Congress left for the holiday weekend a day early today after a number of Republican members of Congress appear to have mutinied against President Donald J.
Don, I think the term Trump Derangement Syndrome is being applied to the wrong group….it SHOULD apply to his ardent “true believer” followers. IMHO, the “derangement” is strong in them.
I agree Barbara! TDS is another example of every accusation is a confession. MAGA are the ones who are “deranged” and still support this clown and the circus of an administration. They have absolutely nothing to offer Americans after inheriting the strongest post-COVID economy on the planet. If only Biden had done half of the things he is accused of - specifically weaponizing the government - Trump would be in jail along with the other J6 mobsters and we wouldn’t currently be the laughingstock of the world. This is generational damage and most of us will not live long enough to hopefully see our country actually become great again. This should be a year of celebrating our country’s 250th anniversary instead we are on the brink of world war and another Great Depression.
So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops and former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn't see this coming? Utterly stupid and morally repressible.
Blanche at the senate hearing, was asked “and you are going to pay money to people who assaulted the members of the Capitol police force?” He arrogant replied that “it happens all the time, that people are compensated for an altercation with a member of the police.” Obviously Blanche, who in reality is trump’s fixer, confuses payments to innocent citizens who were illegally detained by some careless or corrupt officer of the law and awarded compensation through a jury trial vs payments to the rioting mob of insurrectionists who assaulted Capitol police personnel on Jan6 at the direction of trump!
During Watergate, we had televised hearings with Senate and Congress all working together, in spite of their political differences, to get at the Truth. That's what is needed now. Hopefully, as Heather summarized, the revolt against tRump actions in the ranks of the Senate and Congress will lead to this. And let's not forget Epstein files! So much investigation and public media coverage required! Resist!!!
The problem is that in order to stay in the circus Blanche must prove his loyalty by completely ignoring what happened on J6 and framing it not as an insurrection but as a patriotic act in support of the clown. He will never admit that the clown riled up that mob and unleashed it on the Capitol. He will follow the circus’s script and refer to that day as an example of patriots fighting for their clown. Unless the context needs a different version of the script then all of the supporting clowns flip it and say that J6 was an inside job by the FBI and Antifa and this is why those patriots deserve compensation for their mistreatment. They have a script for every scenario.
It’s obvious that Blanche is not very bright. Has anyone checked his law school class standing? Do I remember correctly that he was a federal prosecutor? We could use more details of his background. Or perhaps he just looks stupid and is truly evil. The way he expressed his love for DT was creepy, sickening.
We all saw what happened - live!!! I prefer to believe in reality, as painful as it was. These fools still pretending it was a patriotic act, or worse, a tourist visit, are wrong - and deep down, they know it.
Please, enough with the clown/circus theme. Clowns are most usually funny and the circus is exciting, can be breathtaking in an amusing way and when one leaves after seeing this it is with a sense of happiness and awe. None of this is present in this time or this administration. Please, can we find some other way to address what are your very good ideas with different sybmolism?
Someone at the hearing did not make the distinction? Blanche needed big and loud pushback. They do this a lot and get away with it. That’s weakness and why Trump keeps going. He never gives up especially when he smells weakness. They are not smart but they get away with crimes and lies by being relentless and tiring us out.
Potter, watching some of the Congressional hearings, I muse “so these are adults?”🤦🏻♀️ Lots of grandstanding by all to catch that “viral moment”, but the response from members of the current admin to questions are particularly cringy…thinking of Pam Bondi and her “slam book” she referred to to sling zingers at some Congressional reps instead of answering their questions. A lot of deflection and whataboutism and yada yada yada instead of answers. Embarrassing and troubling to witness.
Marj, I found your comment to be interesting. I'm not insulting you, I'm just curious what you mean by this? Cohen went to jail for 14 months and was even in solitary for over 50 days, I believe. He's fortunate his family stuck by him. His life was totally upended.
He wrote a book (which I haven't read) and he now has a Substack and a YouTube channel. He was part of the Midas Touch Network until he had a disagreement with Ben Meiselas who is sure that Cohen knows more about Epstein and is furious that Cohen won't share. Cohen denies knowing about Epstein--and I tend to believe him as I truly don't think Trump considered Cohen worthy of including in his close social circle; I tend to think Trump used him as he used all his servants.
I do watch some of Cohen's YouTube channel clips, because I think of ALL the pundits out there, he's the only one of them who actually worked with and new Trump. Many can speculate about Trump, but Cohen was in the circle--a close one but I don't think the truly innermost circle.
