. Say WE should use this.... do you see the difference?
The thing I love about social media is that no matter what you say or in what group, you will be attacked/argued with unnecessarily. LOL My political affliations are irrelevant as the use of "if _____ was smart" is a commonly used expression which not at all implies that _______ is not smart. Also, the WE in this case should be ANY American who cares about this country and wants to see it continue as a democracy instead of one of the two baseball teams (both of which frequently disappoint) that we are forced to join at 18. Do *you* see the difference? Besides which, unless I actually worked the Democratic Party and was in a position to buy tv ads, it seems kind of SILLY to say 'we'. ;)
NO YOU are pointing fingers at a group. You are saying 'they' or 'them' so if you do not identify with a group of like minded voters, whether Democrats or Independents, the point is you are POINTING fingers at a group. BTW if you want change, the combo of that GROUP is going to make changes, so decide which side you are on, OK? So maybe you are an unhappy Republican? That group is dragging its feet in the CONGRESS and earning its $175K for NOT doing their job. I want people who will work for ALL OF US! I hope you do too!
My loyalty is to democracy, the US Constitution, the rule of law, and my ideals which include equality for all persons including women, POC, gays, etc. If a politician does something that I think is immoral and/or unethical, I want them punished regardless of their party affliation. I have absolutely ZERO loyalty to political parties! PS: I have been a registered Democrat for the last 40+ years. I was not pointing fingers. You are wrong because you did not understand my post.
Imagine a leader saying he doesn’t care about you as citizens and still be there….I think he’s realized its his last days since he’s touching 80 and maybe he really just thinks he’s playing a game…WITH PEOPLES LIVES!
"Care," "realized," "think": 3 verbs you've applied to trump that are not applicable. The space that used to hold his brain is empty and the space that was intended to hold his heart has apparently always been low-functioning. Trump is not like any human I can think of. Even more terrifying than having such a creature giving orders is that people are actually obeying him. I thought about that when I saw the clip of his motorcade driving THROUGH THE REFLECTING POOL. 10 or 15 or how ever many it was--they FILLED the pool--huge, heavy, gas-guzzling machines driving through that small space for no discernible reason. There had to be a driver in each of those, and most likely a toadie or two who has some position in the regime. What kind of person would get into a car to DRIVE THROUGH THE REFLECTING POOL? Of course it is another symbol of what trump's done to us, like the partially destroyed White House. No more reflecting from that pool, no more thought in Washington. I have never been so depressed as I have been the past year and a half, watching my country disintegrate before my eyes.
He muttered recently about his plans to improve the Lincoln memorial. If he should dare, he needs to be physically attacked.
Indeed. I am depressed every single day. I fight it off as well as I can because I refuse to let that base turds destroy me and all our lives! I think of Winston Churchill: "When you're going through hell, keep going!"
Thanks, Cheryl - I needed that advice today.
You don't of anyone like Mr Trump? Go and study Hitler's political methods - you might notice some similarity - a lot in fact. Ian
I'm right there with you.
There many CEOs in this country very much like Trump; ruthless sociopaths who enjoy stepping on the backs of those they can use. The big difference is that in general, they are probably smarter than Trump--admittedly, it would be difficult to be more ignorant than Trump and manage to keep an executive position in the private sector--and keep their obvious sociopathy tucked away and make little noise or news.
Jeez, you’re right. Maybe that’s how it is..not maybe, pretty factually proving actually.
Trump and Think should never appear in the same sentence. It’s a lie. Hoping the billionaires will recognize this in China. Of course they may help him give Taiwan away if they find it financially rewarding.
If yes…?
Me too. Sometimes I try to muster up some of my former optimism and within minutes it dissipates when I realize the amount of destruction this regime has done in a short time and as I approach retirement, I’m scared and not optimistic at all.
Get to work, PT. There is so much to do to fight the mess! I couldn’t survive the ICE sirens 24/7 if I weren’t writing GOTV postcards (no garden space). With climate change, if you have space, plant a garden! You will need to eat no matter what.
It is just awful but we must keep fighting.
“Care," "realized," "think": 3 verbs you've applied to trump that are not applicable.”
That sentence gave me a good laugh!
Thank you
Remember Chairman Mao who In 1966 launched the Cultural Revolution, which was marked by violent class struggle, destruction of historical artifacts, and Mao's cult of personality. China under his leadership has been described as a totalitarian regime which resulted in tens of millions of deaths, mainly through famine, as well as political persecution, prison labor, and executions. Mao died in 1976 at age 82.
I was able to travel to China in the early 90s and at one museum we saw pictures of large dump trucks filled to overflowing with the carcasses of millions of small birds. Some official, motivated by the Great Leap Forward project, thought it would be a good idea to kill all the little birds in grain fields to keep them from pecking at the grain. As it turned out, those little birds also ate insects that destroy crops. Birds killed, predators gone, insects abound, crops decimated, people starved.
That’s tragic! The stupidity and shortsightedness of egotistical leaders is the downfall of nations,
Hmmm ... RFKjr is now in charge of the nation's health and thinks snorting cocaine off toilet seats, swimming in sewage and drinking unpasteurized milk are A-Okay, but vaccines are bad.
Lee Zeldin has overturned more than 500 Environmental Protection Agency rules since being appointed, and still at it.
I'm detecting a pattern, here.
You know that don and mafia are in charge, yes?
Thank you, Mary. Problem: Trump could seize on this to condemn wind power again
so 2 more years for ….hmm.
Sorry Vee, but I think for once, he spook the truth. He has NEVER cared about common people.
its like one of those Squid Games episodes where the richie richs who have nothing in life left, now tend to f w people’s lives, preying on those who need help the most!
I should do a piece on this w squid games since i was trying to find something real connected to the series side of rich men/women povs.
A message to America from your never 51st state to the north.
I was told recently about a study revealing a defect in my humanity called “suicidal empathy.” According to the study, I have so much empathy that I’ll be killing myself or others. My accuser, believing the study, couldn’t believe my response. I, a person with too much empathy, laugh out loud when I’m told by a study that my empathy is an imminent threat to the lives of others. Something didn’t add up.
I don’t know anyone with too much empathy despite becoming aware of the “empathy is dangerous” concept almost 50 years ago. I still remember reading the words “Capitalism and Freedom” on the cover of a bright green paperback book on every desk as we walked into the first day of an introduction to economics course. I thought the book would be covered in the course, but it was never mentioned. Not once.
I didn’t read the whole book, but I read enough to explain my paradoxical response to being accused of having no empathy about having too much empathy, and I thought I’d share the explanation I gave to my surprised accuser.
“I understood your message. FYI, you’re not the first person to send that message, and I’m not the first person to disagree.
“For example, I agree (and you disagree) with Adam Smith. He described his disagreement in his book, A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). His message was that things are bad because people don’t have enough empathy for each other, and he argued that we should. He described the benefit of having enough empathy in his next book, The Wealth of Nations (1776).
“And he was proven correct when people followed his advice and it worked. So, they gave Smith’s advice a name. They called it ‘capitalism.’
