Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), whom the Republican House conference dumped as chair last week after she refused to kowtow to former president Trump, said some interesting things to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday this morning. She reiterated that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has information about conversations with Trump surrounding the events of January 6 and should be subpoenaed if he will not talk about those things voluntarily (and, by implication, under oath).
I have campaigned by writing postcards to voters to registered Democrats only, in a group that started with 17 writers for Ossoff in 2017 , based in Georgia, and now has about 120,000 writers in all 50 states. Studies show we move the needle one percent, which is not nothing. I have written in 115 campaign actions which gives you a look at who Democrats are running and who is winning , in every possible election from local to federal. The Democrats organized on the grassroots level , after the likes of Donald Trump was allowed into the WH, with great animation to flip six governorships and elect judges who ruled in the bogus attempts in the courts to overturn the will of the people. To win all that we did in 2020 and on Jan.5 and hold the line against death threats to our state officials, including threats at the governors mansion twenty minutes from my house, with honesty and dignity, we have shown that what Joe Biden seeks to put forth in a return to civility and constructive positivity is indeed possible. I am putting in the mail today postcards for a New Mexico special election to Congress. We campaign year round. We get to really know the states and the people running. It has been thrilling and meaningful. Our motto for 2022 is Democrats Deliver! We are not focused on what mob thug tactics are being used to bash the country to pieces, we are focused on being on the side of morality and upholding American ideals.
81.2 million Americans helped me. I planted my Victory Garden with postcards to voters because I could be creative and I can watch tv and listen to podcasts while I write. The truth rises to the top. Good trumps bad. Just like my parents did not expect to fight the evil that WW2 brought I did not expect to come out of retirement to full time activism. Our vote is our only means to change this situation. Everyone of us can do one little thing that we really enjoy to elect people who support the Constitution. My group turned around after the general election and wrote 2 million postcards for my hometown guys. What a victory that was in all of the danger that Trump brought to Georgia. Plus the pandemic was raging. You talk about insane. Armed militia threatened Brian Kemp at the governor’s mansion and felt justified and righteous to do it. Look at Michigan. One postcard at a time. One city council spot one school board. These postcards are completely original. I scribble so handwriting doesn’t matter. What sanity it gave me for years.
There are several good websites which provid targeted addresses and messages for those who purchase and mail postal cards on their own to use. Last year I used "Win the West" which recently changed its name to ActivateAmerica.com .
That link (activateamerica.com) seems to be dead. A search for "win the west" on DuckDuckGo only turns up a Facebook page for Maricopa County Young Republicans! Did you mean Flip the West? I found a link to their website when I added "activate america" to my search, but Firefox detected a potential security threat, so I did not proceed to the site. I see that Flip the West does have an ActBlue donation page: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/flipthewest
I don’t know how my link was changed to something I didn’t write. The organization is called Post Cards to Voters. Their site is postcardstovoters.com Hopefully this time it works.
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. Join your fellow Floridians! For more info, you can email:
Thank you for the update, Mary. Because you talked this up before the special election in GA, I wrote 100 postcards in the weeks leading up to Jan. 5. I just sent my email as an approved writer to sign up for more addresses for the VA legislative campaign because of your current post! You rock!!!
Mary, I’d also like to know what organization you are writing postcards with. I think we are all trying to find the most effective ways to help. Thanks.
Pansy, Google postcards to voters. Tony the Democrat. Read our New York Times article I think from 2018. It is easy and so much fun. Virginia has state elections on November 2, 2021. The GOP is completely off the rails totally. We cannot lose these elections. Besides you support the post office!
Organized efforts to send postcards to Democrats are effective and are something almost anyone can do. Most experts say in-person canvassing, especially by locals, is the most effective action. Not everyone can do that, but many can contribute money to organizations that provide necessary support to local organizations that do this work. Fair Fight, Voto Latino, and Walk the Walk USA are some examples, and many smaller organizations emulate their methods, often through local chapters of SwingLeft and Indivisibles.org.
Postcards and texts. YES. Grassroots efforts work. Im working on 200 postcards for the NJ primary. Democrats must focus on these Grassroots efforts like our lives depended on them and they do. Love the young people running the efforts in Georgia. We made a difference on Jan 5th.
"Now the Republican Party runs the risk of alienating voters it desperately needs as it faces a scandal of sex and drugs, a profoundly troubled election “audit,” accusations that party members are afraid to speak out because they fear for their lives, and suggestions from the former third-ranking official in the House Republican conference that the first official in the conference should be subpoenaed."
Joe Voter, and especially Joe Non-Voter, almost certainly hasn't heard of any of this. I play drums, and there's a guy I jam with. I like him a lot. He also has Fox News on all day. Or his wife does. Anyway, these folks COULD be changeable if they had a better media diet. But they will never hear about Matt Gaetz. Or anything other than the glory of dear leader.
Honestly, my friends would be better off not watching any news at all than watching Fox News. Maybe that's the best we can hope for. Then they might vote on what's really happening in their lives instead of what Fox tells them is happening in their lives.
Several studies have confirmed that a person who watches no news is better-informed than a person who watches Faux Snooze or any of the other Conservative Entertainment Inc. propaganda.
Fox News viewers really should practice better informational hygiene. At the risk of using an excessively low metaphor, perhaps we should start mailing out free, head-sized condoms to Republican primary voters. "Safe sex begins with the ears!"
Agree, that the country’s media diet is a critical element (possibly the most critical) in re-establishing a level of civil discourse and a functioning congress. As there’s probably no silver bullet, small steps are important (and money is always important).
Fox is a business and they are included in most of our monthly cable/streaming bundles, and they get a healthy revenue stream from our monthly fees. Find a way to stop subsidizing Fox. The majority of Americans do not watch Fox News; but the majority of Americans pay for Fox through media bundling fees. KICK FOX OFF THE DOLE!
I called my cable company and they just laughed when I told them I didn't want to pay for fox with my cable listing. I have to dump the whole thing (and I can't due to my husband's obsession with sports.)
wondering how to go about that. Is there a more specific ask than that? Like others here I have to "compromise" with other family, but when my children were growing I would not allow that crap into my home. Still I would love nothing more than getting cable out of my home. I've argued & fought for years with cable companies re just bundling a package for homes that only want educational, art, science, public broadcasting. How can one question "brainwashing" when so many homes let that crap continually broadcast into their minds.
If your internet service is robust enough, I'd just recommend getting rid of cable altogether. I did so about five years ago and haven't missed it. For a long while, live sports were difficult to access, but now with a subscription, I can get what few sports I follow (Olympics, Wimbleton, etc.).
My ability to access news is actually greater, since I can roam far more in-depth, original reporting. And I've become virtually allergic to commercials -- how could I ever stand them before? As for Fox News? Who cares?
That said, I was never able to protect my children from either the internet or cable. I'm quite certain that they've been damaged in myriad ways by the experience of growing up with the damn screen, something I was never able to prevent without completely uncoupling them from the rest of American society.
Like Peri, I called my cable provider to ask about packages that don’t include fox; met with a silent pause, then a chuckle and a “no” that sounded more like “duh.” The difference for me is that my cable fee is part of my HOA fee. If I chose another type of provider I’d still have to pay my share of the group fee for cable coming into my condo - hence trying to “hurt” fox only hurts me.
Where we live, the only source for reliable internet is comcast/xfinity. We have tried to find other ISPs, as we don't even have a television and use our computers for entertainment streaming as well as for internet, but this area doesn't have as many options as we had when we lived in Seattle. Some of our neighbors have satellite dishes from a dish company that offers internet along with TV, but the ones I've checked out offer such slow speeds that we have stayed with the big cable company. Heavy sigh. Trying to limit our service to internet only means a big conversation every time the current contract runs out - no, we don't want this cable package, no, we don't need that add-on - we just want high-speed internet, thank you!
I noticed my father-in-law became a little bit less rabid a "conservative" when his wife (who is my age, and I thank Providence for her every day because she is dealing with his current health issues and not my wife or my sister-in-law) insisted that Fox not be on in the house.
He is one of the most perfect samples of white male privilege's that I can think of, and his absolute denial of systemic racism is stunning.
Paul, Those lines of Heather's that you referred to I think have more to do with the death of the party, not 'Joe Voter'. I think your friends and many like them are emotionally attached to Trump and what they watch on Fox. The messages they are getting taps into their hearts. That is important to remember, but it isn't whole story. There are other forces in reality and in a majority of people, which appear to be stronger. This is ugly, difficult and not over.
I think that the message taps into their collective amygdalae rather than their hearts. They are wired for fear of "other", and what Faux feeds them pleases their brains in a very damaging way.
Except for a very few, people are not without heart. I have heard 'his' supporters say they love him. Fear is not the only emotion. The folks we are talking about believe that they finally found a savior, and he gives them permission to 'go wild!' I don't doubt that they have been waiting to destroy. The Republicans have targeted and embellished the targets.
I disagree. They will hear of it. What is unfortunate is the extreme that is occurring. The “Samson alternative” as TC describes means many casualties.
💯 agree! Maybe they’ll turn Fox off once they see in real time the wheels of justice and prosperity making fools of Fox??? Maybe I’m forever an optimist?
Healthy alternatives to Fox. There are alternative sources of news info (e.g., podcasts on YouTube). “The Hill – Rising” with Saager and Ball—a conservative and a progressive who are honest, civil, and searching for truthful answers while not allowing any politician from either party to get away with nonsense. Also, there is Jimmy Dore on “The Jimmy Dore Show” (though the language may be a bit rough for sensitive ears). Further, Matt Taibbi on “Useful Idiots”. And there are a number of other worthwhile podcasts discussing policies and political issues.
I can see how they would. I've read that he was impressed by successful speculators/investors and wished he was in that club. IMHO, Churchill's real value to England during WWII (1939-45 for the British) was when he stayed publicly vocal in resisting the Nazis, and he served as a beacon in keeping up British esprit during WWII. My father met him a few times during the fighting in Italy (1943-45). Dad was a young American officer on General (later Field Marshall) Alexander's staff for two years. Alexander commanded all Allied forces in Italy in the Anglo-American 15th Army Group. In my father's considered opinion, "General Alexander was perhaps the finest soldier in the war." He was Churchill's favorite general and was called in to save situations (e.g., Dunkirk, Burma, North Africa). Also, Eisenhower idolized Alexander. I better stop now as I get carried away with talk of WWII and the Mediterranean Theater. You might enjoy seeing some historic photos of the period on my website: www.buckandbernice.com.
As people remarked about their bingo cards over the past year, who'd have thought that today's would have as heroes of the day, Liz Cheney, a guy named Stephen Richer, and the Maricopa County Republican election officials. Heroes of the day for stepping up as the loyal opposition a two party system needs to maintain a healthy democracy.
I believe when there is a traitor at the top of the food chain, exposure of it takes on a most random aspect because the normal channels in place have been compromised.
It's interesting that "mob" has multiple meanings in the Republican Party. It's a party run like a crime family with Godfather Trump. And, it's a mob of gun toting insurrectionist proud white boys and girls beating up police and trashing our Capitol. And it's an undignified undisciplined group of poorly formed men and women who play at being elected representatives where proficient well informed capable men and women should be conducting our public business.
Just because the Republican Party may be exploding does not mean they are not deadly dangerous. Here's an analogy: After the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy was unable to undertake another open ocean offensive action. Yet, between November 1944 and the end of July 1945, they inflicted the greatest casualties and losses the U.S. Navy experienced in the whole war through the suicidal Kamikazes, to the point that at the end of June following the Okinawa campaign, Admiral Nimitz, the American commander in the Pacific, was forced to tell the US Joint Chiefs that the Navy could not support the planned invasion of Japan because they would be unable to sustain the expected losses. (and no, it wasn't the A-bombs that made the Japanese surrender, though they liked to tell us that lie after the war to make us happy)
Nutbag extremists, faced with defeat, are almost always happy to take "the Samson alternative" and pull the temple down around them rather than voluntarily surrender.
That's true about Hitler too. As defeat became clearer, Hitler conscripted younger and younger cohorts of Hitler Youth--as young as 10 years old--who'd been brainwashed from young childhood with repeated oaths to die for their "father" Der Führer. In addition to this zealous energy, the soldiers were amped up with meth.
Thank you, Christine. From this History Channel article:
“Developed by the Temmler pharmaceutical company, based in Berlin, Pervitin was introduced in 1938 and marketed as a magic pill for alertness and an anti-depressive, among other uses. It was briefly even available over the counter. A military doctor, Otto Ranke, experimented with Pervitin on 90 college students and decided, based on his results, that the drug would help Germany win the war. Using Pervitin, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht could stay awake for days at a time and march many more miles without resting.”
This is from Huffpost but Ellie’s comment about meth use by Nazi soldiers brought this article to mind. It’s a parallel to Trump’s base. I was startled by the article.
While I haven't checked the sources, my LE training indicated that pure methamphetamine was a by-product of the production of mustard gas used by Germany in WWI. My quick Google search (>2 minutes) couldn't find a good source for that, although there was conversation about the results of phosphorous gas released in meth production based on the old P2P process the second "P" is phosphorus) and not the ephedrine process (which is the current favorite).
Alcohol has long served the same purpose in "motivating" soldiers to fight, and sometimes to commit atrocities. Also, the US military in Vietnam was among the most drug-addled in history.
Ellie I learned something new today— I had no idea about meth or the conscription of 10 year olds. Hitler was such a nut job fanatic that it must have been torturous for him to lose. He died fairly easily with the poison and Eva by his side —and think of all the waves of suffering he created. We only had idjt 4 years and look at the terrorism he stirred up.
Yes. As the available population of healthy young adult Germans diminished, Hitler conscripted younger and younger, and older and older men, including those previously deferred for a medical disability.
What made the Japanese surrender was the Soviet entry into the war on August 9. The Japanese had stripped their Manchurian army of troops and equipment, and sent them to Kyushu to face the expected US invasion. On August 9, the records of the Japanese Supreme War Council show all interest was on the Soviet invasion - the bombing of Nagasaki isn't even mentioned. The Soviets planned to have Manchuria and Sakhalin Island under their control by the end of August, and to mount an invasion of Hokkaido at the end of September - 6 weeks before the US invasion (which the Navy couldn't support). The Japanese knew they had no defenses in the north. They also had information of what happened in Germany at the end and in the months after the German surrender, and didn't want that in Japan. Had they held off, the Soviets would likely have taken all of Hokkaido and most, if not all, of Honshu before the US invasion.
Additionally, the Japanese were well aware of the Soviet desire for revenge of the defeat in 1905.
I spoke with two Marines who were leaders in the 6th Division. In September, they visited the beach they would have landed on in Kyushu, saw the defenses the Japanese had, spoke to the leaders of the defending troops, and concluded they would never have made it off the beaches.
So the Japanese surrendered to us (with a secret assurance the Emperor would not be removed). Ever after they told us they did so because of the A-bombs, and used the bombs ever after to portray themselves as the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Pacific War. To this day, Japanese students learn in school that Japan went to war to save Asia from the White European Empires, that they won every battle but had to make "strategic retreats," and then - atom bombs! They have never taken responsibility for the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the Railway of Death in Thailand (that story told in The Bridge on the River Kwai), the "comfort women," or any of their other atrocities. Every Japanese prime minister (the Liberal Democratic Party -actually the conservative party - was founded by former members of the wartime government; in Germany, their opposite numbers were banned from political activity) has visited Yauskuni Shrine, where the ashes of the executed war criminals were secretly returned in 1952.
All the talk about "peaceful" Japan is hooey. The current prime minister and his predecessor were and are both committed to removing the "pacifist" clause from the postwar constitution.
The only participant in this conversation more surprised than you was me. I had "the bomb saved your father's life" drummed into me from so far back I cannot remember (he was sunk by the kamikazes at Okinawa and ordered back for the invasion.) He was so certain he would die he sat down and wrote me a letter - I was 1 at the time - telling me who he was, why he wanted to have a son in the middle of a war, and what he hoped would become of me, which I found going through his papers after his death. All kinds of guy felt they had been "saved by the bomb," and it was a lie the government was happy to spread far and wide, because it allowed them to develop "nuclear diplomacy" (there's an oxymoron). I had heard this argument before that it wasn't the bomb and dismissed it, but when I was researching Tidal Wave, I came into possession of a translated copy of the minutes of the Imperial War Council for August 9, and all they were discussing all day was the Russian invasion. You have to remember the Japanese and Russians fought a war in 1904-05 that humiliated the Russians, there had been bad blood with them ever since, and here they were coming through the back door that wasn't locked or defended. I went into it in detail in the book because I knew other people wouldn't believe it either.
Great question. If dropping the A-Bomb didn't force unconditional surrender, why did the US drop it (twice), then what did? Hiroshima was not a military center. The city was 98% civilian. It was used as a "terror attack" and would be illegal today.