Hello Louis... From HCR Today: "Republican senators met for nearly two hours today with acting attorney general Todd Blanche in a meeting that Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News reported was “incredibly hostile.”" || Do you think that Todd Blanche will get a Senate Confirmation as permanent Attorney General now?... Everything that Trump Touches Dies... Trump's Lawyers Inevitably Get Lawyers.... OBW: Tulsi Gabbard Resigned Today... Another Road-Kill on DJT's Path to Glory... ;-)
McConnell now begins to raise him voice since he is on his way to retirement. You can rest assured that had he still been Majority Leader he would be lauding the arrangement. So, I take this as just another shift going nowhere. When he had the power to sway votes and take away the menace he defaulted.
100pct. no redemption for that pos. he had the chance, made his choices, now he has to live with the consequences. wants to rewrite history with convenient memory lapses - not happening.
Kentucky Fried Voldemort's outrage is a bit like a the deathbed conversion to vegetarianism by a tyrannosaurus in hospice care, but it does represent a marker of sorts.
100pct. He's the main cause we are in this mess. He blocked Obama's scotus appt opportunity, then rammed in one for rump going against the very rationale he used to block Obama. There is no redemption for that pos.
His personal senatorial mission was to stack the SCOTUS and he ruthlessly did so. Limiting the tenure of judges to less than life-long, might be a good idea. It's hard to find a high ranking politician without butt smears.
I suppose there is a glimmer of hope, a sign of some kind of sea change there.
Back when Trump and the MAGAs were looming on the horizon, I came to believe that Mitch was the most dangerous person in Washington. I even went so far as to contribute $$ to the campaign of his opponent, and I don't live anywhere near KY.
My wish for him is that he go quickly and not "stand upon the order of his going.' (Apologies to the Bard of Avon).
You make a good point, but to me, the precedent was set when an incompetent candidate's convenient "welfare queen" lies defeated the competent candidate's inconvenient truths. In other words, the precedent was set when Jimmy Carter lost to Ronny Raygun 1980.
James, if we're going back in U.S. history searching for the first axe-wound to American democracy and presidential accountability, then I'm going to suggest Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon the Crook.
Ford's claim that he was "ending the national nightmare" had nothing to do with compassion or moving forward. He was gaslighting the American public. The pardon was merely giving his boss a get-out-of-jail-free card. It was the beginning of the standard Republican procedure when addressing the public: gaslighting. They've been doing it ever since.
I’m about to say something relatively disgusting. I am fed up with this thing called Donald John Trump. I have stated previously and I will state again, that in the time of his ending life on earth (and I do intend to outlive this piece of turd), I will crap on his gravesite. I will do so in spite of potential arrest by Park Police or any other authorities. I will have an attorney in waiting to argue why I’m not a public threat for one time only, craping on Trump’s grave. The only question I might have is which foods should I allow to churn in my stomach and intestines to create a rather stinky byproduct. I welcome any suggestions.
No one would have predicted it. No one. Not even Ebenezer Scrooge himself. But Ebenezer Scrooge did redeem himself THEN die. I know it's a made-up story, but it (and Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" song) makes me think, "Who cares! Either way, he makes the world a much better place, and I'll stand over his grave until I'm sure that he's dead."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) warned, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." Thanks, Fred. Box checked.
Actually the receiver might actually enjoy that. His obsession with excrement is getting much worse lately - the cartoon he put out of himself flying a plane over Manhattan and gleefully letting loose a major load over the residents, the video of Obama, Pelosi and other Democratic icons floating happily in the new Lincoln swimming pool filled with floating excrement...
Bill, don't know if there is a franchise in your area, but I highly recommend White Castle sliders. While I loved them as a teen, my adult GI track sadly revolted. I've tried to eat them several times as an adult an I ALWAYS regret it, so now I just take a deep whiff as I pass by one of them and remember my childhood good ol' days when my Dad would bring a sack of them home for us kids.
Oh that’s so funny. I couldn’t figure out what you referred to until I opened. Man… White Castle. A blast for the past. My street friends used to grab a coffee there in town. I haven’t heard the name in awhile. Wow.
trump is obnoxious and avaricious, lacks predictability and stability. Not profound thoughts, but it's what I'm thinking at the moment. He thinks with weapons and not with his brain.
Stephanie ... thank you for the soapbox. Much appreciated.
Dissembling Don very predictably thinks as if he cares about his own short-term self-interest and nothing else. Apparently, I used to think like that. How do I know? My mom told me she witnessed it. My guess? I was thinking some version of, "Who changed everything? What was wrong with the way things were? Why wasn't I consulted? I'm going to poop myself and scream bloody murder, and I'm not stopping until things are great again!!!"