“Milton Friedman disagreed with Smith and agreed with you in his book, Capitalism and Freedom (1962). His argument was that capitalism, instead of being about the wealth of nations, should be about how fewer people get more money. I assume he was thinking that capitalism is too hard, and that it would be so much easier for him without morality.
“So, in 1776, Americans hated kings, and they solved the “king” problem by adopting capitalism. Then in 1962, Friedman sowed the seed that recreated the problem that everyone thought capitalism had solved.
“Now America is back to having the same king problem it had before the American Revolution. Well not quite the same because the king was in England back then.”
Then I reminded my accuser of something the two of us had discussed in a previous dialogue when I told him that morality is “nonpartisan” (the winner is the winner, and no cheating allowed!), and immorality is “partisan” (do as I say and not as I do).
And then I said, “Isn’t it ironic?”
I laughed out loud in an online reply to my accuser’s comment and I’m still waiting for his response.
I’m not bragging. In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed to realize that I failed to notice the same idea repeatedly expressed for the same half century every time I’ve heard Bob Marley’s voice singing, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Isn't it empathy, most of all, that sociopaths/psychopaths lack. They may clever enough to sense what someone is experiencing, but they don't sympathize. Trump doesn't really care (about others) does he? Not in a humane way in any case.
Good question. My potentially erroneous understanding is that a psychopath is born without empathy, empathy is removed from a sociopath due to a traumatic experience (like being a child of a psychopath), and a generic narcissist is someone who has an unhealthy addiction to a "lack of empathy" behavior pattern.
By default, a lack of empathy is perceived as attractive because it has a small short-term benefit, and empathy is perceived as repulsive because it has a small short-term cost. By exception, a lack of empathy is perceived as repulsive because it has an enormous long-term cost, and empathy is perceived as attractive because it has an enormous long-term benefit. The “exception” is called “deliberate practice.” It’s like hot sauce. After a while, you like the pain.
The original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" perfectly gets lack of empathy.
That is, James, the townspeople who've already "gone to sleep" have a perfectly rational explanation in it for how much better life is once people have rid themselves of capacity to feel anything.
Yes, it is a fictionalized version of an unfortunately all-too-common and directly observable phenomenon.
Psychopath and sociopath are not clinical terms, but I think most people have some idea of what the terms refer to and why it's a problem, so I think that they are useful. It "downside" of maintaining a egalitarian society, such as has been our ideal, is that it takes emotional and other work, engagement, and self discipline on an ongoing basis, and bullying or cheating gets dramatic results fast; yet at the cost of enshitifying one's own society.
IMHO ...
The "downside" of maintaining a physical body, such as has been our ideal, is that it takes physical and other work, engagement, and self discipline on an ongoing basis, and laziness or "I cheated on my healthy diet" gets dramatic "not-discomfort" results fast; yet at the cost of enshitifying one's own physical fitness. So ... yes, I understand and agree with the message.
With respect to the medium, meaning the choice of words used to express the message, I understand but disagree with the choice. Maybe "difficulty" as opposed to "downside." Or maybe "upside." Given the choice between "downside" and "upside," I'd take Option 2.
I have only one question for people of lances and windmills. For people chasing pathways of the mind. Do you know any good stories for us children? Is there a good one about dollars and sense? I know I know that’s two. Do you know the one about the six little children watching the hen who might lay an egg? Oh, sorry, now there are only five of them.
A story for children:
Ring the bells that still can ring;
Forget your perfect offering;
There is a crack, a crack in everything;
That’s how the light gets in.
I can't run no more;
With that lawless crowd;
While the killers in high places;
Say their prayers out loud;
But they've summoned, they've summoned up;
A thundercloud;
They're going to hear from me.
I’ve sat in that chair on the mountain top. The one with glass feet. The tremors of your thundercloud raising my hearts beat. My Osborne measuring the glimmering strikes that light up the night’s sky rending darkness split asunder. I welcome your booming thunder. If you come to Heaven before me, thank Leonard Cohen for his poetry. And thank you, sir. Your story was the best.
JL-Sociopaths/psychopaths not only don’t care, they are excited by the chaos, cruelty and suffering. Look at the celebrations when they blow up boats, drop bombs and terrorize people, communities and nations.
Those who have antisocial personality disorder, the more technical term, are not necessarily predatory, but the ones who are can fit right into the muwa-ha-ha evil-villain stereotype, as Trump surely demonstrates. I don't believe in a devil, but I see why people do. Competition can be and is a good thing in the mix with compassion and fair play, but lacking compassion or conscience, it becomes what we call "evil"; and history presents no end of examples. In The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde I think R.L. Stevenson "got it" that "Hyde" is part of human nature, and holds a strange and terrifying appeal. Yet we humans are endowed with powers to recognize and reject it.
Mirror neurons! They are part of our empathetic responses as human beings.
I think that the existence of actual mirror neurons is controversial, but clearly we have mirror something that gives meaning to life, and expands ans enriches what a friend calls our individual "puniverse". Mindfulness. Love. What Joe McCarthy nemesis Joseph Welch called "decency". It's not just a nicety. Our species may fail to endure without it.
I just relearned about them. Interesting and perhaps a hopeful and helpful way of creating more kindness and awareness. At this point any tool is helpful .
I think he only cares about money and his ego. He is a very incomplete human. I'm still trying to understand why he has followers - I'm thinking low IQ.
I see counterexamples, and IQ seems to me only loosely paired with wisdom. One can certainly be clever, yet not wise, and not decent. In the decency race the tortoise may outpace the hare.
I think we all want to be valued, but there are some beneficial and some toxic strategies for pursuing that. Lord Acton was not the first to observe that "power tends to corrupt", and it was an issues our society's very human founders wrestled with. I think that Trump would have been dismissed as a jerk had he not been born to great wealth, and money is a form of power. Despots use flattery, extortion, and "divide and conquer" to manipulate the human need for sense of agency. From history we know how it works, yet so often fail to stop it. The claim of "supremacy" is part of the tell; "master race", master sex, "true American" or whatever, master faith, etc., etc. "As I would not be a slave, I would not be a master".
Many other factors, Gordon.
You can read some of our great, essaying journalists who have traveled, observed, interviewed widely among the millions damaged by our elites who offshored the millions of U.S. working-class jobs:
memoirs like Mary Karr’s “The Liars’ Club,” Joan Didion’s “Where I Was From,” Jeannette Walls’ “The Glass Castle,” Sarah Kendzior’s “The Last American Road Trip,” Tia Levings’ “A Well-Trained Wife,” Erin Gruwell’s “The Freedom Writers Diary,” and Beth Macy’s “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”;
essay collections such as Arlie Russell Hochschild’s “Stolen Pride,” Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America”; Sarah Smarsh’s “Bone of the Bone, and George Packer’s “The Unwinding.”
And there are movies, songs, novels, histories, too.
Yes he did.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining the campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Would someone kindly encourage Donald Trump to come over and visit me so I can walk him out back and shove his ass down a hole previously dug out by a groundhog and I promise to let him up every day to fed on cabbage chips until I eventually pour gasoline down the hole and light it on fire.
Pretty please?
Where do I sign?
https://www.impeachtrumpagain.org/
Done. THX.
DONE. Thank you Linda Weide.
