You know democracy’s up shit creek when the Supreme Court majority treat gerrymandering like a clever technicality instead of the slow-motion theft of representation, it really is. How do those cowards sleep at night?
"Sorry. I think any comparison is unfair at this point."
Yes. Sometimes metaphor fails its narrative purpose to illuminate the facts. Sometimes it is more purposeful for understanding to report and analyze them as they are.
Yes! I enthusiastically endorse your comment as a co-producer of the Webby-award-winning "Bats! Furry Fliers of the Night" — a lovely children's book produced by my wife and partner, the late artist Ellen Jacob, in partnership with Story Worldwide. Written by acclaimed children's science writer Mary Kay Carson, it was the first-ever 3D interactive book-app for iPad. Sadly no longer available. But you can get an idea of what it was like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vANYCBdIbU (I can't even think about how awful the white supremacist Supreme Court is, but bats are not racist ideologues.)
There is an old phrase bats in the belfry. Two things can be opposite but also true. The folklore symbol of bats and vampires versus the scientific knowledge of these creatures. I honor the species and laugh at the folklore analogy!
Karemm, of course it was a joke, but even jokes today get responses, many of which are also funny, but get to the heart of the way people feel about the evil that is present in Trumplandia!
I used to say that these United States are the illegitimate bastard offspring of England. And now again. The sooner more folks realize that this is pure and simple a money drab, the sooner we will throw off the shackles of self defeatism. And stuff.
Bill, I am hoping we can connect with the people living in those newly-created districts to show them that they are being used and that those they are supposed to vote for care nothing for them while candidates like Justin Pearson and the others being pushed out of their offices really do care because they have more in common with the voters than anyone Republicans run these days. If they don't think so, point out to them all the programs that have been lost like healthcare and SNAP, the start of a ridiculous war that has no real purpose even though Trump is being coached to whine about nuclear weapons (when he was the guy who broke the treaty that would have kept Iran from having nuclear weapons), all the lies they have been told like about vaccines, and the price of gas and everything else that is not the fault of Biden or Obama, but their elected Republicans and Donald Trump. We need to work hard because many of those poor white people want so badly to believe they are superior to everyone else despite what they see and feel related to their actual situation. I think they can be reached, but it will take a lot of volunteers, candidates on the road, and a huge positive social media presence with a Democratic party that is entirely on the same page with the same platform across the country with points that address the needs of the American people. It can be done, so let's push to make it happen!
Bill, speaking of money, when is some person going to ask Der Leader why the price of gas and diesel in the USA is so high if we (our oil companies) are producing more than we can use.., and selling it to the rest of the world.Yeah.., it's a stupid question, but he's a stupid guy. I mean we already heard him say he could care less about our shopping bill. Let's hear his answer. Farmers...? You listening? This is Der Leader. Sick man.
Counting? Remember people who have comprimised mental clarity due to medications, substance abuse (bourbon and mint juleps are my unfair stereotypes) and biased media consumption; they are unlikelty to be counting anything.
Apropos, "...biased media consumption;" -- you've accurately described a modern reality eerily identical to what my grandparents' generation might have assumed was a newly created name for a brain-eating variant of tuberculosis. Well done, Ms. Lederman. Excaptionally well done.
“Tennessee is a conservative state, and this map ensures that our congressional delegation reflects that,” Republican state senator John Stevens said. “This is about allowing Tennessee to maximize its partisan advantage.”
Racism is real, obviously. But this time, we need to look at the neofascists' own arguments for doing this. Then, a different picture arises.
Vance is married to a woman of color. Trump is married to an immigrant. Musk loves Indian and Pakistani employees.
More importantly: when you read their ideologues, this time, racism is absent.
Conclusion: they sleep well because they are GENUINELY CONVINCED that FASCISM IS BETTER THAN DEMOCRACY.
This is the U-turn that one of the two major American political parties took (step by step, as Kamala Harris explains so well), and it seems as if many people on the left still don't get it.
If you are convinced that "conservatism" is undoubtedly better for the country than a leftwing approach, then only one more belief is needed to become a neofascist: the wealthiest people who share this view are by definition better at making decisions for the entire country than the 99% "mediocre" citizens.
Put both together, and you sincerely believe that fascism is good and democracy bad.
Once that's the case, you need to get rid of democracy asap. How to do so? By taking away the power of pro-democracy voters. What is one of the easiest ways to do so? Take away the power of black voters, since they overwhelmingly vote pro-democracy (and pro-Democrats).
I'm sure that the people who do this also believe that in the long run, fascism will be better for everyone, including black people.
So instead of dehumanizing them and imagining that they're "evil", we urgently need to up our game and explain why democracy is and remains much better than fascism.
All excellent points and well said. Except. They ARE EVIL if they wish to racially dominate and hand power to oligarchs to determine the course of our lives, our country, our planet.
Virtually everything the Republican Party has done, is attempting to do and wants to do is EVIL.
I think the wanton destruction of democracy, the deprivation of voting rights, the withholding of health care, the stupid wars, the blood sucking tax system...they are all EVIL.
No? If not, what is it? Just a little dust up over who gets government jobs?
Sorry. EVIL requires a response and that may need to be a revolution. Ideally at the voting booth.
There is no argument here. The Project 2025 folks think that only white oligarchs have the right, and the chops, to run the country - a point of view involving White Supremacy beliefs, patriarchal beliefs, a belief that empathy and compassion are weak, and Prosperity Gospel beliefs. They think they're "doing the right thing" AND their actions are DEEPLY EVIL.
Bill, agreed they are EVIL. Death star said it himself: he doesn't care about anybody....except himself and his billionaire suck ups. Just when the world needs wisdom, integrity, and government that work for all, we have death star and his greedy racist minions as a fast moving ball of destruction.
Democracy is built on the courage to believe that everyone is created equal. People may commit evil DEEDS, but no one IS "evil". This kind of dehumanization is precisely one of the main characteristics of fascism, so anyone who believes fascism is bad should absolutely continue to cultivate the belief in our common humanity rather than falling into the trap of imagining that others "are" evil.
Secondly, neofascists tend to believe that fascism will be better for society as a whole. They don't destroy democracy out of "cruelty". It's important to keep this in mind because it means that we CAN win this debate if we can show, through reasoning and evidence, why their sincere belief in the superiority of fascism is false. And this IS how to keep or restore democracy: through the strong belief in the other's innate goodness (rather than indulging in feeling superior) and then refute their truth claims.
And then, indeed, I cannot agree more, defeating them at the voting booth is and remains vital too.
We're on the same side here. I approach everyone assuming that they have "inate goodness". Often, that is helpful. But now, often, some demonstrate that they do indeed have EVIL hearts. There are people who ENJOY hating and hurting. Sadly, many running this country LOVE killing and torturing "others" in the name of their bullshit righteousness.
I will always look for the good in people and seek common ground whenever possible.
But to ignore the fact that here are EVIL PEOPLE who are cruel and ENJOY being cruel is exactly how we got to this horrific time in history.
The truly EVIL people should have been exposed, expunged, shunned or squashed like the poisonous bugs they are.
Yes, Bill Alstrom. I too approach everyone assuming they have innate goodness, but when they start espousing some “evil” BS (such as saying ICE is doing the right thing separating children from their parents) I disagree with them then gage how far they will go. When it’s too far, I walk away in obvious disgust. Immoral actions are not acceptable and patently illegal. On the whole, I do believe in our justice system, it’s just so slow these days (and SCOTUS is currently corrupt). “Exposed, expunged, and shunned” (i.e. imprisoned and separated from the community) is appropriate, but squashed like bugs implies the death penalty and that I can’t abide. I even try to catch and release errant bugs in my house - though I do kill mosquitoes who land on me in self defense.
I call BULLSHIT...this time around with all the history we have endured, with all the consciousness raised, these people KNOW they are acting with evil intent. I believe this makes them evil, wicked, selfish, unevolved, standing in the way of progress, pawns in the game. Oh, and if they dont wake the fuck up they will find themselves in dire circumstances along with all of us who aren't billionaires.
EUWDTB, I think you intended to say “equal" (in your first sentence) rather than “evil.” I imagine everyone reading it knows what you meant, but why not edit it to be clear. And I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying.
I am sorry to disagree, EUWDTB, because I have a lot of respect for you, but I have read tons of articles about what they intend to do (especially the tech bros), and to me it is the definition of cruelty. They may not be 'evil' per se, but that's hardly a consolation when the deeds seem to be evil by most logical definitions of same.
EUWDTB " It's important to keep this in mind because it means that we CAN win this debate if we can show, through reasoning and evidence, why their sincere belief in the superiority of fascism is false."
Unfortunately, it's fairly well proven that reasoning and evidence does not always change people's minds. Once people take a position (voting for trump) they will defend their choice beyond all logic. We are all subject to that tendency, but some groups seem more entrenched than others.
I agree too. I believe that characterizing certain people as inherently evil allows the rest of us to deny that we ourselves would ever be capable of an evil act. In my lifetime, and typically in a situation where I'm not really thinking of consequences, I have been guilty of acts which I would consider evil. It's important that I own my conduct. I believe this is true of everyone.
OTOH I also believe that, for whatever reason, inherited traits, injuries, or socialization, some people do not have the capacity to feel compassion or guilt for their acts which hurt others. Some derive pleasure from cruelty. These sociopathic people are typically not capable of being redeemed by treatment or punishment. They should never be put in positions in which they can inflict suffering and damage.
There is in Italy in a town near Rome a cathedral that has a mural of the anti christ from the 1300’s or so. The cathedral also has frescos from another painter the better known Fra Angelico. This city abd two others like Avignon were escape locations for popes including the sack of Rome. Freud was there and fascinated. They are weird and strange and evilly compelling. If I could do links Ibwoukd send. I learned of this through Matthew Fox the writer and former Dominican theologian.
You cannot win this argument by reasoning, because the people who believe in that system do not work from reasoning. It is an emotional process that the power and money for me is good and just as the orange moron said, I know what is good for everyone. That does not smell of reasoning to me. I don’t like the word evil either as it has faith based connotations. Believing that what is good for me is good for others is a delusional system.
Your claim, "...many people on the left still don't get it" is grossly mistaken; the left has been warning of the never-ending fascist threat for decades, and only now -- after the threat has materialized -- are we not summarily dismissed as Cassandras.
As to "the people who still don't get it" -- and assuming "it" is the terrible truth of ChristoNazi conquest -- most data indicates their largest sub-group is made up of people too pridefully ignorant to comprehend what we have become.
The difference today from past rascist uprisings is that the our Southern fascists are supporting a raving mad lunatic. He has lost us the respect of the world with his uncontained greed and self-aggrandizement.
EUWDTB, we do have to get the word out about the positives of democracy and people actually having a say in what is happening to them. Fascists are so scared of everyone, they have to make sure that no one can stop them. That scenario works for some people who prefer not to think and to believe that they would never be the targets of those Fascists in charge. For the rest of us, it behooves us to stand up and say "NO" and kick the fascists out of office. It will take a lot of effort, time, and care. Fascism needs only hate, fear, anger, and resentment directed at the folks most likely to interfere with the fascists in charge. Those do nothing for decent caring people who want this nation to be a place that respects everyone and wants the same rights for all.
Your passage beginning "If you are convinced..." and ending with "Put both together..." is by far the best everyday-language explanation of fascism and its operational psycho-dynamics I have yet encountered. Thank you.
How can they NOT be evil, if what they are trying to do involves taking away -- not just our voting rights, but also our money and anything else that helps us stay alive, like healthcare? It seems pretty clear to me, after all I have read and learned, that they don't care if we live or die. If that's not evil, what the heck is it?
Excellent explanation of the power of elites. The 'people' should control the elite's power through the democratic process by debates and the regulation of laws and standards. The historical result of 'elites' destroying the 'democratic process' is mass opposition leading to violence, but that can take many decades (examples globably).
EUWDTB - "I'm sure that the people who do this also believe that in the long run, fascism will be better for everyone, including black people."
Just like the Southern aristocracy believed that society worked best when everyone else stayed "in their place", in a hierarchy where those born into wealth and prestige had the obvious right to rule, and those less fortunate were consigned to their appropriate subservient roles.
As today, the aristocracy managed to convince others to support their "cause" by appealing to "tradition", hate, and fear of losing whatever meager status they had.
They sleep just fine because neither Roberts, Barrett, Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh nor Thomas have any integrity or principles. They were all nominated to serve the White, corporate oligarchy
Kazz, I'd imagine that they sleep well, thinking that they are depriving Black voters of choosing representation of their choice. Ironic that Clarence Thomas has no qualms about depriving so many that share his race and origins of their rights. Ginny must be so proud.
Nancy, I'm responding to your comment, but my advice is for everyone who is confounded by Clarence's alliance with white supremacists and apparent disregard for people who share his race and origins.
As a white person who has been involved in several intimate relationships with Black persons, we have had more than just "polite conversation" shared by persons of differing race or ethnicities.
It may come as a surprise to white folks that other ethnicities also sort themselves into "betters" and "less-thans," just as white folks do. Consider that the term, "white trash," is used almost universally by white folks. This "class-ifying" occurs in every ethnic group.
No doubt, Clarence considers himself better than "those Blacks" who haven't achieved the lofty position he has. He is no different from all "achievers" of every race and ethnicity who are oblivious to the fact that they had a lot of help getting to where they are.
Dale, I'm well aware of the fact that Black people often share the sentiment you describe of being superior to those who haven't managed to "pull themselves by the bootstraps". However, since Clarence came from very humble beginnings, one would assume that, while being proud of his accomplishments, he'd have empathy of others who weren't able to do so. When I see his ever-present scowl, it reminds me that he's apparently a very angry person - perhaps because his humble beginnings are a fact that he'd prefer to bury.
Joy Rider, I suspect it requires drugs and hearing FauxFox ignoramuses telling them how wonderful they are and how beautiful their decisions in LA v. Callais, Shelby, and other cases were. Maybe their righteousness through their pseudochristianity works too.
Earl … I was thinking about your “low-class” phrase when the “high-tech” phrase popped into my head. Then a crazy thought popped into my head. Then the “Is my crazy thought disrespectful?” thought popped into my head.
You can’t know for certain with this kind of thing, but long story short, I am certain beyond a reasonable doubt that NOT posting my crazy thought would be disrespectful.
This is crazy: To become a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas pretended to be a victim of a high-tech lynching. As a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence has been a perpetrator of low-class lynchings. Isn’t it ironic.
Yes ... he should have been listening to the wise words of Bob Marley when he said, "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds." There's always time for Clarence to seek redemption before he dies. Either way, the world's a better place.
It seems as if the Republican gerrymanders are exactly what the Supreme Court has just outlawed. Does it not? Cracking and packing Black districts seems to be quite obviously a racially driven gerrymander. Is there no legal recourse in this vein? This is an honest question and I’m interested in intelligent response.
Sean I believe the legal issue is that the Supreme Court distinguishes between racial gerrymandering (still unconstitutional under the Voting Rights Act and Equal Protection Clause) and partisan gerrymandering, which the Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) is essentially a “political question” beyond federal courts. So if lawmakers can argue they were targeting Democrats rather than Black voters, even where the overlap is obvious, it becomes much harder to challenge legally. That’s the loophole. The map can walk like racial discrimination and quack like racial discrimination, but if it’s framed as partisan strategy, the Court has largely stepped back.
We need to have a committee people will respect to undertake studies of other democracies and how they do representation. They should come up with three alternatives and we should vote on them and then we should implement one of them. We need a system that does not hitch representation to living place. It should be hitched to straight out population not Democrats versus Republicans. Maybe that would encourage us to have a multiparty system which would be also be an improvement.
They probably sleep quite well. They are excellent lawyers who, sadly (in your mind), interpret the law to bar racial discrimination. You don't seem to understand what "democracy" is. It is, in our republic, a judiciary, legislature and executive. That the judiciary doesn't interpret laws as you wish is not "shit's creek," it's democracy. You seem confused.
Our newest troll is back. This one attempts to be oh-so intelligent (even likes to spout it's own qualifications.
DON'T FEED IT.
If you've accidentally done so, don't respond, because it ABSOLUTELY WILL try to one up you. LOL
Unless you enjoy poking these MAGA infiltrators to this forum, which as Heather has said, is SCARED by the left--then by all means, have at it. I will admit that the indignant self-important replies are HILARIOUS.
We agree, and in addition to agreeing on the highest voter turnout of all time, we need to repeatedly (as in every day) remind ourselves of Lincoln's words about how democracies survive and thrive: “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.” Note that 1858 and 2026 are both in the same "age."
James, the regime will find a way to prevent voter turnout even by declaring a state of emergency for any made up reason. Dark days are coming and I'm saying this with a broken heart 💔.
It's not over yet! Yes, it will probably get worse before it gets better, but for now, two-thirds of the country is not on board with this, and even the one-third that automatically/blindly votes for the GOP still wants democracy instead of fascism. So they may rig elections, but they have NOT won the hearts of the people yet. That will be much more difficult to do, and in the meantime, we can fight back!
Yes, we are fighting back and getting ready to vote. I get informed every day and I get engaged in political conversations with as much people I can talk to .
If I assume I won't catch a fish, and if I act based on my assumption, then I won't catch a fish. And if my heart is broken because I didn't catch a fish, then I can't blame the fish.
Yes, I saw that one, and I agree that he's saying the same thing. But thanks for that reminder to be more specific.
To be more specific, have faith. Without faith, you've already lost. But have faith that right makes might because, without that faith, might makes right.
Henry Ford had faith, but he also lacked character, and that was because he had the wrong faith. He changed the world ... okay ... but he caused an enormous amount of unnecessary suffering ... not okay ... big problem. Solution: a nation where people are judged by the content of their character.
I can fight with a broken heart as well as I can fish with the same broken heart James. On the other hand, reality shows us that we missed a lot of opportunities to prevent this regime to get the power it is turning against us and the rest of the world. That's why I have a broken heart.
The dark side is the best place to see the light. The first one now will later be last. You'll feel a lot better when we stop pointing our metaphorical horns at the metaphorical cape and start pointing them at the metaphorical matador, and then you'll be very happy to not be a metaphorical matador.
Thank you for reminding US of the efficacy of GOTV postcards. Even 5 a day is better than none. Add: we must get as many Dems as possible elected in every state before DT sends ICE to the polls.
Please stop with the craven pacifist fantasy about elections. Precisely as Trump promised, 2024 was the "last" (legitimate) election. What this gerrymandering means is the Plutocracy and its ChristoNazi rabble have made themselves unbeatable by (any) constitutional means -- that we are the conquered subjects of the Trump/Hitler Thousand-Year ChristoNazi Reich -- and so we shall remain forever -- unless at last we somehow evolve the courage, discipline and solidarity to apply the anti-Nazi lessons the Soviet People taught us during World War II.
Hi Loren. I think that we actually are developing and implementing the courage, discipline and solidarity to do this although, yes, we may just miss the boat at this point in our journey. But remember that people such as myself and so many others are actually, boots on the ground, working overtime all across the country to get others ready to vote. And Trump and his bizarre cast of characters is doing a great job of turning Repubs and Unaffiliated voters off which will affect turnout and voting choices. In short, I’m not convinced that these horrific redistricting power grabs can stave off the turning tide of civic awakening. And my job is to keep moving forward into the storm and do everything I can to make it right. I choose to tune into the station of hope in my fellow citizens and I am certain that we’re on the right side of this history. It does suck having to field all this gross insanity but this is the time I was born into..with you and everyone else. I choose to work as if we will prevail. Why not?
I gave you a "like," Amy, as a salute to your defiant spirit. But I believe your optimism -- exactly like Neville Chamberlain's -- will be your ultimate undoing. Having (involuntarily) lived most of the first quarter of my life in the South; having witnessed the literally infinite, literally irreversible Evil of its sadistic enforcement of Aryan male supremacist racism and Christian misogyny; having witnessed the metastatic embrace of that Evil by the national white Ecogenocidal Majority; I can no long entertain any delusions about how this always-criminal realm has at last become precisely what it was founded to be -- one failed nation, tyrannized by God, indivisible with unmitigated hatred for all females and all non-Aryan males. I am thus evermore thankful I am terminally ill and presumably will soon be dead.
My heart goes out to you. I too am terminally ill and now too debilitated to participate any furthere in the fight to save our terminally ill democracy. Thid is all so heartbreaking and not easing the final journal for folks in our situation.
HI Loren, Thank you for the "like' despite your strong feelings otherwise. That means a lot to me.And I am so sorry for any suffering you may be having with your illness. That cannot be adding to your sentiments. I do so wish you ease. I only wish to be clear on the fact that I will not be undone, as you write, because what I wrote is the way I choose to show up in my life for everything that comes my way. I know what it is to be almost taken down by "evil" (really just severe mental health issues) as I am a survivor of domestic violence. I found my way through 6 years of terror and danger and came out stronger and more able to love than when I went in. I have a fighting spirit and I would not have it any other way. And if others can't find their fighting (loving) spirit and they wish to hitch a ride on my train, well then...excellent. If not, I march on. And I do strongly believe that somehow, goodness will once again gain the upper hand and the tides will change slowly back to justice. IN fact, goodness is everywhere...just not as eye-catching as the drama and cruelty seem to be. Its a long, ridiculous slog, for sure. But it happens one heart at time in we humans. I'll just keep working on mine because I can't think of a better way to spend my days than trying.