IF THE SLUSH FUND BECOMES REALITY, THE MONEY IS GOING TO NO ONE BUT TRUMP’S POCKET! ALL THE LOSERS THINKING THEY ARE GETTING A WINDFALL ARE IN FOR A BIG SURPRISE! TRUMP DOES NOT PAY PEOPLE! TRUMP DOES NOT GIVE TO CHARITY! TRUMP DOES NOT GIVE PHILANTHROPY! THE ONLY PERSON HE GIVES TO IS HIMSELF!
Eileen, I had a bit of a daydream where recipients of this fund had to travel to the WH to personally receive their prize. When they arrived trump ceremoniously gave them a large Slurpee slush and said here’s your part of the slush fund, I’m keeping the millions it cost to produce.
Am right there with you, Donna. Celebrating our country this year is the last thing I want to do w/ that rotting whale carcass @ the helm. Despite paying for the goddamn arch w/ my tax $$, I'll pay a separate fee-for-a-swing with a sledgehammer to take it down ASAP!
Cary, would you allow me take one swing at it? I’m thinking at $1 a swing we could raise enough $$$ to bring back deported immigrants, reunite them w their children, open horrendous detention facilities…. I know dream on.
Don, Barbara, Donna— You have taken the words right out of my mouth. I am coming to grips with the fact that I probably won’t live long enough to hopefully watch our country turn itself around. A woman I talked with last evening expressed the same sentiment. Sad, really sad.
My thought too, Janet…but if I can I’ll haunt the bastards until they make it right & give encouraging dreams to the freedom fighters! My “cosmic” contribution!
Donna, I have had people accuse me of TDS when they could not discuss what I was actually talking about and had nothing left to say. Needless to say, I told them that this syndrome applied to them.
Forget the anniversary, I suggest. Wait until it returns to its imperfect but still competent democracy. Otherwise you're just waving the flag for fascism.
I attended an interesting webinar on Russian Disinformation campaigns and its influence on the far right in the UK. This was sponsored by a Ukrainian Support group that provides things for Ukraine including supporting children in Schools.
Anyway, they discussed breaking up those who supported the far right into 5 groups, and some of them are people who fall on hard times and don't feel listened to. Desperation. We should try to get people back that we can by taking care of them.
I think we are living in a master class of how trauma affects us all. We are seeing the history of our nation in a clear way many of us for the first time. Selma Fraiberg MSW at University of Michigan was a professional who realized parents hold trauma from their childhoods and many times unknowingly replay the trauma . In the program that she created they have expanded her concept of ghosts in the nursery into the ghosts and angels of the nursery. I think we need to keep this yes and focus in mind. Humans are survivors all of us in uniquely different ways but if we can all fare forward it woukd be so helpful and for the first time in our civilization not forget the influence of trauma. This goes with the environmental collapse issues we are facing. Heal the human, heal the earth. There you go Linda an addendum to your words.
Mary OMalley, I agree we are !giving in a 'Master Class' of trauma. However, it can be a guy rational emotional growth experience. I lived thru a master class in trauma at the age of 20/21 in Vietnam. It took me 17 years to recover, but I did recover when I realized it was truly a Master Class in Emotional Intelligence. We have seen the enemy and it is not uz. It is the ignorance that comes from stopping Emotional Growth when greed racism and lack of empathy block the progress of human growth. Wisdom, Peace and Compassion will lead us to the Future, the Future we deserve.
John thanks for replying and thanks for serving in that time. I have known several Vietnam Vets and always liked them. One told of coming home and no ticker tape parades not even at times respect. And let’s hope!
The greatest depravity. That which leads one to the next level. Our own nightmares coming in machine gun staccato. Night after night. It’s not even real, or is it? Edgar Allen Who? I watched a sow birth 11 piglets and then eat them alive one by one. Preparation for the silhouettes hanging in the afternoon sun of the children hanging by their heels. Not a twitch left of their lives. Basket of deplorables? Can a society bend this to some sort of reconciliation? Upon whose god? And yet the hour changes, and the next basket fills.
Linda, bless you for looking at this in a compassionate light. From the start of the “frumph” years I have spent hours trying to understand how desperate someone would have to be to vote for him. I slowly, sadly and reluctantly boiled it down to racism. Unfortunately, the term, “basket of deplorables” landed heavily, and negatively. The phrase struck a blow against HC from all sides. Even now it seems harsh, but I tend to agree.
I am finding it very hopeful that Republicans that Trump has "primaried "are breaking ranks with him, and perhaps more will do so. It looks like the Dems have enough votes to do things that they could not do for most of the past 3 years.