There's no excusing the bombs. Most particularly there's no excuse for Nagasaki "the forgotten bomb." Nagasaki had been for close to 400 years the center of opposition to Imperial Japan. It was largely Christian had had maintained Christianity in the 200 years the religion was officially suppressed in Japan. The bomb was dropped there because all the other targets were "weathered in" and the alternative was the crew going home having dropped the most expensive bomb in history in the ocean. As it was, they made three runs over the city and couldn't bomb visually - the bombardier finally said "I can see" (he couldn't) and they dropped. Ground Zero was supposed to be the Mitsubishi aircraft factory - instead, it was the Urakami Catholic Church, the largest Christian church in Asia, built with the donations of parishioners after the religion was unbanned in the Meiji Restoration.
To me, the people of Nagasaki are the most admirable I ever met. After the war, they decided they wanted to dedicate the city to "international brotherhood," that such a thing as happened to them would never happen again. To this day, if you were to go there, a citizen would approach you and ask if they might buy you tea, or even a meal, offer to take you around the city (you can visit the house down the peninsula where Puccini wrote "Madame Butterfly"). All very un-Japanese behavior. On the other hand, if you go to Hiroshima, they will do their best to make you feel guilty.
If you want a "terror attack," the one you want is the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9, 1945, in which 500 B-29s dropped 5,000 incendiaries each, burning out 12 square miles of the city completely and killing over 100,000 people - more than died in either A-bomb attack. My aerobatics instructor back in the 70s had been one of those pilots and he told me that 30 years later he could still smell the burning human flesh - they bombed from 1,500 feet.
There's also the firebombing of Kobe-Oasaka. When I first went to Japan in 1963, we visited the port. A friend and I went ashore and managed to get lost walking around. Toward dusk, we turned a corner and confronted the sight of (what I learned later was) the last 1,000 acres that had not been rebuilt. It was black. There was nothing there but black, and a few twisted girders. I was immediately reminded of the cover of an Ace double s-f novel I had at home, with a cover painting of a scene after World War III. That was 19 years after the bombing.
Thanks TC. Your generous posts really aid in seeing through the usual historic mumbo-jumbo that governments provide and history books report. It is helpful to hear facts. I have read two books on the bombings and was interested by the fact that the people of Hiroshima never imagined they would be harmed. Though the fire bombing was extensive in cities around Hiroshima, inhabitants didn't know why, but they had not been fire-bombed. As always there is the military or manufacturing to strike and but then there are the civilians who face the consequences. According to your interpretation, the bombings were unnecessary, a violation. You don't say this, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but the use of the Bombs was only to show US strength. It feels like pure vengeance. I know there were terrible cruelties exercised by the Japanese military, but knowing that there would be the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilians, not military, but civilians, when there was already an awareness of the coming Russian movements and the fact that the Japanese knew the end was coming for them, and STILL to release those nuclear bombs is enraging.
There has been much argument over many years as to the real reason the bombs were employed, with much speculation that it was a demonstration to Stalin of what the US was capable of doing. Most of the Manhattan Project scientists had come aboard to create a weapon to destroy Hitler. When that war ended without the bomb being ready, most of them thought it wouldn't be used. The fact that the upper reaches of the US government and military were aware they had been checked by the Japanese in the plans to invade the Home Islands, the bombs may well have been vengeance. The former US ambassador to Japan before the war was only able after much argument to get the ancient Japanese capitol of Kamakura, the heart of Japanese culture, taken off the target list. There was a third bomb that arrived on Tinian the week after Nagasaki, that would likely have been used against Tokyo had the Japanese not surrendered when they did.
When I got to Okinawa the summer of 1963, 18 years after the end of the battle, I made a few day trips to the old battlefields in the southern end of the island. All was still ruins, and one was advised not to step off the paths, for fear of stepping on unexploded ordnance still in the ground. As it was, there was no part of the pathways where you could step that you would not dislodge a bullet casing, or even a shattered piece of bone (which I did once). 100,000 Japanese troops and Okinawans died there. Today, Shuri Castle has been completely rebuilt and many of the old trench lines filled in, but I'm told people still stay on the footpaths.
It would require some thought for me to choose a preference between the nutbag extremists getting what they want (which is government by white people, for white people, like the one we had until about 1964) or pulling the temple down. Avoiding both would be great but that will requre a monumental effort and some luck to boot.
Representative Cheney has sounded the alarm and calls for McCarthy's subpoena, also pointing out that many congressional Republicans and state officials fear for their lives. Considering the contradiction between McCarthy's current statements and his statements during and shortly following the January 6 insurrection, Cheney's advice should be heeded. I am not a Republican and never have been but we, as HRC asserts, need a healthy opposition party, a "loyal" opposition, to serve as a check on both parties. "Loyal" to what? To the Constitution and the rule of law. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
Congress has the power to declare war, to send our youth out to die for their country..if these Republicans do not have the courage to tell the truth, to stand up and protect this democracy and do their job out of fear they may lose their jobs or be threatened by Trolls of their own making they do not deserve the jobs they hold. Everyday the young women of "The Squad" face death threats and yet hold their heads up and work for the people...what cowards the GOP are.
Yes, the courage and backbone of the women of color in Congress is something we don't speak enough about. If only a quarter of the Rs had half of their strength and integrity, we wouldn't be in this mess.
This version of "Woman in Charge" is sung by the Best Witches Women's Chorus. (Musically, it can't compare with Keb's performances posted previously, but it's a fun listen to hear all these mostly old, mostly white ladies singing it.) (I'm a mostly old mostly white lady, so I can say that.)
Understand that Republicans do not care one bit that you call them cowards. They’ll laugh to themselves, and continue doing exactly what they’re doing. As far as Trump’s Republicans are concerned, democracy is for suckers.
I can't wrap my head around Liz Cheney admitting yesterday that she voted for iDJT in 2020. She said, "Well, I wasn't going to vote for Biden." Egads, how sick is our society that someone knowing and understanding how corrupt iDJT is still voted for him? She famously voted to impeach him. Anybody else astounded by this?
It helps to remind us that she is one big ball of political calculation. Everything she says and does must be filtered through the understanding that she is looking out for Liz Cheney first and foremost. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that, but imputing noble motives to her actions is an exercise in self-deception.
Yes, along with all the other cowardly Republicans who thought it was a better idea to vote for a dead person rather than vote for Biden (hello Larry Hogan, Mitt Romney, Mike Dewine).
Not really. Don't forget, she voted with and rubber-stamped T***p's policies 92% of the time. She's another of the "love the sinner, hate the sin" kind of approach when it came to DJT, so flipping the voting lever FOR him is hardly surprising. That kind of mentality has governed a lot of the support for T***p, and it is still pretty formidable. At the end of the day, Cheney is really very far to the right politically, and, like the rest of nut-base electorate of the GOP, they will vote party first and foremost every time. They've swallowed the "radical socialist agenda" shtick hook, line, and sinker. I'm not as optimistic as HCR in thinking that suddenly the "scales will fall from the eyes" of the GOP voting base. They're gonna vote "R" regardless of whatever shenanigans their leadership is up to. They did it before and they'll do it again. That Cheney "woke up and smelled the coffee" (wow...I'm using lots of quotes this morning...) is laudable, but symptomatic of the ongoing rot in the Republican party. I still think the actual voters out here in "Les Styx" will be the last to flee the sinking ship. Don't "misunderestimate" (my favourite Bush-ism from W) the amount of blind allegiance and ignorance out here.
If we think of those millions who are blindly allegiant and ignorant as brainwashed cult members (which is my own perception, I confess), the "scales" will not miraculously "fall from their eyes." They are more likely to sacrifice themselves first in a desperate attempt to "save" the country for their dear leader. This is what scares me. This and losing our rights to vote and to having our votes COUNT.
I think it makes us all pretty itchy to see a politician whose deepest political beliefs and motives we abhor doing something we feel obliged to grudgingly admire at a certain level. However, she is no advocate for the people and I'd feel no safer going on a camping/hunting trip with her than I would with her father.
I would like to know more about why and how they feared for their lives. These are folks that should have very strong security around them. What did they know about? Does DT have some sort of goon squad taking out his political and other enemies? R Stone and co? DeVos’ mercenary brother E Prince? Why wouldn’t the FBI be on this? Surely these Senators could ask for and receive help?
They are afraid of the armed Second Amendment loving crazies who voted for them. There is a strongly violent undercurrent in their social media. Trump energizes and validates it constantly with matter of fact references to “how we used to deal with these problems” and the like. The message many of the members got on January 6 is that their status as Republican elites won’t save them or their families from the mob. Many of these members are desperately clinging to the tiger they decided to ride. While it’s hard not to point out their folly it doesn’t make the riders’ fear less palpable.
HCR’s observations about the role of oversight reminded me of meetings I attended in the mid-2000s with Iraqis who had been selected to be Inspectors General in different agencies of their newly established government. The meetings were cast as a chance to offer them our experience with how to conduct government oversight, but it wasn’t possible for us to answer their real question, which was how to engage in oversight in the face of death threats and murder. Many of them returned to Iraq to be killed by one or another faction or corrupt minister’s thugs. Ultimately all that protects any of us is the rule of law. The fear of the Republican members is a pale copy of what things look like when that rule breaks down.
“They are afraid of the armed Second Amendment loving crazies who voted for them. There is a strongly violent undercurrent in their social media. Trump energizes and validates it constantly...” Agreed!
This makes sense as to what they were afraid of, but what total cowards that makes them, as they aid and abet that behavior towards their own political opponents.
They are also afraid of losing their jobs. What disturbs me so much right now, is that over the last four years, many of the more “reasonable” ones have left Congress, leaving the increasingly radical ones behind. (I put reasonable in quotes because I personally don’t think any of them really are reasonable, including Liz Cheney.)
Sounds to me that the former president did not choose to use a “goon squad” or SS as Hitler did. Worse. He used the American people to do the deed. The insurrection proved that. It is only fortunate happenstance that many Legislators were not physically harmed or killed that day.
And we now see that it is the American people who must defeat the Republican party’s worst laid plans......at the voting booth. It appears the nefarious plans make that an even more daunting task than it was in 2020. However, the truth is the best weapon always.
A most sincere and heartfelt thank you to HCR and this stream as being an example of that.
I have no doubt that if the most crazed groups of that Jan.6 mob had found Mike Pence that day they would have seriously hurt or even killed him in order to stop him from ratifying the vote. If they had found Pelosi they would have done the same thing because they hate the woman. There is good reason to be afraid for life, limb and family.
Agreed. Two years ago while waiting for an X-ray at a VA hospital I had to leave the waiting room & move down the hall due to two older, white, male veterans loudly ranting about how they “couldn’t wait to see that bitch Pelosi’s face beaten to a bloody pulp”. Both said they’d pay to watch that happen. (I reported it. Was told they were “just exercising their freedom of speech”.)
Had the insurrection been more of a military assault and less chaos mob I think we would have seen several Democrats + Pence murdered that day.
Think for a moment of what poisoned the minds of those two "older, white, male veterans" and those of millions of similarly inclined Americans. The battle to save democracy is a battle against ignorance and gullibility, a hard one to win, given social media and the First Amendment.
I dislike intensely that you felt you had to move and that your reporting was met with the “first amendment excuse”. That is ridiculous. Being verbally abusive and threatening in a common area in a public place is not acceptable due to any amendment.
THEY ARE THE ONES THAT NEEDED TO MOVE OR BE ASKED TO MOVE.
Diane: Free speech is one of those rights provided in a democracy which can serve as the seeds of its own demise. It has happened before. A friend recently chastised me for pessimistically quoting Alexander Pope's couplet:
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never IS but always TO BE blessed."
She is one of those progressives eternally hoping for the success of American democracy and insists it can happen once true believers in democracy find a plan to enable that to happen. So I added two more lines to Pope's poetry:
Right that makes sense. We know he’s incited violence over and over against political enemies so maybe they were afraid of their own cult members with their militarized arsenals turning on them at 45’s behest. Lily-livered!
I wouldn't be surprised if the "goon squad" didn't exist as he wouldn't be the first gangster to hole up in Florida...Meyer Lansky and also the Trafficante Family were particularly efficient in making there threats particularly believable and effective from their Miami and Tampa bases. Their "killer" bullets are now more likely to be skeletons in the closet rather than bodies dumped in the woods. Trump and his goons, in 4 years in the White House, probably perfected the "Edgar Hoover Technique" and built files on all the Republican's missdeads and "favours done" which would force any recalcitrant underling to commit Harakiri should they be revealed on Fox News or even CNN.....and attract very close attention from a newly clean DOJ.
Yes, I seem to recall Stormy Daniels saying she was threatened in a parking lot by thugs, so it wouldn't surprise me, given his father's (and his own) long-standing ties with the mob, that he would use such tactics. If dozens of senators, however, fear for their lives, I am inclined to think they fear their conspiracy-crazed constituents.
Dont forget Trump's comment during the 2016 campaign that he could kill someone and still be elected. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if he hasnt already done that.
I remember McConnell showing up “black and blue” and his only comment was “nothing to be concerned about”, black and blue hand and punch in the mouth black and blue. I’ve always wondered if he was “roughed up”. Anybody else wonder about it?
A medical issue could have been a fall_-I worked in geriatrics for years and saw some very nasty bruises from falls, especially if a resident was on a blood thinner..
The thought that someone might have hit him crossed my mind, but dismissed. Thugs know how to rough people up without leaving visible marks. Face & hand say fall to me.
I too wonder if any of this is being investigated or if it’s all being shrugged off as “oh, that’s just trump” - something too many Democrats have done far too often, in my opinion.
Yes, I am surprised that Heather emphasized this; I don't find it very credible. That they were fearing for their political lives is easy to believe--they think they can't win without the MAGA base. But I don't honestly believe they were physically threatened.
If you recall, the Republican Georgia election officials who certified the election and defended the process had to have police protection because of the death threats and doxxing that occurred. Christine Blasey Ford had to go into HIDING with her family because of death threats against herself and her family--which included the publication of her home address and phone numbers of her entire family. I am not surprised they are terrified by the threats they themselves created by hyping up the Big Lie and tugging the forelock to the Cheeto. When you have a lot of people with a lot of guns and a demagogue who has no compunction about ramping up the temperature, you have a recipe for terrorism. My thought is that this demonstrates exactly why the former guy should never be allowed on social media sites ever again.
Another official needing protection is Katie Hobbs, the AZ Dem Sec'y of State (for having had the nerve to certify the Presidential Election andcall ing out the Cyber Ninja BS (She calls it the "Fraudit"!). The Republican Gov. Doucy ordered it.
What surprised me with all you have just said is why members of Congress are not doing anything to protect their peers. Surely they understand that at any time, things could change they would be the ones being threatened. I don't understand this part of it all.
I have no hard evidence, but given the former guy's penchant for mob-like control, physical threats could be part of his desperate, last-gasp clinging.
I have no doubt he has tried some strong-arm tactics, but do experienced politicians really take them seriously? I honestly don't know, but would be surprised if they do. Besides, he doesn't need to. Those who have opposed him have almost universally been sidelined, at least so far. Liz Cheney is betting that influence is coming to an end.
With the knowledge at how unhinged his followers are, I certain that most any reasonable person witnessing the shenanigans at his rallies, the street gang leaders he has hosted at the White House and the public events involving them at other public events such as protests, marches and the official acts he has had coordinated involving DHS and other governmental law enforcement agencies, would have reason to fear violence in one form or another. When you consider that A-List celebrities must hire security to protect them from overzealous and unhealthy fixated fans, they generally have the income to do so. I don't think the average congressman/woman does though.
I really created something of a firestorm here without intending to. I agree with everything you say but consider it unlikely that Congresspeople are making choices based on threats of physical violence. If we truly are in an era where our republic is dominated by Mafia tactics then we are entirely lost. I choose to believe this is not true. It's clear they are now and always have been acting from self-interest--in pursuit of greed, power, and job security. But I find shocking the degree of cynicism required to think that even the most craven of our lawmakers are legislating based on the threat of physical violence. I have also seen no evidence that this is so. It's not like this is something that would have escaped the notice of the New York Times or the Washington Post, not to mention the FBI.
I did not claim that Democratic congress-people are creating legislation out of fear. However I can't wonder that HR1 is a response to the situation coming out of the last election and the ensuing redstate legislature passing new electoral rules. Additionally, I am certain that Republican politicians have walked back statements related to 1/6 out of fear (look at Lapdog Lindsey's change of attitude after being confronted at the airport following 1/6). People like Elise Stefanik --she for example is just acting out of craven power hunger. Additionally, one cannot deny the record number of retirements in the Republican Congress and Senate of moderate/traditional pols in the last few years.
Our Governor in Michigan and our Secretary of State were physically threatened, and received death threats. I believe Republican Congress folks received the same real threats.
Reid, you silly, foolish person. I personally know (as in friends) several elected officials who have received death threats and some who have experienced near misses (not counting the little stuff like vandalism, attempted car rammings, etc.) It is not uncommon for elected officials (and appointed, for that matter) to need physical guards because of attempted assaults. You "honestly don't believe they were physically threatened"? Really?