Amy, your efforts and remarks resonate with me. I have lived a long life, but I,nevertheless, feel this is the “time I was born into”. And will continue to fight for democracy in all the limited, but vigorous ways my body allows. For my head and heart will allow no less. Thank you!
Amy, I am with you! It is people with your spirit that will sooner or later bring down the Trump regime and be active in building a new government and a new economy.
The majority of Americans do not like or agree with the current fascist maga regime. That in itself means something. Although they fight to suppress it, we still have free speech. Our elections are independent and run on a state level and they cannot be federally tampered with outside of what we already know. No one is mentioning that gerrymandering will inevitably dilute Republican districts that may no longer be safe for them. They may be surprised. I am with you, Amy. There is hope.
Despite our shared cynicism Loren, I strongly believe that a despairing masses is exactly what those Christofascist c**ts want. People need to turn out at the mid-terms as though their lives depend on it.
Got that right Kazz McKnight because voter's lives & their children lives & just like my 30 day old new niece's life does depend on it.
I am in California & I just received my primary ballot, I can & will: (1) Vote Early, (2)Vote-by Mail & (3) Digitally track that my vote was received & counted.
Bryan Sean Mcknown, We’re having a local election in my town in MA for Select Board, School board etc. I just took my mail in ballot to our Town Hall as many of us do just to be absolutely certain it gets there. We are all focused particularly on the School board at this time of course. Like many of you who taught in schools that emphasized liberal arts thinking 💭, one of my sisters taught math for 40 years at a private school outside Boston. When I asked her about math, she said: ‘I really taught my students to think. I could have been teaching English literature!’ Her students elected her as a contestant for The Best Teacher in the United States. I only taught dance for a brief time, a mix of modern and jazz.
I gave stars to students who fell down or had two left feet because overcoming deficits or problems is really how we make progress in this world isn’t it? Overcoming obstacles even those that seem impossible seem to exist in fables in myths in our determination now to overcome the prejudice
vs people of color.
It makes me so angry sometimes now that i feel as if I might self destruct-incinerate as I felt reading Heather’s post today about the 6 revolting injustices that walk equality backwards.
With ChristoNazi theocracy now made permanent by gerrymandering, it might actually be a more effective protest to boycott the election. (I have always voted, missing only one election in my lifetime, that because I moved too late to re-register.) But why countenance corruption by voting in a fixed election? The Robbers' Court's approval of the (unlimited) gerrymander does exactly as our plutocratic masters intended it to do -- it effectively declares the "Unified Reich" a one-party state.
The GOP neofascists don't want a theocracy. That would mean putting a religious leader at the head of the government (see Iran, for instance). They want to impose ONE (hollowed out and fundamentalist) religion onto all, over time.
They also want the rest of the world to do so, but, contrary to the Nazis, the neofascist GOP agrees with Putin and his palace ideologue Alexander Dugin (strongly admired by many Republicans) that the most stable way to have fascist regimes everywhere is to use the LOCAL dominant culture and religion and impose it as a form of nationalism (trying to make people proud of their "differences" with other nations).
In this way, neofascists in Russia, Turkey and now the US believe, the mistakes of the Nazis can be avoided and democracy defeated once and for all. Result? World peace thanks to the leadership of "the best".
Think about it: if our elections are gerrymandered unwinnable, they are therefore not legitimate elections. In that case, would it not be more effective to boycott the election rather than surrender to the ChristoNazis by participating in (and thereby legitimizing) their atrocity?
Cartoonish messages from our wicked, would be dark lord have been mercifully quiet for a day. What splendid relief. The air feels clear and easy to breathe. A sign of what it might be like when he's gone for good.
In the meantime, I recommend to everyone that we stick together, focus on our work to save America from the fascist kleptocrats and break the racists efforts to undermine democratic voting rights.
I have a Q Loan Bliss. Has the LFAA community ever seen or read Professor Richardson misapply a WWII history lesson? Answer: Never --- not even once.
Apparently you did not read HCR's recent series on the 'Battle of the Bulge'. There was an extremely violent "Bulge" in that extended WWII battle on the way to VE Day in Berlin.
Back to the last 24 hours, Spoiler Alert: The fierce maga opposition is losing sharply again & again on many fronts across this nation & even on this platform.
Our current political-tactical reality is changing players & coalitions with major positive impact on harsh realities. Here is a mini-memo I sent HCR last afternoon when only a few of us are posting.
A minute please while I go a fetch my post yesterday. Here it is as posted verbatim:
"Per Axios' authors Andrew Solender & Kate Stalitz "Dems by pass Mike Johnson with the help of R's PASSING a package of Russian sanctions & billions of dollars of Ukraine Aid."
So major resources were just sent to Ukraine over the Reverand pebble. Ukraine is now a world leader in counter attacks with state of the science not "art" drone technology.
Thank you. Substack Inc's binding CA contractual Terms of Use (TOU) duties are owed mutually including the Platform & "Kaufman" (sic) -- duties to all "Readers" & "Authors".
I had a 30+ year career in prosecuting bad faith CA contract behavior.
On other major Platform disputes, I was pleased to see a Jury give META a scalding verdict.
Hey Loren I want you on stage on comedy open mic following my story of how I smuggled in an ounce of weed from Jamaica (early 1980s) by shoving it up my ass wrapped in small prophylactics so the dog sniffers couldn’t sniff it at the airport. The reconstitution effort was a bit messy. And when I once rolled one up and passed it around to my friends, one of them said, I kid you not, “Man, this shit it fantastic but it smells like shit.” I don’t smoke any more but I hope y’all enjoyed my story.
Like Trump, Hitler came into power through a legitimate election - and then worked to perpetuate his hold on power by using his office to obstruct elections.
Like, Trump, Hitler came into power with a coalition of those who were more afraid of communism than fascism - plutocrats and populists. And with an assist from German Communists who refused to join a coalition of more moderate democratic parties.
Like Trump, Hitler worked to destroy an independent judiciary, turning the judicial system into an arm of his party and draining German law of justice.
Like the Nazis, Republicans play on themes of white supremacy, white privilege, and white grievance - working to marginalize others and to deny them their civil rights.
''SCOTUS Approves Democracy, Provided It Remains Theoretical''
America’s finest legal minds have once again put on their sacred robes to explain that voting rights are precious, unless voters start touching them.
The problem, apparently, is not that Black voters are underrepresented. The problem is that some of them keep trying to elect people they prefer. This has created a five-alarm constitutional emergency among Republicans, who believe democracy works best when voters are sliced, diced, packed, cracked, and stored safely away from political outcomes.
Louisiana even declared an emergency to stop an election already underway. About 45,000 ballots reportedly will not count, because election integrity now means protecting elections from the people who already voted in them.
Tennessee cracked Memphis into pieces, because nothing says “representative government” like feeding a majority-Black city into a legislative wood chipper and calling the mulch federalism.
One Republican lawmaker helpfully admitted the goal was to “maximize partisan advantage,” which is refreshingly honest, like a bank robber pausing mid-heist to update his LinkedIn.
The new rule is simple: if Republicans lose voters, they redraw voters. If they lose districts, they redraw districts. If they lose the law, they ask the Court to hold its beer.
This is not conservatism.
It is minority rule in sensible shoes, carrying a donor list, a district map, and a very sincere concern about “fairness.”
Brilliant! ''SCOTUS Approves Democracy, Provided It Remains Theoretical!''
I used to be a person who liked my analyses to be free of context and divorced from how they actually worked in practice. Sheesh. Embarrassed every time I think of how I used to be.
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the [male] inhabitants of such state, being [eighteen] years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such [ ] citizens shall bear to the whole number of [ ] citizens [eighteen] years of age in such state." --Sexion 2 of the 14th Amendment.
Pretty clear. Reduce the head-count for assigning seats by percentage of Blacks in these Racist states. ¡Et voilà! Six racist states forfeit seventeen-to-twenty-one lily white seats in Congress.
Alabama from seven seats to five;
Florida from twenty-eight seats to twenty-four, perhaps twenty-three
Mississippi from four to three seats, perhaps two;
Louisiana from six seats to four;
Georgia from fourteen seats to ten, perhaps nine seats; and,
Tejas from thirty-eight seats to thirty-four perhaps thirty-three.
Not sure that I see a difference: " . . . . or, in any way abridged . . . ." It seems to me that the nullification of a vote comprises an abridgement of the right to *vote.
EDIT P.S., the vote is the means by which the governed confer consent or express dissent; gerry-'meandering' mutes the voice of Blacks in voicing that consent or dissent by excluding their voices from legislative debate. Sounds like a truncation of the scope of the right to vote, or an abridgrmnt of, said right.
"We must have the highest voter turnout of all time."
"Democrats will have to win congressional elections by 3–4 points in order to win a majority."
This means all potential Democratic voters - every one of us opposed to the Republican regime - must vote as a strategic joint exercise in taking power.
Unity at the ballot box gave us Civil Rights legislation and Supreme Court justices who upheld it. Unity at the ballot box gave Republicans the legislative and judicial power to overturn our constitutional rights. Only unity at the ballot box will let us take the levers of government to restore our constitutional rights.
I am a poll worker in my town. Our spring primary had a 50% turnout in all districts. That’s really high for a spring primary. I have some hope that we’ll see a huge turnout in November.
Along these lines, all these new gerrymandered districts in red states result in dilution of Republican districts. These new districts are based on historical election results. Currrent polling and a strong blue voter turn out have a potential to backfire in the midterms for the maga crew. At least I’m hoping so.
Yes, the former Confederacy rises again -- not only on white supremacy.
More, on unaccountable aristocrats, who've contempt for the mere "people."
It now covers, too, historic "aristocratic" grift, Donald as both plaintiff and defendant, with the greatest U.S. corruption ever.
He’s just found a way to get from American taxpayers $10,000,000,000.
No appropriation from Congress, Americans already inured themselves to thievery normalized – all just abstracted: billions just added to the federal debt (whose annual financing only makes the banks richer, the debt worse).
This is the Trump/Epstein class enriching themselves again, above all law again, answerable to none. Do people get hurt? The 1,200 young women and underage girls raped by Donald’s pals got hurt. But then we’ve had decades of school testing to normalize all human hurt.
The tests long ago replaced reading, discussing, and writing essays based on whole books in U.S. schools. Gone, all the human complications in novels, memoirs, histories. Now, only prepping for testing. All machine gradable. All reducing imaginations only to most abstracted rationality conceits: grouping, categorizing, and mechanical linearity as the only causality.
Massive, dehumanized corruption has stolen our democracy. Along with enriching the world’s greatest thieves, none who ever take questions, not from students and teachers, nor from the raped.
What's happening in southern legislatures today hasn't got diddly to do with standardized testing in schools, but what lies in the hearts of the arrogant bastards trying to re-enact what they had a century and a half ago, now that they've been given a green light by 6 Supreme Court judges who still pen their individually written essays with great flourish and self-justification.
I think standardized testing is more of a symptom than a cause, yet is part and parcel of commercial dehumanization that I believe is manifest in many ways in our society, including the "Equal Justice Under Law" Supreme Court blatantly disenfranchising blacks in particular, and the will of the majority in general to serve a plutocratic coup. Of course, that's exactly what they were hired for.
I am noticing (just as a minor example) how customer service tends to be less available the larger the company. Most are switching to AI, and in the past month I have had some contacts with robots that belong in a Monty Python sketch. One large company I dealt with in recent months simply has no phone number or email address to reach anyone available to the public. I had to get the Credit Card company to reverse charges. I could rant all night. Not that this is the end of the world, but it is symptomatic of a massive shift of control AWAY from the public in our society. And wasn't of, by and for the public supposedd to be what we're about?
This is the new corporate FO to their customers. They scatter their “executive” offices all over the country. No one can find out where, much less who to address any question or dispute to. Lately, having a technical problem with a new printer connected to my computer, I finally ended up at a screen that promised connection to a technician who could help with that product………IF, and ONLY if I gave them a credit card for a $1.95 charge! That is just never going to happen.
Somehow the public…..each and every one of us…..retrain the corporate assholes that WE are paying them for the goods or services that pays their salaries, and I do not know any other way to get their attention than a sustained national refusal to do business with any of these bastards. That goes for banks, mail order companies, insurance companies, and any one who has hidden themselves from accountability in the recesses of the web.
"But it remains true that, at some institutions that engaged in inappropriate conduct before, and may yet again, the buck still stops nowhere. Responsibility remains so diffuse, and top executives so insulated, that any misconduct could again be considered more a symptom of the institution’s culture than a result of the willful actions of any single individual. "
-- Obama's AG Eric Holder
I sixth grade the teacher gave us a rough introduction to how the economy was supposed to work. Competition between suppliers of goods and services was supposed to insure the best products at the best (for the consumer) price. I don't know what, if anything, she had to say about monopolies, but it was about then (more likely middle school) my US history book had a whole chapter about monopolists and Teddy Roosevelt, as if that war had been won.
This is especially when you refer to "what lies in the hearts of the arrogant bastards." Yes, arrogance. Unaccountability. Especially considering their one-way priorities only in all these tests -- millions forced to take them all the time (and to take their related clones around the world -- all based on the same conceits).
If students had teachers with their best human interests at heart, as Linda Weide cites elsewhere here, communication could never be dictatorial, one-way only. Discussion and essays could open up revisions, could amend questions coming from them, from teachers, others in the room, could have more being open to, citing others with lovely aptness.
Pseudo aristocrats, arrogant bastards, the Trump/Epsten rapists never have such openness. They want all the masses only fit for the machinery they heartlessly package and franchise, fit to the rapes they assembly line.
Arrogance and unaccountability are as about old as civilization itself. And Ivy League prep schools and universities still value humanities, essays and the like, as they always have, even when Brett Kavanaugh graduated from a Jesuit prep school 40 years ago. Didn't help him one iota.
They do not. Not "as they always have". A huge revolution took place since the 1990s. The humanities got entirely politicized, and all classics (and with it the method to read them) rejected.
The result is horrible. Teachers can't even ask students in tenth grade to read books anymore, because they have lost both the skill and interest in doing so.
Instead of having strong humanities departments at each university, these departments are gradually disappearing because they've become irrelevant. Instead of transmitting the very best of what previous generations thought and created, those departments cultivate a form of hyperindividualism, where "respect for the student" is now defined as letting him say or think no matter what.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is alive and well and thriving in high schools across America and the world (with the plurality of global enrollees American kids). You cannot graduate from IB without a ton of reading and writing — classics, history, geography, literature, multidisciplinary approaches to science and the like. Ivy League schools pay a lot of attention to IB precisely because its approaches to study are so rigorous.
If you are searching for culprits for reduced attention spans (which is what you appear to be getting at), suggest you look at technology. It’s called a “cell phone.” Perhaps you’ve heard of them. They are frying people’s brains, those of kids especially — all without the assistance of “politicized” classics (whatever that means) or standardized testing.
ICCT, this assessment is accurate. It isn't just the content of what is generated on cell phones; the rapid evolution of the video technology has changed how our brains process information. It is that introduction through fast moving, often loud, video information that comes at us.
It changes how the brain receives new data; reading is ponderous, and requires that the visual cortex work in conjunction with the frontal lobes to absorb the information. Video/audio information coming through the eyes goes on a different pathway, and circumvents the longer "thought" process.
Please note: I am not anywhere close to an expert on these brain processes. I started to get interested in this first by some classes that I took regarding kids access to violent video games, and information in those classes emphasized that the optical nerve delivers visual/audio information to the brain and the amygdala almost simultaneously while reading material goes via a more complex process. My personal introduction to this was when (many, many years ago) I could no longer watch the lead-in to Monday Night Football because it was too fast and too loud.
Curricula make a difference, and that is subject to political intervention, especially is Rabid Red states. My daughter's public high school biology warned parents that he planed to introduce some of the concepts of chemistry even though it was not part of the official guidelines. Good for him. It seems odd to me to start kids off with biology in high school since meaningful biology is can only be grasped with some exposure to physics and chemistry. My daughter had to memorize a long list of parts of the cell, but how many of us will need to recall such stuff in our daily lives? Heat of chemical activation, enzymes, chemical bonds gives you some deal of insight into how life works, and the core concepts are not that technical. It helps one to understand, for example, why stable environmental conditions are so important, and why even a few degrees of global climate change can be potentially deadly.
Ultimate irony: ALL of those IT graduates/STEM graduates are now being replaced by AI. And science? The administration has shut that down and driven our top researchers to other countries.
It can surely replace some of them. We have yet to see how well. Corporations are so eager to get rid of as many workers as possible that they are jumping on (for the most part) yet to be proved. Stephan Hawking believed that AI would become a nightmare for humanity. I think it might. Perhaps that's less likely if we give what we do or allow to be done, some forethought, consider the context of the common weal, and set regulatory limits.
For the most part, public school teachers have been effectively muzzled by the current administration. Any attempt at cultivating student discourse will be labeled DEI, Woke, Socialism. It only takes one disgruntled MAGA parent to complain to a school board, post something negative on X, or submit an article to THE FEDERALIST. In all cases, the teacher will be threatened while the district will be threatened with losing federal funding. Very grim.
What they want today is fascism. They can't install it as long as Democrats keep winning elections. So they want to break the voting power of THE most crucial voting block in elections: black people.
This isn't necessarily racist in intention. It's ideological, and a matter of math.
And how come one third didn't even vote in 2024, when democracy was at stake, while one third did vote, but FOR neofascists all while believing that they were voting against fascism?
Phil Balla is right: because THE key ingredient of democracies, as Aristotle already explained, is that citizens are well-educated, interested in thinking in a nuanced way about complex issues, and trained to deal with emotions.
All these things were taught and cultivated through activities in school that are rapidly disappearing, and for decades already.
Standardized testing is merely a symptom of a deeper lying phenomenon, one that IMHO is a huge factor in what is going on today.
I also agree that without a decent education, an understanding of civics, and an interest in what is going on, too many voters will simply grasp at shiny objects.
And when was the last time you won an election? Lmfao. You won an election and the guy who elected allowed 11 million illegals including criminals and un vetted unvaccinated unchecked criminals that have killed almost 500 American citizens since they've been here this is the guy you want to vote for.
"while believing that they were voting against fascism?"
Or felt like their suffering was being recognized after decades of "Reagnomic" policies that cheated most Americans big time, and a Big Lie machine scapegoating , minorities and immigrants. And decades of the Democratic Party often going along to get along, until we found ourselves in this trap. If there was ever a time to boldly (and wisely) fight, it's now.
It has been said that the love of money is the root of evil (though I say it's the exclusive obsession with gaining and exerting dominance). Money can be a form of that.
ICTT-Considering our nation's history, what's happening in southern legislatures has a lot to do with standardized testing in schools. Education is about teaching and learning but so much more. Education is political and schools have always been a battleground for fighting against racism and inequality.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down the Brown vs. Board of Education decision declaring that separate schools for White and Black children led to inherent inequality. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren described education as "the very foundation of good citizenship...today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."
As a result of this decision, the same southern states that are rushing to gerrymander districts to dilute the Black vote wrote a "Southern Manifesto" to point out among other things that education is not mentioned in the Constitution. They railed against "judicial usurpation" and claimed states' rights. These men serving in Congress from Confederate states unequivocally said, "we pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision". One hundred and one (101) southern politicians signed the document. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) refused to sign it.
I won't get into all of the machinations that have gone on since then to reverse the decision, but their efforts to thwart school integration have been vigorous and longstanding. In effect, public schools have been re-segregated with the proliferation of private schools, various educational policies and suburban expansion which have in many cases upended school integration.
No Child Left Behind required an inordinate amount of standardized testing. Culturally biased and multiple choice questions led to schools being classified as "high and low performing" based on test scores. All of this was supported by local, state and federal governments. The overall results: funding for low performing schools was minimized and some of the best teachers opted to teach in "high performing schools" leaving those who were in "low performing" schools with inadequate resources for teaching and learning.
Having taught for many years in highly rated colleges and universities, I've been amazed at the level of education that the "best and brightest" students who came from "high performing schools" bring to their studies. When I showed a film about Black people protesting for voting rights, classes were surprised by the use of dogs, billy clubs and firehoses that rained down on the protestors. I'll never forget when a group of students said, "you mean this happened in this country?"
There's more to say about all of this but I'll conclude by just saying that I agree with Justice Warren--education is the foundation of good citizenship. It's been more than 70 years since Brown v. Board. According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of U.S. adults read below the equivalent of a sixth grade level and 64% of 4th graders don't read proficiently. It's no wonder Trump said, "I love the uneducated" and Rs have been seeking to demolish the demolish the Department of Education for years. It allows them to continue with their propaganda and hateful actions.