Yup. I have a very “curated” relationship with my 85 yr old conservative > maga mom. We have to tread very lightly if we want to avoid a blowup. I refuse to visit her family in the south. She has lived in Los Angeles since ‘84 and hates CA. She only stays for my sister’s kids.
Totally agree think that this TDS is more along the lines of Trump ‘Devotion’ Syndrome.. as well as its very difficult for some to ever admit they were wrong..
I honestly thought that was true until a year ago. Anyone who still supports trump is truly deranged. Wait until the provisions of the BBB kick in after the midterms and many people lose their healthcare, their food benefits etc.
Accusing Trump opponents of TDS is simply the end-of-the-line rationalization for their support for him. They've been making excuses for his bad behavior for so long that it makes sense that those who oppose him must have something wrong with them.
No. Fascist propaganda works. That's all. If you'd be plunged into it for decades, and your whole social environment is, you'd believe all the crap their "media" dump on them each day too.
Also, fascism vitally needs "othering", so if we want to defeat it, we have to make sure not to "other" GOP voters themselves...
Oh, I'm not sure about fascist propaganda here. These people are not that sophisticated. But they do understand that they have been excusing the inexcusable--from mocking a disabled reporter to "grab 'em by the p****y" to telling his supporters at rallies to beat up on protesters, to... well, you name it; just about everything he does is inexcusable. So they're attempting to excuse their own inexcusable rationalizing by attacking those who recognize how inexcusable his behavior really has been with accusations of mental illness. It's a covering up their own culpability mechanism.
Some hardcore republicans are wondering what to do now as they become disillusioned. They are looking ahead now to the next republican to carry their flag.
MHO ... Here's the reason for the 34%.... "Deliberate ignorance refers to the intentional choice to avoid acquiring knowledge about a fact that one has good reason to believe exists. This concept is often relevant in legal contexts, where it can demonstrate culpability for wrongful acts."
Do you remember when you only read “Dog” stories or “Horse” stories? I considered myself well-read. Probably was at that emotional maturity level. Fox nudes is a naked industry bereft of sentient morality. Have you ever had a conversation with 300 sheep bleating insatiably? They all sound alike so you might miss the one who is frantic about the bear. I’m extremely hard of hearing because I worked for a man from Missouri who tried to show me. I didn’t catch the warning in time about the bear. The thing is, neither did the twelve sheep who were killed that night.
Safe to say Barbara, your "TDS" comment has been the consensus all along. I liken it to an expression my Mother used sparingly: What ails them? Knowing that there is no suitable answer. Even so, May I just offer: Clearly "they" have just been badly misled from the gitgo. And, I would compare that with how the civil war was fraughted (yes, I meant fraught with an 'ed'...., in an effort to accentuate that the act which was knowingly done, and done with so much purpose - so sick of MAGGATTS). Thanks for reading.
Thank goodness this is finally happening. It's never too late. In a majoritarian based system, 34% approval rating and falling is a death spiral nightmare for incumbents. Let's hear from more of them. All Americans need to hear from leaders they trust that the Trump agenda is an anti-Amrrican scam.
When Congress has to slither out of DC early to avoid answering for Trump's idiotic grifts you know things are really really bad.
Last night I attended my 3rd rally where Graham Platner and Paige Loud stumped. I was truly inspired. The Cons have already announced $50 million in support for Collins, so it's an uphill battle for Platner.
Paige Loud, a 29 year old, Cherokee social worker from Oklahoma received a standing ovation from the crowd. She is running for Jared Golden's 2nd district seat and she has only raised $30k. She will likely finish 4th of 4 in the race but I hope she has a future in politics. She showed more empathy than any Republican I can recall in my 71 years. Graham Platner referenced her remarks three times in his presentation, so maybe she can work for him in one of his offices in ME once he's elected.
Exactly. And she voted to approve 4 of the 6 SCOTUS Republicans nominees. As you have pointed out, Leonard Leo hosted a fundraiser for her last time she ran. That alone is reason enough for me not to vote for her.
This isn't entirely true unfortunately. Susan's PACs have been blanketing us with internet and USPS ads about the wonderful job she is doing. She actually facilitated a couple earmarks that directly affect the second district. Getting back grant funding for things that she had cut as head of the Appropirations committe (and some of the DOGE cuts).
So they are literally 'celebrating' her for getting back the money she took away to make Trump happy. I guess in Republican circles that makes you an altruist.
But these endless ads all celebrate the same 3 earmarks. I would think that even MAGA could figure it out. But I've been wrong before.