My Rep Ayanna Pressley is forced to deal with numerous threats to her physical safety. Remember Jan 6? Someone disabled the alarm system in her office, probably as part of a larger conspiracy to harm her and multiple others. And by harm I don't mean a few bruised wrists. The worst of the filthy insurrectionist trash were there to assault, rape, torture and lynch their targets. Once Bulldog Garland's DOJ has assembled the evidence, hopefully charges of conspiracy to commit murder are included along with sedition and treason, not just the routine domestic crimes like assault, criminal trespass, etc.
I am thinking of Representative Jim Clyburn, who when interviewed just after the attack (I think the very next day), was still reeling from his close encounter because the insurrectionists had found their way to his very door - in that labyrinthian building where few would even know how to find his office WITHOUT DIRECTIONS. I am thinking of the maps that were in the hands of insurrectionists. I am remembering the representatives who were hiding in the gallery and being told by one of their own how to put on gas masks. I am remembering Nancy Pelosi's staff hiding in a conference room, in the dark, hearing the insurrectionists literally banging on the DOOR. I am remembering Senator Romney being led to safety within FEET of dangerous insurrectionists who were there to hang the VP and hogtie whomever they could find. I am thinking of the video of insurrectionists in which one woman could be seen and heard giving instructions on which doors and windows led where. I am remembering the reports of GUIDED TOURS of the Capitol on January 5th, when the Capitol was CLOSED to all but authorized persons and employees. I am reminded that one Representative who was threatened by MTG had to ask for a different office and another had an insulting and degrading sign placed on the wall outside her door. I am thinking of the recently released video of MTG stalking AOC before she (MTG) was even installed in office and how she stalked and threatened David Hogg. I am thinking of the attempts on Governor Gretchen Whitmer's life and the mob that surrounded her HOME. I am thinking of the Trump Train right here in Texas that tried to run VP Harris' campaign bus off a major interstate. I am thinking that these Congressional servants ARE living now in a heightened state of fear, not only from deranged and out of control Trumplican supporters, but also from members within their own midst. We hear from Representative Swalwell and former assistant director for counterintelligence for the FBI Frank Figliuzzi as well as Representative Adam Schiff on an almost regular basis these days reporting on the dangers of serving in office, even with the deposed tyrant hiding out in FL. I honestly don't think most of these individuals came to office with the understanding that they might need extra protection for their personal safety or that their homes and families might be targeted by crazies. If this is so, then why on earth would any sane person run for office?
Yeh. Plus the not very active search for Pelosi, also goaded by TFG. One could say both of those ongoing events went a little beyond "physical threatening". Both were downright terrifying to watch, let alone being the target. They indicate that there likely was a lot of more subtle bureaucratic posturing (verbal and physical) by members of the 45 administration going on behind the scenes long before Jan 6, too.
I didn't make myself clear. I think they are threatened all the time, but that they take it in stride--it comes with the territory. But do I think they are cowering in fear and making policy decisions based on physical threat? I do not.
By the way, name calling and shaming have no place here. This is a forum for civil discussion.
I'd delete the first sentence if I could to salve your feelings, but the rest would still stand, Reid. You appear to be truly unaware of what is going on. Yes, some politicians do make policy decisions based on intimidation, which often implies physical threat. There is blackmail. There is manipulation. There is corruption. What amazes me is how much actually gets done in spite of it all, because there are still people who will get up and do the work IN SPITE OF IT. Our system is still functioning, but just barely. What Stacey Adams pulled off in Georgia gives me hope- and she endured threats of physical violence for it.
I personally, as a representative of a state agency, have experienced it. My governor stood up for me, but for a while my life was very uncomfortable. Yet I was a small fry. I simply had the gumption to stand up to a man who thought he could intimidate me into backing down from something he didn't like.
It is not enough to dismiss this kind of thing with "they take it in stride--it comes with the territory". No, they do not take it in stride, nor should they have to. It affects their lives, their families, their ability to work. People resign because of it, or choose not to run for a seat they would easily win, because they have had enough. One representative in the state in which I now live had to withdraw from reelection campaign and move to get away from constant harassment. This is not as uncommon as you may think. We lose good statesmen who leave because they are unable to get things done in an atmosphere in which antagonism and threats are constantly in the air. In several state legislatures this past year, actual threats were made on the floors of the legislature. On the floor. Public record. I witnessed one such. It shocked me then. I've seen worse since. I have little patience when people who should be more aware prefer to believe either that this does not happen, or that it is "just the way things are". In a society based on the rule of law, one in which decisions are made in places where civil discussion is expected and guided by rules, there is no room for intimidating tactics meant to instill fear and shape policy decisions. To then make excuses for the fact that this exists by dismissing them as "coming with the territory" is simply not acceptible. You may choose to believe otherwise. That is how we ended up with Trump.
I can see that you feel strongly about this, which does not give you license to be abusive. I don't need my feelings salved; I'm a big boy. I have already engaged in extensive mea culpa for my comments and have apologized here. If you choose not to acknowledge that, that is certainly your right. I stand by the revised version of what I said.
I do other things, Reid. I did not see this post until hours later. And now you are miffed about that. Have not seen the mea culpa you reference, but good for you. I hope you managed to do it without feeling the need to sling yet another stinger. Quit reading thing into other people's posts. It may help you feel righteous, but does not help your cause. Can we drop this now?
I have long thought that blackmail was one of Trump's foremost tools for the control he has over certain people. Some of the things coming out seem to support that. Look at the scandals that are not directly related to political scams. They often come out after someone becomes a liability to the former guy and his sycophants. And I have little doubt that TFG, like other mob bosses with thugs at hand, would only have to indicate that someone was a problem. There has been real fear in WaDC for a while, and it is a release to see people standing up to it. Sometimes the best thing to do, instead of ducking and hiding, is to stand out in the open where the threat become obvious. Obvious is easier to see, easier to fight.
We call that leadership. To stand up for what is right, call out the wrong, and suffer for it. Offer solutions, create a plan through reason & compromise, audit and adjust the plan as needed. Everything else is just noise, and those noisemakers need to be voted out & sent home.
It's credible, Reid. Read the post I just put up from Jeff Greenfield's Politico article - and go read the whole thing. I'm sure with the nuts out there who go after me that GOP office holders have indeed received "credible threats."
I understand the threats both physical and endangering their jobs but if elected officials can't or choose not to do anything to stop the threats then aren't we all pretty much lost? They have the option of secret meeting with the DOJ and can pass information to the FBI unlike regular citizens. So if they are leaving office or giving into the threats then what chance is there to stop them?
They need us to support them. Our responsibility does not end with voting. The legislators and other elected officials (and those appointed as well) need to hear from us. They need to know what is important to us. It also helps when we write to say thank you, especially when we can point to something specific. They are out in front standing in for us. We need to let them know we're aware of them.
And when they screw up, we need to let them know that, too, so they can do a course correction if needed. That keeps them on our line, and more likely to keep going. If all they get is the negativity they aren't motivated to stay. Go to their presentations. Show up at civic events, introduce yourself and say thanks. Tell other people what you like about them. Campaign for them.
Did you notice yet how easy it is for any crazy lunatic to get military assault weaponry? Look how many mass shootings we have. Schools, malls, concerts, grocery stores, etc. There were bombs planted at the RNC and DNC on Jan. 6. Some of those rioters bragged on social media about returning with MORE weaponry. It is beyond credible that a politician would fear for his/her life if they refuse to back the Big Lie.
Good points, thank you Sally. DC's strict gun control laws ensured that the insurrectionist rabble were not armed to the teeth with legal weapons at the actual time of the riot on Jan 6; most were left in their rooms nearby. Other than that, it's all too easy for such domestic terrorists to assemble arsenals of lethal weapons.
1. Mitt played both sides (in term of platform) before running for pres; that compromised his credibility in the beginning.
2. Mitt was the first to stand up. The rest were chicken. Until- what is that group called? Republicans against Trump? The ones who did the ads. That was pretty visible.
3. I don't think Mitt actually has a second agenda. He knew he was gutting his chance to be the Repub candidate. He did it anyway. Not a Mitt fan, but he wins points from me for that.
I really did not write what I intended to here and I apologize for the misunderstanding. What I meant was that I don't think the choices the Rs are making are because of physical threat but because they fear for their political lives. I understand the threat many people in public service face, particularly women and people of color. And women of color are particularly vulnerable. But even the craven Rs are unlikely to give in to the threats and change their policies based on that alone. Now, blackmail or losing their seat? I think those are going on and do inform what they choose to do; just witness the abrupt change in Lindsey Graham's demeanor after a single golf outing with Trump.
I'm not convinced that's accurate, i.e., that the the threat of physical violence is not a dominant factor guiding the Rs' Mitch-like behavior. As noted by others here, on January 06, we saw with our own eyes (!) what former guy's devotees are capable of doing. Remember also that one of former guy's and his son-in-law's playmates is Saudi Arabia's MBS. Remember what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. Those last six words alone would cause me considerable angst. I think there is nothing a trapped and sinking former guy would not inflict on a perceived enemy. So, that plus fear of losing their jobs when their resume is toxic.
Yes, TFG, historically, is also all about revenge if you do not kowtow to him. And he is twisted enough to do anything. Mark my words, I would treat him and his followers like armed and angry rabid dogs that are very, very dangerous to the rest of our citizens. This terrorist group of bully thugs must be stopped. They do not care about democracy or Constitutions, they are now infected with brainwashing propaganda. Those sources of propaganda and mind control MUST be turned off and people must be jailed. There is no other way to begin to stop the spread of this Hitlerian cult. Call them all out.
My neighbors, who supported two Proud Boys parades flying confederate flags in front of my house have been so shamed that their farm business had to shut down. There are other unsavory behaviors that I won't go into but they will now be moving to a deeply southern state. Some say they are now spouting Qanon tropes online. I will not say anything more until they have packed up and moved, but they will not be invited to our neighborhood Going Away Celebration. I have tried to reason with them for eight years and to aim towards some kind of reconciliation in our neighborhood. They are inflexible and incapable. Those who grew up with them said they do not let go of slights or getting their way, EVER. And they lie about their neighborhood online. This is a scary contagion. The shaming they received also made them shut down their online website and FB apparently. But we all know they have just gone underground.
Richard Branson said that TFG invited him to meet together, years ago. Branson said he never understood what the meeting was originally about, but TFG only spoke about all the people he wanted to inflict revenge upon. This is years before his so-called "presidency." Branson saw him as unhinged and angry and went away totally perplexed what that was all about.
That's a terrifying anecdote. Anecdote to me, a daily reality to you. Where do you live (if you care to say)?
One of my adult grands has gone off the rails, politically. Until a few years ago, he and I were on the same page. He moved from MN to TX, and once settled in there, I assume something/someone(s) have radicalized him. I doubt (but am not certain) that he'd have gone to the Capitol on January 06, but that I am uncertain is well beyond disturbing.
I am grateful for the comparative silence from Maga Lago, even as it's unnerving. Things like the very public taking down of Liz Cheney and the absurd audit in Maricopa County are providing cover for TFG's treachery. That sounds like paranoia, doesn't it?! Is paranoia with good reason oxymoronic? Probably. Even so...
Not many judicial systems in the world are slower than the French system...except when getting rid of political opponents. One must be careful about what one asks for. But what is a French press grind?
French Press is a method of making coffee in which coarsely ground coffee is put into a (usually) glass chamber that has a lid and a plunger with tiny holes. Hot (98 degree C) water is poured into the chamber with the coffee, which is then stirred. The plunger is deployed after 3-4 minutes, and the grounds are pressed down while the (drinkable) coffee rises above the plunger.
Thereby, "French press grind" is often the most course grind of coffee. It is what I use to make my cold brew coffee, since the grounds are easier to manage, and scatter in my garden.
I am also a coffee grind recycler with my keurig reusable cups and non bleached filters. This year I tried watering my houseplants and the effect on my peace lillies was amazing. Depending what I am watering, I dilute the grounds and experiment. Have you tried coffee on the lawn?
I keep an old mixing bowl with handle and spout in my kitchen sink for grounds and filters. It's easy to add water that would go down the drain. This makes a nice tea which I dilute to around 10% for houseplants. The peace lilies reacted very quickly. Supposed to be good for hibiscus too. Fingers crossed.
LOVE the French Press way of making coffee, though I don't use it here with Mater, who prefers her Folgers (yuck). Yes, it does use a coarser ground, which requires only a few grinds of the coffee bean mill. It's quite fast and delivers a real essence of the beans. I know people who use the grounds, as well as tea bags (excellent around hydrangeas!), in the garden, with wonderful results.
Ah, I am not the only one then who each morning goes out in my yard to deposit coffee grounds (I confess: yes, often in my robe). I have returned to my mocha pot though, so medium grind. Good for my magnolia tree.
I just yesterday decided to take an old pressure cooker that no longer seals (even with a new rubber gasket) and am now using it to collect our voluminous daily grounds. I'd like to also start a compost pile, but we have yard waste pickup that includes compostable kitchen waste, so I've been putting it off. Collecting the coffee grounds from at least four pots a day should start perking up the depleted soil in my yard.
ok! I bought one of those for the first time in Copenhagen in '69 and thought that it was Nordic in some way. I still have one but prefer to grind my beans a little more and use my expresso machine.
We need the truth about every aspect of what happened on Jan. 6. And for everyone who broke the law to be punished. And for spineless Trump lickspittles like Kevin McCarthy to be forced to testify under oath. But I'm not confident that a bipartisan congressional commission will be effective, given that the GOP will do everything possible to weaken such an investigation. They fear the truth.
Yes, they can suppress any subpoena they choose, effective emasculating the commission's ability to truly get down to root causes. Sadly, I think the commission as currently constituted is window dressing and not a serious enterprise.
The first people whose behavior suggested that a mobster figure was in the White House were James Comey and Andrew McCabe--both highly experienced in prosecuting organized crime. Comey memorialized his private meetings with Trump and shared them with a secure third party (a Columbia professor) and McCabe drew many implicit parallels to the Mob in "The Threat," the book he wrote after he was fired.
I think we get pulled back and forth on this vexed idea. Last week Heather wrote a piece exposing the forces behind the Republican Party. They have serious money, serious influence and, most definitely, serious plans.
This morning’s post illustrates vividly the fact that the Party itself and particularly the politicians have been equal parts grasping and dim witted in their short term objective of winning for winning’s sake, regardless of morality or legality. This party has not concerned itself with America and Americans for so long now that their current position is untenable. Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind.
And yet...there is real power, in the most consequential sense of the word, behind them. No doubt the power brokers intend to see the current crop of dullards criminals off in order to rebuild a new shiny version of the Republican Party and resume their winning ways with an even stronger hold on the mechanics of the ballot. There is no saving McCarthy, McConnell, Cruz, Hawley and others of that claim or potential claim on the levers of government. And of course the true idiots like Greene and Boebert have been long since factored out. Those behind the scenes have the wisdom to abandon the adage about “dancing with who bring you”.
So there lies ahead a great explosion within the party. As it is currently constituted, as it is what we see before our eyes, it is probably dead, although there will be some vicious fighting. We may see some form of violence equally or more devastating than the first insurrection, as the question of who is the enemy - the Democrats or the Republicans within - becomes hopelessly muddied. After all the “death sentences” issued by the mob on January 6 were more for Republican politicians than Democrats.
I think that realists in the Heritage Foundation and groups such as that (some of whom we mayn’t even know about) are resigned to the fact that the forces they support will take it on the chin for an election cycle or two. But they are building for a long run of domination to resume at some point during this decade.
I would take the passage of HR1 over 10 infrastructure bills. The fight for that is crucial, probably determinative in the long range outcome.
I also think that the legal process *must* be swift(er) and decisive. And it must include Trump. He is still needed by the power brokers to break more glass before his usefulness has expired. Seeing Trump imprisoned is not merely an opportunity to indulge in long-awaited schadenfreude. It is a practical necessity, not on the scale of HR1, but not that far off.
I read daily in these comments, and especially today, the increasing involvement of good people awake to the danger who see the need to play an active role and are organizing / have organized to do so. I think your commitment amazing and hope that a good chunk of the other 95% inclined to vote Democratic will join you.
For this will be a struggle long after we have ceased laughing at the Arizona audit, or worrying about deSantis running for the presidency. You are in it for the long haul, perhaps a decade, before this fight is over and there is serious and legitimate governance in both sides of the aisle.
At the moment we in Canada are a long way away from danger from the right. Serious expression of far right ideology makes one persona non grata. Alberta is our “red American state” province and it is floundering due to the slow dying of fossil fuel industry and the disastrous laissez faire handling by the current provincial government (right wing) of the pandemic. True power provincially still rests in Ontario and it too has a Conservative leader, one who is more clown than threat. And of course our federal government has much more power within the country than yours does in America. And it runs more to Liberal dominance, and of course is not limited to two parties.
So we watch America closely, as indeed we always have. But now we watch and worry that somehow Trumpism will gain hold in Canada (highly unlikely) or that we will be collateral damage in your internecine death struggle. There are days when it feels more remote. But those in Canada who take a serious interest in the world root for democracy. If you lose it in America, the very concept is threatened. That’s what terrifies us now and again in the Biden presidency as we think what would have been in a second Trump presidency.