The lack of education about our true history and efforts of lawmakers like SCOTUS and those in Congress who signed the Southern Manifesto do indeed relate to what southern legislators are doing to our voting rights (and other rights) in this nation now. These times are perilous. Phil Balla beats the drum often about standardized testing but it's always worth keeping education in the forefront. Educated citizens who think critically and act ethically can lead us forward if we truly believe in the promises of democracy and our humanity. These actions to take away the voting power of Black people just shows us that we have a long way to go if we want to change people's hearts and minds.
"It's no wonder Trump said, " 'I love the uneducated' ".
SO far as I can see Trump loves no one. "He loves only gold", and unlimited power. In reality he "loves" undereduca-TING, 'cause otherwise too many would be hip to his tricks. Not that a college degree is sufficient immunization for far too many.
Phil, these skills are being taught, just not everywhere. I am a former teacher. Many of my friends teach still. They have their students read whole books, write essays, read literature as well as historical novels. My daughter and her friends went to schools where they did this too. In fact, being on "Good Reads," a source that I am boycotting because it belongs to Amazon, is a norm in her friendship circle, and one can see that these young women read upwards of 50 books a year. in fact the friend who read the most last year read 136 books, the friend who read the least books just joined this year and is not a native English speaker, read 32. Then there are friends who read 101, 67, 51, and 91 books. There are influencer book clubs on social media too that are widely followed and people who follow those influencers read those books.
My daughter had tests, and they were mostly essay tests. Short and longer. Our students at the school where I taught do as well, although they also have standardized tests in certain grades. That is once a year. They tend to do well on these tests. This education has not changed, but I know that in Chicago there are also schools where students do not read whole books and where they do not write literary analyses. At my daughter's school, a friend's son just gave his senior project presentation which includes a paper, just as my daughter did her senior year. My friend is a professor at a local university and said his senior paper reminded her of the work she gets from her freshmen in college. That is because her school is exclusive and does get students who have learned to read and write critically, just as her son and my daughter did. Her son and my daughter also learned to do this in German, since he will come to University in Germany as well. All the Americans who are studying in Germany learned these skills in their high schools.
All of my friend's children whether they are in private or local public schools are getting the kind of education you say is missing, and they are also taking standardized tests. What you are describing is happening in poorer communities and shows the great divide. It was already that way in the 1980s when I volunteered in a South Side Chicago Public school once a week to teach reading and math. The textbooks they had were horrible, so I brought my own materials. The children could not read as well as I could in second grade. I was an early reader though. So, I know what you are describing exists. We have a two tiered education system which disadvantages children who are poor in Illinois. I do not know how it works in other states.
The rest of what you are saying I agree with. In fact, Anne Applebaum gave a speech yesterday in Vienna, in which she basically has written off the US as a democracy and lays the responsibility for providing democracy in the world at Europe's feet.
It is called A Speech to Europe 2026. It is a reflection on whether this is Europe's moment. In it she suggests what Europe can be to protect democracy, and it ties into our tech goals. I started the link 29 mins in because there was nothing before that, but might have cut off a couple words of the guy introducing her. It is called A Speech to Europe 2026. It is a reflection on whether this is Europe's moment. In it she suggests what Europe can be to protect democracy, and it ties into our tech goals. I started the link almost 30 minutes in because the 2 people introducing her are speaking in German. Her speech is in English. https://www.youtube.com/live/WEnUruup9YQ?si=rgjT-QcqC5LWxiZx&t=1774
Good of you, Linda, to cite Anne Applebaum's latest.
Most of us who read your comments fully respect your lifelong investment in education, and your perspectives from the best and the worst of that. Yes, as to what you observe of how, in your native Illinois, and sadly widely elsewhere, "We have a two tiered education system."
I would agree that our country is not a functioning democracy at the moment. But the infrastructure for restoring it is still there. I have gotten really weary of calling every election the “most important in our history” or even “in my lifetime,” but this November really feels like it is just that. All those other elections happened, the next day life went on as normal, and then we eventually had another election that allowed for a redirection, sometimes good, sometimes not, but always within the context of a representative democracy. This time democracy is on the line, for real, period, full stop. This is our last chance. Screw it up and the dystopia we’re dealing with now will look like a Sunday picnic.
Don't get me wrong: you should not, and cannot give up. You cannot just give the MAGA Nazis their way. But you do have to realize that, at least at the moment, America is not a democracy.
What we are seeing -- the conduct of the ChristoNazi Regime, the cunningly perfected, always plausibly deniable collaboration of the Democrats and the embrace of tyranny implicit in the refusal of the people to (effectively) resist -- is the true face of the (real), forever Aryan male supremacist "America."
Yup, that's the big idea of the Nazi Tech Bro Billionaires: steal everything from the people while continuously pulling the racism card to keep them distracted.
I think she puts things really well. She also aptly points out that Europe can go in that direction too, pointing out that Russia wants Europe to not be a military threat so they can do what they want and have the financial deals they want, and the US wants to break down the last democratic resistance to US big tech and other products. All of this would lower the standard of living in Europe greatly, because the manufacturing base would be taken over by China and the US will take over the tech. China too on tech. Europe would just be a client state.
Putin is working really hard to install fascism here in Europe, too. The easy thing for the fascists is: they only have to sow distrust. They don't need to build anything, just destroy. That's always easier.
In general it's easier to break stuff than to build it. That's kinda life's fundamental choice. Get quick bang for the buck with some kind of bomb, or trouble to build something way more satisfactory? It's an individual choice as well as a societal one.
False. If it even took Hungary, a VERY young democracy, a full decade to turn a democracy into a fascist regime, it will take much longer in the US. So NOW is the moment to fight back!
Yes, there are many who receive robust educations. One of our parameters binding the area we currently live in was a particular school district. Not everyone can be that choosy. My wife, who spent virtually her entire working life as a teacher knows of some teacher who gave up after fighting the politicization of of their craft. I think that cultivation of robust critical thinking is and always was, our best tool for facing the future.
Thank you for Anne Applebaum’s speech. May she be the universal champion of reason and hope and substantive reawakening of humanity’s obligations of tolerance, compassion and justice. It was brilliant!!
Yup. Jacques Cousteau once said that there are three infinites; the infinitely large, the infinitely small, and the infinitely complex, and while I don't think that is technically true, experiential it might as well be. Life is mostly much more complicated than A, B, C, or D, or even "all of the above".
A couple months ago I watched the movie Civil War which I’d been putting off for a long time. I found it to be a very well done film and shocking because how close it seems we are to the tipping point where violence is resorted to. It very succinctly puts to rest the notion that “that this could never happen here”, especially when you bear it mind the presence of over 300M guns, from 22’s to AK47’s in the hands of private individuals.
What I find equally shocking is that one truly evil man, a veritable American Caligula, is responsible for all of this by giving the populace permission to express its hate, greed, racism, misogyny and other base traits.
It’s been said (and I’m paraphrasing) that the veneer of civilization is no more than an inch thick. I would amend that to a millimeter.
i hope people there are prepared, Bennett...it seems, for the most part, only one side is prepared to play by the rules...and, if i guess correctly, it's not the side with the most weapons.
once again i'll say...Trump did not win EITHER of his elections fairly. i'm hoping this has become more obvious recently.
Been shot. Never owned a gun and don't intend to...it's a prediction, Phil...take/do with it as you will. Was Thoreau shot to death, too? Didn't know that...ideals are wonderful. They're just not bulletproof...
Maga will press every advantage...they don't feel ANY obligation to 'play nice'.
ICE wasn't put together for just immigrants...and I hope for all of your sakes that I am wrong about what I see coming...
That's exactly what Biden did. Robert Barron taking almost $1 trillion out of the miles of American citizens and giving it to illegal criminals. Ooooops
Rob Baron's taking almost $1 trillion out of the mouth of citizens and giving it to illegal criminals who have killed over 500 women and men and raped a couple thousand more. I hope you're happy.
When it is "over," only two realities are possible: (1)-the triumphant Nazis, Christo and otherwise, will have exterminated anyone with the legitimacy to conduct a proper audit, or (2)-our entire species will be extinct and our Mother Earth will be reduced to Precambrian lifelessness by the ChristoNazis' thermonuclear and biochemical destruction of the world to prevent the few remaining true humans from taking it back.
Ha ha… So I opened my stand up at a Methodist church open mic once. “God made a terrible mistake…” not a peep from the obeying Christian’s. The next morning the pastor called me to ask me to come in to talk about family values. I told him it was unnecessary and it won’t happen again but of course it did. The next time I read a short from my book the story titled “What my cat Babe and Donald Trump have in Common with each other.” I explained that if Babe licked oil in my skittle, he will crap diarrhea all over my house like Trump would if he won election. OMG, the host rushed the stage to stop me but I commanded her to wait till I finished.
I asked the earlier host a month later what was so bad announcing the god had made a mistake and she yelled at me “God doesn’t make mistakes.” I told her that was funny. I’m done with those Christian’s. They have no sense of humor.
Life enmeshes its complications, returns to honor its debts, piles up layers of nuance, takes deserving asides and digressions, explodes in new, unexpected news, tapers off in memory, admits contradictions, leaves space for relative clauses of additional consideration, and grows, too, with results from couplings we'd forgotten about.
I agree with Phil. I think standardized testing can sideline critical thinking. It is easier and less messy to standardize everything into categories—one right answer for every situation—and individually find our category rather than spend time in self-discovery. Standardized testing hamstrings teachers forcing them to adapt their teaching to the tests rather than allowing them to adapt their lessons to their particular students. Once upon a time teachers could be creative and different from one another in their approaches. Standardized testing has become the tail wagging the dog you might say. Where once some testing might have been helpful it has become a burden. But of course it became a whole profitable business now and the tyrant boss of students and teachers alike. Education has become enslaved you might say. Funny how our country always finds its way back to slavery in one form or another.
I am a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania. I agree with you about the effects of testing. Tests are being used to categorize people ,making a place for them and keeping them in their place which benefits those in power and those in the “testing industrial complex”. I often wonder how many people who could have contributed to our world were prevented from doing so because they could not past a certain test which had nothing to do with being productive or competent.
Cartoonish messages from our wicked, would be dark lord have been mercifully quiet for a day. What splendid relief. The air feels clear and easy to breathe. A sign of what it might be like when he's gone for good.
In the meantime, I recommend to everyone that we stick together, focus on our work to save America from the fascist kleptocrats and break the racists efforts to undermine democratic voting rights.
Ever since the liberals have taken control of the education system, we've gone from First in the world to 40th in the world and now our children are learning more about their genitalia than they are math and science thank God Trump took it away from Washington and gave it back to the states.
You know there used to be a song that finds everything I've said here remember that song years ago when you were a kid, beautiful dreamer. Why don't you get in touch with reality Phil the only thing I wish for you is I wish you were wealthy or well-known because then Donald Trump could sue you to oblivion for your lies and your bullshit and put in the poor house where you belong
Three economists. Steve Keen, Australian, Stephen Moore, Trump’s old bagman and Professor Jiang Xueqin, the game theorist from Beijing,
👺The Mask Off Moment
You have to understand what just happened there.
Stephen Moore said, “If we’re so evil, why does everyone want to come here?”
Steve Keen didn’t flinch. Didn’t argue. Didn’t even bother with statistics. He just looked at the bloke and k told him the brutal fucking truth in five words.
👺 “Nobody wants to go there now, mate.”
Because nobody does.
#
‘The whole planet has had a long, hard look at what 77 million voters chose three times, and the verdict is in. Hard pass.
You picked a bankrupt steak salesman. You picked an insurrectionist. You picked an adjudicated rapist who can’t keep his hands off anything that walks past him at a Mar-a-Lardo dinner. You picked the pedophile-protecting golf cheat with the spray tan and the personality of a wet shit. You picked him once, you forgave yourselves. You picked him twice, you embarrassed yourselves. You picked him three fucking times and now the rest of the world is sitting around the campfire wondering whether 330 million of you are too dim, too racist, too ideologically captured, or too fucking lazy to understand basic civics.’
And the answer is: probably yes to all four.
Keen wasn’t having any of it.
👺 “Stop reading Hollywood scripts and realise which planet you’re on.” said Australian economist Keen. That’s the line of the year. That’s the line that needs to be tattooed on the inside of every Fox News producer’s eyelids.
👺 “The planet remembers, mate. The Hollywood scripts only work on Americans.”
The Game Theorist Drops The Hammer
Professor Jiang Xueqin let Keen do the heavy lifting on the empire question, then came in with the kill shot dressed up as polite analysis.
“If you’re going to see regime change to stop this war, forget about seeing it in Iran. You need to see it in America.” said JIang Xueqin.
👺 Pause on that for a second.
That is a Chinese academic, on British television, telling Piers Morgan that the path to global stability runs not through Tehran but through Washington. That the bloke in the Oval Office, the geriatric grift artist with the Diet Coke button and the nuclear codes, is the destabilising force. Not the Ayatollah. Not Xi. Not Putin. Not Kim. The bankrupt steak salesman from Queens.
👺 And what’s wild is, he’s not wrong.
Jiang laid out the Chinese view with the kind of cold clarity you get from a country that doesn’t have to perform democracy for the cameras every two years. China brokered the ceasefire. China leaned on the IRGC. China, the country Stephen Moore keeps insisting is sitting on its hands, is the only adult in the room actively trying to stop the bloody Strait from being closed permanently because China imports more oil through that pinch point than anyone else on Earth.
👺 Jiang’s diagnosis was simpler. He compared the current moment to the 1930s. Global trade collapsing. Wars flaring. Nations turning inward. Petrodollar at risk. Gulf states reconsidering their entire business model after watching their cities get drone-struck because they kept saying yes to American basing rights.
And his prediction for the world economy?
❇️ “I think that we are heading towards a global depression and this is a process that could take decades. We are in a new normal. We are on the undiscovered country. The level of destruction, level of pain and suffering that we are moving towards is unimaginable. So, buckle up.”
Steve Keen’s Apocalypse Receipts
❇️ Keen brought the actual numbers, and they’re worse than any of us have been told.
30 per cent of the world’s helium supply: gone. 30 to 50 per cent of fertiliser: gone. Half the planet’s industrial sulphuric acid: gone. Not “supply disrupted.” Not “temporarily off market.” Gone. Blown to fuck by Israeli and American strikes on Iranian processing infrastructure that the Pentagon either didn’t know existed or didn’t care about.
❇️ This isn’t an oil shock. This is a manufacturing apocalypse. You can’t grow food without fertiliser. You can’t run a semiconductor industry without helium. You can’t run modern industrial chemistry without sulphuric acid. The mongrels in the Situation Room blew up the chemistry set the entire planet runs on, and they did it because Netanyahu sweet-talked the dropkick-in-chief over a steak at Mar-a-Lardo.
❇️ Then Keen got to the part that genuinely made me put my coffee down.
☠️”Some of them have 96 per cent dependence upon desalination. If it goes that far, people are not going to starve to death. They’re going to die of thirst.”☠️
❇️ So the worst case here isn’t recession. The worst case is a humanitarian catastrophe across the Arabian Peninsula that makes the Syrian refugee crisis look like a school excursion. ❇️
🤡 “And the bloke who started it, the orange trainwreck, is currently posting on Truth Social about how the Strait of Hormuz “isn’t a big deal because we have plenty of oil here.”
That’s the leader of the free world, ladies and gentlemen.’🤡
*use the link to read the entire article and see the videos*
In the context of the story cited here, my point here is tangential. But every time I read it stated that the animal we have for a president was convicted of rape, I want to scream NoNoNo he wasn't. (Not to say he never raped anyone.) In a civil court he was found liable for damages for sexual assault. E. Jean Carroll did accuse the president of rape but that was not the case that went to trial. "He" was found liable for damages to Ms. Carroll for sexual assault. I hate to see people misstating a central fact because it might call into question other facts stated. And this feeds into the president's allies allegations that if one fact is misstated, EVERYTHING is fake news.
PS: IFLA, the author of the piece JaKsaa presents here, isn't the only writer who has erroneously reported that the president was convicted of rape.
The felon admittedly assaults women…and is quite proud of himself for doing so. We don’t need court bits to tell us what his personality exudes every time he opens his mouth. He could be the greatest president we’ve had in 50 years…..but his assaults make him the man he is today…not fit for ANY society.
And now in his dottage he may not be physically assaulting women, but he certainly verbally assaults them every chance he gets. Witness his nasty exchanges with female reporters.
And that final conviction for rape is exactly why he is doing everything that the Office of the Presidency gives him to hide the truth that is in the Epstein files.
Jean Carroll sued the president in civil court only, never in a criminal court. If you lose in a civil court in NYS you're found "liable," not "guilty." "He" was found liable to Carroll for his sexual assault and defamation, not of rape. He may well have raped women (at one point his first wife accused him of rape) but he's never been convicted of rape. Words matter, especially when people are using legal terms. When we misuse words we lose credibility .
Exactly.. that is why he is so determined to hide the Epstein files. It is a sure bet that there is unrefutable proof that he raped an underage girl. The E Jean Carroll case has nothing to do with what is in the E files that he is so desperate to keep sealed.
The day after I "early" voted for Kamala Harris for president, I absolutely believed that if the Orange Pustule actually won, all the world would experience a global DEPRESSION worse than the 1930's.
I based my prediction on knowing his financial debacles in NYC, as I was living in Connecticut about 40 miles from Manhattan in the 1970's and 1980's. He was a f*cking joke in the newspapers, news media, and tabloids. No one had ever imagined someone could run a casino into the ground financially, let alone three! He was never accepted into New York City elite circles and never would be. He was classless, crass, inelegant, boorish and stupid.
If Americans put him back in the WH, he would cause worldwide economic misery, i.e. another global depression much worse than the one in the 1930's. I take no satisfaction whatsoever by this fearful prediction because it just means we will all suffer until he is removed or dead.
Yup, as much as I hate to admit that I like seeing the impact of his (bad word!) on the MAGA, I realize that we have to suffer along with them. I do feel that they are getting it worse (and boy could I turn a really nasty bad word phrase for that, but I will stifle the urge).
With the history HCR writes today, is anyone surprised at how the deep south ranks the top for every bad attribute, and bottom for the good ones?! You'd think these people would finally wise up!
Steve Keen is a smart man. In another recent interview, he stated that the carrying capacity of humans on the planet, without that fertilizer... is 2bn thats 1/4 of the current pop. The consequences of this "adventure" will literally be life changing for many.
Joyce Vance just wrote "The Redistricting Race to the Bottom" which Heather cited -- it makes for an enlightening read.
We are the only 'democracy' whose highest court blesses gerrymandering for partisan purposes, which, in turn, serves as the smokescreen for the neo-confederate, race-based 'fuck you' now taking place in southern state legislatures. No other modern republic comes close. In Canada, redistricting of provincial delegations to Parliament takes place under the aegis of independent commissions, which are, in turn, appointed by federal and provincial judges, not by provincial legislatures. It takes place once (and only once) a decade, adjusted solely for population changes. The rules and procedures governing how those commissions operate are nothing, if not heavily regulated and overseen. A political party attempting to seize control of the process would be met with outrage and laughter -- it wouldn't pass a basic giggle test in the court of Canadian public opinion.
The same is true with Britain's more than 500 constituencies. In South Africa, complicated algebraic formulas are used to ensure no party gets an edge in a 'first past the post' election system, which is what most lower houses in most parliaments, congresses and assemblies in the world are based on. Small wonder Justice Alito cannot tolerate any argument based on international law or procedures which differ from his own "originalist" thinking.
We are the only republic which lets the foxes guard the henhouses. The foxes then get to name their favorite hens things like "Giblets" "Mushroom Gravy" "Finger-Lickin' Good" and the like...
A race to nothing but a dinner table where our elected officials serve us only for supper.
In the excellent *Autobiography of Malcolm X* he describes the American table, groaning with the weight of a feast for the wealthy whites, and the rest of us (in his case, Black Americans) are supposed to be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from that table. That has always struck me as profoundly true of capitalist, classist, racist America. We must, once again, rise up.
You may get your wish (and mine) in ways both strange, yet obvious. Five Republican state Senators in South Carolina just joined all Democrats, blocking a resolution that would have brought the legislature back in session to try to carry out this absurd, last-minute redistricting. Everyone was under the impression that would be the last word. That was before South Carolina's pea-brain governor (who can't even run another term) announced he would be doing exactly that. If that happens, new boundaries will have to be approved in 2 weeks time.
The Senate leader, Shane Massey, who voted against all this nonsense, said the legislature should actually be trying to pass a budget instead, adding "very candidly, you're going to motivate Black turnout, and there will be repercussions from that."
From your lips, your post, straight to God's ear....
Hey joyce you're about as levelheaded as Heather if you're any more left to be falling off the ship into the water Romeo why don't you take a look at where the districting has been all these years, especially in the northeast we despite the fact that almost half of the population votes on either side of the aisle and the northeast has literally almost 0 Republican representatives in Congress and now you're complaining
Question: After your writing about Trump staying up at night and doing memes - is he really doing those or is he sitting with a buddy who really does them? It doesn’t seem like Trump has the skill level for that.
seriously, though...many of the lies are EASIly followed up on to prove them lies...why are they allowed? am i naive or something...? since when did everyone(in the govt) become complicit and make it ok? (question not aimed, specifically at you. i'm just wondering out loud).