Per Google AI search: "Based on information available as of May 2026, several Epstein survivors who were previously identified as "Jane Doe" in legal filings have stepped forward, with different individuals residing in various locations."
IF any survivors are resident(s) of the state of California persons have a powerful legal tool available per the CCPA, the California Privacy Act which was effective over 5 years ago on 1/1/2020. This CA law is enforced by a CA Agency not the consumer.
Further to Heather's post tonight, "Roza" (formerly Jane Doe):
According to testimonies during a Congressional hearing in Florida on May 12, 2026, a survivor identified as "Roza" revealed her name was disclosed in Department of Justice (DOJ) files, speaking out about her abuse during the time Epstein was under house arrest. Effective action can be taken now to remedy such travesties.
Under the CCPA, residents of CA can have their names & personal information removed from any database and/ or not sold to 3rd parties.
I am a 4th generation Californian. Over the decades California has accepted refugees from different states time-and-tmie again. Be certain surviviors 'do not have to live like a refugee'.
https://www.laprogressive.com/hypocrisy-or-hope/time-for-reparations#comments
I agree.
Loren-Thanks for sharing this link about how, as Francher said, America is “writhing in spiritual agony and not understanding why”.
Celebrate 250 years yes, but what’s even more important is that we face a reckoning if we ever want peace in this world.
I work with people that I think 100% will support him as he absolutely ruins their lives. It’s a cult…I don’t understand it
Well, if their spiritual leaders (!) have told them the rapture is at hand, they've stopped concerning themselves with the quality of their lives - and everybody else's.
Heather, as Anne-Louise has alluded and I constantly harp on, 85% of Donald's base are evangelical. This is a documented fact. Kindly stay with me through this analysis.
There is an essential difference between "mainline" Christians (United Methodists, Lutherans, most Presbyterians, etc.) and evagelicals (Baptists, pentecostals, most non-denominationals, etc.).
Mainline Christians emphasize community, charity, making the world a better place in this life.
By contrast, evangelicals emphasize a "personal relationship with Jesus." The entirety of their faith is avoiding condemnation to hell and getting into heaven. For the evangelical, this life is an inconvenience that must be endured in order to get to those heavenly mansions after they die. A gospel ditty says it perfectly: "This world is not my home. I'm just a-passin' through."
So when Donald tells his followers, "This financial hardship you're experiencing is temporary. It'll be worth it when all the people of color are gone and we're not threatened by 'shithole' countries," they believe him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ndMZqT6i4I
''55 Posts, 3 Hours, 0 Governance''
In three hours, the President posted fifty‑five times. Fifty‑five. That is not a flurry. That is a full-blown social media assault. In that concentrated spree, we were treated to AI images of “Dumacrats Love Sewage,” invented quotes from dead senators, and a personal insult cocktail strong enough to stun a rhino. Policy decisions? Foreign crises? Economy? Optional. Meme warfare? Mandatory. The Founders did not anticipate this. Somewhere, Machiavelli is facepalming. Somewhere, James Madison is sighing. Fifty‑five posts. Three hours. Zero governance.
Watching the President treat the country like a 24‑hour influencer livestream is mesmerizing in its absurdity. Every like, retweet, and share is more important than an actual cabinet meeting. Reality bows politely while the algorithm hums approval. Social media has become the executive branch, and civics textbooks quietly weep in the corner. The American people watch, trapped between horror and involuntary laughter, as the highest office in the land is reduced to a nonstop commentary feed. The President measures success in impressions, hashtags, and viral outrage, leaving constitutional duty behind AI-generated sewage memes. Fifty‑five posts. Three hours. Still, we call this “productivity.” If chaos is the medium, the presidency has become art.
The worst part about this is that very few media outlets are going to publish his deranged babble-bibble in its unabridged, unedited, uncut edition. Heather's one of the few who consistently quote him directly, letting the effect sink in with her readers. MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace reported on it substantively -- and without even checking, I'm bettering hamberders to donuts, Faux News didn't point out what you just did.
Somewhere, James Madison is vomiting, while Thomas Jefferson is going "are you fucking kidding me?"
2 Founders who owned slaves and would not give women the right to vote. Yeh, great guys!
Point lost..make it somewhere else…
Michael, having watched my mother, who was by many opinions other than mine, brilliant and accomplished, descend into the profound incapacity of dementia before her demise, Donald's descent is familiar. Except he was a learning-disabled failure to start with.
I have read that one of the addictive features of social media is the "dopamine hit" a user gets when their post is "liked" or shared.
Donald has always been motivated by his "pleasure center," but other parts of his brain were functioning at least in a limited manner. Now, as parts of Donald's brain are shut down by dementia, he still retains his pleasure-seeking abilities. Getting "likes" and reposts of his social media posts are providing those pleasure impulses he can't get elsewhere.
So, I guess it's time for Trump to visit President Xi, to represent us!
Michael Corthell,
Thank you for sharing your pain and disgust ....so well presented....as is your custom.
I pray for relief from this episode of "political horror and shameful disgust" voted FOR by many of our citizens.
From what "hell hole" was such a creature taken before being placed in the office of President of the United States of America??? He and his greedy minions destroy everything they touch! Disruption is everywhere!!!!
Looks as though the decimation will continue. How come there aren’t constant street protests?
In some places, there are weekly protests; however, "local" news has disappeared in many places and the MSM increasingly does not cover protests (for example, in rural areas hosting data centers or warehouses slated to become concentration camps). Also, there's human burnout. People have jobs and now are rationing their gasoline usage so don't always choose to travel to protest sites. Outrage gets channeled in other ways, such as calls/letters to our elected un-representatives.
Some people still have jobs and some need to go to school to "learn" and graduate. That leaves retired people and half of them are Trump supporters
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ice-criminal-cases-victims-deported-b2975324.html
Thanks for the link. Horrifying beyond words.
Nutso
Where are they sending all of those in Alligator Alcatraz as they empty it?
What is Fox telling the MAGAns? That might help us understand.
You need to stop blaming "the American people" because the vast majority of us are fighting like hell. You need to blame the Republicans in Congress who could stop him TODAY, but refuse to do so.
Trump didn't even receive 50% of the vote. More people voted for someone OTHER than Trump. It's the way the electoral college works that put him in the oval.
Americans are awake. We know what's going on.
They know the only way they win is by steamrolling over our rule of law, and they're okay with that.
As hard as it is to believe (actually, extremely hard), there are people out there hoping for a red wave in November and think that T's only concern is the welfare of the USA. It is absolutely frightening that there are people in this country, that even when hit over the head the man's own words, still think he is represents the USA. This is not the country I thought I have lived in for the past 76 years.
Unfortunately, what it takes to get the attention of a large swath of the American people is the economic crisis that Trump’s corruption and incompetence have caused. I always agree with Professor Richardson, but I think that what may be an even bigger story than Trump’s mental illness is that he just won the popular vote a year and a half ago and still has the support of the vast majority of Republicans—despite his mental illness, breath-taking corruption and incompetence and a tanking economy.
The "American people" aren't the problem because we're not in a position to do anything about Trump, his lackeys, or his handlers until November. The awakening has to take place in Congress and the best tool we have is the telephone which we should all be using daily to give them a wakeup call demanding Trump's removal via impeachment or the 25th Amendment.