That is so well said, and thank you for rooting for us. And I agree.. as desperately as we need the infrastructure bill and to address climate change, if we don’t have voting rights first, we lose it all.
I hope we resolve this battle over the Lake Michigan pipeline amicably. Governor Whitmer is sticking to her guns - I quite see why. On the other hand, my understanding is that turning off that pipeline would be a devastating blow to the economies of Ontario and Quebec. It’s a conundrum and Biden has stayed out of it.
I am copying and sending your comment to a close friend of mine who lives closest of anyone to where the pipeline enters Lake Michigan near the Mackinac Bridge. She is a a superb informed activist and RN, DNP) and can answer your concerns better thani can. My learned opinion, in the meantime, is that the economic and environmental devastation, should the Enbridge pipeline leak into Lake Michigan, (as it did in the Kalamazoo Rive could decimate so many species, our fisheries, and most of our tourist industry, which is our bread & butter. The pipeline MUST be stopped and removed. I will post her reply. Thanks. MP
Thank you Mary Pat. I appreciate this. I am in full agreement about the devastation of a pipeline leak. And I understand that this particular one is relatively old. And I fully appreciate that Michigan is no stranger to the gravest ills from contaminated water, with the terrible situation that occurred in Flint. And that was shockingly deliberate.
As I read more today about this, I find it comes down to nothing more than an economic defense against a potential environmental calamity. Canada does not have an ethical position in this. The cost of a shutdown would be enormous however, with a major spike in oil prices and unemployment increases centered around Sarnia. Thus a closure would have, in turn, a bruising political impact on the Canadian government and further raise already ugly tensions between Alberta and central Canada.
I am sick, sick, sick of the fossil fuel industry. This is just one more example of how deeply we are ensnared in it. We have been making bargains with devil for a century now to spoil those who consider it a birthright to fly anywhere on a whim and drive ego-boosting vehicles.
I agree with you. It must be shut down. But I hope that it can be done in such a way as to mitigate the worst economic effects on Ontario.
Regardless, it’s a Hobson’s choice. I sincerely hopes Canada takes the most moral route possible.
I live in Florida. It doesn't feel that way here. We have a tough and expensive road ahead in the effort to oust Ron DeSantis as governor to avoid his plan to become president in 2024. The NYT had a tracker recently that showed what bubble you live in. Insert zip code and it provided a bubble. I'm quite confused over how it treats Non-Party Affiliates but it showed that of 1,000 of my nearest neighbors, only 19% are on my political team. DeSantis is an awful governor but he's been propped up by Fox and now Newsmax. He takes all his cues from iDJT. It's awful. I read these letters for inspiration.
Kelly, you are right. I am in Orlando where our Orange Co. Mayor Jerry Demings ( husband of Val) has done his very best to counter De Santis on Covid , parrying him at every step. It does not help that TFG has set up shop in Mar a Lago. Thank God he is going to New Jersey for the summer. Wish he would stay there. He wants to do rallies again!!!!
There's talk of DeSantis trying to block any extradition request that Florida receives from NY (he can't actually do that, but it would be "great" for his red followers). But if iDJT goes to NJ, they they can easily extradite him from there. Here's hoping it gets done soon.
Kelly, I have joined my local Pasco County Democratic club which meets monthly. As I hear of specific things we can do to Remove Ron (that’s a Twitter account that I suggest you follow if you’re on Twitter) I will definitely let you know.
I'm a member of St. Johns County DEC, a Precinct Leader, and serve on the Voter Protection Team. I am on Twitter (https://mobile.twitter.com/kellyinsta) and follow RemoveRon account. We all need to do our best. That's all we can hope for!
I just followed you. Also I am impressed.....you are followed by Nikki Fried and Jeff Johnson. I know Jeff well and have worked with him for many years in AARP.
I saw that bubble tracker, and checked my area of Oregon (Lane County). I am solidly blue (and personally, I am probably one of the more liberal one of those) and all three of my US Congresscritters are Democrats; both of my State Congresscritters are Democrats. There is a strong, vocal, and Q dominated Republiqan party here as well; thankfully the minority, but it makes it nigh on to impossible to have a reasonable conversation now; much worse than it was 5 years ago.
I've been closely watching Oregon (my home state) for years. You are so right. Five years ago it was tetchy at times, but salvagable. Not now. I was happy to hear that because of the dynamics you describe, 2 republican senators (honorable people I respect even when I disagree with their positions) called their party out by turning independent, forming their own caucus, and actually working with Dems to get things done.
The Republicans in Oregon, like others, have become almost entirely obstructionist. The resulting failure of the political process makes me feel disgusted by a state I have felt attached to all my life.
The disaffected senators proffered a bill that would prevent elected state officials to hold positions in a party organization as well. Don't know what current status is as I've turned my attention elsewhere for the time being. Couldn't take watching the ugliness anymore. Do know that the individuals under question no longer have leadership positions in the Oregon legislature. Two have lost committee assignments. One senator rarely attends: his district is not represented at all. One house member is facing possible criminal charges because of his boo-boo letting Proud Boys in so they could engage in hand-to-hand combat with police inside the state house. So, yeah, Lane County is blue and both houses are controlled by Dems. Nearly all the state level elected officials are Dem. But the lock-step Republicans pull out every trick they can to get in the way of getting things done. They whine every time things don't go their way.
I am in love with Oregon. But when I finally get back to the NW, I will be living in Washington state, my other love.
Sadly, WA has our own Q/T element (in Cathy McMorris Rodgers), and also some run-of-the-mill OG* GOP who will happily block environmental legislation that looks like it may have short-term impacts on business or wealthy tax-avoiders (I refuse to call them taxpayers). I recently moved to just outside of very blue Olympia to a retirement trailer park in reddish Thurston county, which means when the signs go up in Oly for more progressives running for city council positions, I sit here wishing I could vote FOR them, instead of bemoaning the two state reps from my district (GOP) and one state senator (DINO when it comes to environmental issues) - who either ignore my pleas for them to consider voting for the numerous water protection bills that were on the slate for hearings and votes this session, or send form emails explaining why the bills are bad for business. However, that does mean I might find a way to feel useful in the next county or state legislative campaigns - to try to turn my district and county if not blue, at least more violet.
*OG = original gangster - sometimes pronounced 'gangsta' and often meant positively to refer to old school rap artists or athletes, but also can be meant sarcastically. In this case, I believe 'gangster' in the sense that most of us will interpret it (given our ages and familiarity with American history of the early to mid 20th century) is quite appropriate.
I lived for a long time between Oly and Shelton, out Steamboat Island Rd, overlooking Eld Inlet. Kayaked the inlet, met delightful wildlife., including whales, dolphins, seals. Watched a huge octopus ooze it's way across the rocks under my boat. Saw an entire bed of sea dollars destroyed by chemical leaching from an illegal bulkhead. Watched Oly morph from a logging/shipping town to an amazing place that (then anyway) retained the old flavor with the amenities of a sophisticated, multi-cultural town. I'd dine out every week with friends, a different ethnicity every time. Held an old tradition of contra-dancing 2x a month.
Oly's achilles heel, of course, is that it is the state Capitol. The town so small that it was swamped by the agencies and the constant inflow of people to run them, and the people attracted by the beauty of the setting. The Capitol grounds are an open park, with people in suits mingling with people in jeans and t-shirts.
I had a friend from graduate school who ran for water district board and nearly won, at age 23. Woke some people up. All of a sudden people began running for office. We were all ages. Many of us took our science into the agencies to help with a rapidly changing world., or into the field to do research. Our class and the one before it (we were the first 2 graduate environmental classes) changed Oly and the institutions in it. I think that if we could do it as youngsters, us elders we can bring our experience and insight to help continue the shift too.
I miss it. I'll have to win the lottery to move back, I'm afraid, though one of my brothers still lives in the Skagit Valley, so I get to visit.
Is the San Francisco Bakery still in existence? Great rolls and bread, delicious coffee and the Sunday paper was shared around the big table. Great place to meet.
Keep a close eye on district #4 DeFazio. He’s a top R target next year and in a pivotal position w/transportation working on Biden/Harris infrastructure plan w/sec Buttigeig. DeFazio’s 2nd-time opponent is Alek Skarlatos, a full-fledged trump acolyte backed by tons of R$$.
I am in Florida. With DeSantis, I never have to wait long for him to make a suspect political move because certainly the well-being and voice of all the citizens do not motivate him. Latest is his gamble about gambling in the state. And he is betting like it’s a fool’s errand.
Hi, Christine: I am reaching out to as many Floridians here as I can find. If you are on social media, this is a way to publicize fair redistricting, not gerrymandering.
I wouldn’t buy a used car from DeSantis or any of those oily politicians in FL— I would have a very tough time living in FL. And I do believe it’s a situation that won’t change easily or quickly.
Hi Liz. ( you are lucky to live in Boston, my " Third City" ) Re: FL
Years from now they will dig up the remains of "The Florida Man" and instead of pottery they will find flip-flops, crushed beer cans, loaded rusty shot guns, MAGA caps and Confederate Flags. The excavation site will be what was once a trailer park. Some of the Florida Man's DNA will be found in the droppings from what once were very large orange alligators.
The " Florida Woman" on the other hand ( the ones not found congealed to the aforesaid man) will be found in a multitude of dig sites scattered clear across the land masses not submerged by the ocean. Those remains will uniformly contain shreds and shreds of letters, postcards and some kind of bracelets with old alphabet letters on them-- some will have RBG but most will have HCR. There will be some thumbdrives and cell phones buried near them --ancient means of safe discussion during the waves of contagious pandemics bungled by politicians. In the reconstruction of the "Florida Woman" archeologists will be dumbfounded by her brain size and exceptional beauty!
... and so much we no longer need ..., so let go and embrace this composting process ... even lava flow destroys everything in its path, creating fertile grounds for fresh growth ... we have to 'be the change we want to see ...'
Why should it crash? What isn’t working for the GOP? They can win the presidency with 45% of the vote. They can win the majority of a state’s Congressional representatives with 45% of the vote. They can win a majority in the Senate with 45% of the vote. Their right-wing judges control a majority of the courts, including the Supreme Court. The Voting Rights Act has been dismantled. Gerrymandering is legal. Citizens United is the law. They control 26 state houses. They have passed laws to ensure they will not lose a close vote in a swing state again. They are purging their party of all nay-sayers. The GOP are on a glide path to controlling Congress in 2022. The new Voting Rights law will never see the light of day. They hold all the cards.
How? The rule of law? They’re rewriting the laws, and they control the courts. The good conscience of Republicans who refuse to comply? Being purged as we speak. Our best hope is that Cheney and enough of her like-minded colleagues form a third party. That’s a suicide mission, because they won’t win elections. But they’d ensure that Republicans wouldn’t either.
I think her order of priorities are......Co-equal country and herself. All else is subservient to attaining that co-equality. She is useful perhaps to help break the trumpite republicans but to held at arms mengyth for anything else and to be carefully watched whatever she's up to.
... it's always more than one person ... while I wonder what part this might be in a more expanded script, I admire, support and thank Representative Cheney for courage and integrity facing deeply rooted corruption ... party politics aside, I think Liz Cheney and Megan McCain could put that train back on the track - would love to see it so!!
Stuart, I just don't feel this is a time for anything vaguely resembling party politics. To be put on hold until later.
I can do without that narrow vision of the United States and its role in the world, but at least it is A vision of the country, not of one obese madman's navel.
Does she? As I wrote elsewhere here, I was astounded when she admitted yesterday that she voted for iDJT in 2020. With all that she knew, she believed Biden to be the greater evil.
Thank you Heather for this recap of the current state of the Washington Sanitarium, also known as the Republican Party.
I clearly remember Adam Schiff saying that there were Republican members who were afraid for their lives. I mentioned this recently and was challenged because "if that were the case, something would have been done about it". Well, that isn't the case, is it.
I read the news release regarding Trump saying the Maricopa data base is deleted and had to chuckle. As I said on my post on Facebook, doesn't he realized how insane he sounds when he talks like that? I suppose that is the rhetoric needed to speak to his base/cult.
I feel Merrick Garland needs to hold Kevin McCarthy's feet to the fire. Enough of this bullshit.
I thought McCarthy's derogatory comment this weekend about Trump's energy level versus Biden's deserved my Facebook observation of, to my knowledge, Biden doesn't snort Adderall.
Oh well, I guess I am rather course these days......
I have campaigned by writing postcards to voters to registered Democrats only, in a group that started with 17 writers for Ossoff in 2017 , based in Georgia, and now has about 120,000 writers in all 50 states. Studies show we move the needle one percent, which is not nothing. I have written in 115 campaign actions which gives you a look at who Democrats are running and who is winning , in every possible election from local to federal. The Democrats organized on the grassroots level , after the likes of Donald Trump was allowed into the WH, with great animation to flip six governorships and elect judges who ruled in the bogus attempts in the courts to overturn the will of the people. To win all that we did in 2020 and on Jan.5 and hold the line against death threats to our state officials, including threats at the governors mansion twenty minutes from my house, with honesty and dignity, we have shown that what Joe Biden seeks to put forth in a return to civility and constructive positivity is indeed possible. I am putting in the mail today postcards for a New Mexico special election to Congress. We campaign year round. We get to really know the states and the people running. It has been thrilling and meaningful. Our motto for 2022 is Democrats Deliver! We are not focused on what mob thug tactics are being used to bash the country to pieces, we are focused on being on the side of morality and upholding American ideals.
Thank you, Mary, for being a Democrat who Delivers!
Mary Sadler, American Heroine!
81.2 million Americans helped me. I planted my Victory Garden with postcards to voters because I could be creative and I can watch tv and listen to podcasts while I write. The truth rises to the top. Good trumps bad. Just like my parents did not expect to fight the evil that WW2 brought I did not expect to come out of retirement to full time activism. Our vote is our only means to change this situation. Everyone of us can do one little thing that we really enjoy to elect people who support the Constitution. My group turned around after the general election and wrote 2 million postcards for my hometown guys. What a victory that was in all of the danger that Trump brought to Georgia. Plus the pandemic was raging. You talk about insane. Armed militia threatened Brian Kemp at the governor’s mansion and felt justified and righteous to do it. Look at Michigan. One postcard at a time. One city council spot one school board. These postcards are completely original. I scribble so handwriting doesn’t matter. What sanity it gave me for years.
81.2 million American Hero/ine/s
+1
I'm also a retired postcards. 200 just in mail to NJ. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do something.
I did some postcard writing. What is the name of your organization so I can keep doing it?
I'd like to know, too. I wrote postcards for Ossoff and Warnock in December and would be happy to do more.
Sign up at postcards to voters.com. Easy system to be approved and they provide lists for as few or as many postcards as you can comfortably write.
Here is another site for you to get involved in passing along messaging about fair redistricting, not gerrymandering: https://www.mobilize.us/allonthelinefl/event/385019/
Somehow the name in my reply was changed. The organization is Post Cards to Voters and the link should read postcardstovoters.com
There are several good websites which provid targeted addresses and messages for those who purchase and mail postal cards on their own to use. Last year I used "Win the West" which recently changed its name to ActivateAmerica.com .
That link (activateamerica.com) seems to be dead. A search for "win the west" on DuckDuckGo only turns up a Facebook page for Maricopa County Young Republicans! Did you mean Flip the West? I found a link to their website when I added "activate america" to my search, but Firefox detected a potential security threat, so I did not proceed to the site. I see that Flip the West does have an ActBlue donation page: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/flipthewest
Try activateamerica.vote.
This link takes us to vibe coworks -
I don’t know how my link was changed to something I didn’t write. The organization is called Post Cards to Voters. Their site is postcardstovoters.com Hopefully this time it works.
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. Join your fellow Floridians! For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Thank you, Ellie. I'll check it out.
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
I write postcards for PostcardsToVoters.org, FieldTeam6.org and ActivateAmerica.com.
Oops, it's activateamerica.vote.
Sorry ... it's activateamerica.vote
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Thank you for the update, Mary. Because you talked this up before the special election in GA, I wrote 100 postcards in the weeks leading up to Jan. 5. I just sent my email as an approved writer to sign up for more addresses for the VA legislative campaign because of your current post! You rock!!!
Mary, I’d also like to know what organization you are writing postcards with. I think we are all trying to find the most effective ways to help. Thanks.
Pansy, Google postcards to voters. Tony the Democrat. Read our New York Times article I think from 2018. It is easy and so much fun. Virginia has state elections on November 2, 2021. The GOP is completely off the rails totally. We cannot lose these elections. Besides you support the post office!
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Organized efforts to send postcards to Democrats are effective and are something almost anyone can do. Most experts say in-person canvassing, especially by locals, is the most effective action. Not everyone can do that, but many can contribute money to organizations that provide necessary support to local organizations that do this work. Fair Fight, Voto Latino, and Walk the Walk USA are some examples, and many smaller organizations emulate their methods, often through local chapters of SwingLeft and Indivisibles.org.