A degenerate, depraved, demented moron with power always oozes his depravity outward. It doesn't matter if he hires somebody else to do the deed. 'The fish rots from the head downward' as numerous folk sayings in numerous cultures can attest.
We need to be interested in understanding what is happening but we need to be a lot more interested in understanding how to be effective in our responses, and effective responses all involve molding public sentiment. Same as it was before and in 1858, is now, and ever shall be.
I wish that every woman and every non-White person would leave these Southern states like Blacks left during the Great Migration at the turn of the last century and move to Northern, Western and Midwestern states that are not dominated by these White Supremacist racist misogynists. Voters should let their feet do the walking.
Donald is cognitively slipping. He is at a point where he cannot learn new things, a necessary requirement for his job, and therefore he is surrounded by people who repeat the same old tropes that he knows. Do we trust these people? NO!
Unfortunately I know some women who are absolutely sure that this administration is doing everything right, not just for the country, but for them as well. It is very difficult for me to be able to have a conversation with them because of their Fox News indoctrinated ideas of how bad the Democrats are for the US. One of them was able to get Medicaid some years ago for her parents because of Obamacare, but she still thought Obamacare was a scam! I keep going back to the lack of education in the US : we have created a population who needs to be angry at a group, so they can blame someone else. We all need to realize we are responsible for today's America. Like you, I do not live in the US at the moment. And yes, Anne Applebaum is right about the burden of continuing a just and democratic world now lies on other countries outside of the US. The Europeans I meet, hate our administration, and have a difficult time comprehending how it came about.
Dr Stephen Hassan has a PhD in cults. He has a substack and multiple books. He teaches how to speak to people who are in the MAGA cult in order to guide them out. If you have the energy, it might be helpful to learn his techniques in order to try to help these women exit the cult.
I am sorry for women and men who are brainwashed by their circumstances, but more sorry for those who suffer the consequences of their voting. The US has created a rich and poor White grievance culture. A backlash to affirmative action. Greedy, selfish people holding onto power.
Ligia, I meet both kinds of Europeans, those who are nationalistic and do not like change, even though they are not personally suffering, but they are narrow minded, and then people who are more democratic. That is why I live in the city in which I live because it is welcoming and tolerant as a whole, with some exceptions of course. Here is Anne's talk if you did not see it. I have cut out the 2 people introducing her because it is mostly in German. Her talk is in English. https://www.youtube.com/live/WEnUruup9YQ?si=UjeY5rlo5PktqNiN&t=1755
Why, Ligia, do "their Fox News indoctrinated ideas" hold such sway with them?
Simple, for anyone who knows the history of the 1971 Powell memo.
The first goal of all its far-right foundations, through all the remainder of the 1970s, was to kill humanities in schools. The rich and the corporate knaves all hated the energy people got from the films, novels, songs, histories, memoirs, and other arts of that era.
The very-well-funded, very-well-organized foundations did kill the humanities, K-12 and "higher." This cemented the far-right politicians with the moneyed interests, and also cemented the Dems as united also with the moneyed interests, but also as illiterate as the Republicans with the humanities still in touch with the American people.
As a person who grew up in America and now, for 25 years has lived in Europe, I'm saying it's been easy to see if one was willing to look...but I'll spare you what else I see coming just down the road..Hint: it isn't the British...
Just imagine having a child who fits that description! She married into a family that is in a very legalistic Baptist church and drank the koolaid to the point people who knew her previously have said to me "....she sure has changed."
I think I have already welcomed you to the forum, as I recall reading your little bio previously. If not, WELCOME!!
No AK. I love dissenting views that have substance. When they don't, I want to hear reasons. That is what I would expect from the the third, fourth, fifth graders, high schoolers; as well as the Kindergarteners I have taught. One of my student's mom's said our weekly third grade class meetings are what gave her child the critical thinking skills that got her into Yale.
You sounded like you were complaining so I was suggesting save yourself the trouble, not that you should not be here if you relish interacting with "a population who needs to be angry at a group, so they can blame someone else."
I would have sworn I block AK before when he went full MAGA on us. But now he's back. Sad to see someone with such limited critical thinking skills as AK.
There is a difference between offensive anger and defensive anger, just as a person who defends him/herself from a home invasion is not really the same as the person who invaded their home even if they are both 'fighting'. Or.... maybe you think we should all roll over and allow ourselves to be destroyed by the coming neoNazi regime?
"Tennessee is a conservative state, and this map ensures that our congressional delegation reflects that,” Republican state senator John Stevens said."
There are NO MORE CONSERVATIVE politicians. Republicans are 1) Racists, 2) Misogynists, 3) Xenophobes, 4) Hateful, 5) Cruel, 6) Arrogant, 7) Greedy, 8) Uneducated.
Which of these qualities will bring down the Republicans?
I am not confused at all as to what are Nazis. I have known Nazis in Germany, in fact, and am glad that I don't know any now. I know the beliefs, the thinking, and the US has death camps or have you not been paying attention. It was not on day one that the people in the death camps were put in gas chambers. Everything did not happen on day one or the first year. Does one have to say these people are like the Nazis at such and such a point to point out that with morals and values and willingness for people to die they are in the same camp.
It is following and we are trying to stop them. Good news is that Chicago just won a lawsuit that allows them to surveil ICE. That is part of it. Documentation. We need to document what we are going through.
Sadly, Linda, I am in THE Most Corrupt State of Ohio, where the Nazis seem to have set up camp some time ago. It is now they feel emboldened to come out in the open, and that is incredibly frightening. After the incredulous statements made by the top 2 national Nazis, Springfield Ohio is more or less a ghost town now. People are afraid to venture into the open for fear of what may be lurking in the shadows. Here in the Cleveland area, it hasn't seemed as terrible, but now that the growing season is upon us, the rural areas, and the wine/grape regions that rely on immigrant labor are on constant guard. It is definitely real, and unless stopped now, it will only get worse.
If you are interested in why Trump behaves the way he does, then consider reviewing the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and see what you think:
Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and how severe they are can vary. People with the disorder can:
Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.
Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.
Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements.
Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.
Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people.
Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.
Expect special favors and expect other people to do what they want without questioning them.
Take advantage of others to get what they want.
Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
Be envious of others and believe others envy them.
Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.
Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office.
At the same time, people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they view as criticism. They can:
Become impatient or angry when they don't receive special recognition or treatment.
Have major problems interacting with others and easily feel slighted.
React with rage or contempt and try to belittle other people to make themselves appear superior.
Have difficulty managing their emotions and behavior.
Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change.
Withdraw from or avoid situations in which they might fail.
Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection.
Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, humiliation and fear of being exposed as a failure.
Trump most likely has the more severe or malignant form. It is part of core personality and only gets worse over time - especially in older age. See what you think. He is likely to have worsening/escalation of his symptoms over the coming months and years. He uses distraction to escape from situations with poor outcomes that he has usually created but when the distraction (e.g. the Iran war) has a poor outcome it causes further injury to his weak ego and further decline.
No doubt he narcissistic personality disorder. But what is wrong with the millions of people that follow him. Almost no one that knows Trump or has worked with him, wants to ever work with him again. Trump is loyalty to no one, yet if anyone in his circle of sycophants dares to say he lost the 2020 election, they are banished for life from everything Trump.
Are Hispanics black Karen? The Democrats need the Hispanic block to keep them in power. The Republicans have done a great job of convincing Hispanics to vote for Republicans and/or disenfranchising them as voters.
Who are the great Hispanic Democratic promoters out there? They need someone to look to that can urge them to vote and run for office in all levels of government.
There are lots of Hispanic Representatives in government- state and federal. And in many towns and cities. Hispanics supported Trump in 2024 but were chagrined when ICE started operating big time targeting Hispanics. We’ll get them back in November.
This is an important, depressing essay, impeccably sourced by the inimitable Dr. Richardson. The need to oppose these antidemocratic actions is obvious to anyone who is interested in preserving what remains of American democracy. But it is not the most time-sensitive issue before us. Donald Trump and his handlers are in the process of engineering an enormous swindle of OUR taxpayer dollars by way of a bogus lawsuit. Trump's DOJ is suing Trump's IRS for $10 BILLION dollars. That's TEN BILLION of OUR dollars. The lawsuit is completely bogus. All parties know that. The judge in charge of handling the suit has demanded both "sides" present briefs by 20 May showing why there is even a matter of contention, since both sides are branches of the same administration. So the Trump handlers and stooges representing both parties are rushing to produce a bogus "settlement" before that date, which the judge, apparently, has no authority either to forestall or to prevent being effected. Details can be found in the below essay. I'm not sure if there is anything we can do to prevent this theft.
Racial and partisan gerrymandering are formidable barriers, but they're not high enough to stop a Blue Wave, which is coming as surely as a tsunami after the ocean suddenly recedes from shore.
This -- the conclusion of many -- including Republicans nervously signaling to one another their desperation to hold onto something slipping from their hands like foam itself. In his Substack tonight, Robert Hubbell notes: "we are in the midst of a natural experiment to see how low Trump's favorability ratings can drop. About 47% of Americans believe aliens have visited Earth. 28% believe Bigfoot exists. Trump has already dropped to below "the aliens have visited earth benchmark" and is headed to "Bigfoot exists" territory."
No party can come back from this, especially when it keeps enraging voters by its ineptitude, incompetence, arrogance and complete fuckupery at the public expense. We must do our part by ensuring the Blue Wave is supported by money, passion, strong candidates and common sense responses to the miasma now hovering all around. As someone else said, 'ignore the noise, be the signal.'
We are again revisiting the virus of racism and seeing the failure of not resolving the issues that brought us the Civil War. Once again we are going to have to look at our electoral system and try to bring back the right of one man one vote. But the world now is much more complicated and this journey holds real risks for Country. We are in the midst of experiencing our failure to learn from our past history.
Part of me wishes the South would secede again. This time, let the backward bastards go. They would attract all the MAGA, gun nuts, Bible bangers, etc. from the rest of the country and good riddance, while the people with functioning brains would flee north and west. It wouldn’t take long for the South to achieve 3rd world status, and soon thereafter, collapse.
Also possible, that "all the MAGA, gun nuts, Bible bangers, etc. from the rest of the country" unite with Putin, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salamn, Erdogan, Xi, Kim, Sisi, Bukele, Milei, and all of Donald's fellow criminals, rapists, and other elites.
All of this gerrymandering is awful but it can often be thwarted by overwhelming Democratic turnout augmented by Independents and disillusioned Republicans. The midterms are no longer just a contest between Republicans and Democrats. It's a fight to determine whether we want to continue as a constitutional republic or if we prefer an autocracy ruled by a strongman.
The hidden threat to the midterms may be corrupted election software, something that is receiving little attention. Both companies that manufacture most of the election equipment and write the election software are now owned by Trump supporters. The Election Assistance Commission, like most federal agencies and commissions, has been stacked with Trump supporters and as recently noted by Mark Elias' "Democracy Docket," its technical committee that oversees election software has been gutted by Trump. The vendors contracted by the Election Assistance Commission to certify that the election software works correctly are owned by Trump supporters.
It is not inconceivable that the election software could be written to tweak close votes without detection to favor desired candidates. Election Truth Alliance conducted numerous studies of data from the 2024 presidential election and found numerous unexplainable statistical anomalies in an election where Trump improbably won all swing states yet Democrats failed to insist on any recounts. Paper ballots are an effective tool only if they are used to verify results of the computer tabulated vote. Local election officials test voting equipment on election day, but computer code can be written to deceive tests much as Volkswagen wrote their diesel engine management software to deceive emissions tests for years. So called "risk limiting audits" are so hit or miss they are a joke. For instance, in the 2024 election in Pennsylvania where there were questions about the presidential vote count, the risk limiting audit was conducted on the state treasurer race!
Trump must corrupt the midterms to keep Republicans in control of the House and Senate to complete his authoritarian takeover and protect himself and his cronies. We know he has no ethical or moral limits. He will do anything, legal and illegal, to achieve his goals. He and his sycophants are constantly surprising us with their ingenuity and brazzeness. While enormous attention is being paid to Trump's attempts to suppress the vote, no attention is being paid to whether or not he and his operatives are attempting to manipulate the vote count. Someone in authority must conduct a line by line forensic analysis of the computer code in our election software before the midterms. Democrats must challenge improbable wins by Republicans and stand firm if Trump tries to seize ballots and equipment in districts being challenged.
Like you, Urban Hermit, I see the potential for corruption in the electronic voting system as a greater threat to the validity of the election outcome, than gerrymandering is--odious as that particular corruption of our system is. Gerrymandering is something we can see and understand and measure. The recording and counting of votes cast, on the other hand is an opaque process manipulated somewhere in cyberspace by anonymous hacks.
My concern is with corrupt code written into the original computer programs rather than outside malware hacks, although admittedly they may have been a problem in the past and may still be. Trump supporters and operatives now control the entire structure. Local election officials have no more idea what the software is actually doing in their equipment than we understand what the operating systems and applications are doing in our personal computers as they siphon off our personal information and send it who knows where.
Thanks again, Urban Hermit. I'm pretty certain you understand the inner workings of computer programs better than I do and are correct that what's written into programs and operating systems should worry us more than hackers. Let's hope "our" people are smarter than "their" people. :)
It’s such an abomination— he’s stealing our votes our rights and our hard earned money with tariffs and his vanity gold bathroom. Now we have more garbage in this regime that will harm our democracy for years. The detention centers are cruel and disgusting dangerous
SCOTUS has always been complicit with the politics of the day. I learned a lot from the book, Simple Justice by Richard Kluger. He offers intricate details (more than 700 pages!) about the history of the court and the role that various justices have played in shaping American life.
There is unlikely to be a wonderful moment when all the MAGA and Confederate damage is undone and Black and brown and LGBTQ people are welcomed as beloved neighbors but there can be an election where the pendulum starts swinging the other way. The future of domed cities and flying cars never came but today’s reality bears little resemblance to the gravel roads and two lane highways of the 1950s. Everything evolves quickly or slowly, it doesn’t just disappear, it changes over time. Our political situation is no different. The underlying issues remain in some form and racial divisions are no different. We no longer list the number of lynchings In yearly almanacs but the enmity is still there. More people are more accepting and more people aren’t. We just have more people with a little kernel of haters included. Education helps immensely when it is story based and shared with everyone. We have work to do. Contact your representatives and vote Blue.
We must have the highest voter turnout of all time.
You know democracy’s up shit creek when the Supreme Court majority treat gerrymandering like a clever technicality instead of the slow-motion theft of representation, it really is. How do those cowards sleep at night?
How do they sleep at night? Instead of counting sheep to fall asleep they count their money & power! A think about ways to get more of both!
They sleep hanging upside down.
A very unfair comparison - bats are beautiful, intelligent, and sociable!
Yes they are! I love them. They eat the BAD bugs.
Perhaps karemm was thinking of vampires. Oh wait, don't they sleep in coffins?
I apologize to all bat lovers who may have been offended.
Or maybe Batman?
"How much is a bat worth? Protecting these tiny insect-eaters isn’t just good for farms – their deaths cost taxpayers and the wider economy"
.https://theconversation.com/how-much-is-a-bat-worth-protecting-these-tiny-insect-eaters-isnt-just-good-for-farms-their-deaths-cost-taxpayers-and-the-wider-economy-282014.
Sorry. I think any comparison is unfair at this point.
"Sorry. I think any comparison is unfair at this point."
Yes. Sometimes metaphor fails its narrative purpose to illuminate the facts. Sometimes it is more purposeful for understanding to report and analyze them as they are.
Yes! I enthusiastically endorse your comment as a co-producer of the Webby-award-winning "Bats! Furry Fliers of the Night" — a lovely children's book produced by my wife and partner, the late artist Ellen Jacob, in partnership with Story Worldwide. Written by acclaimed children's science writer Mary Kay Carson, it was the first-ever 3D interactive book-app for iPad. Sadly no longer available. But you can get an idea of what it was like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vANYCBdIbU (I can't even think about how awful the white supremacist Supreme Court is, but bats are not racist ideologues.)
Karemm, oooo! That is an insult to bats that are really awesome creatures; the Roberts 6 and the confederate governors and courts are not!
Now I know how Colbert feels. One little joke and...
Yes, you have to watch out for bat-lovers. They are plentiful and passionate. But all is forgiven. :)
Take comfort that Colbert has a huge number of fans.
There is an old phrase bats in the belfry. Two things can be opposite but also true. The folklore symbol of bats and vampires versus the scientific knowledge of these creatures. I honor the species and laugh at the folklore analogy!
Thank you. (Wish I had thought of that before I wrote today's satire. 😀)
I've heard rumors that they sleep in coffins.
Vampires or Trumpers?
What's the difference?
I don't understand the question. What's the distinction!
Good one.
Karemm, of course it was a joke, but even jokes today get responses, many of which are also funny, but get to the heart of the way people feel about the evil that is present in Trumplandia!
⬆️‼️🎯🎯🎯🎯👏🏼👏🏼
I used to say that these United States are the illegitimate bastard offspring of England. And now again. The sooner more folks realize that this is pure and simple a money drab, the sooner we will throw off the shackles of self defeatism. And stuff.
Bill, I am hoping we can connect with the people living in those newly-created districts to show them that they are being used and that those they are supposed to vote for care nothing for them while candidates like Justin Pearson and the others being pushed out of their offices really do care because they have more in common with the voters than anyone Republicans run these days. If they don't think so, point out to them all the programs that have been lost like healthcare and SNAP, the start of a ridiculous war that has no real purpose even though Trump is being coached to whine about nuclear weapons (when he was the guy who broke the treaty that would have kept Iran from having nuclear weapons), all the lies they have been told like about vaccines, and the price of gas and everything else that is not the fault of Biden or Obama, but their elected Republicans and Donald Trump. We need to work hard because many of those poor white people want so badly to believe they are superior to everyone else despite what they see and feel related to their actual situation. I think they can be reached, but it will take a lot of volunteers, candidates on the road, and a huge positive social media presence with a Democratic party that is entirely on the same page with the same platform across the country with points that address the needs of the American people. It can be done, so let's push to make it happen!
I hate STUFF. Spending money on stuff is like a dog chasing its tail.
Bill, speaking of money, when is some person going to ask Der Leader why the price of gas and diesel in the USA is so high if we (our oil companies) are producing more than we can use.., and selling it to the rest of the world.Yeah.., it's a stupid question, but he's a stupid guy. I mean we already heard him say he could care less about our shopping bill. Let's hear his answer. Farmers...? You listening? This is Der Leader. Sick man.
I get it. I am saddened but not defeated. I would gladly give my life for my country to end this madness.
Indeed.
He doesn't sleep. Orange Anal Pustule is up all night praising himself on his shit app.
Counting? Remember people who have comprimised mental clarity due to medications, substance abuse (bourbon and mint juleps are my unfair stereotypes) and biased media consumption; they are unlikelty to be counting anything.
Apropos, "...biased media consumption;" -- you've accurately described a modern reality eerily identical to what my grandparents' generation might have assumed was a newly created name for a brain-eating variant of tuberculosis. Well done, Ms. Lederman. Excaptionally well done.
Am I naive to think they’ve otherwise been fitted for cement boots?
I think they sleep very well at night.
“Tennessee is a conservative state, and this map ensures that our congressional delegation reflects that,” Republican state senator John Stevens said. “This is about allowing Tennessee to maximize its partisan advantage.”
Racism is real, obviously. But this time, we need to look at the neofascists' own arguments for doing this. Then, a different picture arises.
Vance is married to a woman of color. Trump is married to an immigrant. Musk loves Indian and Pakistani employees.
More importantly: when you read their ideologues, this time, racism is absent.
Conclusion: they sleep well because they are GENUINELY CONVINCED that FASCISM IS BETTER THAN DEMOCRACY.
This is the U-turn that one of the two major American political parties took (step by step, as Kamala Harris explains so well), and it seems as if many people on the left still don't get it.
If you are convinced that "conservatism" is undoubtedly better for the country than a leftwing approach, then only one more belief is needed to become a neofascist: the wealthiest people who share this view are by definition better at making decisions for the entire country than the 99% "mediocre" citizens.
Put both together, and you sincerely believe that fascism is good and democracy bad.
Once that's the case, you need to get rid of democracy asap. How to do so? By taking away the power of pro-democracy voters. What is one of the easiest ways to do so? Take away the power of black voters, since they overwhelmingly vote pro-democracy (and pro-Democrats).
I'm sure that the people who do this also believe that in the long run, fascism will be better for everyone, including black people.
So instead of dehumanizing them and imagining that they're "evil", we urgently need to up our game and explain why democracy is and remains much better than fascism.
All excellent points and well said. Except. They ARE EVIL if they wish to racially dominate and hand power to oligarchs to determine the course of our lives, our country, our planet.