Now that I have viewed what Trump said, I suppose that one should point out that what he was saying that the economic effects of the war on Americans did not factor into his decisions on how to prosecute the war. I appreciate that this might seem like a fine point given Trump's previous admissions about his unhappiness about the federal government having to contribute to social security, day care, Medicaid and Medicare and his obsession with expensive vanity projects.
It seems to me also that Trump is aware of the economic costs of the war at least insofar as it affects his ability to hold on to power at the midterm elections. For example, he's considering suspending the federal gas tax. Congress would need to approve this and they've never done it before because it would take revenue from the Highway Trust Fund and there's no guarantee that retailers would pass the savings on to consumers. It seems to be gesture politics at its worst, but that's essentially Trump's modus operandi.
It's nevertheless a sign that the administration has finally been forced into accepting the economic downsides of the war instead of downplaying the economic effects, as secretary of state Marco Rubio did recently
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/05/marco-rubio-iran-gas-prices
and as Trump has done repeatedly.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-dismisses-soaring-gas-prices-glitch-iran-war/story?id=130903288
The plain purpose of the war was initially to boost his pathetic ego; now the purpose of continuing it is to avoid humiliation because the dark void of his bottomless ego can't accept defeat and certainly not to admit a mistake.
It was also to deflect attention from the Epstein files which were high profile just prior to the attack on Iran.
Eisenhower warned us of the dangers posed by the military-industrial complex. Essentially that means that war is profitable and given that wealth is power, the need to wage war is too heavily weighted to wealth accumulation rather than principle.
The arms industry has multiple levers to pull. First, they sell capability to politicians. “Our weapons, our military strength, can make this easy” is whispered by lobbyists. Second, “political engineering”, is that arms manufacturing is spread among all states. This gives legislators incentives to support the arms industry as jobs for their constituents. And those legislators will stay in office by supporting the arms industry.
Every war since WW2 has been by choice and what we have learned is that hardware alone is not enough to win. The resulting insurgencies and asymmetrical warfare have a vote, too. But, no matter the results and messy withdrawals, the arms industry profits. That is, war pays more than peace or diplomacy.
And who pays? All of us by shifting our monies via taxes to a small cadre of people for arms companies and their ancillary businesses. And cuts to government services make this even worse.
Perhaps I have oversimplified the problem as there are many complicating factors. Still, “follow the money” is one of the best ways to understand why we are in this untenable situation today. The administration, Trump really, has profited immensely from this war. They have real estate deals, crypto money and outsized bribes to influence war making decisions. Combine that with an ignorant executive and his sycophants driven by promises of a powerful autocracy, fascist really, we have waded into exactly what Eisenhower warned us against.
See my post. A lot of us are already working to this end if you see the no Kings rallies, may day actions and votes on the national and local levels. What are you doing?
He’s got to go. Now.
And then, the rest of the fake Republicans, the insurrectionists. ( which one is Lincoln ? )
Starting with the 6 corrupt, immoral neoconfederates of the Roberts court. You wrote the book.
14th Amendment. It’s the Law. I can read.
If 75% of us say it, I think it will happen. It doesn’t require any more action, by design.
We seem to be at 65% or so, by the polls, which is staggering in itself.
First, we have to say it. — b.rad
Yes brad.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining the campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
I will now that tolerable weather has arrived, go downtown and sit with a sign in front of the federal court building in Hartford a few times a week. The sign will say: “Voter Suppression is Un-American .” And I’ll be ther alone a few hours each week.
Voting in the one right that preserves all the others. Look at what happens when too few people do their homework and vote.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, "
My new sign says FOSSIL FUELS=WARS!
How about a P.S., Linda, adding "and corruption"?
Thank you for your service Bill.
We need a lot more than one person doing this, and all of these people in the south should be Quoting the law which allows "Any citizen of the "red" state to question the status of ANY NUMBER of registered voters, and requiring that all questioned be removed from the voting rolls" These laws are used by the VIGILANTES to remove legitimate voters from the red state voting rolls. see gregpalast.com
The only insurrection was the George Floyd riots. Because the left couldn’t wait for justice so they took it in their own hands as they normally do and they’re starting to do all over again now. They couldn’t wait for the jury. They went out and caused $2 billion of damage injured 1000 policeman burnt down police precinct took over city blocks and lit fires all over the country that my friend is an insurrection.
Oh, I get it now you must be one of those gullible idiots that thinks that 1500 unarmed people are going to overthrow the government of the United States and alter the results of an election. Can’t get any more gullible than that.
You are an idiot and a liar. Many of the January 6 insurrectionists were charged with violence against the police and weapons offences.
https://factually.co/fact-checks/justice/january-6-protestors-charges-list-ffd272
Furthermore, many of these thugs have since been re-arrested for criminal offences.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/at-least-33-pardoned-insurrectionists-face-other-criminal-charges-but-many-are-now-going-free/
Most of the people killed during the George Floyd riots were protesters, not police
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_during_the_2020%E2%80%9323_United_States_racial_unrest
and the media showed a tendency to quote the higher estimates for the numbers of police injured
https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/how-many-police-officers-injured-or-killed-during-george-floyd-riots-05413f
There were also many reported incidents of police violence during the riots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_violence_incidents_during_George_Floyd_protests
You are not just gullible, you're a liar.
Don't engage a psychotic idiot. Don't wrestle with a pig. Don't try to teach it to sing. It's here for ONE reason only. Just ONE. It wants your attention. It feeds off your rage. Don't give it to him. Thank you for your attention to this matter...
Rick Sender loves trolling. He's been here before. Always spreads bs and insults everyone. Don't even bother with him.
I scroll past his nonsense as soon as I see his name.
He or “it” is a troll. Ignore. Skip past any and everything it writes. Not worth your or anybodies time.
Stay abroad and out of touch please. It was bad as Heather picking up tidbits instead of the entire picture. You read my lips, Russell. UNARMED CITIZENS. WOULD YOU PLEASE SHARE WITH ME HOW THIS GROUP OF 1500 WAS GOING TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OR OVERTURN AN ELECTION I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THEORY ON THIS WHICH WOULD BASICALLY PLACE YOU IN AN INSANE ASYLUM.
Did you happen to see the Capitol police escorting people inside the Capitol as well? Did you happen to know that there were 30 some odd FBI agents that weren’t supposed to be there incognito And here’s the best one I have a nice treat for you. Here’s Nancy Pelosi taking blame on camera with her daughter. We’re not supplying enough capital police. Ooooops
https://www.google.com/search?q=Nancy+Pelosi%27s+video+of+her+telling+her+daughter+she+should%27ve+ordered+more+capital+police&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari&channel=46
you know you came on here you had a pretty good idea or two, but you have been downhill since then big time. It’s really a shame.
Russell, it’s over the war is over when Trump says it’s over it’ll be the shortest war ever fought by America and the first war America is one since World War II How about that?
And the reason he is the story every single day is because he’s currently the most positively influential human being on planet earth. So thank you for giving him his due.
Trump Delusion Syndrome!