Thank you for your good work. A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Postcards and texts. YES. Grassroots efforts work. Im working on 200 postcards for the NJ primary. Democrats must focus on these Grassroots efforts like our lives depended on them and they do. Love the young people running the efforts in Georgia. We made a difference on Jan 5th.
Thank you for your good work! A group of HCR Substackers has formed to support community and activism for democracy. For more info, you can email:
heathersherd@gmail.com
Of this observation, I am dubious:
"Now the Republican Party runs the risk of alienating voters it desperately needs as it faces a scandal of sex and drugs, a profoundly troubled election “audit,” accusations that party members are afraid to speak out because they fear for their lives, and suggestions from the former third-ranking official in the House Republican conference that the first official in the conference should be subpoenaed."
Joe Voter, and especially Joe Non-Voter, almost certainly hasn't heard of any of this. I play drums, and there's a guy I jam with. I like him a lot. He also has Fox News on all day. Or his wife does. Anyway, these folks COULD be changeable if they had a better media diet. But they will never hear about Matt Gaetz. Or anything other than the glory of dear leader.
Honestly, my friends would be better off not watching any news at all than watching Fox News. Maybe that's the best we can hope for. Then they might vote on what's really happening in their lives instead of what Fox tells them is happening in their lives.
Several studies have confirmed that a person who watches no news is better-informed than a person who watches Faux Snooze or any of the other Conservative Entertainment Inc. propaganda.
Fox News viewers really should practice better informational hygiene. At the risk of using an excessively low metaphor, perhaps we should start mailing out free, head-sized condoms to Republican primary voters. "Safe sex begins with the ears!"
... entertainment? More like entrainment ... unless one's idea of entertainment would be bloody dog and cock fights to the death ...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EIrz6uCDnu8
Marcy Meldahl (see below) mentioned this too. If either of you can remember where you saw the survey(s), inquiring minds want to know.
Agree, that the country’s media diet is a critical element (possibly the most critical) in re-establishing a level of civil discourse and a functioning congress. As there’s probably no silver bullet, small steps are important (and money is always important).
Fox is a business and they are included in most of our monthly cable/streaming bundles, and they get a healthy revenue stream from our monthly fees. Find a way to stop subsidizing Fox. The majority of Americans do not watch Fox News; but the majority of Americans pay for Fox through media bundling fees. KICK FOX OFF THE DOLE!
I called my cable company and they just laughed when I told them I didn't want to pay for fox with my cable listing. I have to dump the whole thing (and I can't due to my husband's obsession with sports.)
Sounds like we need to be calling our senators and reps to get Faux unbundled from cable offereings.
wondering how to go about that. Is there a more specific ask than that? Like others here I have to "compromise" with other family, but when my children were growing I would not allow that crap into my home. Still I would love nothing more than getting cable out of my home. I've argued & fought for years with cable companies re just bundling a package for homes that only want educational, art, science, public broadcasting. How can one question "brainwashing" when so many homes let that crap continually broadcast into their minds.
If your internet service is robust enough, I'd just recommend getting rid of cable altogether. I did so about five years ago and haven't missed it. For a long while, live sports were difficult to access, but now with a subscription, I can get what few sports I follow (Olympics, Wimbleton, etc.).
My ability to access news is actually greater, since I can roam far more in-depth, original reporting. And I've become virtually allergic to commercials -- how could I ever stand them before? As for Fox News? Who cares?
That said, I was never able to protect my children from either the internet or cable. I'm quite certain that they've been damaged in myriad ways by the experience of growing up with the damn screen, something I was never able to prevent without completely uncoupling them from the rest of American society.
Like Peri, I called my cable provider to ask about packages that don’t include fox; met with a silent pause, then a chuckle and a “no” that sounded more like “duh.” The difference for me is that my cable fee is part of my HOA fee. If I chose another type of provider I’d still have to pay my share of the group fee for cable coming into my condo - hence trying to “hurt” fox only hurts me.
Where we live, the only source for reliable internet is comcast/xfinity. We have tried to find other ISPs, as we don't even have a television and use our computers for entertainment streaming as well as for internet, but this area doesn't have as many options as we had when we lived in Seattle. Some of our neighbors have satellite dishes from a dish company that offers internet along with TV, but the ones I've checked out offer such slow speeds that we have stayed with the big cable company. Heavy sigh. Trying to limit our service to internet only means a big conversation every time the current contract runs out - no, we don't want this cable package, no, we don't need that add-on - we just want high-speed internet, thank you!
I noticed my father-in-law became a little bit less rabid a "conservative" when his wife (who is my age, and I thank Providence for her every day because she is dealing with his current health issues and not my wife or my sister-in-law) insisted that Fox not be on in the house.
He is one of the most perfect samples of white male privilege's that I can think of, and his absolute denial of systemic racism is stunning.
We must have the same FIL. I wish my MIL would forbid Fox in the house but she's brainwashed too.
Paul, Those lines of Heather's that you referred to I think have more to do with the death of the party, not 'Joe Voter'. I think your friends and many like them are emotionally attached to Trump and what they watch on Fox. The messages they are getting taps into their hearts. That is important to remember, but it isn't whole story. There are other forces in reality and in a majority of people, which appear to be stronger. This is ugly, difficult and not over.
I think that the message taps into their collective amygdalae rather than their hearts. They are wired for fear of "other", and what Faux feeds them pleases their brains in a very damaging way.
Was at family gathering for first time since covid. In conversation someone remarked about Americans being the most fearful people in the world.
Except for a very few, people are not without heart. I have heard 'his' supporters say they love him. Fear is not the only emotion. The folks we are talking about believe that they finally found a savior, and he gives them permission to 'go wild!' I don't doubt that they have been waiting to destroy. The Republicans have targeted and embellished the targets.
The other issue is a problem I discovered in my reading. It's Grievance Addiction. A psychiatrist w/ 40 years in the field wrote this article: https://www.salon.com/2021/02/12/dr-justin-frank-on-the-trial-for-trump-capitol-riot-was-a-source-of-incredible-pleasure/
I disagree. They will hear of it. What is unfortunate is the extreme that is occurring. The “Samson alternative” as TC describes means many casualties.
I saw some survey that said FN watchers were less informed than those who watched NO news. Seems about right.
TCinLA mentioned this too. If either of you can remember where you saw the survey, inquiring minds want to know.
Jolene Voter, too.
💯 agree! Maybe they’ll turn Fox off once they see in real time the wheels of justice and prosperity making fools of Fox??? Maybe I’m forever an optimist?
Healthy alternatives to Fox. There are alternative sources of news info (e.g., podcasts on YouTube). “The Hill – Rising” with Saager and Ball—a conservative and a progressive who are honest, civil, and searching for truthful answers while not allowing any politician from either party to get away with nonsense. Also, there is Jimmy Dore on “The Jimmy Dore Show” (though the language may be a bit rough for sensitive ears). Further, Matt Taibbi on “Useful Idiots”. And there are a number of other worthwhile podcasts discussing policies and political issues.
The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter - Winston Churchill.
If Churchill was anything, he was an elitist.
True. He was a real Tory.
Except for a couple of decades (1900s-1910s) when he wasn't a Tory. For a long time people saw Churchill as an unprincipled opportunist.
I can see how they would. I've read that he was impressed by successful speculators/investors and wished he was in that club. IMHO, Churchill's real value to England during WWII (1939-45 for the British) was when he stayed publicly vocal in resisting the Nazis, and he served as a beacon in keeping up British esprit during WWII. My father met him a few times during the fighting in Italy (1943-45). Dad was a young American officer on General (later Field Marshall) Alexander's staff for two years. Alexander commanded all Allied forces in Italy in the Anglo-American 15th Army Group. In my father's considered opinion, "General Alexander was perhaps the finest soldier in the war." He was Churchill's favorite general and was called in to save situations (e.g., Dunkirk, Burma, North Africa). Also, Eisenhower idolized Alexander. I better stop now as I get carried away with talk of WWII and the Mediterranean Theater. You might enjoy seeing some historic photos of the period on my website: www.buckandbernice.com.
As people remarked about their bingo cards over the past year, who'd have thought that today's would have as heroes of the day, Liz Cheney, a guy named Stephen Richer, and the Maricopa County Republican election officials. Heroes of the day for stepping up as the loyal opposition a two party system needs to maintain a healthy democracy.
I believe when there is a traitor at the top of the food chain, exposure of it takes on a most random aspect because the normal channels in place have been compromised.
I totally agree.
It's interesting that "mob" has multiple meanings in the Republican Party. It's a party run like a crime family with Godfather Trump. And, it's a mob of gun toting insurrectionist proud white boys and girls beating up police and trashing our Capitol. And it's an undignified undisciplined group of poorly formed men and women who play at being elected representatives where proficient well informed capable men and women should be conducting our public business.
Well said.
TCinLAjust now
Just because the Republican Party may be exploding does not mean they are not deadly dangerous. Here's an analogy: After the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy was unable to undertake another open ocean offensive action. Yet, between November 1944 and the end of July 1945, they inflicted the greatest casualties and losses the U.S. Navy experienced in the whole war through the suicidal Kamikazes, to the point that at the end of June following the Okinawa campaign, Admiral Nimitz, the American commander in the Pacific, was forced to tell the US Joint Chiefs that the Navy could not support the planned invasion of Japan because they would be unable to sustain the expected losses. (and no, it wasn't the A-bombs that made the Japanese surrender, though they liked to tell us that lie after the war to make us happy)
Nutbag extremists, faced with defeat, are almost always happy to take "the Samson alternative" and pull the temple down around them rather than voluntarily surrender.
Yes and Hitler too.
That's true about Hitler too. As defeat became clearer, Hitler conscripted younger and younger cohorts of Hitler Youth--as young as 10 years old--who'd been brainwashed from young childhood with repeated oaths to die for their "father" Der Führer. In addition to this zealous energy, the soldiers were amped up with meth.
I didn't know about the meth! I believe you, but wonder if you have a reference I can look at. I would love to have this information at my fingertips.
https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-drug-use-that-fueled-nazi-germany
One of many references. Do a search for drugs and Nazi Germany.
Wow, really interesting! Thanks.
Thank you, Christine. From this History Channel article:
“Developed by the Temmler pharmaceutical company, based in Berlin, Pervitin was introduced in 1938 and marketed as a magic pill for alertness and an anti-depressive, among other uses. It was briefly even available over the counter. A military doctor, Otto Ranke, experimented with Pervitin on 90 college students and decided, based on his results, that the drug would help Germany win the war. Using Pervitin, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht could stay awake for days at a time and march many more miles without resting.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-do-you-think-they-call-it-dope-understanding-trump_b_59090193e4b03b105b44bd13
This is from Huffpost but Ellie’s comment about meth use by Nazi soldiers brought this article to mind. It’s a parallel to Trump’s base. I was startled by the article.
While I haven't checked the sources, my LE training indicated that pure methamphetamine was a by-product of the production of mustard gas used by Germany in WWI. My quick Google search (>2 minutes) couldn't find a good source for that, although there was conversation about the results of phosphorous gas released in meth production based on the old P2P process the second "P" is phosphorus) and not the ephedrine process (which is the current favorite).
Alcohol has long served the same purpose in "motivating" soldiers to fight, and sometimes to commit atrocities. Also, the US military in Vietnam was among the most drug-addled in history.
Ellie I learned something new today— I had no idea about meth or the conscription of 10 year olds. Hitler was such a nut job fanatic that it must have been torturous for him to lose. He died fairly easily with the poison and Eva by his side —and think of all the waves of suffering he created. We only had idjt 4 years and look at the terrorism he stirred up.
Weren't there fewer and fewer "of age" males remaining? Having died on various fronts?
Yes. As the available population of healthy young adult Germans diminished, Hitler conscripted younger and younger, and older and older men, including those previously deferred for a medical disability.
Horrid.
TC, what did make the Japanese surrender when they did?
What made the Japanese surrender was the Soviet entry into the war on August 9. The Japanese had stripped their Manchurian army of troops and equipment, and sent them to Kyushu to face the expected US invasion. On August 9, the records of the Japanese Supreme War Council show all interest was on the Soviet invasion - the bombing of Nagasaki isn't even mentioned. The Soviets planned to have Manchuria and Sakhalin Island under their control by the end of August, and to mount an invasion of Hokkaido at the end of September - 6 weeks before the US invasion (which the Navy couldn't support). The Japanese knew they had no defenses in the north. They also had information of what happened in Germany at the end and in the months after the German surrender, and didn't want that in Japan. Had they held off, the Soviets would likely have taken all of Hokkaido and most, if not all, of Honshu before the US invasion.
Additionally, the Japanese were well aware of the Soviet desire for revenge of the defeat in 1905.
I spoke with two Marines who were leaders in the 6th Division. In September, they visited the beach they would have landed on in Kyushu, saw the defenses the Japanese had, spoke to the leaders of the defending troops, and concluded they would never have made it off the beaches.
So the Japanese surrendered to us (with a secret assurance the Emperor would not be removed). Ever after they told us they did so because of the A-bombs, and used the bombs ever after to portray themselves as the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Pacific War. To this day, Japanese students learn in school that Japan went to war to save Asia from the White European Empires, that they won every battle but had to make "strategic retreats," and then - atom bombs! They have never taken responsibility for the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the Railway of Death in Thailand (that story told in The Bridge on the River Kwai), the "comfort women," or any of their other atrocities. Every Japanese prime minister (the Liberal Democratic Party -actually the conservative party - was founded by former members of the wartime government; in Germany, their opposite numbers were banned from political activity) has visited Yauskuni Shrine, where the ashes of the executed war criminals were secretly returned in 1952.
All the talk about "peaceful" Japan is hooey. The current prime minister and his predecessor were and are both committed to removing the "pacifist" clause from the postwar constitution.
Enlightening, thank you.
The only participant in this conversation more surprised than you was me. I had "the bomb saved your father's life" drummed into me from so far back I cannot remember (he was sunk by the kamikazes at Okinawa and ordered back for the invasion.) He was so certain he would die he sat down and wrote me a letter - I was 1 at the time - telling me who he was, why he wanted to have a son in the middle of a war, and what he hoped would become of me, which I found going through his papers after his death. All kinds of guy felt they had been "saved by the bomb," and it was a lie the government was happy to spread far and wide, because it allowed them to develop "nuclear diplomacy" (there's an oxymoron). I had heard this argument before that it wasn't the bomb and dismissed it, but when I was researching Tidal Wave, I came into possession of a translated copy of the minutes of the Imperial War Council for August 9, and all they were discussing all day was the Russian invasion. You have to remember the Japanese and Russians fought a war in 1904-05 that humiliated the Russians, there had been bad blood with them ever since, and here they were coming through the back door that wasn't locked or defended. I went into it in detail in the book because I knew other people wouldn't believe it either.
Great question. If dropping the A-Bomb didn't force unconditional surrender, why did the US drop it (twice), then what did? Hiroshima was not a military center. The city was 98% civilian. It was used as a "terror attack" and would be illegal today.
There's no excusing the bombs. Most particularly there's no excuse for Nagasaki "the forgotten bomb." Nagasaki had been for close to 400 years the center of opposition to Imperial Japan. It was largely Christian had had maintained Christianity in the 200 years the religion was officially suppressed in Japan. The bomb was dropped there because all the other targets were "weathered in" and the alternative was the crew going home having dropped the most expensive bomb in history in the ocean. As it was, they made three runs over the city and couldn't bomb visually - the bombardier finally said "I can see" (he couldn't) and they dropped. Ground Zero was supposed to be the Mitsubishi aircraft factory - instead, it was the Urakami Catholic Church, the largest Christian church in Asia, built with the donations of parishioners after the religion was unbanned in the Meiji Restoration.
To me, the people of Nagasaki are the most admirable I ever met. After the war, they decided they wanted to dedicate the city to "international brotherhood," that such a thing as happened to them would never happen again. To this day, if you were to go there, a citizen would approach you and ask if they might buy you tea, or even a meal, offer to take you around the city (you can visit the house down the peninsula where Puccini wrote "Madame Butterfly"). All very un-Japanese behavior. On the other hand, if you go to Hiroshima, they will do their best to make you feel guilty.
If you want a "terror attack," the one you want is the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9, 1945, in which 500 B-29s dropped 5,000 incendiaries each, burning out 12 square miles of the city completely and killing over 100,000 people - more than died in either A-bomb attack. My aerobatics instructor back in the 70s had been one of those pilots and he told me that 30 years later he could still smell the burning human flesh - they bombed from 1,500 feet.
There's also the firebombing of Kobe-Oasaka. When I first went to Japan in 1963, we visited the port. A friend and I went ashore and managed to get lost walking around. Toward dusk, we turned a corner and confronted the sight of (what I learned later was) the last 1,000 acres that had not been rebuilt. It was black. There was nothing there but black, and a few twisted girders. I was immediately reminded of the cover of an Ace double s-f novel I had at home, with a cover painting of a scene after World War III. That was 19 years after the bombing.