Virtually everything the Republican Party has done, is attempting to do and wants to do is EVIL.
I think the wanton destruction of democracy, the deprivation of voting rights, the withholding of health care, the stupid wars, the blood sucking tax system...they are all EVIL.
No? If not, what is it? Just a little dust up over who gets government jobs?
Sorry. EVIL requires a response and that may need to be a revolution. Ideally at the voting booth.
There is no argument here. The Project 2025 folks think that only white oligarchs have the right, and the chops, to run the country - a point of view involving White Supremacy beliefs, patriarchal beliefs, a belief that empathy and compassion are weak, and Prosperity Gospel beliefs. They think they're "doing the right thing" AND their actions are DEEPLY EVIL.
“A few wealthy men dominated the region” — HCR’s description of the old south. But it also sounds like where the whole country is headed today.
Absolutely. Just replace "region" with "world."
Bill, agreed they are EVIL. Death star said it himself: he doesn't care about anybody....except himself and his billionaire suck ups. Just when the world needs wisdom, integrity, and government that work for all, we have death star and his greedy racist minions as a fast moving ball of destruction.
Democracy is built on the courage to believe that everyone is created equal. People may commit evil DEEDS, but no one IS "evil". This kind of dehumanization is precisely one of the main characteristics of fascism, so anyone who believes fascism is bad should absolutely continue to cultivate the belief in our common humanity rather than falling into the trap of imagining that others "are" evil.
Secondly, neofascists tend to believe that fascism will be better for society as a whole. They don't destroy democracy out of "cruelty". It's important to keep this in mind because it means that we CAN win this debate if we can show, through reasoning and evidence, why their sincere belief in the superiority of fascism is false. And this IS how to keep or restore democracy: through the strong belief in the other's innate goodness (rather than indulging in feeling superior) and then refute their truth claims.
And then, indeed, I cannot agree more, defeating them at the voting booth is and remains vital too.
We're on the same side here. I approach everyone assuming that they have "inate goodness". Often, that is helpful. But now, often, some demonstrate that they do indeed have EVIL hearts. There are people who ENJOY hating and hurting. Sadly, many running this country LOVE killing and torturing "others" in the name of their bullshit righteousness.
I will always look for the good in people and seek common ground whenever possible.
But to ignore the fact that here are EVIL PEOPLE who are cruel and ENJOY being cruel is exactly how we got to this horrific time in history.
The truly EVIL people should have been exposed, expunged, shunned or squashed like the poisonous bugs they are.
Yes, Bill Alstrom. I too approach everyone assuming they have innate goodness, but when they start espousing some “evil” BS (such as saying ICE is doing the right thing separating children from their parents) I disagree with them then gage how far they will go. When it’s too far, I walk away in obvious disgust. Immoral actions are not acceptable and patently illegal. On the whole, I do believe in our justice system, it’s just so slow these days (and SCOTUS is currently corrupt). “Exposed, expunged, and shunned” (i.e. imprisoned and separated from the community) is appropriate, but squashed like bugs implies the death penalty and that I can’t abide. I even try to catch and release errant bugs in my house - though I do kill mosquitoes who land on me in self defense.
I call BULLSHIT...this time around with all the history we have endured, with all the consciousness raised, these people KNOW they are acting with evil intent. I believe this makes them evil, wicked, selfish, unevolved, standing in the way of progress, pawns in the game. Oh, and if they dont wake the fuck up they will find themselves in dire circumstances along with all of us who aren't billionaires.
EUWDTB, I think you intended to say “equal" (in your first sentence) rather than “evil.” I imagine everyone reading it knows what you meant, but why not edit it to be clear. And I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying.
Correct, thanks!
Thank you. I was wondering for a moment what EUWDTB was saying. That clears it up nicely.
I am sorry to disagree, EUWDTB, because I have a lot of respect for you, but I have read tons of articles about what they intend to do (especially the tech bros), and to me it is the definition of cruelty. They may not be 'evil' per se, but that's hardly a consolation when the deeds seem to be evil by most logical definitions of same.
EUWDTB " It's important to keep this in mind because it means that we CAN win this debate if we can show, through reasoning and evidence, why their sincere belief in the superiority of fascism is false."
Unfortunately, it's fairly well proven that reasoning and evidence does not always change people's minds. Once people take a position (voting for trump) they will defend their choice beyond all logic. We are all subject to that tendency, but some groups seem more entrenched than others.
I agree too. I believe that characterizing certain people as inherently evil allows the rest of us to deny that we ourselves would ever be capable of an evil act. In my lifetime, and typically in a situation where I'm not really thinking of consequences, I have been guilty of acts which I would consider evil. It's important that I own my conduct. I believe this is true of everyone.
OTOH I also believe that, for whatever reason, inherited traits, injuries, or socialization, some people do not have the capacity to feel compassion or guilt for their acts which hurt others. Some derive pleasure from cruelty. These sociopathic people are typically not capable of being redeemed by treatment or punishment. They should never be put in positions in which they can inflict suffering and damage.
There is in Italy in a town near Rome a cathedral that has a mural of the anti christ from the 1300’s or so. The cathedral also has frescos from another painter the better known Fra Angelico. This city abd two others like Avignon were escape locations for popes including the sack of Rome. Freud was there and fascinated. They are weird and strange and evilly compelling. If I could do links Ibwoukd send. I learned of this through Matthew Fox the writer and former Dominican theologian.
You cannot win this argument by reasoning, because the people who believe in that system do not work from reasoning. It is an emotional process that the power and money for me is good and just as the orange moron said, I know what is good for everyone. That does not smell of reasoning to me. I don’t like the word evil either as it has faith based connotations. Believing that what is good for me is good for others is a delusional system.
If I may momentarily don my green eyeshade:
Your claim, "...many people on the left still don't get it" is grossly mistaken; the left has been warning of the never-ending fascist threat for decades, and only now -- after the threat has materialized -- are we not summarily dismissed as Cassandras.
As to "the people who still don't get it" -- and assuming "it" is the terrible truth of ChristoNazi conquest -- most data indicates their largest sub-group is made up of people too pridefully ignorant to comprehend what we have become.
Well written.
The difference today from past rascist uprisings is that the our Southern fascists are supporting a raving mad lunatic. He has lost us the respect of the world with his uncontained greed and self-aggrandizement.
What the hell, this should have been “liked” by every single person who’s on this thread. You’ve nailed it. It is fascism.
EUWDTB, we do have to get the word out about the positives of democracy and people actually having a say in what is happening to them. Fascists are so scared of everyone, they have to make sure that no one can stop them. That scenario works for some people who prefer not to think and to believe that they would never be the targets of those Fascists in charge. For the rest of us, it behooves us to stand up and say "NO" and kick the fascists out of office. It will take a lot of effort, time, and care. Fascism needs only hate, fear, anger, and resentment directed at the folks most likely to interfere with the fascists in charge. Those do nothing for decent caring people who want this nation to be a place that respects everyone and wants the same rights for all.
Your passage beginning "If you are convinced..." and ending with "Put both together..." is by far the best everyday-language explanation of fascism and its operational psycho-dynamics I have yet encountered. Thank you.
How can they NOT be evil, if what they are trying to do involves taking away -- not just our voting rights, but also our money and anything else that helps us stay alive, like healthcare? It seems pretty clear to me, after all I have read and learned, that they don't care if we live or die. If that's not evil, what the heck is it?
Excellent explanation of the power of elites. The 'people' should control the elite's power through the democratic process by debates and the regulation of laws and standards. The historical result of 'elites' destroying the 'democratic process' is mass opposition leading to violence, but that can take many decades (examples globably).
EUWDTB - "I'm sure that the people who do this also believe that in the long run, fascism will be better for everyone, including black people."
Just like the Southern aristocracy believed that society worked best when everyone else stayed "in their place", in a hierarchy where those born into wealth and prestige had the obvious right to rule, and those less fortunate were consigned to their appropriate subservient roles.
As today, the aristocracy managed to convince others to support their "cause" by appealing to "tradition", hate, and fear of losing whatever meager status they had.
You're doing a great job at molding public sentiment. Keep up the good work!
They sleep just fine because neither Roberts, Barrett, Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh nor Thomas have any integrity or principles. They were all nominated to serve the White, corporate oligarchy
Kazz, I'd imagine that they sleep well, thinking that they are depriving Black voters of choosing representation of their choice. Ironic that Clarence Thomas has no qualms about depriving so many that share his race and origins of their rights. Ginny must be so proud.
Nancy, I'm responding to your comment, but my advice is for everyone who is confounded by Clarence's alliance with white supremacists and apparent disregard for people who share his race and origins.
As a white person who has been involved in several intimate relationships with Black persons, we have had more than just "polite conversation" shared by persons of differing race or ethnicities.
It may come as a surprise to white folks that other ethnicities also sort themselves into "betters" and "less-thans," just as white folks do. Consider that the term, "white trash," is used almost universally by white folks. This "class-ifying" occurs in every ethnic group.
No doubt, Clarence considers himself better than "those Blacks" who haven't achieved the lofty position he has. He is no different from all "achievers" of every race and ethnicity who are oblivious to the fact that they had a lot of help getting to where they are.
Dale, I'm well aware of the fact that Black people often share the sentiment you describe of being superior to those who haven't managed to "pull themselves by the bootstraps". However, since Clarence came from very humble beginnings, one would assume that, while being proud of his accomplishments, he'd have empathy of others who weren't able to do so. When I see his ever-present scowl, it reminds me that he's apparently a very angry person - perhaps because his humble beginnings are a fact that he'd prefer to bury.
Nancy, I think you are probably right that Clarence is embarrassed by his origins. But I also think he just has a resting bitch face. 😁
Thanks Dale - an accurate description, for sure.
⬆️🎯👏🏼
Joy Rider, I suspect it requires drugs and hearing FauxFox ignoramuses telling them how wonderful they are and how beautiful their decisions in LA v. Callais, Shelby, and other cases were. Maybe their righteousness through their pseudochristianity works too.
https://yadontknow.blogspot.com/2025/05/no-balls.html
I understand but still disagree with the use of the "morally correct disrespect" phrase. Others might understand but still disagree with my way of expressing the same message. For example, from https://dearlstephens.substack.com/p/low-class-clowns?r=2nayrh&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=258494678
Earl … I was thinking about your “low-class” phrase when the “high-tech” phrase popped into my head. Then a crazy thought popped into my head. Then the “Is my crazy thought disrespectful?” thought popped into my head.
You can’t know for certain with this kind of thing, but long story short, I am certain beyond a reasonable doubt that NOT posting my crazy thought would be disrespectful.
This is crazy: To become a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas pretended to be a victim of a high-tech lynching. As a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence has been a perpetrator of low-class lynchings. Isn’t it ironic.
Thomas played the victim card when it’s convenient. He is a despicable man.
Yes ... he should have been listening to the wise words of Bob Marley when he said, "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds." There's always time for Clarence to seek redemption before he dies. Either way, the world's a better place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJHgMD1S0bg&list=RDMJHgMD1S0bg&start_radio=1
James, there is no amount of redemption that will cure
Clarence's hateful demeanor or actions. He and Alito are surely brothers beneath the skin.
I want hims strung up with razor wire by his weeny balls. My imagination is becoming oh so morbid.
unbelievably despicable
Likely with one eye open I’d venture…
It seems as if the Republican gerrymanders are exactly what the Supreme Court has just outlawed. Does it not? Cracking and packing Black districts seems to be quite obviously a racially driven gerrymander. Is there no legal recourse in this vein? This is an honest question and I’m interested in intelligent response.
Sean I believe the legal issue is that the Supreme Court distinguishes between racial gerrymandering (still unconstitutional under the Voting Rights Act and Equal Protection Clause) and partisan gerrymandering, which the Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) is essentially a “political question” beyond federal courts. So if lawmakers can argue they were targeting Democrats rather than Black voters, even where the overlap is obvious, it becomes much harder to challenge legally. That’s the loophole. The map can walk like racial discrimination and quack like racial discrimination, but if it’s framed as partisan strategy, the Court has largely stepped back.
We need to have a committee people will respect to undertake studies of other democracies and how they do representation. They should come up with three alternatives and we should vote on them and then we should implement one of them. We need a system that does not hitch representation to living place. It should be hitched to straight out population not Democrats versus Republicans. Maybe that would encourage us to have a multiparty system which would be also be an improvement.
Proportional representation?
They probably sleep quite well. They are excellent lawyers who, sadly (in your mind), interpret the law to bar racial discrimination. You don't seem to understand what "democracy" is. It is, in our republic, a judiciary, legislature and executive. That the judiciary doesn't interpret laws as you wish is not "shit's creek," it's democracy. You seem confused.
⬆️⬆️TROLL ALERT⬆️⬆️
Our newest troll is back. This one attempts to be oh-so intelligent (even likes to spout it's own qualifications.
DON'T FEED IT.
If you've accidentally done so, don't respond, because it ABSOLUTELY WILL try to one up you. LOL
Unless you enjoy poking these MAGA infiltrators to this forum, which as Heather has said, is SCARED by the left--then by all means, have at it. I will admit that the indignant self-important replies are HILARIOUS.
Oh, not again. I was just thinking how nice it was to be free of the last crop.
Ridiculous and hilarious!
We agree, and in addition to agreeing on the highest voter turnout of all time, we need to repeatedly (as in every day) remind ourselves of Lincoln's words about how democracies survive and thrive: “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.” Note that 1858 and 2026 are both in the same "age."
James, the regime will find a way to prevent voter turnout even by declaring a state of emergency for any made up reason. Dark days are coming and I'm saying this with a broken heart 💔.
It's not over yet! Yes, it will probably get worse before it gets better, but for now, two-thirds of the country is not on board with this, and even the one-third that automatically/blindly votes for the GOP still wants democracy instead of fascism. So they may rig elections, but they have NOT won the hearts of the people yet. That will be much more difficult to do, and in the meantime, we can fight back!
Yes, we are fighting back and getting ready to vote. I get informed every day and I get engaged in political conversations with as much people I can talk to .
If I assume I won't catch a fish, and if I act based on my assumption, then I won't catch a fish. And if my heart is broken because I didn't catch a fish, then I can't blame the fish.
In recent Ford Truck ads, an aphorism attributed to the company's founder is quoted: "Whether You Believe You Can Do a Thing or Not, You Are Right."
Yes, I saw that one, and I agree that he's saying the same thing. But thanks for that reminder to be more specific.
To be more specific, have faith. Without faith, you've already lost. But have faith that right makes might because, without that faith, might makes right.
Henry Ford had faith, but he also lacked character, and that was because he had the wrong faith. He changed the world ... okay ... but he caused an enormous amount of unnecessary suffering ... not okay ... big problem. Solution: a nation where people are judged by the content of their character.
James, I was just "chiming in." Henry Ford might be considered the Elon Musk of his day. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Henry was an evil racist. Full stop.
I can fight with a broken heart as well as I can fish with the same broken heart James. On the other hand, reality shows us that we missed a lot of opportunities to prevent this regime to get the power it is turning against us and the rest of the world. That's why I have a broken heart.
The dark side is the best place to see the light. The first one now will later be last. You'll feel a lot better when we stop pointing our metaphorical horns at the metaphorical cape and start pointing them at the metaphorical matador, and then you'll be very happy to not be a metaphorical matador.
I just write GOTV postcards, see some of those I write for win, and write some more.
"I just write GOTV postcards..."
Just?
Postcards from voters to voters are shown to boost turnout enough to change outcomes.
ThankYou!
Thank you for reminding US of the efficacy of GOTV postcards. Even 5 a day is better than none. Add: we must get as many Dems as possible elected in every state before DT sends ICE to the polls.
Chin up Ricardo, don’t let the bastards get you down.
Please stop with the craven pacifist fantasy about elections. Precisely as Trump promised, 2024 was the "last" (legitimate) election. What this gerrymandering means is the Plutocracy and its ChristoNazi rabble have made themselves unbeatable by (any) constitutional means -- that we are the conquered subjects of the Trump/Hitler Thousand-Year ChristoNazi Reich -- and so we shall remain forever -- unless at last we somehow evolve the courage, discipline and solidarity to apply the anti-Nazi lessons the Soviet People taught us during World War II.
Hi Loren. I think that we actually are developing and implementing the courage, discipline and solidarity to do this although, yes, we may just miss the boat at this point in our journey. But remember that people such as myself and so many others are actually, boots on the ground, working overtime all across the country to get others ready to vote. And Trump and his bizarre cast of characters is doing a great job of turning Repubs and Unaffiliated voters off which will affect turnout and voting choices. In short, I’m not convinced that these horrific redistricting power grabs can stave off the turning tide of civic awakening. And my job is to keep moving forward into the storm and do everything I can to make it right. I choose to tune into the station of hope in my fellow citizens and I am certain that we’re on the right side of this history. It does suck having to field all this gross insanity but this is the time I was born into..with you and everyone else. I choose to work as if we will prevail. Why not?
I gave you a "like," Amy, as a salute to your defiant spirit. But I believe your optimism -- exactly like Neville Chamberlain's -- will be your ultimate undoing. Having (involuntarily) lived most of the first quarter of my life in the South; having witnessed the literally infinite, literally irreversible Evil of its sadistic enforcement of Aryan male supremacist racism and Christian misogyny; having witnessed the metastatic embrace of that Evil by the national white Ecogenocidal Majority; I can no long entertain any delusions about how this always-criminal realm has at last become precisely what it was founded to be -- one failed nation, tyrannized by God, indivisible with unmitigated hatred for all females and all non-Aryan males. I am thus evermore thankful I am terminally ill and presumably will soon be dead.
My heart goes out to you. I too am terminally ill and now too debilitated to participate any furthere in the fight to save our terminally ill democracy. Thid is all so heartbreaking and not easing the final journal for folks in our situation.
Mary, I am so sorry. Be at peace - others are stepping in.
Another Loren Bliss historical misapplication of the 1930' before Hitler launched WWII with a horrid bombing attack against Poland in 1939.
HI Loren, Thank you for the "like' despite your strong feelings otherwise. That means a lot to me.And I am so sorry for any suffering you may be having with your illness. That cannot be adding to your sentiments. I do so wish you ease. I only wish to be clear on the fact that I will not be undone, as you write, because what I wrote is the way I choose to show up in my life for everything that comes my way. I know what it is to be almost taken down by "evil" (really just severe mental health issues) as I am a survivor of domestic violence. I found my way through 6 years of terror and danger and came out stronger and more able to love than when I went in. I have a fighting spirit and I would not have it any other way. And if others can't find their fighting (loving) spirit and they wish to hitch a ride on my train, well then...excellent. If not, I march on. And I do strongly believe that somehow, goodness will once again gain the upper hand and the tides will change slowly back to justice. IN fact, goodness is everywhere...just not as eye-catching as the drama and cruelty seem to be. Its a long, ridiculous slog, for sure. But it happens one heart at time in we humans. I'll just keep working on mine because I can't think of a better way to spend my days than trying.
Amy, your efforts and remarks resonate with me. I have lived a long life, but I,nevertheless, feel this is the “time I was born into”. And will continue to fight for democracy in all the limited, but vigorous ways my body allows. For my head and heart will allow no less. Thank you!
Amy, I am with you! It is people with your spirit that will sooner or later bring down the Trump regime and be active in building a new government and a new economy.
This!
ThankYou.
The majority of Americans do not like or agree with the current fascist maga regime. That in itself means something. Although they fight to suppress it, we still have free speech. Our elections are independent and run on a state level and they cannot be federally tampered with outside of what we already know. No one is mentioning that gerrymandering will inevitably dilute Republican districts that may no longer be safe for them. They may be surprised. I am with you, Amy. There is hope.
Well said Amy. Agree 💯
Despite our shared cynicism Loren, I strongly believe that a despairing masses is exactly what those Christofascist c**ts want. People need to turn out at the mid-terms as though their lives depend on it.
Got that right Kazz McKnight because voter's lives & their children lives & just like my 30 day old new niece's life does depend on it.
I am in California & I just received my primary ballot, I can & will: (1) Vote Early, (2)Vote-by Mail & (3) Digitally track that my vote was received & counted.
CT just passed a vote by mail law for any reason.
Bryan Sean Mcknown, We’re having a local election in my town in MA for Select Board, School board etc. I just took my mail in ballot to our Town Hall as many of us do just to be absolutely certain it gets there. We are all focused particularly on the School board at this time of course. Like many of you who taught in schools that emphasized liberal arts thinking 💭, one of my sisters taught math for 40 years at a private school outside Boston. When I asked her about math, she said: ‘I really taught my students to think. I could have been teaching English literature!’ Her students elected her as a contestant for The Best Teacher in the United States. I only taught dance for a brief time, a mix of modern and jazz.
I gave stars to students who fell down or had two left feet because overcoming deficits or problems is really how we make progress in this world isn’t it? Overcoming obstacles even those that seem impossible seem to exist in fables in myths in our determination now to overcome the prejudice
vs people of color.