BUT IT was OK when Ginsburg was in there and it was all left huh? That was OK ! Turn around is fair play. There are 7 states in the northeast. That have not one single congressional district that’s red even though the population is split 6040 Between Red and blue. NOT ONE.
I voice text everything so I’m not sure the link an issue you’re referring to if you’d like to refresh my memory please feel free to do so and I will correct the voice texting mistake
You’re so funny and so laughable and so incredibly naïve it’s un Believable 80% of the public In Poll after poll after Poll thinks that men should not participate in women’s sports, but not your congressional leaders. Oooooops
And 76% of the public poll after Poll after Poll thinks that voter ID should be required, but not your Democrats. Ooooops again
So much for your theoretical theory
ONCE AGAIN, HERE’S YOUR GROUP.
Bottom of the meme is cut off, but it says if we could do this, we would save democracy. And now I actually have the audacity to try to do some of this stuff and then call it a democracy
Hey Heather, if you want to see mentally unwell just stand in front of a mirror for a few seconds. One of the most brilliant men on planet earth. One of the most successful men on planet Earth and the best president of your life!! Elected twice by a majority of the voting public not the 1.6% of the Democrats that you represent here. Oooooops. Awwwwwww. But the good news that I’m glad you finally understand capitalism you feed your lemmings whatever you want they follow you like Remora on a shark. And you rip them off for five bucks a month
once a respected historian, now nothing more than a radical liberal activist in my opinion
Who gives a shit about your opinion Sender?
Pretty sure everyone on this site just scrolls past that nutcase.
I know.. sometimes I just gotta..
Don ‘t bother Mike. He or “it” is a troll. Ignore. Skip past any and everything it writes. Not worth your or anybodies time. Kathryn is dead on. Personally I doubt it’s human and is more likely a bot.
Does it matter? Awareness is the key. If you’re smart Mike, then at least you’d be aware of what you’re not aware of which is a lot
I’m sure you’re a really nice guy with really good intentions, but you’re only getting half the information distorted tainted information all the time You need to change the channel and see what else is out there in the world
Trump Delusion Syndrome! Awareness is the key.
Why do talk like this Sender? You don’t make any sense.
If you’re reading what I wrote, it’s making all the sense that is necessary. It’s putting an idea in your head or at least in front of your face to contemplate that’s it no other sense needs to be made If you agree if you disagree fine but at least perhaps you’ll think about it instead of being totally closed minded
Almost every single negative thought about Donald Trump has nothing to do with this presidency Nothing Just his behavior before we became president
Not the stealing or self dealing? Not the concentration camps? Not the tariffs? Not the war with Iran? Not the threats against NATO allies? Not the defunding of social programs by DOGE? Not the weaponization of the law?
It’s all just personal distaste for an individual?
And stop ignoring my responses Which basically destroy every word out of your mouth
Rick, pls forgive me for commenting "off topic;" I often get lost in these threads...but I seem to recall that you decried the fact that "7 Northeastern States" had zero GOP representatives in their US delegations. Since I agree that "one-party-rule" is bad, I thought about it...and wondered whether you feel the same way @ one-party GOP congressional delegations as you do about one-party Dem delegations...b/c, as I'm sure you know, the former are more numerous than the latter. (If I'm not mistaken, there are no GOP reps from the 6 New England states, and only one GOP Senator...while Delaware, NM & Hawaii have zero GOP representation in Congress; meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that ND, SD, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, WVA & Alaska have zero Dem representation in their congressional delegations.) Or maybe I'm wrong...maybe I missed a state...or mischaracterized a state as having a one-party US delegation...but my question to you remains the same: inasmuch as NO state is 100% (or even 80%) GOP or Dem (except DC, which isn't a state & has no voting reps/Sens in Congress), does it disturb you ONLY if a state's congressional delegation is one-party Dem? I'm genuinely curious. Thx!
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pictures+of+women+killed+by+illegal+criminals&ia=images&iax=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Fnews%2F1024%2Fbranded_news%2F8f3b%2Flive%2Fea24e760-be21-11ef-aff0-072ce821b6ab.png
Find me any respected historian (and the professor certainly is one) who has anything good to say about Trump. He's the biggest idiot ever to occupy the office of the president and he's a disgrace to that office and an embarrassment to all Americans.
https://static.poder360.com.br/2024/02/Grandeza-Presidencial-2024.pdf
By the way, Heather Obama was not only somebody that Trump hated but somebody that hated America named Barack Obama… one of the most divisive presidents in our history, even fueling the war in Iran today by sending a couple billion dollars in cash to Iran to enrich their uranium. Ooooops
Trump has already been ranked as America's worst ever president and he's still three years left to run.
https://static.poder360.com.br/2024/02/Grandeza-Presidencial-2024.pdf
And if this Iran things ends well he may well be on the ticket for VP in ‘28. Uh oh. How many worse presidents get elected TWICE.
YOU ARE FLIRTING WITH INSANITY, MY FRIEND
Cool. Have a nice day Lmao.
“Ted Turner died last week. He was 87.
The obituaries you’ll find will often lead with CNN. They’ll talk about the billions, the America’s Cup, the Braves, Jane Fonda, and so on. They’ll mention, somewhere toward the bottom, that he owned a lot of land and liked bison. Maybe a line about the UN Foundation. Then they’ll move on.
💕 I want to talk about a cartoon.
Captain Planet told me, in terms a six-year-old could understand, that the natural world was worth fighting for. That pollution wasn’t just ugly — it was wrong. That the people destroying the earth weren’t just careless — they were villains. And that ordinary people, kids even, had a responsibility to stop them.
No other network would have aired that show. A children’s program that named corporate polluters as villains and told kids they had a moral obligation to fight them — on commercial television, in the 1990s?
Turner understood something that most people in conservation still don’t. Policy protects land. Culture is what makes people care whether it’s protected. You can pass every law in the world, but if the next generation doesn’t feel the obligation in their bones — if they never learned, somewhere, somehow, that the natural world has a claim on their conscience — the laws won’t hold. Someone will come along and tear them down, and nobody will stop them, because nobody will care enough to try.
Captain Planet was Turner’s answer to that problem. The bison were his physical connection to the land.
He was a complicated man. Eccentric. Brash. Difficult, by many accounts. I didn’t know him personally. But I know his work. He gave a billion dollars to the United Nations, a third of his fortune, because Congress wouldn’t pay its dues. He built a conservation foundation that put $400 million into protecting land and recovering species over three decades. He shamed other billionaires into giving their money away while they were still alive. And his work — the land he saved, the species he brought back, the values he planted in a generation of kids who didn’t know they were being shaped — is as important to the conservation movement as anything done by anyone with a government title.”
‘The Power Was Ours’ by
JIM PATTIZ and MORE THAN JUST PARKS
MAY 11 2026 | Substack
https://morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/the-power-was-ours?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
.
I want to add another philanthropist and that is Sir David Attenborough who just turned 100 and has been trying to save our beautiful planet for a good deal of his lifetime. I believe he had great influence over Turner.
And countless other people.
Like Rachel Carson!
I am noting way fewer birds this spring; fewer numbers, fewer species. Way less chatter.