Thanks TC. Your generous posts really aid in seeing through the usual historic mumbo-jumbo that governments provide and history books report. It is helpful to hear facts. I have read two books on the bombings and was interested by the fact that the people of Hiroshima never imagined they would be harmed. Though the fire bombing was extensive in cities around Hiroshima, inhabitants didn't know why, but they had not been fire-bombed. As always there is the military or manufacturing to strike and but then there are the civilians who face the consequences. According to your interpretation, the bombings were unnecessary, a violation. You don't say this, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but the use of the Bombs was only to show US strength. It feels like pure vengeance. I know there were terrible cruelties exercised by the Japanese military, but knowing that there would be the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilians, not military, but civilians, when there was already an awareness of the coming Russian movements and the fact that the Japanese knew the end was coming for them, and STILL to release those nuclear bombs is enraging.
There has been much argument over many years as to the real reason the bombs were employed, with much speculation that it was a demonstration to Stalin of what the US was capable of doing. Most of the Manhattan Project scientists had come aboard to create a weapon to destroy Hitler. When that war ended without the bomb being ready, most of them thought it wouldn't be used. The fact that the upper reaches of the US government and military were aware they had been checked by the Japanese in the plans to invade the Home Islands, the bombs may well have been vengeance. The former US ambassador to Japan before the war was only able after much argument to get the ancient Japanese capitol of Kamakura, the heart of Japanese culture, taken off the target list. There was a third bomb that arrived on Tinian the week after Nagasaki, that would likely have been used against Tokyo had the Japanese not surrendered when they did.
When I got to Okinawa the summer of 1963, 18 years after the end of the battle, I made a few day trips to the old battlefields in the southern end of the island. All was still ruins, and one was advised not to step off the paths, for fear of stepping on unexploded ordnance still in the ground. As it was, there was no part of the pathways where you could step that you would not dislodge a bullet casing, or even a shattered piece of bone (which I did once). 100,000 Japanese troops and Okinawans died there. Today, Shuri Castle has been completely rebuilt and many of the old trench lines filled in, but I'm told people still stay on the footpaths.
TC has written multiple well-researched books about WWII in the Pacific. I value his opinion - that's why I asked.
It would require some thought for me to choose a preference between the nutbag extremists getting what they want (which is government by white people, for white people, like the one we had until about 1964) or pulling the temple down. Avoiding both would be great but that will requre a monumental effort and some luck to boot.
(Ed McMahon voice): "You are correct, sir!"
So what exactly made the Japanese surrender?
I wonder...when TFG goes down, who will rise in his stead?
And will we recognize him or her in time.
Representative Cheney has sounded the alarm and calls for McCarthy's subpoena, also pointing out that many congressional Republicans and state officials fear for their lives. Considering the contradiction between McCarthy's current statements and his statements during and shortly following the January 6 insurrection, Cheney's advice should be heeded. I am not a Republican and never have been but we, as HRC asserts, need a healthy opposition party, a "loyal" opposition, to serve as a check on both parties. "Loyal" to what? To the Constitution and the rule of law. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
And an investigation of those death threats. Tie them to the former guy et al, and perhaps more moderate Republicans will get off that toxic train.
Congress has the power to declare war, to send our youth out to die for their country..if these Republicans do not have the courage to tell the truth, to stand up and protect this democracy and do their job out of fear they may lose their jobs or be threatened by Trolls of their own making they do not deserve the jobs they hold. Everyday the young women of "The Squad" face death threats and yet hold their heads up and work for the people...what cowards the GOP are.
Yes, the courage and backbone of the women of color in Congress is something we don't speak enough about. If only a quarter of the Rs had half of their strength and integrity, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Let's all listen to Keb' Mo's anthem one more time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeaMRib7SOc
This version of "Woman in Charge" is sung by the Best Witches Women's Chorus. (Musically, it can't compare with Keb's performances posted previously, but it's a fun listen to hear all these mostly old, mostly white ladies singing it.) (I'm a mostly old mostly white lady, so I can say that.)
They're in their prime. You too, Lanita!
👏🏼 💯
Understand that Republicans do not care one bit that you call them cowards. They’ll laugh to themselves, and continue doing exactly what they’re doing. As far as Trump’s Republicans are concerned, democracy is for suckers.
"One of the key functions of a strong opposition party in a functioning democracy is oversight”
I never thought of it this way, but it is a really important point.
Yes.
I can't wrap my head around Liz Cheney admitting yesterday that she voted for iDJT in 2020. She said, "Well, I wasn't going to vote for Biden." Egads, how sick is our society that someone knowing and understanding how corrupt iDJT is still voted for him? She famously voted to impeach him. Anybody else astounded by this?
It helps to remind us that she is one big ball of political calculation. Everything she says and does must be filtered through the understanding that she is looking out for Liz Cheney first and foremost. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that, but imputing noble motives to her actions is an exercise in self-deception.
***EXACTLY***
Yes, along with all the other cowardly Republicans who thought it was a better idea to vote for a dead person rather than vote for Biden (hello Larry Hogan, Mitt Romney, Mike Dewine).
Not really. Don't forget, she voted with and rubber-stamped T***p's policies 92% of the time. She's another of the "love the sinner, hate the sin" kind of approach when it came to DJT, so flipping the voting lever FOR him is hardly surprising. That kind of mentality has governed a lot of the support for T***p, and it is still pretty formidable. At the end of the day, Cheney is really very far to the right politically, and, like the rest of nut-base electorate of the GOP, they will vote party first and foremost every time. They've swallowed the "radical socialist agenda" shtick hook, line, and sinker. I'm not as optimistic as HCR in thinking that suddenly the "scales will fall from the eyes" of the GOP voting base. They're gonna vote "R" regardless of whatever shenanigans their leadership is up to. They did it before and they'll do it again. That Cheney "woke up and smelled the coffee" (wow...I'm using lots of quotes this morning...) is laudable, but symptomatic of the ongoing rot in the Republican party. I still think the actual voters out here in "Les Styx" will be the last to flee the sinking ship. Don't "misunderestimate" (my favourite Bush-ism from W) the amount of blind allegiance and ignorance out here.
Or maybe hers is more a "hate the sinner, love the sin" approach.
If we think of those millions who are blindly allegiant and ignorant as brainwashed cult members (which is my own perception, I confess), the "scales" will not miraculously "fall from their eyes." They are more likely to sacrifice themselves first in a desperate attempt to "save" the country for their dear leader. This is what scares me. This and losing our rights to vote and to having our votes COUNT.
She stated last week that she would never vote for a Democrat
I think it makes us all pretty itchy to see a politician whose deepest political beliefs and motives we abhor doing something we feel obliged to grudgingly admire at a certain level. However, she is no advocate for the people and I'd feel no safer going on a camping/hunting trip with her than I would with her father.
I would like to know more about why and how they feared for their lives. These are folks that should have very strong security around them. What did they know about? Does DT have some sort of goon squad taking out his political and other enemies? R Stone and co? DeVos’ mercenary brother E Prince? Why wouldn’t the FBI be on this? Surely these Senators could ask for and receive help?
They are afraid of the armed Second Amendment loving crazies who voted for them. There is a strongly violent undercurrent in their social media. Trump energizes and validates it constantly with matter of fact references to “how we used to deal with these problems” and the like. The message many of the members got on January 6 is that their status as Republican elites won’t save them or their families from the mob. Many of these members are desperately clinging to the tiger they decided to ride. While it’s hard not to point out their folly it doesn’t make the riders’ fear less palpable.
HCR’s observations about the role of oversight reminded me of meetings I attended in the mid-2000s with Iraqis who had been selected to be Inspectors General in different agencies of their newly established government. The meetings were cast as a chance to offer them our experience with how to conduct government oversight, but it wasn’t possible for us to answer their real question, which was how to engage in oversight in the face of death threats and murder. Many of them returned to Iraq to be killed by one or another faction or corrupt minister’s thugs. Ultimately all that protects any of us is the rule of law. The fear of the Republican members is a pale copy of what things look like when that rule breaks down.
“They are afraid of the armed Second Amendment loving crazies who voted for them. There is a strongly violent undercurrent in their social media. Trump energizes and validates it constantly...” Agreed!
This makes sense as to what they were afraid of, but what total cowards that makes them, as they aid and abet that behavior towards their own political opponents.
They are also afraid of losing their jobs. What disturbs me so much right now, is that over the last four years, many of the more “reasonable” ones have left Congress, leaving the increasingly radical ones behind. (I put reasonable in quotes because I personally don’t think any of them really are reasonable, including Liz Cheney.)
Sounds to me that the former president did not choose to use a “goon squad” or SS as Hitler did. Worse. He used the American people to do the deed. The insurrection proved that. It is only fortunate happenstance that many Legislators were not physically harmed or killed that day.
And we now see that it is the American people who must defeat the Republican party’s worst laid plans......at the voting booth. It appears the nefarious plans make that an even more daunting task than it was in 2020. However, the truth is the best weapon always.
A most sincere and heartfelt thank you to HCR and this stream as being an example of that.
I have no doubt that if the most crazed groups of that Jan.6 mob had found Mike Pence that day they would have seriously hurt or even killed him in order to stop him from ratifying the vote. If they had found Pelosi they would have done the same thing because they hate the woman. There is good reason to be afraid for life, limb and family.
Agreed. Two years ago while waiting for an X-ray at a VA hospital I had to leave the waiting room & move down the hall due to two older, white, male veterans loudly ranting about how they “couldn’t wait to see that bitch Pelosi’s face beaten to a bloody pulp”. Both said they’d pay to watch that happen. (I reported it. Was told they were “just exercising their freedom of speech”.)
Had the insurrection been more of a military assault and less chaos mob I think we would have seen several Democrats + Pence murdered that day.
Think for a moment of what poisoned the minds of those two "older, white, male veterans" and those of millions of similarly inclined Americans. The battle to save democracy is a battle against ignorance and gullibility, a hard one to win, given social media and the First Amendment.
So I guess saying “I’m going to kill you” isn’t a threat till you’re dead.
I believe states have laws defining a “credible” threat and duty to warn the identified victim through law enforcement.
I dislike intensely that you felt you had to move and that your reporting was met with the “first amendment excuse”. That is ridiculous. Being verbally abusive and threatening in a common area in a public place is not acceptable due to any amendment.
THEY ARE THE ONES THAT NEEDED TO MOVE OR BE ASKED TO MOVE.
Thank you for your service.
Good grief, the exploitation of the first amendment. Pretty sure their ‘speech’ falls under ‘fighting words’. https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/which-types-of-speech-are-not-protected-by-the-first-amendment/
Diane: Free speech is one of those rights provided in a democracy which can serve as the seeds of its own demise. It has happened before. A friend recently chastised me for pessimistically quoting Alexander Pope's couplet:
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never IS but always TO BE blessed."
She is one of those progressives eternally hoping for the success of American democracy and insists it can happen once true believers in democracy find a plan to enable that to happen. So I added two more lines to Pope's poetry:
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never IS but always TO BE blessed,
Till when at last a plan is found,
Enabling blessings to resound."
Love it, Jacob!!
Thank you, Jacob. Alexander Pope still inspires.
Right that makes sense. We know he’s incited violence over and over against political enemies so maybe they were afraid of their own cult members with their militarized arsenals turning on them at 45’s behest. Lily-livered!
I wouldn't be surprised if the "goon squad" didn't exist as he wouldn't be the first gangster to hole up in Florida...Meyer Lansky and also the Trafficante Family were particularly efficient in making there threats particularly believable and effective from their Miami and Tampa bases. Their "killer" bullets are now more likely to be skeletons in the closet rather than bodies dumped in the woods. Trump and his goons, in 4 years in the White House, probably perfected the "Edgar Hoover Technique" and built files on all the Republican's missdeads and "favours done" which would force any recalcitrant underling to commit Harakiri should they be revealed on Fox News or even CNN.....and attract very close attention from a newly clean DOJ.
Yes Stewart, and Barr probably has the key to the closet with all the secrets and all the skeletons.
Miller
Creepy Evil Miller
Yes, I seem to recall Stormy Daniels saying she was threatened in a parking lot by thugs, so it wouldn't surprise me, given his father's (and his own) long-standing ties with the mob, that he would use such tactics. If dozens of senators, however, fear for their lives, I am inclined to think they fear their conspiracy-crazed constituents.
Dont forget Trump's comment during the 2016 campaign that he could kill someone and still be elected. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if he hasnt already done that.
Jeffrey Epstein?
...!!
That, AND goon squads.
I remember McConnell showing up “black and blue” and his only comment was “nothing to be concerned about”, black and blue hand and punch in the mouth black and blue. I’ve always wondered if he was “roughed up”. Anybody else wonder about it?
I did. Having been assaulted and left with similar bruises I did consider first that he was assaulted. If not that, then perhaps a medical issue.
A medical issue could have been a fall_-I worked in geriatrics for years and saw some very nasty bruises from falls, especially if a resident was on a blood thinner..
The thought that someone might have hit him crossed my mind, but dismissed. Thugs know how to rough people up without leaving visible marks. Face & hand say fall to me.
I figure he fell and hushed it up because he would be perceived as old and incompetent, a description Repubs would prefer to hang on Biden.
My diagnosis of McConnell's just-crawled-out-of-the-crypt bruising: cold blood coursing through his veins
I did, too. That was very strange.
I too wonder if any of this is being investigated or if it’s all being shrugged off as “oh, that’s just trump” - something too many Democrats have done far too often, in my opinion.
Yes, I am surprised that Heather emphasized this; I don't find it very credible. That they were fearing for their political lives is easy to believe--they think they can't win without the MAGA base. But I don't honestly believe they were physically threatened.
If you recall, the Republican Georgia election officials who certified the election and defended the process had to have police protection because of the death threats and doxxing that occurred. Christine Blasey Ford had to go into HIDING with her family because of death threats against herself and her family--which included the publication of her home address and phone numbers of her entire family. I am not surprised they are terrified by the threats they themselves created by hyping up the Big Lie and tugging the forelock to the Cheeto. When you have a lot of people with a lot of guns and a demagogue who has no compunction about ramping up the temperature, you have a recipe for terrorism. My thought is that this demonstrates exactly why the former guy should never be allowed on social media sites ever again.
And Gretchen Whitmer! But what cowards are they, that they can’t tolerate exactly what they have done to others.
Another official needing protection is Katie Hobbs, the AZ Dem Sec'y of State (for having had the nerve to certify the Presidential Election andcall ing out the Cyber Ninja BS (She calls it the "Fraudit"!). The Republican Gov. Doucy ordered it.
Why he hasn’t been barred from holding any office is beyond me.
Well, that was what the second impeachment trial was intended to accomplish.
What surprised me with all you have just said is why members of Congress are not doing anything to protect their peers. Surely they understand that at any time, things could change they would be the ones being threatened. I don't understand this part of it all.
I have no hard evidence, but given the former guy's penchant for mob-like control, physical threats could be part of his desperate, last-gasp clinging.
Physically cal threats is what he used Cohen to do for him. It is TFG’s M.O.
I have no doubt he has tried some strong-arm tactics, but do experienced politicians really take them seriously? I honestly don't know, but would be surprised if they do. Besides, he doesn't need to. Those who have opposed him have almost universally been sidelined, at least so far. Liz Cheney is betting that influence is coming to an end.
With the knowledge at how unhinged his followers are, I certain that most any reasonable person witnessing the shenanigans at his rallies, the street gang leaders he has hosted at the White House and the public events involving them at other public events such as protests, marches and the official acts he has had coordinated involving DHS and other governmental law enforcement agencies, would have reason to fear violence in one form or another. When you consider that A-List celebrities must hire security to protect them from overzealous and unhealthy fixated fans, they generally have the income to do so. I don't think the average congressman/woman does though.
I really created something of a firestorm here without intending to. I agree with everything you say but consider it unlikely that Congresspeople are making choices based on threats of physical violence. If we truly are in an era where our republic is dominated by Mafia tactics then we are entirely lost. I choose to believe this is not true. It's clear they are now and always have been acting from self-interest--in pursuit of greed, power, and job security. But I find shocking the degree of cynicism required to think that even the most craven of our lawmakers are legislating based on the threat of physical violence. I have also seen no evidence that this is so. It's not like this is something that would have escaped the notice of the New York Times or the Washington Post, not to mention the FBI.
I did not claim that Democratic congress-people are creating legislation out of fear. However I can't wonder that HR1 is a response to the situation coming out of the last election and the ensuing redstate legislature passing new electoral rules. Additionally, I am certain that Republican politicians have walked back statements related to 1/6 out of fear (look at Lapdog Lindsey's change of attitude after being confronted at the airport following 1/6). People like Elise Stefanik --she for example is just acting out of craven power hunger. Additionally, one cannot deny the record number of retirements in the Republican Congress and Senate of moderate/traditional pols in the last few years.
Our Governor in Michigan and our Secretary of State were physically threatened, and received death threats. I believe Republican Congress folks received the same real threats.
It's just a matter of time before a prominent public official is murdered by a MAGA type.