It makes me so angry sometimes now that i feel as if I might self destruct-incinerate as I felt reading Heather’s post today about the 6 revolting injustices that walk equality backwards.
Thank you samani. Your post was a very smart update on a LOCAL election in MA.
I have posted the following comment before but, as a Trial attorney I had to go to court on several election days in Alameda County over the years.
Fortunately, the Registrar of Voters Office where I could deposit my ballot was in the Courthouse basement.☺︎
Vote all the way down your Ballot folks.
With ChristoNazi theocracy now made permanent by gerrymandering, it might actually be a more effective protest to boycott the election. (I have always voted, missing only one election in my lifetime, that because I moved too late to re-register.) But why countenance corruption by voting in a fixed election? The Robbers' Court's approval of the (unlimited) gerrymander does exactly as our plutocratic masters intended it to do -- it effectively declares the "Unified Reich" a one-party state.
I’m hoping the 70 million couch-sitters turn out in Nov like an angry tsunami.
The GOP neofascists don't want a theocracy. That would mean putting a religious leader at the head of the government (see Iran, for instance). They want to impose ONE (hollowed out and fundamentalist) religion onto all, over time.
They also want the rest of the world to do so, but, contrary to the Nazis, the neofascist GOP agrees with Putin and his palace ideologue Alexander Dugin (strongly admired by many Republicans) that the most stable way to have fascist regimes everywhere is to use the LOCAL dominant culture and religion and impose it as a form of nationalism (trying to make people proud of their "differences" with other nations).
In this way, neofascists in Russia, Turkey and now the US believe, the mistakes of the Nazis can be avoided and democracy defeated once and for all. Result? World peace thanks to the leadership of "the best".
Not my IMO, "gerrymandering" is NOT permanent FULL STOP.
"With ChristoNazi theocracy now made permanent by gerrymandering, it might actually be a more effective protest to boycott the election."
The rise of ChristoFascism in a democratic republic demonstrates that nothing is permanent.
Boycott the election?
The ChristoFascists thankyou.
They never gave in to voter suppression defeatism. And they will be voting.
Think about it: if our elections are gerrymandered unwinnable, they are therefore not legitimate elections. In that case, would it not be more effective to boycott the election rather than surrender to the ChristoNazis by participating in (and thereby legitimizing) their atrocity?
Cartoonish messages from our wicked, would be dark lord have been mercifully quiet for a day. What splendid relief. The air feels clear and easy to breathe. A sign of what it might be like when he's gone for good.
In the meantime, I recommend to everyone that we stick together, focus on our work to save America from the fascist kleptocrats and break the racists efforts to undermine democratic voting rights.
I have a Q Loan Bliss. Has the LFAA community ever seen or read Professor Richardson misapply a WWII history lesson? Answer: Never --- not even once.
Apparently you did not read HCR's recent series on the 'Battle of the Bulge'. There was an extremely violent "Bulge" in that extended WWII battle on the way to VE Day in Berlin.
Back to the last 24 hours, Spoiler Alert: The fierce maga opposition is losing sharply again & again on many fronts across this nation & even on this platform.
Our current political-tactical reality is changing players & coalitions with major positive impact on harsh realities. Here is a mini-memo I sent HCR last afternoon when only a few of us are posting.
A minute please while I go a fetch my post yesterday. Here it is as posted verbatim:
"Per Axios' authors Andrew Solender & Kate Stalitz "Dems by pass Mike Johnson with the help of R's PASSING a package of Russian sanctions & billions of dollars of Ukraine Aid."
So major resources were just sent to Ukraine over the Reverand pebble. Ukraine is now a world leader in counter attacks with state of the science not "art" drone technology.
Hi Bryan 👋🏼👋🏼I see our latest troll, "A Kaufmann" is back today!
Thank you. Substack Inc's binding CA contractual Terms of Use (TOU) duties are owed mutually including the Platform & "Kaufman" (sic) -- duties to all "Readers" & "Authors".
I had a 30+ year career in prosecuting bad faith CA contract behavior.
On other major Platform disputes, I was pleased to see a Jury give META a scalding verdict.
It’s easy to block him. Then you’ll never see his stupid posts.
Thank you but, I prosecute.
When they get really bad, like "Rick Sender", I do block them. Otherwise, if I find their pearl-clutching outrage to be funny, I don't.
An interesting thing I've discovered is that these trolls often will insist they have very high credentials!
Hey Loren I want you on stage on comedy open mic following my story of how I smuggled in an ounce of weed from Jamaica (early 1980s) by shoving it up my ass wrapped in small prophylactics so the dog sniffers couldn’t sniff it at the airport. The reconstitution effort was a bit messy. And when I once rolled one up and passed it around to my friends, one of them said, I kid you not, “Man, this shit it fantastic but it smells like shit.” I don’t smoke any more but I hope y’all enjoyed my story.
You're doing a great job at molding public sentiment. Keep up the good work!
Please explain how Trump could be seen as Hitler and today's neofascists as Nazis?
Like Trump, Hitler came into power through a legitimate election - and then worked to perpetuate his hold on power by using his office to obstruct elections.
Like, Trump, Hitler came into power with a coalition of those who were more afraid of communism than fascism - plutocrats and populists. And with an assist from German Communists who refused to join a coalition of more moderate democratic parties.
Like Trump, Hitler worked to destroy an independent judiciary, turning the judicial system into an arm of his party and draining German law of justice.
Like the Nazis, Republicans play on themes of white supremacy, white privilege, and white grievance - working to marginalize others and to deny them their civil rights.
Just for starts ...
You left out a little detail: more than 20 million victims, including the concept of a holocaust putting millions of legal citizens in gas chambers...
Which is precisely what the ChristoNazis promise to do to the "internal enemies" they can't deport.
''SCOTUS Approves Democracy, Provided It Remains Theoretical''
America’s finest legal minds have once again put on their sacred robes to explain that voting rights are precious, unless voters start touching them.
The problem, apparently, is not that Black voters are underrepresented. The problem is that some of them keep trying to elect people they prefer. This has created a five-alarm constitutional emergency among Republicans, who believe democracy works best when voters are sliced, diced, packed, cracked, and stored safely away from political outcomes.
Louisiana even declared an emergency to stop an election already underway. About 45,000 ballots reportedly will not count, because election integrity now means protecting elections from the people who already voted in them.
Tennessee cracked Memphis into pieces, because nothing says “representative government” like feeding a majority-Black city into a legislative wood chipper and calling the mulch federalism.
One Republican lawmaker helpfully admitted the goal was to “maximize partisan advantage,” which is refreshingly honest, like a bank robber pausing mid-heist to update his LinkedIn.
The new rule is simple: if Republicans lose voters, they redraw voters. If they lose districts, they redraw districts. If they lose the law, they ask the Court to hold its beer.
This is not conservatism.
It is minority rule in sensible shoes, carrying a donor list, a district map, and a very sincere concern about “fairness.”
Brilliant! ''SCOTUS Approves Democracy, Provided It Remains Theoretical!''
I used to be a person who liked my analyses to be free of context and divorced from how they actually worked in practice. Sheesh. Embarrassed every time I think of how I used to be.
Although 'concerned' Michael, Susan Collins agrees.
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the [male] inhabitants of such state, being [eighteen] years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such [ ] citizens shall bear to the whole number of [ ] citizens [eighteen] years of age in such state." --Sexion 2 of the 14th Amendment.
Pretty clear. Reduce the head-count for assigning seats by percentage of Blacks in these Racist states. ¡Et voilà! Six racist states forfeit seventeen-to-twenty-one lily white seats in Congress.
Alabama from seven seats to five;
Florida from twenty-eight seats to twenty-four, perhaps twenty-three
Mississippi from four to three seats, perhaps two;
Louisiana from six seats to four;
Georgia from fourteen seats to ten, perhaps nine seats; and,
Tejas from thirty-eight seats to thirty-four perhaps thirty-three.
It's not their right to vote that is being denied, it's their right to have their vote matter...
Not sure that I see a difference: " . . . . or, in any way abridged . . . ." It seems to me that the nullification of a vote comprises an abridgement of the right to *vote.
EDIT P.S., the vote is the means by which the governed confer consent or express dissent; gerry-'meandering' mutes the voice of Blacks in voicing that consent or dissent by excluding their voices from legislative debate. Sounds like a truncation of the scope of the right to vote, or an abridgrmnt of, said right.
When there are NO HEROES...
WE MUST BECOME HEROS ourselves!!
It would be even better if the Democratic Party leaders had a spine.
"We must have the highest voter turnout of all time."
"Democrats will have to win congressional elections by 3–4 points in order to win a majority."
This means all potential Democratic voters - every one of us opposed to the Republican regime - must vote as a strategic joint exercise in taking power.
Unity at the ballot box gave us Civil Rights legislation and Supreme Court justices who upheld it. Unity at the ballot box gave Republicans the legislative and judicial power to overturn our constitutional rights. Only unity at the ballot box will let us take the levers of government to restore our constitutional rights.
GOTV is Now
Vote Blue No Matter Who
No excuses, No exceptions
Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers
.https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-10-dem-house-pop-vote-threshold-gerrymandering?utm_campaign=post_embed.
I am a poll worker in my town. Our spring primary had a 50% turnout in all districts. That’s really high for a spring primary. I have some hope that we’ll see a huge turnout in November.
It is pitiful. We have got to stop normalizing this kind of low voter turnout.
Yeah, just grab all the lunatics and the no Kings protest that should help. Lololol
And make sure they wear those good costumes as well. Can't believe they let those people out out of the asylum.
One of the*
Along these lines, all these new gerrymandered districts in red states result in dilution of Republican districts. These new districts are based on historical election results. Currrent polling and a strong blue voter turn out have a potential to backfire in the midterms for the maga crew. At least I’m hoping so.
Yes, the former Confederacy rises again -- not only on white supremacy.
More, on unaccountable aristocrats, who've contempt for the mere "people."
It now covers, too, historic "aristocratic" grift, Donald as both plaintiff and defendant, with the greatest U.S. corruption ever.
He’s just found a way to get from American taxpayers $10,000,000,000.
No appropriation from Congress, Americans already inured themselves to thievery normalized – all just abstracted: billions just added to the federal debt (whose annual financing only makes the banks richer, the debt worse).
This is the Trump/Epstein class enriching themselves again, above all law again, answerable to none. Do people get hurt? The 1,200 young women and underage girls raped by Donald’s pals got hurt. But then we’ve had decades of school testing to normalize all human hurt.
The tests long ago replaced reading, discussing, and writing essays based on whole books in U.S. schools. Gone, all the human complications in novels, memoirs, histories. Now, only prepping for testing. All machine gradable. All reducing imaginations only to most abstracted rationality conceits: grouping, categorizing, and mechanical linearity as the only causality.
Massive, dehumanized corruption has stolen our democracy. Along with enriching the world’s greatest thieves, none who ever take questions, not from students and teachers, nor from the raped.
What's happening in southern legislatures today hasn't got diddly to do with standardized testing in schools, but what lies in the hearts of the arrogant bastards trying to re-enact what they had a century and a half ago, now that they've been given a green light by 6 Supreme Court judges who still pen their individually written essays with great flourish and self-justification.
"Originalists" who make it all up as they go.
I think standardized testing is more of a symptom than a cause, yet is part and parcel of commercial dehumanization that I believe is manifest in many ways in our society, including the "Equal Justice Under Law" Supreme Court blatantly disenfranchising blacks in particular, and the will of the majority in general to serve a plutocratic coup. Of course, that's exactly what they were hired for.
I am noticing (just as a minor example) how customer service tends to be less available the larger the company. Most are switching to AI, and in the past month I have had some contacts with robots that belong in a Monty Python sketch. One large company I dealt with in recent months simply has no phone number or email address to reach anyone available to the public. I had to get the Credit Card company to reverse charges. I could rant all night. Not that this is the end of the world, but it is symptomatic of a massive shift of control AWAY from the public in our society. And wasn't of, by and for the public supposedd to be what we're about?
This is the new corporate FO to their customers. They scatter their “executive” offices all over the country. No one can find out where, much less who to address any question or dispute to. Lately, having a technical problem with a new printer connected to my computer, I finally ended up at a screen that promised connection to a technician who could help with that product………IF, and ONLY if I gave them a credit card for a $1.95 charge! That is just never going to happen.
Somehow the public…..each and every one of us…..retrain the corporate assholes that WE are paying them for the goods or services that pays their salaries, and I do not know any other way to get their attention than a sustained national refusal to do business with any of these bastards. That goes for banks, mail order companies, insurance companies, and any one who has hidden themselves from accountability in the recesses of the web.
Crimes without a perpetrator:
"But it remains true that, at some institutions that engaged in inappropriate conduct before, and may yet again, the buck still stops nowhere. Responsibility remains so diffuse, and top executives so insulated, that any misconduct could again be considered more a symptom of the institution’s culture than a result of the willful actions of any single individual. "
-- Obama's AG Eric Holder
I sixth grade the teacher gave us a rough introduction to how the economy was supposed to work. Competition between suppliers of goods and services was supposed to insure the best products at the best (for the consumer) price. I don't know what, if anything, she had to say about monopolies, but it was about then (more likely middle school) my US history book had a whole chapter about monopolists and Teddy Roosevelt, as if that war had been won.
The only way they answer us if you pretend you are buying something. Just dont let them put you on hold.
Have you seen the movie “Brazil “ by Monty Python member Terry Gilliam?
You get close to the "aristocrats" here, ICTT.
This is especially when you refer to "what lies in the hearts of the arrogant bastards." Yes, arrogance. Unaccountability. Especially considering their one-way priorities only in all these tests -- millions forced to take them all the time (and to take their related clones around the world -- all based on the same conceits).
If students had teachers with their best human interests at heart, as Linda Weide cites elsewhere here, communication could never be dictatorial, one-way only. Discussion and essays could open up revisions, could amend questions coming from them, from teachers, others in the room, could have more being open to, citing others with lovely aptness.
Pseudo aristocrats, arrogant bastards, the Trump/Epsten rapists never have such openness. They want all the masses only fit for the machinery they heartlessly package and franchise, fit to the rapes they assembly line.
Arrogance and unaccountability are as about old as civilization itself. And Ivy League prep schools and universities still value humanities, essays and the like, as they always have, even when Brett Kavanaugh graduated from a Jesuit prep school 40 years ago. Didn't help him one iota.
They do not. Not "as they always have". A huge revolution took place since the 1990s. The humanities got entirely politicized, and all classics (and with it the method to read them) rejected.
The result is horrible. Teachers can't even ask students in tenth grade to read books anymore, because they have lost both the skill and interest in doing so.
Instead of having strong humanities departments at each university, these departments are gradually disappearing because they've become irrelevant. Instead of transmitting the very best of what previous generations thought and created, those departments cultivate a form of hyperindividualism, where "respect for the student" is now defined as letting him say or think no matter what.
The situation is bad, very bad. Phil is right.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is alive and well and thriving in high schools across America and the world (with the plurality of global enrollees American kids). You cannot graduate from IB without a ton of reading and writing — classics, history, geography, literature, multidisciplinary approaches to science and the like. Ivy League schools pay a lot of attention to IB precisely because its approaches to study are so rigorous.
If you are searching for culprits for reduced attention spans (which is what you appear to be getting at), suggest you look at technology. It’s called a “cell phone.” Perhaps you’ve heard of them. They are frying people’s brains, those of kids especially — all without the assistance of “politicized” classics (whatever that means) or standardized testing.
ICCT, this assessment is accurate. It isn't just the content of what is generated on cell phones; the rapid evolution of the video technology has changed how our brains process information. It is that introduction through fast moving, often loud, video information that comes at us.
It changes how the brain receives new data; reading is ponderous, and requires that the visual cortex work in conjunction with the frontal lobes to absorb the information. Video/audio information coming through the eyes goes on a different pathway, and circumvents the longer "thought" process.
Please note: I am not anywhere close to an expert on these brain processes. I started to get interested in this first by some classes that I took regarding kids access to violent video games, and information in those classes emphasized that the optical nerve delivers visual/audio information to the brain and the amygdala almost simultaneously while reading material goes via a more complex process. My personal introduction to this was when (many, many years ago) I could no longer watch the lead-in to Monday Night Football because it was too fast and too loud.
Curricula make a difference, and that is subject to political intervention, especially is Rabid Red states. My daughter's public high school biology warned parents that he planed to introduce some of the concepts of chemistry even though it was not part of the official guidelines. Good for him. It seems odd to me to start kids off with biology in high school since meaningful biology is can only be grasped with some exposure to physics and chemistry. My daughter had to memorize a long list of parts of the cell, but how many of us will need to recall such stuff in our daily lives? Heat of chemical activation, enzymes, chemical bonds gives you some deal of insight into how life works, and the core concepts are not that technical. It helps one to understand, for example, why stable environmental conditions are so important, and why even a few degrees of global climate change can be potentially deadly.
Ultimate irony: ALL of those IT graduates/STEM graduates are now being replaced by AI. And science? The administration has shut that down and driven our top researchers to other countries.
It can surely replace some of them. We have yet to see how well. Corporations are so eager to get rid of as many workers as possible that they are jumping on (for the most part) yet to be proved. Stephan Hawking believed that AI would become a nightmare for humanity. I think it might. Perhaps that's less likely if we give what we do or allow to be done, some forethought, consider the context of the common weal, and set regulatory limits.
You’ve got that right, for certain.
They seek to dominate, to control, to extort. Exactly what we didn't want the Crown to be doing two and half centuries ago.
For the most part, public school teachers have been effectively muzzled by the current administration. Any attempt at cultivating student discourse will be labeled DEI, Woke, Socialism. It only takes one disgruntled MAGA parent to complain to a school board, post something negative on X, or submit an article to THE FEDERALIST. In all cases, the teacher will be threatened while the district will be threatened with losing federal funding. Very grim.
What they want today is fascism. They can't install it as long as Democrats keep winning elections. So they want to break the voting power of THE most crucial voting block in elections: black people.
This isn't necessarily racist in intention. It's ideological, and a matter of math.
And how come one third didn't even vote in 2024, when democracy was at stake, while one third did vote, but FOR neofascists all while believing that they were voting against fascism?
Phil Balla is right: because THE key ingredient of democracies, as Aristotle already explained, is that citizens are well-educated, interested in thinking in a nuanced way about complex issues, and trained to deal with emotions.
All these things were taught and cultivated through activities in school that are rapidly disappearing, and for decades already.
Standardized testing is merely a symptom of a deeper lying phenomenon, one that IMHO is a huge factor in what is going on today.
I agree... the real goal is to end the Democratic Party.
And install plutocracy. That was the "Reagan Revolution" all along.
I also agree that without a decent education, an understanding of civics, and an interest in what is going on, too many voters will simply grasp at shiny objects.
That's too often what "The news" tends to go for, even more blatantly now than in my youth. Bread and circuses; hold the bread.
And when was the last time you won an election? Lmfao. You won an election and the guy who elected allowed 11 million illegals including criminals and un vetted unvaccinated unchecked criminals that have killed almost 500 American citizens since they've been here this is the guy you want to vote for.
"while believing that they were voting against fascism?"
Or felt like their suffering was being recognized after decades of "Reagnomic" policies that cheated most Americans big time, and a Big Lie machine scapegoating , minorities and immigrants. And decades of the Democratic Party often going along to get along, until we found ourselves in this trap. If there was ever a time to boldly (and wisely) fight, it's now.
Isn't it all of a piece?
It has been said that the love of money is the root of evil (though I say it's the exclusive obsession with gaining and exerting dominance). Money can be a form of that.
ICTT-Considering our nation's history, what's happening in southern legislatures has a lot to do with standardized testing in schools. Education is about teaching and learning but so much more. Education is political and schools have always been a battleground for fighting against racism and inequality.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down the Brown vs. Board of Education decision declaring that separate schools for White and Black children led to inherent inequality. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren described education as "the very foundation of good citizenship...today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."
As a result of this decision, the same southern states that are rushing to gerrymander districts to dilute the Black vote wrote a "Southern Manifesto" to point out among other things that education is not mentioned in the Constitution. They railed against "judicial usurpation" and claimed states' rights. These men serving in Congress from Confederate states unequivocally said, "we pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision". One hundred and one (101) southern politicians signed the document. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) refused to sign it.
I won't get into all of the machinations that have gone on since then to reverse the decision, but their efforts to thwart school integration have been vigorous and longstanding. In effect, public schools have been re-segregated with the proliferation of private schools, various educational policies and suburban expansion which have in many cases upended school integration.
No Child Left Behind required an inordinate amount of standardized testing. Culturally biased and multiple choice questions led to schools being classified as "high and low performing" based on test scores. All of this was supported by local, state and federal governments. The overall results: funding for low performing schools was minimized and some of the best teachers opted to teach in "high performing schools" leaving those who were in "low performing" schools with inadequate resources for teaching and learning.