Reading the Turner obituaries It struck me how he spent his money. Yes, Ted had his yachts and his girlfriends. But he gave much of his money on things that helped the world. Not on vanity projects.
Very different from the current class of billionaires... with just a few exceptions.
Soros is demonized for sharing.
Thank you for these insights re the complicated man that was Ted Turner. I did not know about his gift to UN. Bill Gates also was a generous donor to UN and known for his philanthropy. All of these gestures for the common good should be the focus of all members of government right now, regardless of political affiliation. Make the focus clear as mid-terms approach. What is really important and necessary to the well-being of the people and where they live. All the people as defined in the Constitution. All the lands which comprise this country. So that all can breathe the air and live in peace!
Read Dr. Richardson's first paragraph.
Here it is: "The biggest story in the country, today and always, is that the president of the United States is mentally unwell."
Now read it again.
May it be read daily into the Congressional record so that the Republicans will finally be forced to do something about it.
Isn't "mentally unwell" overly polite, Ecstatic, given that the English language also has "psychotic"?
I'd probably go with "batshit crazy" but Dr. Richardson is both an academic and a Mainiac, so she's more restrained.
Now imagine the Chinese taking advantage of this.
Robert Reich posted the details of a conversation with unnamed political operatives, who lay out what's likely to happen soon --- at some point JD Wanker will approach the Speaker, after promising Marco the VP slot and assuring Pete Kegsbreath he won't be fired -- with an Article 25 maneuver, which will get the Speaker's blessing.
They all know the rage-tweeting baboon is a total albatross around their necks. Even Repulsican gerrymanders won't stop the blue wave from coming -- they can see that, too.
Whether that's comforting or not is another question, of course. But remember that JD is about as charismatic as a small bowl of cold, wriggling eels. No magic MAGA mojo, high or low, anywhere to be found. A repulsive ick on steroids.
But as Martin Luther once said centuries before, pray like everything depended on God alone, but work as though everything depended on you. Let's make the election a truly 'too big to rig' event and render them all inoperative for the next 2 years.
Seems like as likely a scenario as any. His handlers will only prop up trump in front of a camera as long as he serves them some purpose. His increasingly obvious madness will force them to make a move to remove him as a figurehead pretty soon. It's just terrible to think of the damage he has already done and the lives he's ruined or ended. At this point I'm too worn out to speculate about what horrors will follow him, but it seems there is no way forward until he's gone, one way or another.
Where is the supposedly sane Suzi Wiles???
I read she was diagnosed with cancer.
The problem with this is that Wanker will do exactly as Ford did with Nixon. And the LAST thing this country needs right now is for the poster child for corruption to be pardoned. If we are to truly move on and wise up from this absurdity, this man, and his minions, need to be punished to the full extent of the law.
He. must be guilty of some state crimes too that pardons will not pardon.
On, he certainly is. Just ask NY.
Call me skeptical. JD Wanker, Speaker Johnson, and the rest of these spineless idiots haven't taken any action yet to stop their demented leader.
I get so optimistic thinking that everyone is as fed up with this regime as I am and as all the people on this substack are. Then it hits me that there are people out there who still love Trump and the bs that he and his racist bunch of pigs are pulling. I sincerely hope for a blue wave that overwhelms any gerrymandering but then I think of those people and become depressed again.
Take some heart. The clump of clods surrounding the Manchurian Cantaloupe grows thinner by the day. There's a rage out there brewing. Let's just hope it doesn't self-destruct.
I think it’s good news, if they pull it off. We’re finally, finally!, reaching the point where even the toadies can’t sustain the insanity for much longer. Of course, if he decided to do us all a favor and leave the planet on his own, say 35,000 feet over the Pacific on his way back, that would be more than ok too. Other than Gruppenfuhrer Miller and maybe Russell Vought, neither of whom will rise any further with Maybelline Eyes in charge, no one else in this clown car of a regime is as bad as Stinky Diapers. Given the circumstances and possible outcomes, I think we’re at a time when any change is better than the status quo.
JohnC - be careful what you wish for.
The notion of "The Devil you know is better than the one you don't" comes to mind. If the Article 25 maneuver happens, they'll plan it before 20 Jan 2027 so JD Wanker (like in Ted Lasso, I wonder if JD knows the meaning of 'Wanker') gets by the 22nd Amendment should he win (Opps ... be certified by the electoral college) in a presidential election. Just typing out that thought makes me want to vomit.
Given the constant demonstrations of his cognitive incapacity, I'm very, very surprised that the media doesn't seem to be paying much attention to Senators Whitehouse and Reed reading into the congressional record the recent letter 36 mental professionals wrote to explain their psychiatric concerns about Trump.
They sure jumped on Biden's awkward moments.
Senator Whitehouse is a power house. I watched his 307th speech about the fossil fool crooks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bV9ZzTerRo
We've been getting this info by dribs and drabs and hearing it all recounted at once is mind boggling!! Doesn't this remind you of our decades-long battle with the tobacco industry??? Same stages. But they learned by their previous battles how to be even more effective. I hope a lot of people listen to this!
Fred, you’re actually talking about dementia or Alzheimer’s or some other mental defect while Biden demonstrated being non compos mentis for almost 2 years and this is what you’re talking about holy shit.
ICYMI: Today (5/12/26) Heather posted a Politics Chat in which she clearly describes what gerrymandering is and what the various court decisions and legislative redistricting is doing, that your voting is more important than ever, that all is not lost unless you give up and/or obey in advance (as the fascists and oligarchs want you to do). If you are not familiar with the story of Fannie Lou Hamer, Heather gives a very poignant description along with other matters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9qatSWt2xQ
“Fannie Lou Hamer Testimony Before The Democratic National Convention (August 22, 1968) - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EcrotlsH_8
My response to the white supremicist John Roberts’ Supreme Court:
WHY THE SOUTH STAYED RACIST AFTER THE CIVIL WAR/AND RACE IS A MYTH
RE: The Civil War and Abraham Lincoln are favorite topics of Heather’s and she is an esteemed expert on post-Civil War Reconstruction.
I spent my early childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia and the middle school part of my childhood in a small (pop. 2,000) town in South Carolina. This was during segregation. In the South Carolina town there was a small town square with all the businesses around the outside and the government building in the center. I never ever saw a dark skinned person anywhere near the square. The public elementary school was relatively new but the middle-high school building was quite old wth cracks in the concrete on the outside walls. The level of the academic teaching reflected the condition of the building. There was no civics class. This was replaced by South Carolina history which mainly covered the role of Francis Marion, the “swamp fox”, in the Revolutionary war, glorified that South Carolina was the first state to cede from the Union and fire on Fort Sumter to begin the Civil War, the bravery of Confederate soldiers and generals, the horrors of General Sherman’s destructive march through Georgia, the burning of Atlanta, Reconstruction and the “damned Yankee carpetbaggers”, the corruption of the government, the cracks in the marble steps of the State House in Columbia, SC allegedly caused by “Yankee carpetbaggers” rolling whiskey barrels up them to use for debaucheries in the State House, etc.. In public places there were signs designating water fountains and bathrooms as “WHITES ONLY”. My South Carolina experience was at a time when the movie version of “Gone With The Wind” starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara was popular and playing in all the theaters. Given that people of color in this country started out as slaves, the bottom of the social hierarchy (analogous to the “Untouchables” or Dalits in the Hindu caste hierarchy in India) and that racial discrimination and hatred were inculcated in the white Southern society for generations, it is not surprizing that it still exists even after a Civil War resulting in the deaths of over 600,000 people and the 1960’s Civil Rights Laws and movements. Anthropologists say that tribalism was selected for in our evolution as a species because our ability to band together to achieve a goal gave us a selective advantage over other human species. So racial prejudice does not automatically disappear just because laws are enacted or wars are won.