Sure hope not.
😣
Reid, you silly, foolish person. I personally know (as in friends) several elected officials who have received death threats and some who have experienced near misses (not counting the little stuff like vandalism, attempted car rammings, etc.) It is not uncommon for elected officials (and appointed, for that matter) to need physical guards because of attempted assaults. You "honestly don't believe they were physically threatened"? Really?
My Rep Ayanna Pressley is forced to deal with numerous threats to her physical safety. Remember Jan 6? Someone disabled the alarm system in her office, probably as part of a larger conspiracy to harm her and multiple others. And by harm I don't mean a few bruised wrists. The worst of the filthy insurrectionist trash were there to assault, rape, torture and lynch their targets. Once Bulldog Garland's DOJ has assembled the evidence, hopefully charges of conspiracy to commit murder are included along with sedition and treason, not just the routine domestic crimes like assault, criminal trespass, etc.
I am thinking of Representative Jim Clyburn, who when interviewed just after the attack (I think the very next day), was still reeling from his close encounter because the insurrectionists had found their way to his very door - in that labyrinthian building where few would even know how to find his office WITHOUT DIRECTIONS. I am thinking of the maps that were in the hands of insurrectionists. I am remembering the representatives who were hiding in the gallery and being told by one of their own how to put on gas masks. I am remembering Nancy Pelosi's staff hiding in a conference room, in the dark, hearing the insurrectionists literally banging on the DOOR. I am remembering Senator Romney being led to safety within FEET of dangerous insurrectionists who were there to hang the VP and hogtie whomever they could find. I am thinking of the video of insurrectionists in which one woman could be seen and heard giving instructions on which doors and windows led where. I am remembering the reports of GUIDED TOURS of the Capitol on January 5th, when the Capitol was CLOSED to all but authorized persons and employees. I am reminded that one Representative who was threatened by MTG had to ask for a different office and another had an insulting and degrading sign placed on the wall outside her door. I am thinking of the recently released video of MTG stalking AOC before she (MTG) was even installed in office and how she stalked and threatened David Hogg. I am thinking of the attempts on Governor Gretchen Whitmer's life and the mob that surrounded her HOME. I am thinking of the Trump Train right here in Texas that tried to run VP Harris' campaign bus off a major interstate. I am thinking that these Congressional servants ARE living now in a heightened state of fear, not only from deranged and out of control Trumplican supporters, but also from members within their own midst. We hear from Representative Swalwell and former assistant director for counterintelligence for the FBI Frank Figliuzzi as well as Representative Adam Schiff on an almost regular basis these days reporting on the dangers of serving in office, even with the deposed tyrant hiding out in FL. I honestly don't think most of these individuals came to office with the understanding that they might need extra protection for their personal safety or that their homes and families might be targeted by crazies. If this is so, then why on earth would any sane person run for office?
Excellent, horrifying, summary of what we have all witnessed.
The Vice President of the United States was targeted on Jan 6 (possibly to be hung) by the mob with the President's blessing (& goading).
Yeh. Plus the not very active search for Pelosi, also goaded by TFG. One could say both of those ongoing events went a little beyond "physical threatening". Both were downright terrifying to watch, let alone being the target. They indicate that there likely was a lot of more subtle bureaucratic posturing (verbal and physical) by members of the 45 administration going on behind the scenes long before Jan 6, too.
"plus the VERY ACTVE SEARCH for Pelosi". Where'd that "not" come from? Duh.
We really need an edit function here, Substack.
I didn't make myself clear. I think they are threatened all the time, but that they take it in stride--it comes with the territory. But do I think they are cowering in fear and making policy decisions based on physical threat? I do not.
By the way, name calling and shaming have no place here. This is a forum for civil discussion.
I'd delete the first sentence if I could to salve your feelings, but the rest would still stand, Reid. You appear to be truly unaware of what is going on. Yes, some politicians do make policy decisions based on intimidation, which often implies physical threat. There is blackmail. There is manipulation. There is corruption. What amazes me is how much actually gets done in spite of it all, because there are still people who will get up and do the work IN SPITE OF IT. Our system is still functioning, but just barely. What Stacey Adams pulled off in Georgia gives me hope- and she endured threats of physical violence for it.
I personally, as a representative of a state agency, have experienced it. My governor stood up for me, but for a while my life was very uncomfortable. Yet I was a small fry. I simply had the gumption to stand up to a man who thought he could intimidate me into backing down from something he didn't like.
It is not enough to dismiss this kind of thing with "they take it in stride--it comes with the territory". No, they do not take it in stride, nor should they have to. It affects their lives, their families, their ability to work. People resign because of it, or choose not to run for a seat they would easily win, because they have had enough. One representative in the state in which I now live had to withdraw from reelection campaign and move to get away from constant harassment. This is not as uncommon as you may think. We lose good statesmen who leave because they are unable to get things done in an atmosphere in which antagonism and threats are constantly in the air. In several state legislatures this past year, actual threats were made on the floors of the legislature. On the floor. Public record. I witnessed one such. It shocked me then. I've seen worse since. I have little patience when people who should be more aware prefer to believe either that this does not happen, or that it is "just the way things are". In a society based on the rule of law, one in which decisions are made in places where civil discussion is expected and guided by rules, there is no room for intimidating tactics meant to instill fear and shape policy decisions. To then make excuses for the fact that this exists by dismissing them as "coming with the territory" is simply not acceptible. You may choose to believe otherwise. That is how we ended up with Trump.
I can see that you feel strongly about this, which does not give you license to be abusive. I don't need my feelings salved; I'm a big boy. I have already engaged in extensive mea culpa for my comments and have apologized here. If you choose not to acknowledge that, that is certainly your right. I stand by the revised version of what I said.
I do other things, Reid. I did not see this post until hours later. And now you are miffed about that. Have not seen the mea culpa you reference, but good for you. I hope you managed to do it without feeling the need to sling yet another stinger. Quit reading thing into other people's posts. It may help you feel righteous, but does not help your cause. Can we drop this now?
Totally accurate!!!
Yes, that name-calling was a surprise and quite uncalled-for. And I agree with you ( Reid). I think we are missing some information here.
Yep, I misspoke, simple as that. My bad.
Ummm? Didn’t get that. Thought you spoke quite well. Am I missing something?
Except when they were physically threatened during the insurrection. :-)
or just blackmail on bad acts
I have long thought that blackmail was one of Trump's foremost tools for the control he has over certain people. Some of the things coming out seem to support that. Look at the scandals that are not directly related to political scams. They often come out after someone becomes a liability to the former guy and his sycophants. And I have little doubt that TFG, like other mob bosses with thugs at hand, would only have to indicate that someone was a problem. There has been real fear in WaDC for a while, and it is a release to see people standing up to it. Sometimes the best thing to do, instead of ducking and hiding, is to stand out in the open where the threat become obvious. Obvious is easier to see, easier to fight.
Not to mention the hold Putin had on TFG, what was that about?
Don't you think it was about money? Trump has unpayable debts all over the place and in Russia in particular.
It is always about money with T***p...and power.
I was being facetious. And I think it's about more than money. TFG is corrupt thru and thru.
He got the ultimate in Secret Service protection. Does have to pay. TFG is going to stiff Deutche Bank and Putin.
Blackmail
And TFG's little kid wanna-be syndrome.
Loans for more condos.
We call that leadership. To stand up for what is right, call out the wrong, and suffer for it. Offer solutions, create a plan through reason & compromise, audit and adjust the plan as needed. Everything else is just noise, and those noisemakers need to be voted out & sent home.
I think this is more likely.
It's credible, Reid. Read the post I just put up from Jeff Greenfield's Politico article - and go read the whole thing. I'm sure with the nuts out there who go after me that GOP office holders have indeed received "credible threats."
I understand the threats both physical and endangering their jobs but if elected officials can't or choose not to do anything to stop the threats then aren't we all pretty much lost? They have the option of secret meeting with the DOJ and can pass information to the FBI unlike regular citizens. So if they are leaving office or giving into the threats then what chance is there to stop them?
They need us to support them. Our responsibility does not end with voting. The legislators and other elected officials (and those appointed as well) need to hear from us. They need to know what is important to us. It also helps when we write to say thank you, especially when we can point to something specific. They are out in front standing in for us. We need to let them know we're aware of them.
And when they screw up, we need to let them know that, too, so they can do a course correction if needed. That keeps them on our line, and more likely to keep going. If all they get is the negativity they aren't motivated to stay. Go to their presentations. Show up at civic events, introduce yourself and say thanks. Tell other people what you like about them. Campaign for them.
We've done this before. We can do it again.
Did you notice yet how easy it is for any crazy lunatic to get military assault weaponry? Look how many mass shootings we have. Schools, malls, concerts, grocery stores, etc. There were bombs planted at the RNC and DNC on Jan. 6. Some of those rioters bragged on social media about returning with MORE weaponry. It is beyond credible that a politician would fear for his/her life if they refuse to back the Big Lie.
Good points, thank you Sally. DC's strict gun control laws ensured that the insurrectionist rabble were not armed to the teeth with legal weapons at the actual time of the riot on Jan 6; most were left in their rooms nearby. Other than that, it's all too easy for such domestic terrorists to assemble arsenals of lethal weapons.
Mitt Romney would say differently.
1. Mitt played both sides (in term of platform) before running for pres; that compromised his credibility in the beginning.
2. Mitt was the first to stand up. The rest were chicken. Until- what is that group called? Republicans against Trump? The ones who did the ads. That was pretty visible.
3. I don't think Mitt actually has a second agenda. He knew he was gutting his chance to be the Repub candidate. He did it anyway. Not a Mitt fan, but he wins points from me for that.
I really did not write what I intended to here and I apologize for the misunderstanding. What I meant was that I don't think the choices the Rs are making are because of physical threat but because they fear for their political lives. I understand the threat many people in public service face, particularly women and people of color. And women of color are particularly vulnerable. But even the craven Rs are unlikely to give in to the threats and change their policies based on that alone. Now, blackmail or losing their seat? I think those are going on and do inform what they choose to do; just witness the abrupt change in Lindsey Graham's demeanor after a single golf outing with Trump.
I'm not convinced that's accurate, i.e., that the the threat of physical violence is not a dominant factor guiding the Rs' Mitch-like behavior. As noted by others here, on January 06, we saw with our own eyes (!) what former guy's devotees are capable of doing. Remember also that one of former guy's and his son-in-law's playmates is Saudi Arabia's MBS. Remember what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. Those last six words alone would cause me considerable angst. I think there is nothing a trapped and sinking former guy would not inflict on a perceived enemy. So, that plus fear of losing their jobs when their resume is toxic.
Yes, TFG, historically, is also all about revenge if you do not kowtow to him. And he is twisted enough to do anything. Mark my words, I would treat him and his followers like armed and angry rabid dogs that are very, very dangerous to the rest of our citizens. This terrorist group of bully thugs must be stopped. They do not care about democracy or Constitutions, they are now infected with brainwashing propaganda. Those sources of propaganda and mind control MUST be turned off and people must be jailed. There is no other way to begin to stop the spread of this Hitlerian cult. Call them all out.
My neighbors, who supported two Proud Boys parades flying confederate flags in front of my house have been so shamed that their farm business had to shut down. There are other unsavory behaviors that I won't go into but they will now be moving to a deeply southern state. Some say they are now spouting Qanon tropes online. I will not say anything more until they have packed up and moved, but they will not be invited to our neighborhood Going Away Celebration. I have tried to reason with them for eight years and to aim towards some kind of reconciliation in our neighborhood. They are inflexible and incapable. Those who grew up with them said they do not let go of slights or getting their way, EVER. And they lie about their neighborhood online. This is a scary contagion. The shaming they received also made them shut down their online website and FB apparently. But we all know they have just gone underground.
Richard Branson said that TFG invited him to meet together, years ago. Branson said he never understood what the meeting was originally about, but TFG only spoke about all the people he wanted to inflict revenge upon. This is years before his so-called "presidency." Branson saw him as unhinged and angry and went away totally perplexed what that was all about.
That's a terrifying anecdote. Anecdote to me, a daily reality to you. Where do you live (if you care to say)?
One of my adult grands has gone off the rails, politically. Until a few years ago, he and I were on the same page. He moved from MN to TX, and once settled in there, I assume something/someone(s) have radicalized him. I doubt (but am not certain) that he'd have gone to the Capitol on January 06, but that I am uncertain is well beyond disturbing.
I am grateful for the comparative silence from Maga Lago, even as it's unnerving. Things like the very public taking down of Liz Cheney and the absurd audit in Maricopa County are providing cover for TFG's treachery. That sounds like paranoia, doesn't it?! Is paranoia with good reason oxymoronic? Probably. Even so...
Look at how many Reps retired rather than face an onslaught at the polls by fellow, pro tRump candidates.
I wish the wheels of justice would turn a little faster. I’d take a French press grind.
Not many judicial systems in the world are slower than the French system...except when getting rid of political opponents. One must be careful about what one asks for. But what is a French press grind?
French Press is a method of making coffee in which coarsely ground coffee is put into a (usually) glass chamber that has a lid and a plunger with tiny holes. Hot (98 degree C) water is poured into the chamber with the coffee, which is then stirred. The plunger is deployed after 3-4 minutes, and the grounds are pressed down while the (drinkable) coffee rises above the plunger.
Thereby, "French press grind" is often the most course grind of coffee. It is what I use to make my cold brew coffee, since the grounds are easier to manage, and scatter in my garden.
Wow, I sure miss a lot by not drinking coffee. I thought French press grind was used to control the media. Glad to be wrong.
I am also a coffee grind recycler with my keurig reusable cups and non bleached filters. This year I tried watering my houseplants and the effect on my peace lillies was amazing. Depending what I am watering, I dilute the grounds and experiment. Have you tried coffee on the lawn?
Tell me more what you do for your peace lilies!
I keep an old mixing bowl with handle and spout in my kitchen sink for grounds and filters. It's easy to add water that would go down the drain. This makes a nice tea which I dilute to around 10% for houseplants. The peace lilies reacted very quickly. Supposed to be good for hibiscus too. Fingers crossed.
https://www.thespruce.com/using-coffee-grounds-in-your-garden-2539864
LOVE the French Press way of making coffee, though I don't use it here with Mater, who prefers her Folgers (yuck). Yes, it does use a coarser ground, which requires only a few grinds of the coffee bean mill. It's quite fast and delivers a real essence of the beans. I know people who use the grounds, as well as tea bags (excellent around hydrangeas!), in the garden, with wonderful results.
You can stop by my kitchen. I have French press coffee every morning.
Ah, I am not the only one then who each morning goes out in my yard to deposit coffee grounds (I confess: yes, often in my robe). I have returned to my mocha pot though, so medium grind. Good for my magnolia tree.
My coffee grounds go into the compost pile
I just yesterday decided to take an old pressure cooker that no longer seals (even with a new rubber gasket) and am now using it to collect our voluminous daily grounds. I'd like to also start a compost pile, but we have yard waste pickup that includes compostable kitchen waste, so I've been putting it off. Collecting the coffee grounds from at least four pots a day should start perking up the depleted soil in my yard.
ok! I bought one of those for the first time in Copenhagen in '69 and thought that it was Nordic in some way. I still have one but prefer to grind my beans a little more and use my expresso machine.
Right?
We need the truth about every aspect of what happened on Jan. 6. And for everyone who broke the law to be punished. And for spineless Trump lickspittles like Kevin McCarthy to be forced to testify under oath. But I'm not confident that a bipartisan congressional commission will be effective, given that the GOP will do everything possible to weaken such an investigation. They fear the truth.
Yes they fear the truth because of their complicity.
Yes, they can suppress any subpoena they choose, effective emasculating the commission's ability to truly get down to root causes. Sadly, I think the commission as currently constituted is window dressing and not a serious enterprise.
The first people whose behavior suggested that a mobster figure was in the White House were James Comey and Andrew McCabe--both highly experienced in prosecuting organized crime. Comey memorialized his private meetings with Trump and shared them with a secure third party (a Columbia professor) and McCabe drew many implicit parallels to the Mob in "The Threat," the book he wrote after he was fired.
I still hold Comey responsible for Clinton's defeat in 2016.
Yes, sadly.
My impression from his book is that Comey also holds himself responsible to some extent.
As I recall (this is subject to possible error), Comey has said publicly that he made a mistake in making those comments.
The question is, when will the GOP house of cards come crashing down?
I think we get pulled back and forth on this vexed idea. Last week Heather wrote a piece exposing the forces behind the Republican Party. They have serious money, serious influence and, most definitely, serious plans.
This morning’s post illustrates vividly the fact that the Party itself and particularly the politicians have been equal parts grasping and dim witted in their short term objective of winning for winning’s sake, regardless of morality or legality. This party has not concerned itself with America and Americans for so long now that their current position is untenable. Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind.