Having taught for many years in highly rated colleges and universities, I've been amazed at the level of education that the "best and brightest" students who came from "high performing schools" bring to their studies. When I showed a film about Black people protesting for voting rights, classes were surprised by the use of dogs, billy clubs and firehoses that rained down on the protestors. I'll never forget when a group of students said, "you mean this happened in this country?"
There's more to say about all of this but I'll conclude by just saying that I agree with Justice Warren--education is the foundation of good citizenship. It's been more than 70 years since Brown v. Board. According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of U.S. adults read below the equivalent of a sixth grade level and 64% of 4th graders don't read proficiently. It's no wonder Trump said, "I love the uneducated" and Rs have been seeking to demolish the demolish the Department of Education for years. It allows them to continue with their propaganda and hateful actions.
The lack of education about our true history and efforts of lawmakers like SCOTUS and those in Congress who signed the Southern Manifesto do indeed relate to what southern legislators are doing to our voting rights (and other rights) in this nation now. These times are perilous. Phil Balla beats the drum often about standardized testing but it's always worth keeping education in the forefront. Educated citizens who think critically and act ethically can lead us forward if we truly believe in the promises of democracy and our humanity. These actions to take away the voting power of Black people just shows us that we have a long way to go if we want to change people's hearts and minds.
"It's no wonder Trump said, " 'I love the uneducated' ".
SO far as I can see Trump loves no one. "He loves only gold", and unlimited power. In reality he "loves" undereduca-TING, 'cause otherwise too many would be hip to his tricks. Not that a college degree is sufficient immunization for far too many.
"Ignorance is Strength".
Trump or "1984"? It's the thought that counts.
Thankss for this enlightment.
You idiots have had control the Supreme Court for almost a whole century. Turn around is fair play
Phil, these skills are being taught, just not everywhere. I am a former teacher. Many of my friends teach still. They have their students read whole books, write essays, read literature as well as historical novels. My daughter and her friends went to schools where they did this too. In fact, being on "Good Reads," a source that I am boycotting because it belongs to Amazon, is a norm in her friendship circle, and one can see that these young women read upwards of 50 books a year. in fact the friend who read the most last year read 136 books, the friend who read the least books just joined this year and is not a native English speaker, read 32. Then there are friends who read 101, 67, 51, and 91 books. There are influencer book clubs on social media too that are widely followed and people who follow those influencers read those books.
My daughter had tests, and they were mostly essay tests. Short and longer. Our students at the school where I taught do as well, although they also have standardized tests in certain grades. That is once a year. They tend to do well on these tests. This education has not changed, but I know that in Chicago there are also schools where students do not read whole books and where they do not write literary analyses. At my daughter's school, a friend's son just gave his senior project presentation which includes a paper, just as my daughter did her senior year. My friend is a professor at a local university and said his senior paper reminded her of the work she gets from her freshmen in college. That is because her school is exclusive and does get students who have learned to read and write critically, just as her son and my daughter did. Her son and my daughter also learned to do this in German, since he will come to University in Germany as well. All the Americans who are studying in Germany learned these skills in their high schools.
All of my friend's children whether they are in private or local public schools are getting the kind of education you say is missing, and they are also taking standardized tests. What you are describing is happening in poorer communities and shows the great divide. It was already that way in the 1980s when I volunteered in a South Side Chicago Public school once a week to teach reading and math. The textbooks they had were horrible, so I brought my own materials. The children could not read as well as I could in second grade. I was an early reader though. So, I know what you are describing exists. We have a two tiered education system which disadvantages children who are poor in Illinois. I do not know how it works in other states.
The rest of what you are saying I agree with. In fact, Anne Applebaum gave a speech yesterday in Vienna, in which she basically has written off the US as a democracy and lays the responsibility for providing democracy in the world at Europe's feet.
It is called A Speech to Europe 2026. It is a reflection on whether this is Europe's moment. In it she suggests what Europe can be to protect democracy, and it ties into our tech goals. I started the link 29 mins in because there was nothing before that, but might have cut off a couple words of the guy introducing her. It is called A Speech to Europe 2026. It is a reflection on whether this is Europe's moment. In it she suggests what Europe can be to protect democracy, and it ties into our tech goals. I started the link almost 30 minutes in because the 2 people introducing her are speaking in German. Her speech is in English. https://www.youtube.com/live/WEnUruup9YQ?si=rgjT-QcqC5LWxiZx&t=1774
Good of you, Linda, to cite Anne Applebaum's latest.
Most of us who read your comments fully respect your lifelong investment in education, and your perspectives from the best and the worst of that. Yes, as to what you observe of how, in your native Illinois, and sadly widely elsewhere, "We have a two tiered education system."
Agree with Anne Applebaum: American democracy is dead. It’s a fascist one-party vassal state of Russia now.
I would agree that our country is not a functioning democracy at the moment. But the infrastructure for restoring it is still there. I have gotten really weary of calling every election the “most important in our history” or even “in my lifetime,” but this November really feels like it is just that. All those other elections happened, the next day life went on as normal, and then we eventually had another election that allowed for a redirection, sometimes good, sometimes not, but always within the context of a representative democracy. This time democracy is on the line, for real, period, full stop. This is our last chance. Screw it up and the dystopia we’re dealing with now will look like a Sunday picnic.
I like this assessment, Chris.
Heroyam Slava!
It's not dead, but it's fighting for life.
I dunno, J L. I think it's more like an undead thing like a zombie: it's already dead, it just doesn't realize it.
Maybe resistance isn't futile. Anti-MAGA energy is building, and a fair number of former Trump supporters are realizing they've been had.
Hungary looked bleak as well. Orban was Trump's declared role model.
Don't get me wrong: you should not, and cannot give up. You cannot just give the MAGA Nazis their way. But you do have to realize that, at least at the moment, America is not a democracy.
What we are seeing -- the conduct of the ChristoNazi Regime, the cunningly perfected, always plausibly deniable collaboration of the Democrats and the embrace of tyranny implicit in the refusal of the people to (effectively) resist -- is the true face of the (real), forever Aryan male supremacist "America."
Yup, that's the big idea of the Nazi Tech Bro Billionaires: steal everything from the people while continuously pulling the racism card to keep them distracted.
Sorta like the Southern "gentry" planters long ago. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice ... ???
Yep, it's exactly as Heather writes so often: the Confederacy is very much alive.
I think she puts things really well. She also aptly points out that Europe can go in that direction too, pointing out that Russia wants Europe to not be a military threat so they can do what they want and have the financial deals they want, and the US wants to break down the last democratic resistance to US big tech and other products. All of this would lower the standard of living in Europe greatly, because the manufacturing base would be taken over by China and the US will take over the tech. China too on tech. Europe would just be a client state.
Putin is working really hard to install fascism here in Europe, too. The easy thing for the fascists is: they only have to sow distrust. They don't need to build anything, just destroy. That's always easier.
In general it's easier to break stuff than to build it. That's kinda life's fundamental choice. Get quick bang for the buck with some kind of bomb, or trouble to build something way more satisfactory? It's an individual choice as well as a societal one.
Absolutely. In my opinion, there are two kinds of people: the "we"-thinkers and the "me"-thinkers.
The one mistake the European Union made was easy migration. The lessons of history were ignored. My opinion.
That’s behind Trump’s motives. Most of the migrants aren’t white.
False. If it even took Hungary, a VERY young democracy, a full decade to turn a democracy into a fascist regime, it will take much longer in the US. So NOW is the moment to fight back!
Yes, there are many who receive robust educations. One of our parameters binding the area we currently live in was a particular school district. Not everyone can be that choosy. My wife, who spent virtually her entire working life as a teacher knows of some teacher who gave up after fighting the politicization of of their craft. I think that cultivation of robust critical thinking is and always was, our best tool for facing the future.
THank you for this link to Applebaum's exceptional speech.
Powerful speech! Thank you, Linda, for providing the link, and also for your untiring efforts to promote, protect, and defend democracy.
Thank you for Anne Applebaum’s speech. May she be the universal champion of reason and hope and substantive reawakening of humanity’s obligations of tolerance, compassion and justice. It was brilliant!!
Excellent video speech by Anne Applebaum.
Resurrection of Robber Barons.
I give you a "like," J L, as I value highly your apprehension.
However, we needn't engage here in the one-correct-answer-only which all standardized testers mechanically mandate.
Yup. Jacques Cousteau once said that there are three infinites; the infinitely large, the infinitely small, and the infinitely complex, and while I don't think that is technically true, experiential it might as well be. Life is mostly much more complicated than A, B, C, or D, or even "all of the above".
Yes, Phil and ICTT, two things can be true!
Thank you, Margaret. Yes, our imaginations can well contain contradictions.
But not in testing, where machine-gradable-only elites demand one-correct-answer-only from ever life as only A)-B)-C)-D).
Alphas and all the rest...or, if you wish, nobles and serfs...break it down from there any way you(collectively) like...using whatever language...
And good luck avoiding the violence that, one way or another, is usually the determining factor of an outcome...
A couple months ago I watched the movie Civil War which I’d been putting off for a long time. I found it to be a very well done film and shocking because how close it seems we are to the tipping point where violence is resorted to. It very succinctly puts to rest the notion that “that this could never happen here”, especially when you bear it mind the presence of over 300M guns, from 22’s to AK47’s in the hands of private individuals.
What I find equally shocking is that one truly evil man, a veritable American Caligula, is responsible for all of this by giving the populace permission to express its hate, greed, racism, misogyny and other base traits.
It’s been said (and I’m paraphrasing) that the veneer of civilization is no more than an inch thick. I would amend that to a millimeter.
i hope people there are prepared, Bennett...it seems, for the most part, only one side is prepared to play by the rules...and, if i guess correctly, it's not the side with the most weapons.
once again i'll say...Trump did not win EITHER of his elections fairly. i'm hoping this has become more obvious recently.
Thoreau, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. might differ in your cowing to violence, Isaac.
Been shot. Never owned a gun and don't intend to...it's a prediction, Phil...take/do with it as you will. Was Thoreau shot to death, too? Didn't know that...ideals are wonderful. They're just not bulletproof...
Maga will press every advantage...they don't feel ANY obligation to 'play nice'.
ICE wasn't put together for just immigrants...and I hope for all of your sakes that I am wrong about what I see coming...
just looked it up...thoreau died of tuberculosis. i wasn't being sarcastic. i just didn't know...
That's exactly what Biden did. Robert Barron taking almost $1 trillion out of the miles of American citizens and giving it to illegal criminals. Ooooops
Rob Baron's taking almost $1 trillion out of the mouth of citizens and giving it to illegal criminals who have killed over 500 women and men and raped a couple thousand more. I hope you're happy.
when all this is over, i wish things are properly audited.
When it is "over," only two realities are possible: (1)-the triumphant Nazis, Christo and otherwise, will have exterminated anyone with the legitimacy to conduct a proper audit, or (2)-our entire species will be extinct and our Mother Earth will be reduced to Precambrian lifelessness by the ChristoNazis' thermonuclear and biochemical destruction of the world to prevent the few remaining true humans from taking it back.
One point Im In favor of; human extinction. Good for Mother Earth. God made a terrible mistake allowing Man up the evolutionary trail.
One of my favorite cartoons is Planet Earth sitting in a gown on an exam table. She looks sick, and has a thermometer in her mouth.
The doctor says "It looks like you have a bad infestation of humans. You might need another ice age."
Ha ha… So I opened my stand up at a Methodist church open mic once. “God made a terrible mistake…” not a peep from the obeying Christian’s. The next morning the pastor called me to ask me to come in to talk about family values. I told him it was unnecessary and it won’t happen again but of course it did. The next time I read a short from my book the story titled “What my cat Babe and Donald Trump have in Common with each other.” I explained that if Babe licked oil in my skittle, he will crap diarrhea all over my house like Trump would if he won election. OMG, the host rushed the stage to stop me but I commanded her to wait till I finished.
I asked the earlier host a month later what was so bad announcing the god had made a mistake and she yelled at me “God doesn’t make mistakes.” I told her that was funny. I’m done with those Christian’s. They have no sense of humor.
". . . over," Vee?
Life enmeshes its complications, returns to honor its debts, piles up layers of nuance, takes deserving asides and digressions, explodes in new, unexpected news, tapers off in memory, admits contradictions, leaves space for relative clauses of additional consideration, and grows, too, with results from couplings we'd forgotten about.
yeah i mean, i was being delusionally hopeful.
I agree with Phil. I think standardized testing can sideline critical thinking. It is easier and less messy to standardize everything into categories—one right answer for every situation—and individually find our category rather than spend time in self-discovery. Standardized testing hamstrings teachers forcing them to adapt their teaching to the tests rather than allowing them to adapt their lessons to their particular students. Once upon a time teachers could be creative and different from one another in their approaches. Standardized testing has become the tail wagging the dog you might say. Where once some testing might have been helpful it has become a burden. But of course it became a whole profitable business now and the tyrant boss of students and teachers alike. Education has become enslaved you might say. Funny how our country always finds its way back to slavery in one form or another.
I am a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania. I agree with you about the effects of testing. Tests are being used to categorize people ,making a place for them and keeping them in their place which benefits those in power and those in the “testing industrial complex”. I often wonder how many people who could have contributed to our world were prevented from doing so because they could not past a certain test which had nothing to do with being productive or competent.
Cartoonish messages from our wicked, would be dark lord have been mercifully quiet for a day. What splendid relief. The air feels clear and easy to breathe. A sign of what it might be like when he's gone for good.
In the meantime, I recommend to everyone that we stick together, focus on our work to save America from the fascist kleptocrats and break the racists efforts to undermine democratic voting rights.
I couldn't agree more...
Ever since the liberals have taken control of the education system, we've gone from First in the world to 40th in the world and now our children are learning more about their genitalia than they are math and science thank God Trump took it away from Washington and gave it back to the states.
You know there used to be a song that finds everything I've said here remember that song years ago when you were a kid, beautiful dreamer. Why don't you get in touch with reality Phil the only thing I wish for you is I wish you were wealthy or well-known because then Donald Trump could sue you to oblivion for your lies and your bullshit and put in the poor house where you belong
I don’t know what you write. Education is based on reading.
‘Piers Morgan put three economists in a room.
Three economists. Steve Keen, Australian, Stephen Moore, Trump’s old bagman and Professor Jiang Xueqin, the game theorist from Beijing,
👺The Mask Off Moment
You have to understand what just happened there.
Stephen Moore said, “If we’re so evil, why does everyone want to come here?”
Steve Keen didn’t flinch. Didn’t argue. Didn’t even bother with statistics. He just looked at the bloke and k told him the brutal fucking truth in five words.
👺 “Nobody wants to go there now, mate.”
Because nobody does.
#
‘The whole planet has had a long, hard look at what 77 million voters chose three times, and the verdict is in. Hard pass.
You picked a bankrupt steak salesman. You picked an insurrectionist. You picked an adjudicated rapist who can’t keep his hands off anything that walks past him at a Mar-a-Lardo dinner. You picked the pedophile-protecting golf cheat with the spray tan and the personality of a wet shit. You picked him once, you forgave yourselves. You picked him twice, you embarrassed yourselves. You picked him three fucking times and now the rest of the world is sitting around the campfire wondering whether 330 million of you are too dim, too racist, too ideologically captured, or too fucking lazy to understand basic civics.’
And the answer is: probably yes to all four.
Keen wasn’t having any of it.
👺 “Stop reading Hollywood scripts and realise which planet you’re on.” said Australian economist Keen. That’s the line of the year. That’s the line that needs to be tattooed on the inside of every Fox News producer’s eyelids.
👺 “The planet remembers, mate. The Hollywood scripts only work on Americans.”
The Game Theorist Drops The Hammer
Professor Jiang Xueqin let Keen do the heavy lifting on the empire question, then came in with the kill shot dressed up as polite analysis.
“If you’re going to see regime change to stop this war, forget about seeing it in Iran. You need to see it in America.” said JIang Xueqin.
👺 Pause on that for a second.
That is a Chinese academic, on British television, telling Piers Morgan that the path to global stability runs not through Tehran but through Washington. That the bloke in the Oval Office, the geriatric grift artist with the Diet Coke button and the nuclear codes, is the destabilising force. Not the Ayatollah. Not Xi. Not Putin. Not Kim. The bankrupt steak salesman from Queens.
👺 And what’s wild is, he’s not wrong.
Jiang laid out the Chinese view with the kind of cold clarity you get from a country that doesn’t have to perform democracy for the cameras every two years. China brokered the ceasefire. China leaned on the IRGC. China, the country Stephen Moore keeps insisting is sitting on its hands, is the only adult in the room actively trying to stop the bloody Strait from being closed permanently because China imports more oil through that pinch point than anyone else on Earth.
👺 Jiang’s diagnosis was simpler. He compared the current moment to the 1930s. Global trade collapsing. Wars flaring. Nations turning inward. Petrodollar at risk. Gulf states reconsidering their entire business model after watching their cities get drone-struck because they kept saying yes to American basing rights.
And his prediction for the world economy?
❇️ “I think that we are heading towards a global depression and this is a process that could take decades. We are in a new normal. We are on the undiscovered country. The level of destruction, level of pain and suffering that we are moving towards is unimaginable. So, buckle up.”
Steve Keen’s Apocalypse Receipts
❇️ Keen brought the actual numbers, and they’re worse than any of us have been told.
30 per cent of the world’s helium supply: gone. 30 to 50 per cent of fertiliser: gone. Half the planet’s industrial sulphuric acid: gone. Not “supply disrupted.” Not “temporarily off market.” Gone. Blown to fuck by Israeli and American strikes on Iranian processing infrastructure that the Pentagon either didn’t know existed or didn’t care about.
❇️ This isn’t an oil shock. This is a manufacturing apocalypse. You can’t grow food without fertiliser. You can’t run a semiconductor industry without helium. You can’t run modern industrial chemistry without sulphuric acid. The mongrels in the Situation Room blew up the chemistry set the entire planet runs on, and they did it because Netanyahu sweet-talked the dropkick-in-chief over a steak at Mar-a-Lardo.
❇️ Then Keen got to the part that genuinely made me put my coffee down.
☠️”Some of them have 96 per cent dependence upon desalination. If it goes that far, people are not going to starve to death. They’re going to die of thirst.”☠️
❇️ So the worst case here isn’t recession. The worst case is a humanitarian catastrophe across the Arabian Peninsula that makes the Syrian refugee crisis look like a school excursion. ❇️
🤡 “And the bloke who started it, the orange trainwreck, is currently posting on Truth Social about how the Strait of Hormuz “isn’t a big deal because we have plenty of oil here.”
That’s the leader of the free world, ladies and gentlemen.’🤡
*use the link to read the entire article and see the videos*
“Nobody Wants to Come to America Mate.”
IFLA | May 13 2026
https://ifloz.substack.com/p/nobody-wants-to-come-to-america-mate?r=kxzps&utm_medium=ios
Thank you, JAKsaa. Thank you? Well, yes - thank you.
In the context of the story cited here, my point here is tangential. But every time I read it stated that the animal we have for a president was convicted of rape, I want to scream NoNoNo he wasn't. (Not to say he never raped anyone.) In a civil court he was found liable for damages for sexual assault. E. Jean Carroll did accuse the president of rape but that was not the case that went to trial. "He" was found liable for damages to Ms. Carroll for sexual assault. I hate to see people misstating a central fact because it might call into question other facts stated. And this feeds into the president's allies allegations that if one fact is misstated, EVERYTHING is fake news.
PS: IFLA, the author of the piece JaKsaa presents here, isn't the only writer who has erroneously reported that the president was convicted of rape.
The felon admittedly assaults women…and is quite proud of himself for doing so. We don’t need court bits to tell us what his personality exudes every time he opens his mouth. He could be the greatest president we’ve had in 50 years…..but his assaults make him the man he is today…not fit for ANY society.
And now in his dottage he may not be physically assaulting women, but he certainly verbally assaults them every chance he gets. Witness his nasty exchanges with female reporters.
And that final conviction for rape is exactly why he is doing everything that the Office of the Presidency gives him to hide the truth that is in the Epstein files.
Jean Carroll sued the president in civil court only, never in a criminal court. If you lose in a civil court in NYS you're found "liable," not "guilty." "He" was found liable to Carroll for his sexual assault and defamation, not of rape. He may well have raped women (at one point his first wife accused him of rape) but he's never been convicted of rape. Words matter, especially when people are using legal terms. When we misuse words we lose credibility .
Exactly.. that is why he is so determined to hide the Epstein files. It is a sure bet that there is unrefutable proof that he raped an underage girl. The E Jean Carroll case has nothing to do with what is in the E files that he is so desperate to keep sealed.
The day after I "early" voted for Kamala Harris for president, I absolutely believed that if the Orange Pustule actually won, all the world would experience a global DEPRESSION worse than the 1930's.
I based my prediction on knowing his financial debacles in NYC, as I was living in Connecticut about 40 miles from Manhattan in the 1970's and 1980's. He was a f*cking joke in the newspapers, news media, and tabloids. No one had ever imagined someone could run a casino into the ground financially, let alone three! He was never accepted into New York City elite circles and never would be. He was classless, crass, inelegant, boorish and stupid.