I am a “white man” and was a civil rights worker in the 1960s. We registered voters and tried to do sit-ins in Greensboro, NC. We were spit on, assaulted with obscenities and sometimes physically and our lives were threatened (at a time when people like us were actually being killed/murdered by racists - eg. the childhood friend of Professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and two other civil rights workers were violently murdered in Mississippi for their participation in voter registration, Medgar Evers, Emmitt Till, Roman Ducksworth, Jr., Henry Dee, Charles Eddie Moore, etc.. Being immersed in an “us vs. them” battle, white vs. people of color, is not conducive to a flourishing society and contradicts basic scientific findings. More than 30 years ago the science of genetics/genealogy proved that we are all the same species (sapiens) by tracing single nucleotide polymorphisms (heritable spontaneous single base changes) in the Y chromosome DNA in men and in the mitochondrial DNA of women (all of your mitochondrial DNA comes from your mother). Men were traced back to a single man in east Africa (“The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey” by geneticist Spencer Wells. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQAdPvKG4-U). And women were traced back to a single woman in the same region of east Africa (“The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry” by University of Oxford emeritus professor Bryan Sykes) And by “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari, Professor of history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. So we all have the same ancestors.The production of melanin (the pigment that colors your skin) in skin cells is regulated by 150-200 genes. All of us have some of them - some more than others. Since the time of Claude Levi-Strauss and before, mainstream anthropologists have suspected the existence of the recent recognition that “race is a social construction” or as anthropologist and human population geneticist, John H. Relethford somewhat differently states it: Race is a “culturally constructed label that crudely and imprecisely describes real variation”. Anthropological studies have taken groups of thousands of people and divided them up into “racial” groups and found that there were more phenotypic differences within each group than there were between the groups. Race is a myth that is used to promulgate tribalism and divisiveness. We are all the same species with ultimately the same ancestors. Celebrate our different cultures and diversity as an asset. Some cognitive scientists reason that “race” is an error of metacognition - like believing that the sun orbits the earth (a widespread belief in the Middle Ages that Galileo was imprisoned for contradicting). People argued that because you can see it coming up on the eastern horizon, passing overhead and going down on the western horizon - so it must be going around/orbiting the earth. In any event freedom of travel and “interracial”/intercultural mating is rehomogenizing the perceived “racial” attributes (phenotypic characteristics) of our species. I don’t think “white supremacists” have any chance of changing this. We need to tolerate and appreciate the value of our diversity. Tribalism, racism and cults are self-destructive. We are all part of the same family of ancestors that comprise humanity, sapiens. To have a democracy and a thriving society we need to come together as “We the People”. E Pluribus Unum.
Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson’s recent lecture at Yale Law School: James A. Thomas Lecture: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOIzg3X5M2Y
Interesting posting, especially your educational experiences in South Carolina. After listening to a story on the news about the redistricting in the former Confederate states, I said to my husband, " Those states cannot let go of the Lost Cause."
I have believed for a long time now that the MAGA movement is the revenge of the Confederacy.
I think it’s reasonable to say now that we can conclude to a mathematical certainty that about 35% of the American electorate is made up of bigots. That’s one of the first merit badges that a Nazi recruit earns at Boot Camp.
Did you ever for a minute think racism was dead? Get rid of racism and income inequality and we may have a shot at peace. Not a moment before.
No. Not for one minute.
Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining the campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
I will add that after we impeach Trump and his cronies, we need to be looking at the SCOTUS.
Signed
Thanks Marlene! ❤️
Signed and sharing.
Thanks Mickey Dee! ❤️
This Saturday the march will continue in Alabama. If you can’t go, spread the word. “Same Steps. Different Generation”
https://blackpowerwarroom.com/dayofaction
Agree with your post about race as a social construct, though let’s also remember that this is now the reasoning that racists are using to take away our tools to fight racism. They’re saying “we are all the same so we don’t need to protect certain races.” This reasoning ignores the fact that the social construct of race and racism has created inequities for generations, and those inequities require strategic protections and conscious frameworks to fix and move towards equity.
There are so many similarities between the N@zis in Germany and American enslavement/Jim Crow. The similarities are striking (probably because the N@zis studied and modeled their system after ours). But the biggest difference is that Germany accounted for their actions. America hasn’t. They don’t have statues of nazis.. they have memorials to the victims. We have statues of confederates. They don’t have swasticas on their flags. State flags have the confederate flag incorporated into their flags. Germany paid reparations, America hasn’t. We have public schools and private universities named after confederates. They strategically educate their children about Nazis and antisemitism starting at a very young age… America continues to tell a nationalist founding story to our children—the founders are portrayed as almost god like with just a few character flaws (that oopsie slavery thing). Our children are told that the founding and constitution was the the model democracy that all others should follow—ignoring that 20% of Americans were enslaved at that time (after being human trafficked), millions had fallen to genocide, the constitution protected the enslavERs at the time of our founding and there are still anti-democratic elements in our constitution left as a reminder of our past. We have never dealt with our past and now it comes back to haunt us.
The founding story that should be taught to our children is that we were founded as a country with apartheid and genocide but resistance movements over hundreds of years brought us to closer to the ideal of democracy and equality. Our founding story is really in those resistance movements, not our founding.
From Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago: "We're all made of the same clay."
And the NY Times reports that intelligence officials have leaked classified information showing that Iran continues to have access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. It still fields about 70& of its pre-war mobile launchpads and retains about 70% of its missile stockpile. Enriched uranium still exists and lies buried under the rubble, making it virtually impossible to extract and de-process.
The fact that this information was leaked to the New York Times tells you everything you need to know. It's the CIA's way of voting 'no confidence' in this dishonest, incompetent, North Korean-happy talk administration.
The right descriptor for this $38 billion fiasco would be Operation Epic Fuckup.
The most disturbing thing about this this regime is relatively little visible resistance from agencies being grotesquely misused. I am hoping that some integrity remains while keeping a low profile.
Not to mention the military, but it seems that ship has sailed.
Paul Krugman named it Operation Fubar a few weeks ago.!
I'm going with Operation Epic FUBAR
P Krugman is finding his own in front of a camera now and it is so fun to watch this smart man.
Trump and the regime are so arrogantly, incompetent, so reckless and delusional, causing endless fiascoes and quagmires that they've earned the label and military acronym, SNAFU...situation normal, all fucked up...
and FUBAR = fucked up beyond all recognition
FUBAR is exactly right. This expression came from the US Navy during WWII. I like it because it is so comprehensive and applies so completely to the trump administration.