And yet...there is real power, in the most consequential sense of the word, behind them. No doubt the power brokers intend to see the current crop of dullards criminals off in order to rebuild a new shiny version of the Republican Party and resume their winning ways with an even stronger hold on the mechanics of the ballot. There is no saving McCarthy, McConnell, Cruz, Hawley and others of that claim or potential claim on the levers of government. And of course the true idiots like Greene and Boebert have been long since factored out. Those behind the scenes have the wisdom to abandon the adage about “dancing with who bring you”.
So there lies ahead a great explosion within the party. As it is currently constituted, as it is what we see before our eyes, it is probably dead, although there will be some vicious fighting. We may see some form of violence equally or more devastating than the first insurrection, as the question of who is the enemy - the Democrats or the Republicans within - becomes hopelessly muddied. After all the “death sentences” issued by the mob on January 6 were more for Republican politicians than Democrats.
I think that realists in the Heritage Foundation and groups such as that (some of whom we mayn’t even know about) are resigned to the fact that the forces they support will take it on the chin for an election cycle or two. But they are building for a long run of domination to resume at some point during this decade.
I would take the passage of HR1 over 10 infrastructure bills. The fight for that is crucial, probably determinative in the long range outcome.
I also think that the legal process *must* be swift(er) and decisive. And it must include Trump. He is still needed by the power brokers to break more glass before his usefulness has expired. Seeing Trump imprisoned is not merely an opportunity to indulge in long-awaited schadenfreude. It is a practical necessity, not on the scale of HR1, but not that far off.
I read daily in these comments, and especially today, the increasing involvement of good people awake to the danger who see the need to play an active role and are organizing / have organized to do so. I think your commitment amazing and hope that a good chunk of the other 95% inclined to vote Democratic will join you.
For this will be a struggle long after we have ceased laughing at the Arizona audit, or worrying about deSantis running for the presidency. You are in it for the long haul, perhaps a decade, before this fight is over and there is serious and legitimate governance in both sides of the aisle.
At the moment we in Canada are a long way away from danger from the right. Serious expression of far right ideology makes one persona non grata. Alberta is our “red American state” province and it is floundering due to the slow dying of fossil fuel industry and the disastrous laissez faire handling by the current provincial government (right wing) of the pandemic. True power provincially still rests in Ontario and it too has a Conservative leader, one who is more clown than threat. And of course our federal government has much more power within the country than yours does in America. And it runs more to Liberal dominance, and of course is not limited to two parties.
So we watch America closely, as indeed we always have. But now we watch and worry that somehow Trumpism will gain hold in Canada (highly unlikely) or that we will be collateral damage in your internecine death struggle. There are days when it feels more remote. But those in Canada who take a serious interest in the world root for democracy. If you lose it in America, the very concept is threatened. That’s what terrifies us now and again in the Biden presidency as we think what would have been in a second Trump presidency.
Thank you. Keep the good fight up.
That is so well said, and thank you for rooting for us. And I agree.. as desperately as we need the infrastructure bill and to address climate change, if we don’t have voting rights first, we lose it all.
Write and call your Congress and ask them to support H.R. 1 - over and over and over
Thank You for this view from across my border.
I hope we resolve this battle over the Lake Michigan pipeline amicably. Governor Whitmer is sticking to her guns - I quite see why. On the other hand, my understanding is that turning off that pipeline would be a devastating blow to the economies of Ontario and Quebec. It’s a conundrum and Biden has stayed out of it.
I am copying and sending your comment to a close friend of mine who lives closest of anyone to where the pipeline enters Lake Michigan near the Mackinac Bridge. She is a a superb informed activist and RN, DNP) and can answer your concerns better thani can. My learned opinion, in the meantime, is that the economic and environmental devastation, should the Enbridge pipeline leak into Lake Michigan, (as it did in the Kalamazoo Rive could decimate so many species, our fisheries, and most of our tourist industry, which is our bread & butter. The pipeline MUST be stopped and removed. I will post her reply. Thanks. MP
Thank you Mary Pat. I appreciate this. I am in full agreement about the devastation of a pipeline leak. And I understand that this particular one is relatively old. And I fully appreciate that Michigan is no stranger to the gravest ills from contaminated water, with the terrible situation that occurred in Flint. And that was shockingly deliberate.
As I read more today about this, I find it comes down to nothing more than an economic defense against a potential environmental calamity. Canada does not have an ethical position in this. The cost of a shutdown would be enormous however, with a major spike in oil prices and unemployment increases centered around Sarnia. Thus a closure would have, in turn, a bruising political impact on the Canadian government and further raise already ugly tensions between Alberta and central Canada.
I am sick, sick, sick of the fossil fuel industry. This is just one more example of how deeply we are ensnared in it. We have been making bargains with devil for a century now to spoil those who consider it a birthright to fly anywhere on a whim and drive ego-boosting vehicles.
I agree with you. It must be shut down. But I hope that it can be done in such a way as to mitigate the worst economic effects on Ontario.
Regardless, it’s a Hobson’s choice. I sincerely hopes Canada takes the most moral route possible.
I think it’s crashing now as we post.
I live in Florida. It doesn't feel that way here. We have a tough and expensive road ahead in the effort to oust Ron DeSantis as governor to avoid his plan to become president in 2024. The NYT had a tracker recently that showed what bubble you live in. Insert zip code and it provided a bubble. I'm quite confused over how it treats Non-Party Affiliates but it showed that of 1,000 of my nearest neighbors, only 19% are on my political team. DeSantis is an awful governor but he's been propped up by Fox and now Newsmax. He takes all his cues from iDJT. It's awful. I read these letters for inspiration.
Kelly, you are right. I am in Orlando where our Orange Co. Mayor Jerry Demings ( husband of Val) has done his very best to counter De Santis on Covid , parrying him at every step. It does not help that TFG has set up shop in Mar a Lago. Thank God he is going to New Jersey for the summer. Wish he would stay there. He wants to do rallies again!!!!
There's talk of DeSantis trying to block any extradition request that Florida receives from NY (he can't actually do that, but it would be "great" for his red followers). But if iDJT goes to NJ, they they can easily extradite him from there. Here's hoping it gets done soon.
That's correct. NJ does have a similar bill but from wha5t I've read the NJ governor doesn't like TFG and would most likely be happy to extradite him
DeSantis totally manipulated the Covid numbers in FL and we were still #5 (last week). He thinks that's a great job!
Isn’t is surreal? How can anyone believe that’s a great job?
Not sure if you do twitter or social media, but here is a link to get involved. I am sure you may have this already. https://www.mobilize.us/allonthelinefl/event/385019/
Carol....if you are on social media, consider joining this group as an ambassador to publicize redistricting, not gerrymandering: https://www.mobilize.us/allonthelinefl/event/385019/
Kelly, I have joined my local Pasco County Democratic club which meets monthly. As I hear of specific things we can do to Remove Ron (that’s a Twitter account that I suggest you follow if you’re on Twitter) I will definitely let you know.
I'm a member of St. Johns County DEC, a Precinct Leader, and serve on the Voter Protection Team. I am on Twitter (https://mobile.twitter.com/kellyinsta) and follow RemoveRon account. We all need to do our best. That's all we can hope for!
I just followed you. Also I am impressed.....you are followed by Nikki Fried and Jeff Johnson. I know Jeff well and have worked with him for many years in AARP.
I've known Nikki for 20 years. She's what Florida needs to replace mini-tRump. I worked the recount for her in 2018. I'll be there for her in 2022!
Your "follow" hasn't yet appeared but I will follow back when it does!
I saw that bubble tracker, and checked my area of Oregon (Lane County). I am solidly blue (and personally, I am probably one of the more liberal one of those) and all three of my US Congresscritters are Democrats; both of my State Congresscritters are Democrats. There is a strong, vocal, and Q dominated Republiqan party here as well; thankfully the minority, but it makes it nigh on to impossible to have a reasonable conversation now; much worse than it was 5 years ago.
I've been closely watching Oregon (my home state) for years. You are so right. Five years ago it was tetchy at times, but salvagable. Not now. I was happy to hear that because of the dynamics you describe, 2 republican senators (honorable people I respect even when I disagree with their positions) called their party out by turning independent, forming their own caucus, and actually working with Dems to get things done.
The Republicans in Oregon, like others, have become almost entirely obstructionist. The resulting failure of the political process makes me feel disgusted by a state I have felt attached to all my life.
The disaffected senators proffered a bill that would prevent elected state officials to hold positions in a party organization as well. Don't know what current status is as I've turned my attention elsewhere for the time being. Couldn't take watching the ugliness anymore. Do know that the individuals under question no longer have leadership positions in the Oregon legislature. Two have lost committee assignments. One senator rarely attends: his district is not represented at all. One house member is facing possible criminal charges because of his boo-boo letting Proud Boys in so they could engage in hand-to-hand combat with police inside the state house. So, yeah, Lane County is blue and both houses are controlled by Dems. Nearly all the state level elected officials are Dem. But the lock-step Republicans pull out every trick they can to get in the way of getting things done. They whine every time things don't go their way.
I am in love with Oregon. But when I finally get back to the NW, I will be living in Washington state, my other love.
Sadly, WA has our own Q/T element (in Cathy McMorris Rodgers), and also some run-of-the-mill OG* GOP who will happily block environmental legislation that looks like it may have short-term impacts on business or wealthy tax-avoiders (I refuse to call them taxpayers). I recently moved to just outside of very blue Olympia to a retirement trailer park in reddish Thurston county, which means when the signs go up in Oly for more progressives running for city council positions, I sit here wishing I could vote FOR them, instead of bemoaning the two state reps from my district (GOP) and one state senator (DINO when it comes to environmental issues) - who either ignore my pleas for them to consider voting for the numerous water protection bills that were on the slate for hearings and votes this session, or send form emails explaining why the bills are bad for business. However, that does mean I might find a way to feel useful in the next county or state legislative campaigns - to try to turn my district and county if not blue, at least more violet.
*OG = original gangster - sometimes pronounced 'gangsta' and often meant positively to refer to old school rap artists or athletes, but also can be meant sarcastically. In this case, I believe 'gangster' in the sense that most of us will interpret it (given our ages and familiarity with American history of the early to mid 20th century) is quite appropriate.
I lived for a long time between Oly and Shelton, out Steamboat Island Rd, overlooking Eld Inlet. Kayaked the inlet, met delightful wildlife., including whales, dolphins, seals. Watched a huge octopus ooze it's way across the rocks under my boat. Saw an entire bed of sea dollars destroyed by chemical leaching from an illegal bulkhead. Watched Oly morph from a logging/shipping town to an amazing place that (then anyway) retained the old flavor with the amenities of a sophisticated, multi-cultural town. I'd dine out every week with friends, a different ethnicity every time. Held an old tradition of contra-dancing 2x a month.
Oly's achilles heel, of course, is that it is the state Capitol. The town so small that it was swamped by the agencies and the constant inflow of people to run them, and the people attracted by the beauty of the setting. The Capitol grounds are an open park, with people in suits mingling with people in jeans and t-shirts.
I had a friend from graduate school who ran for water district board and nearly won, at age 23. Woke some people up. All of a sudden people began running for office. We were all ages. Many of us took our science into the agencies to help with a rapidly changing world., or into the field to do research. Our class and the one before it (we were the first 2 graduate environmental classes) changed Oly and the institutions in it. I think that if we could do it as youngsters, us elders we can bring our experience and insight to help continue the shift too.
I miss it. I'll have to win the lottery to move back, I'm afraid, though one of my brothers still lives in the Skagit Valley, so I get to visit.
Is the San Francisco Bakery still in existence? Great rolls and bread, delicious coffee and the Sunday paper was shared around the big table. Great place to meet.
Keep a close eye on district #4 DeFazio. He’s a top R target next year and in a pivotal position w/transportation working on Biden/Harris infrastructure plan w/sec Buttigeig. DeFazio’s 2nd-time opponent is Alek Skarlatos, a full-fledged trump acolyte backed by tons of R$$.
I am in Florida. With DeSantis, I never have to wait long for him to make a suspect political move because certainly the well-being and voice of all the citizens do not motivate him. Latest is his gamble about gambling in the state. And he is betting like it’s a fool’s errand.
Hi, Christine: I am reaching out to as many Floridians here as I can find. If you are on social media, this is a way to publicize fair redistricting, not gerrymandering.
https://www.mobilize.us/allonthelinefl/event/385019/
I wouldn’t buy a used car from DeSantis or any of those oily politicians in FL— I would have a very tough time living in FL. And I do believe it’s a situation that won’t change easily or quickly.
Hi Liz. ( you are lucky to live in Boston, my " Third City" ) Re: FL
Years from now they will dig up the remains of "The Florida Man" and instead of pottery they will find flip-flops, crushed beer cans, loaded rusty shot guns, MAGA caps and Confederate Flags. The excavation site will be what was once a trailer park. Some of the Florida Man's DNA will be found in the droppings from what once were very large orange alligators.
The " Florida Woman" on the other hand ( the ones not found congealed to the aforesaid man) will be found in a multitude of dig sites scattered clear across the land masses not submerged by the ocean. Those remains will uniformly contain shreds and shreds of letters, postcards and some kind of bracelets with old alphabet letters on them-- some will have RBG but most will have HCR. There will be some thumbdrives and cell phones buried near them --ancient means of safe discussion during the waves of contagious pandemics bungled by politicians. In the reconstruction of the "Florida Woman" archeologists will be dumbfounded by her brain size and exceptional beauty!
Carol I love your creative take on what archeologists will find in Florida and yes Florida woman will be an amazing find!
The Florida Women on this forum certain bear out the promise of your ultimate and penultimate statements!
Nothing my come of this but was still glad to see someone connecting DeSantis with at least covering Greenberg's crimes. https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1394341774672502790?s=20
Totally, seriously, sadly agree. So much loss.
... and so much we no longer need ..., so let go and embrace this composting process ... even lava flow destroys everything in its path, creating fertile grounds for fresh growth ... we have to 'be the change we want to see ...'
Their arrogance though is their Achilles heel. Their karma is coming for them eventually.
Why should it crash? What isn’t working for the GOP? They can win the presidency with 45% of the vote. They can win the majority of a state’s Congressional representatives with 45% of the vote. They can win a majority in the Senate with 45% of the vote. Their right-wing judges control a majority of the courts, including the Supreme Court. The Voting Rights Act has been dismantled. Gerrymandering is legal. Citizens United is the law. They control 26 state houses. They have passed laws to ensure they will not lose a close vote in a swing state again. They are purging their party of all nay-sayers. The GOP are on a glide path to controlling Congress in 2022. The new Voting Rights law will never see the light of day. They hold all the cards.
I can’t think that way. The lies and grift have to catch up to them.
How? The rule of law? They’re rewriting the laws, and they control the courts. The good conscience of Republicans who refuse to comply? Being purged as we speak. Our best hope is that Cheney and enough of her like-minded colleagues form a third party. That’s a suicide mission, because they won’t win elections. But they’d ensure that Republicans wouldn’t either.
Let’s hope for that then, a third, truly Conservative party that will split their base.
I’m not a Cheney fan but it’s good to know she puts Country over party.
I think her order of priorities are......Co-equal country and herself. All else is subservient to attaining that co-equality. She is useful perhaps to help break the trumpite republicans but to held at arms mengyth for anything else and to be carefully watched whatever she's up to.
Exactly. I trust a Cheney to look out for what is best for a Cheney first and foremost. That pedigree of hers is simply that of Movement Conservatism.
... it's always more than one person ... while I wonder what part this might be in a more expanded script, I admire, support and thank Representative Cheney for courage and integrity facing deeply rooted corruption ... party politics aside, I think Liz Cheney and Megan McCain could put that train back on the track - would love to see it so!!
... Meghan McCain ...!!
Stuart, I just don't feel this is a time for anything vaguely resembling party politics. To be put on hold until later.
I can do without that narrow vision of the United States and its role in the world, but at least it is A vision of the country, not of one obese madman's navel.
Does she? As I wrote elsewhere here, I was astounded when she admitted yesterday that she voted for iDJT in 2020. With all that she knew, she believed Biden to be the greater evil.
She also said she regretted that vote.
😣
She is putting Cheney above all else. I'm still glad she's doing it, but it's a political play.
She is smart enough to know all the lies and liars will self-implode eventually.
Sometimes. This being one of those times.
Thank you Heather for this recap of the current state of the Washington Sanitarium, also known as the Republican Party.
I clearly remember Adam Schiff saying that there were Republican members who were afraid for their lives. I mentioned this recently and was challenged because "if that were the case, something would have been done about it". Well, that isn't the case, is it.
I read the news release regarding Trump saying the Maricopa data base is deleted and had to chuckle. As I said on my post on Facebook, doesn't he realized how insane he sounds when he talks like that? I suppose that is the rhetoric needed to speak to his base/cult.
I feel Merrick Garland needs to hold Kevin McCarthy's feet to the fire. Enough of this bullshit.
I thought McCarthy's derogatory comment this weekend about Trump's energy level versus Biden's deserved my Facebook observation of, to my knowledge, Biden doesn't snort Adderall.
Oh well, I guess I am rather course these days......
Be safe, be well.
Well said.