If Americans put him back in the WH, he would cause worldwide economic misery, i.e. another global depression much worse than the one in the 1930's. I take no satisfaction whatsoever by this fearful prediction because it just means we will all suffer until he is removed or dead.
Yup, as much as I hate to admit that I like seeing the impact of his (bad word!) on the MAGA, I realize that we have to suffer along with them. I do feel that they are getting it worse (and boy could I turn a really nasty bad word phrase for that, but I will stifle the urge).
With the history HCR writes today, is anyone surprised at how the deep south ranks the top for every bad attribute, and bottom for the good ones?! You'd think these people would finally wise up!
Amazing, and scary. Thanks for this overview of these important perspectives.
Steve Keen is a smart man. In another recent interview, he stated that the carrying capacity of humans on the planet, without that fertilizer... is 2bn thats 1/4 of the current pop. The consequences of this "adventure" will literally be life changing for many.
That is really damning. How do we get the Trump voters to hear this? Could some philanthropist group buy time on Fauxnooz and run it as an ad?
Joyce Vance just wrote "The Redistricting Race to the Bottom" which Heather cited -- it makes for an enlightening read.
We are the only 'democracy' whose highest court blesses gerrymandering for partisan purposes, which, in turn, serves as the smokescreen for the neo-confederate, race-based 'fuck you' now taking place in southern state legislatures. No other modern republic comes close. In Canada, redistricting of provincial delegations to Parliament takes place under the aegis of independent commissions, which are, in turn, appointed by federal and provincial judges, not by provincial legislatures. It takes place once (and only once) a decade, adjusted solely for population changes. The rules and procedures governing how those commissions operate are nothing, if not heavily regulated and overseen. A political party attempting to seize control of the process would be met with outrage and laughter -- it wouldn't pass a basic giggle test in the court of Canadian public opinion.
The same is true with Britain's more than 500 constituencies. In South Africa, complicated algebraic formulas are used to ensure no party gets an edge in a 'first past the post' election system, which is what most lower houses in most parliaments, congresses and assemblies in the world are based on. Small wonder Justice Alito cannot tolerate any argument based on international law or procedures which differ from his own "originalist" thinking.
We are the only republic which lets the foxes guard the henhouses. The foxes then get to name their favorite hens things like "Giblets" "Mushroom Gravy" "Finger-Lickin' Good" and the like...
A race to nothing but a dinner table where our elected officials serve us only for supper.
In the excellent *Autobiography of Malcolm X* he describes the American table, groaning with the weight of a feast for the wealthy whites, and the rest of us (in his case, Black Americans) are supposed to be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from that table. That has always struck me as profoundly true of capitalist, classist, racist America. We must, once again, rise up.
You may get your wish (and mine) in ways both strange, yet obvious. Five Republican state Senators in South Carolina just joined all Democrats, blocking a resolution that would have brought the legislature back in session to try to carry out this absurd, last-minute redistricting. Everyone was under the impression that would be the last word. That was before South Carolina's pea-brain governor (who can't even run another term) announced he would be doing exactly that. If that happens, new boundaries will have to be approved in 2 weeks time.
The Senate leader, Shane Massey, who voted against all this nonsense, said the legislature should actually be trying to pass a budget instead, adding "very candidly, you're going to motivate Black turnout, and there will be repercussions from that."
From your lips, your post, straight to God's ear....
Hey joyce you're about as levelheaded as Heather if you're any more left to be falling off the ship into the water Romeo why don't you take a look at where the districting has been all these years, especially in the northeast we despite the fact that almost half of the population votes on either side of the aisle and the northeast has literally almost 0 Republican representatives in Congress and now you're complaining
Question: After your writing about Trump staying up at night and doing memes - is he really doing those or is he sitting with a buddy who really does them? It doesn’t seem like Trump has the skill level for that.
There is a Natalie Harp in Trump's circle who provides him with AI created stuff, and posts those that he gives his nod...
They probably giggle at them together, as the night goes slowly by.
Ooooo, creepy, but I'm sure they do.
Giggle for sure.
there should be a strong AI auditing authority for all these…
Strong AI auditing? Really? How about penalties every time someone tells a lie OTHER than, 'they're going to go to hell'?
yes penalty is a no brainer
but Vee...that's alREAdy the case...no brain...
seriously, though...many of the lies are EASIly followed up on to prove them lies...why are they allowed? am i naive or something...? since when did everyone(in the govt) become complicit and make it ok? (question not aimed, specifically at you. i'm just wondering out loud).
Does it really matter?
Does it really matter to the matador if the bull runs really fast at the cape?
A degenerate, depraved, demented moron with power always oozes his depravity outward. It doesn't matter if he hires somebody else to do the deed. 'The fish rots from the head downward' as numerous folk sayings in numerous cultures can attest.
We need to be interested in understanding what is happening but we need to be a lot more interested in understanding how to be effective in our responses, and effective responses all involve molding public sentiment. Same as it was before and in 1858, is now, and ever shall be.
Rascists
“there’s a guy who knows a guy who can get this guy’s guy work done, guy”
I wish that every woman and every non-White person would leave these Southern states like Blacks left during the Great Migration at the turn of the last century and move to Northern, Western and Midwestern states that are not dominated by these White Supremacist racist misogynists. Voters should let their feet do the walking.
Donald is cognitively slipping. He is at a point where he cannot learn new things, a necessary requirement for his job, and therefore he is surrounded by people who repeat the same old tropes that he knows. Do we trust these people? NO!
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
If you can't find the link to the petition in the above piece, here it is.
https://www.impeachtrumpagain.org/
Unfortunately I know some women who are absolutely sure that this administration is doing everything right, not just for the country, but for them as well. It is very difficult for me to be able to have a conversation with them because of their Fox News indoctrinated ideas of how bad the Democrats are for the US. One of them was able to get Medicaid some years ago for her parents because of Obamacare, but she still thought Obamacare was a scam! I keep going back to the lack of education in the US : we have created a population who needs to be angry at a group, so they can blame someone else. We all need to realize we are responsible for today's America. Like you, I do not live in the US at the moment. And yes, Anne Applebaum is right about the burden of continuing a just and democratic world now lies on other countries outside of the US. The Europeans I meet, hate our administration, and have a difficult time comprehending how it came about.
Dr Stephen Hassan has a PhD in cults. He has a substack and multiple books. He teaches how to speak to people who are in the MAGA cult in order to guide them out. If you have the energy, it might be helpful to learn his techniques in order to try to help these women exit the cult.
Thank you, I will take a look.
I am sorry for women and men who are brainwashed by their circumstances, but more sorry for those who suffer the consequences of their voting. The US has created a rich and poor White grievance culture. A backlash to affirmative action. Greedy, selfish people holding onto power.
Ligia, I meet both kinds of Europeans, those who are nationalistic and do not like change, even though they are not personally suffering, but they are narrow minded, and then people who are more democratic. That is why I live in the city in which I live because it is welcoming and tolerant as a whole, with some exceptions of course. Here is Anne's talk if you did not see it. I have cut out the 2 people introducing her because it is mostly in German. Her talk is in English. https://www.youtube.com/live/WEnUruup9YQ?si=UjeY5rlo5PktqNiN&t=1755
Yes, I have already opened and listened to it Linda. Thank you for putting the link here for us.
You're welcome, Ligia. ❤️
Why, Ligia, do "their Fox News indoctrinated ideas" hold such sway with them?
Simple, for anyone who knows the history of the 1971 Powell memo.
The first goal of all its far-right foundations, through all the remainder of the 1970s, was to kill humanities in schools. The rich and the corporate knaves all hated the energy people got from the films, novels, songs, histories, memoirs, and other arts of that era.
The very-well-funded, very-well-organized foundations did kill the humanities, K-12 and "higher." This cemented the far-right politicians with the moneyed interests, and also cemented the Dems as united also with the moneyed interests, but also as illiterate as the Republicans with the humanities still in touch with the American people.
As a person who grew up in America and now, for 25 years has lived in Europe, I'm saying it's been easy to see if one was willing to look...but I'll spare you what else I see coming just down the road..Hint: it isn't the British...
Just imagine having a child who fits that description! She married into a family that is in a very legalistic Baptist church and drank the koolaid to the point people who knew her previously have said to me "....she sure has changed."
I think I have already welcomed you to the forum, as I recall reading your little bio previously. If not, WELCOME!!
"we have created a population who needs to be angry at a group, so they can blame someone else." Yep. Sounds like the Comments section here.
If so, why are you in this comment section? You could be a free subscriber to HCR and save yourself money and aggravation if that is how you feel.
Do dissenting views. trouble you that much? You present yourself as a teacher?
No AK. I love dissenting views that have substance. When they don't, I want to hear reasons. That is what I would expect from the the third, fourth, fifth graders, high schoolers; as well as the Kindergarteners I have taught. One of my student's mom's said our weekly third grade class meetings are what gave her child the critical thinking skills that got her into Yale.
You sounded like you were complaining so I was suggesting save yourself the trouble, not that you should not be here if you relish interacting with "a population who needs to be angry at a group, so they can blame someone else."
I would have sworn I block AK before when he went full MAGA on us. But now he's back. Sad to see someone with such limited critical thinking skills as AK.
There is a difference between offensive anger and defensive anger, just as a person who defends him/herself from a home invasion is not really the same as the person who invaded their home even if they are both 'fighting'. Or.... maybe you think we should all roll over and allow ourselves to be destroyed by the coming neoNazi regime?
"Tennessee is a conservative state, and this map ensures that our congressional delegation reflects that,” Republican state senator John Stevens said."
There are NO MORE CONSERVATIVE politicians. Republicans are 1) Racists, 2) Misogynists, 3) Xenophobes, 4) Hateful, 5) Cruel, 6) Arrogant, 7) Greedy, 8) Uneducated.
Which of these qualities will bring down the Republicans?
They are Nazis
Nope. These are Nazis. You're confused: https://www.deathcampsmemorialsite.com/en/knowledge-base/127-einsatzgruppen-hitler-s-death-squadrons.html
I am not confused at all as to what are Nazis. I have known Nazis in Germany, in fact, and am glad that I don't know any now. I know the beliefs, the thinking, and the US has death camps or have you not been paying attention. It was not on day one that the people in the death camps were put in gas chambers. Everything did not happen on day one or the first year. Does one have to say these people are like the Nazis at such and such a point to point out that with morals and values and willingness for people to die they are in the same camp.
That was then, this is now. There is no difference in ideology. Performance will follow, unless we stop them now.
It is following and we are trying to stop them. Good news is that Chicago just won a lawsuit that allows them to surveil ICE. That is part of it. Documentation. We need to document what we are going through.
Sadly, Linda, I am in THE Most Corrupt State of Ohio, where the Nazis seem to have set up camp some time ago. It is now they feel emboldened to come out in the open, and that is incredibly frightening. After the incredulous statements made by the top 2 national Nazis, Springfield Ohio is more or less a ghost town now. People are afraid to venture into the open for fear of what may be lurking in the shadows. Here in the Cleveland area, it hasn't seemed as terrible, but now that the growing season is upon us, the rural areas, and the wine/grape regions that rely on immigrant labor are on constant guard. It is definitely real, and unless stopped now, it will only get worse.
Love your range of choices, GJ.
Several may be true. So students might truly answer multiply.
But the overlords of testing rule that out. Only one correct answer ever to their dehumanized committee-concocted Qs.
I added a choice Phil.
I say 9) all of the above.
signed.
Thank you lauriemcf! ❤️
If you are interested in why Trump behaves the way he does, then consider reviewing the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and see what you think:
Symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and how severe they are can vary. People with the disorder can:
Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.
Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.
Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements.
Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are.
Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.
Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people.
Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.
Expect special favors and expect other people to do what they want without questioning them.
Take advantage of others to get what they want.
Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.
Be envious of others and believe others envy them.
Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited.
Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office.
At the same time, people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they view as criticism. They can:
Become impatient or angry when they don't receive special recognition or treatment.
Have major problems interacting with others and easily feel slighted.
React with rage or contempt and try to belittle other people to make themselves appear superior.
Have difficulty managing their emotions and behavior.
Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change.
Withdraw from or avoid situations in which they might fail.
Feel depressed and moody because they fall short of perfection.
Have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, humiliation and fear of being exposed as a failure.
Narcissistic personality disorder - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic”https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662#:~:text=Narcissistic%20personality%20disorder%20is%20a,about%20the%20feelings%20of%20others
Trump most likely has the more severe or malignant form. It is part of core personality and only gets worse over time - especially in older age. See what you think. He is likely to have worsening/escalation of his symptoms over the coming months and years. He uses distraction to escape from situations with poor outcomes that he has usually created but when the distraction (e.g. the Iran war) has a poor outcome it causes further injury to his weak ego and further decline.
No doubt he narcissistic personality disorder. But what is wrong with the millions of people that follow him. Almost no one that knows Trump or has worked with him, wants to ever work with him again. Trump is loyalty to no one, yet if anyone in his circle of sycophants dares to say he lost the 2020 election, they are banished for life from everything Trump.
I guess description is the replacement for cure...passes time and fills writing space nicely, I'll admit...
New sign for a protest in front of the WH this summer:
THE WHOLE WORLD HATES YOU, DONOLD TRUMPY !
So outrageous that we are still talking black and white. But since we are, white allies need to be more vocal in defense of all Americans.
Are Hispanics black Karen? The Democrats need the Hispanic block to keep them in power. The Republicans have done a great job of convincing Hispanics to vote for Republicans and/or disenfranchising them as voters.
Who are the great Hispanic Democratic promoters out there? They need someone to look to that can urge them to vote and run for office in all levels of government.
There are lots of Hispanic Representatives in government- state and federal. And in many towns and cities. Hispanics supported Trump in 2024 but were chagrined when ICE started operating big time targeting Hispanics. We’ll get them back in November.
This is an important, depressing essay, impeccably sourced by the inimitable Dr. Richardson. The need to oppose these antidemocratic actions is obvious to anyone who is interested in preserving what remains of American democracy. But it is not the most time-sensitive issue before us. Donald Trump and his handlers are in the process of engineering an enormous swindle of OUR taxpayer dollars by way of a bogus lawsuit. Trump's DOJ is suing Trump's IRS for $10 BILLION dollars. That's TEN BILLION of OUR dollars. The lawsuit is completely bogus. All parties know that. The judge in charge of handling the suit has demanded both "sides" present briefs by 20 May showing why there is even a matter of contention, since both sides are branches of the same administration. So the Trump handlers and stooges representing both parties are rushing to produce a bogus "settlement" before that date, which the judge, apparently, has no authority either to forestall or to prevent being effected. Details can be found in the below essay. I'm not sure if there is anything we can do to prevent this theft.
https://heatherdelaneyreese.substack.com/p/trump-is-about-to-pull-off-the-biggest?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=5445372&post_id=197637333&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1cvz80&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Racial and partisan gerrymandering are formidable barriers, but they're not high enough to stop a Blue Wave, which is coming as surely as a tsunami after the ocean suddenly recedes from shore.
This -- the conclusion of many -- including Republicans nervously signaling to one another their desperation to hold onto something slipping from their hands like foam itself. In his Substack tonight, Robert Hubbell notes: "we are in the midst of a natural experiment to see how low Trump's favorability ratings can drop. About 47% of Americans believe aliens have visited Earth. 28% believe Bigfoot exists. Trump has already dropped to below "the aliens have visited earth benchmark" and is headed to "Bigfoot exists" territory."
No party can come back from this, especially when it keeps enraging voters by its ineptitude, incompetence, arrogance and complete fuckupery at the public expense. We must do our part by ensuring the Blue Wave is supported by money, passion, strong candidates and common sense responses to the miasma now hovering all around. As someone else said, 'ignore the noise, be the signal.'
We are again revisiting the virus of racism and seeing the failure of not resolving the issues that brought us the Civil War. Once again we are going to have to look at our electoral system and try to bring back the right of one man one vote. But the world now is much more complicated and this journey holds real risks for Country. We are in the midst of experiencing our failure to learn from our past history.
One person, one vote. One citizen, one vote.
Thank you...
Part of me wishes the South would secede again. This time, let the backward bastards go. They would attract all the MAGA, gun nuts, Bible bangers, etc. from the rest of the country and good riddance, while the people with functioning brains would flee north and west. It wouldn’t take long for the South to achieve 3rd world status, and soon thereafter, collapse.
Just a dream I dreamt.
Bad dream, Ralph.
Also possible, that "all the MAGA, gun nuts, Bible bangers, etc. from the rest of the country" unite with Putin, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salamn, Erdogan, Xi, Kim, Sisi, Bukele, Milei, and all of Donald's fellow criminals, rapists, and other elites.
All of this gerrymandering is awful but it can often be thwarted by overwhelming Democratic turnout augmented by Independents and disillusioned Republicans. The midterms are no longer just a contest between Republicans and Democrats. It's a fight to determine whether we want to continue as a constitutional republic or if we prefer an autocracy ruled by a strongman.
The hidden threat to the midterms may be corrupted election software, something that is receiving little attention. Both companies that manufacture most of the election equipment and write the election software are now owned by Trump supporters. The Election Assistance Commission, like most federal agencies and commissions, has been stacked with Trump supporters and as recently noted by Mark Elias' "Democracy Docket," its technical committee that oversees election software has been gutted by Trump. The vendors contracted by the Election Assistance Commission to certify that the election software works correctly are owned by Trump supporters.
It is not inconceivable that the election software could be written to tweak close votes without detection to favor desired candidates. Election Truth Alliance conducted numerous studies of data from the 2024 presidential election and found numerous unexplainable statistical anomalies in an election where Trump improbably won all swing states yet Democrats failed to insist on any recounts. Paper ballots are an effective tool only if they are used to verify results of the computer tabulated vote. Local election officials test voting equipment on election day, but computer code can be written to deceive tests much as Volkswagen wrote their diesel engine management software to deceive emissions tests for years. So called "risk limiting audits" are so hit or miss they are a joke. For instance, in the 2024 election in Pennsylvania where there were questions about the presidential vote count, the risk limiting audit was conducted on the state treasurer race!
Trump must corrupt the midterms to keep Republicans in control of the House and Senate to complete his authoritarian takeover and protect himself and his cronies. We know he has no ethical or moral limits. He will do anything, legal and illegal, to achieve his goals. He and his sycophants are constantly surprising us with their ingenuity and brazzeness. While enormous attention is being paid to Trump's attempts to suppress the vote, no attention is being paid to whether or not he and his operatives are attempting to manipulate the vote count. Someone in authority must conduct a line by line forensic analysis of the computer code in our election software before the midterms. Democrats must challenge improbable wins by Republicans and stand firm if Trump tries to seize ballots and equipment in districts being challenged.
Like you, Urban Hermit, I see the potential for corruption in the electronic voting system as a greater threat to the validity of the election outcome, than gerrymandering is--odious as that particular corruption of our system is. Gerrymandering is something we can see and understand and measure. The recording and counting of votes cast, on the other hand is an opaque process manipulated somewhere in cyberspace by anonymous hacks.
My concern is with corrupt code written into the original computer programs rather than outside malware hacks, although admittedly they may have been a problem in the past and may still be. Trump supporters and operatives now control the entire structure. Local election officials have no more idea what the software is actually doing in their equipment than we understand what the operating systems and applications are doing in our personal computers as they siphon off our personal information and send it who knows where.
Thanks again, Urban Hermit. I'm pretty certain you understand the inner workings of computer programs better than I do and are correct that what's written into programs and operating systems should worry us more than hackers. Let's hope "our" people are smarter than "their" people. :)
Right, Donna.
As Stalin said...
it isn't WHO VOTES..
It's WHO COUNTS the VOTES.
It’s such an abomination— he’s stealing our votes our rights and our hard earned money with tariffs and his vanity gold bathroom. Now we have more garbage in this regime that will harm our democracy for years. The detention centers are cruel and disgusting dangerous
More shocking (to me) is the complicity of the Supreme Court. I used to admire that court. Took me a long time to admit their blatant politicization.
MLMinET-
SCOTUS has always been complicit with the politics of the day. I learned a lot from the book, Simple Justice by Richard Kluger. He offers intricate details (more than 700 pages!) about the history of the court and the role that various justices have played in shaping American life.
I’ll look for the book. Thanks.
There is unlikely to be a wonderful moment when all the MAGA and Confederate damage is undone and Black and brown and LGBTQ people are welcomed as beloved neighbors but there can be an election where the pendulum starts swinging the other way. The future of domed cities and flying cars never came but today’s reality bears little resemblance to the gravel roads and two lane highways of the 1950s. Everything evolves quickly or slowly, it doesn’t just disappear, it changes over time. Our political situation is no different. The underlying issues remain in some form and racial divisions are no different. We no longer list the number of lynchings In yearly almanacs but the enmity is still there. More people are more accepting and more people aren’t. We just have more people with a little kernel of haters included. Education helps immensely when it is story based and shared with everyone. We have work to do. Contact your representatives and vote Blue.
Am too pissed to comment.
Same.