Maybe Operation Turbulence will rid us of our problem.
Does anyone know who is generating the AI images that the president is posting? They seem pretty sophisticated… More sophisticated than the orange man seems capable of generating. Honestly, he’s not that creative. They are juvenile, yes, and morally repugnant. Does he actually master the technology? I’m curious that he is capable of generating these images all day and all night… Especially at night.
My guess is there's a team of technologically-savvy people employed by the regime to feed weird images to trump around the clock, but especially at night. He's been trained to pick those he finds appealing and attach them to his postings.
This thought has been growing in my mind also, Kathryn. Who can believe that tRump himself has the capacity to produce all the memes that “he” posts?! Idiotic though they are these take some time and thinking (?) to build. There may be AI shortcuts, but can you imagine this fool being on that edge? Likewise for the posts themselves. I’d bet that these are mostly “created” by some sort of team trained in the Goebbels school of propaganda and public manipulation (as sad as it is to believe that so many yanks can be ‘taken in’). It would be most interesting to know who these people are and who is paying them.
I'll bet they get churned out so that he has dozens to choose from at any given moment. But I do wonder who's creating them -- no doubt on our dime.
Steven Miller comes to mind and I heard he may be on his way out.
Remember how long Reagans funeral was? Trumps will last for months or maybe years. Grifting never ends....
I had wondered this too Michael. Ii can be tricky. prompting AI image generating tools for accuracy. I doubt he has the mind or patience for this.
Agree...someone is doing them for him.
It's just a bunch of 13 year old boys - wanna-be Nazis that sleep all day and game all night on their computers while with playing with AI to generate these adolescent fantasies.
Thanks Heather for detailing Trump's racist and hateful tirade last night along with his demented and laughable self congratulatory posts. You are providing a great service to readers. This story of Trump's obvious dangerous mental decline and his hatred for everything this country represents should have been the lead story today from every news service. Trump represents an immediate threat to the well being of the people of the United States as well as humanity at large. Too bad no one in his circle cares enough to urge his emergency involuntary commitment to a locked psychiatric facility. Grateful for your insights today Heather.
Dr. Richardson,
Your framing is correct, but there is a deeper constitutional failure, and it is not the president’s condition. It is the systematic abdication of congressional oversight that has allowed an unwell chief executive to operate without constraint.
We are witnessing the collapse of the separation of powers as a working system. A Republican Majority Congress that refuses to restrain, or acknowledge presidential incapacity is no longer functioning as the first branch of a "We the People" government. It has become an integral extension of the executive, and that is the true constitutional emergency.
Only the Congressional majority, one committed to evidence, governance, and the rule of law, can reconstitute the checking function which appears to have evaporated. Without a Congressional majority, that is willing to carry out their Oath of Office, there is no mechanism to restore oversight, no capacity to defend the administrative state, and no path to reestablish the constitutional equilibrium that has been lost.
This moment is about institutional survival. If Americans want a functioning Republic rather than a performative- personality‑driven regime, the next Congress must be capable of acting as an independent branch. That requires electing a Democratic majority in November.
Thank you for your work.
And this is the thought that needs to be amplified EVERYWHERE!! The problem IS what used to be the Republican party. And it now needs to be eradicated - ON ALL LEVELS!!! People need to be made to understand the damage being done, beginning at the local levels, then on to the state levels, before it ever shows itself nationally. Get these Nazis out at your local level, and the cascading effect will benefit everyone in short order. Start locally!
>>>The New York Times journalists report that one of the options for settling with Trump would be for the IRS to drop any audits of Trump, his family members, or his businesses. Since 1977, IRS policy has been to conduct a mandatory audit of the sitting president every year...<<<
That, right there, is the only reason that Trump is suing. It's his typical game... threatening with the big hammer to get the action he wants. He most definitely doesn't want anyone poking around in the highly illegal financial activities and shady deals perpetrated by him and his family.
The biggest story in the country, today and always, is that the whole friggin' Republican Party is mentally unwell.
or just greedy JL
Who among us has not experienced the call of greed, and yet set some limit for it? Unbalanced, I think it becomes an illness.
The scheming villain in a cautionary movie famously said "Greed is good", and Republicans picked it up as a motto, trying to normalize it; though they backed away from saying out loud during the Great Recession, in trying to be less brazen about it. Greed is gain by depriving others of their due; and that is not good. It's what the fuss was about in The Declaration of Independence.
Trump: "I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody." , well there it is in a nutshell, cuckoo,cuckoo. Stop playing nice people, he does not give a shit about you. Mind you the people that should be reading this aren't.
It took the Hungarians 16 years to realize the true horror of their dictator. Does anyone think Republicans and independents will be any quicker? I am afraid much worse things have to happen before law-abiding citizens actually do anything effective about the situation.
Luckily Magyar was able to travel around the whole country of around 10 million people. That would be like visiting the whole state of Illinois, most of which is in Chicagoland. Much harder in the US, but still necessary. It is ironic that the Iranian Lego propaganda videos probably reach more people than anything most of the Dems are doing to speak against Trump. I know there are Dems who have been very active and activist and I am grateful for them. The rest do not seem to know how to operate in a Oligarchic -Kakistocracy with an Autocrat for a leader. Magyar did. He understood all of the corruption and made plans to block it. Currently he is not only looking at getting money back from the crooks in the Orbán regime, but also those in the government that transitioned from communist to capitalist after the end of he Soviet Union.
Linda I read Orban is relocating to the US. I found this interestingly disturbing.
Some people respond sooner than others. I lot of people are tiring of corrupt Republicans taking thee nation for reckless, desultory joyrides.
Your book, How the South Won the Civil War, is proving accurate daily. We are moving toward confederacy again. Tennessee shows it. Louisiana proves it. Texas confirms it. Virginia had off year elections and shows that, if given the chance, a solid majority of people wish to go the opposite direction. Even so, our global shame flies to China to humiliate himself, and perhaps us, with his flailing dark triad personality. It seems painfully obvious that Trump removal is the only sane option. Only the lust for continuous power prevents Republicans from acting on this, and that "power" derives from the accumulated wealth of the billionaire class. What they don't see is that the mass of wealth stolen from the poor, the working class, and the environment, shrinks the foundation supporting the entire system. It will collapse. History shows it. How bad a fall, and how many will die with it, is presently unknowable, but the process scares me beyond anything I have seen in the last 70 years.
I'd not, Wayne, attribute "power" but to "the accumulated wealth of the billionaire class."
Yes, we need to correct their massive theft of American wealth. But this could never have happened in the first place if our schools had kept to our humanities as central to them.
Instead, reading, discussing, and writing essays based on whole books disappeared from U.S. schools. Testing in their place took over. All machine-gradable. All based on the rationality conceits of abstracting, grouping, categorizing, and mechanical, 1-2-3 linearity as the only causality.
Massive, dehumanized impotence followed.
The rising up of the people of Minneapolis/St. Paul shows that our anesthetization is not total. The spontaneous resistance of American small towns everywhere against the ICE gulag of Donald's illegal, tortuous concentration camps shows American decency yet extant even in largely rural, red areas.