I will vote for Graham and delight to see both MAGA and Dem heads explode because they think he's "rude, crude and socially unacceptable". When your only exposure to someone is through their /reddit posts during a time that they were literally in mental health crisis then I guess I can kinda see it.
But anyone who has seen him in action can see that he is real and has put actual work into ideas for the future that aren't just sound bites and slick ads.
I'm over 'bipartisanship'. Schumer and King used it to keep Trump's government in power and strip away my healthcare. So everytime I see another of these "the democrats can only be relevant if they move to further to the right" I lose my bloody mind.
America is NOT Epstein's Island Phase II where immunity protects "King Donald" from fucking us all using our tax dollars. Waging wars, building bunkers cloaked in a ballroom, killing citizens, releasing and paying insurectionests, threatening comedians and journalists is NOT normal for an American President.
I have a feeling a great majority of their education is limited; they have barely left their own state, not to mention the country; they have never been exposed to "other" cultures; they believe their religion is the only true faith... on and on... it is much easier to influence narrow minded, bigoted people than those who are curious, research ideas and dogmas, don't blindly believe in all they hear and watch.
Yes, Ligia…you have described several of my family members to a T(rump). Nothing will change their minds about the clown. All they care about is the size of their 401K and my aunt in particular uses that as a defense against everything corrupt that this administration does. When I try to explain to her that the majority of Americans do not have enough disposable income to even participate in the stock market she says that I’m lying. When I show her proof, she says it’s fake news. She says he is the only POTUS “brave enough” to deport illegals and close our borders. When I tell her that he lied about deporting only “the worst” and instead deports immigrants with no criminal record she says they are criminals just for being here illegally. She has no idea what it takes to become a citizen, she has never left the country and had no understanding of any other culture or religion but her own. This ignorance and lack of empathy, mixed with a healthy dose of racism make her one of the most loyal MAGATS I have ever met. And there are so so many of them. Fortunately there are more of us and we must do everything to ensure a blue tsunami in November and in 2028!
She’s only one of many family and friends who are lost to me because I cannot have a rational discussion with them. My circle has become much smaller for my own sanity!
Me, too. The rock-brain TDS has caused painful rupture of friendships and an even more painful revelation of this malicious mindset in people we thought we knew.
Unfortunately Donna you are not alone. So many have lost family and friend relationships due to this walking ‘disease’. Have mourned the loss of these family and friends often yet for the purpose of sanity decided to no longer engage with them. The arguments are exhausting. When you come with proof it’s called ‘fake news’ or that it’s all a lie printed by now what is called Dumbocrats or from George Soros. At one point in a discussion remarked George Soros must be the best private investigator to have the ability to bring all of this to light from around the world headlines. Guess he was involved in bringing to justice all those Epstein survivor’s assailants from other countries and brought down a prince. Seems the King decided to believe that his brother did wrong and stripped him of everything.
In a final conversation with my brother about anything to do with Trump he said and I quote, “I just don’t want to be found wrong for following him” my response was “We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.” My brother came back and said “I don’t make mistakes” - a footnote: He’s been married four times, divorced four times is now 66 years old wanting to retire but can’t and still has all four children living with him and two are teenagers. The two adults moved back in with him because one lost his job and can’t find another and the other brought his pregnant wife with him because they can’t afford to pay all the costs of living.
Yea, just walked away and didn’t bring up anything about “learning from mistakes”. He can enjoy watching the Fox propaganda machine and live within that bubble..
Oh Donna, Thank you for writing back, and I must admit my heart goes out to you. It must be difficult to feel so helpless against such irrationality. I know deep in heart that the orange buffoon will eventually be gone, however, I do worry about being able to hold him accountable.
Of course! And she says she doesn’t believe he had anything to do with Epstein…that it’s just another witch hunt created by Democrats. She only watches FOX news and she watches it all day long.
It truly boggles the mind trying to converse with people like your aunt. I am happy to know my nephew and his wife look shameful when they talk of their conversion from believing the BS. They told me that at the time they did not believe my Project 2025 warning.
Donna, we lost my father in law to Faux. He was an angry, bitter man to begin with, and the hatred feed something in his soul. You could not have a rational conversation with him.
We have to face up to the primary reason for the GOP’s entrenched support. We often portray their supporters as the people who have been “forgotten” or have suffered economically, but the GOP “coalition” actually involves people from all classes including a hefty contingent of people who are doing very well economically and socially.
There are also contingents who are proudly and loudly fighting to maintain white supremacy. The common denominator among these groups is racism. The GOP has successfully branded itself as a safe place for White people who don’t want to live in a multicultural democracy.
Making America great again means making sure that people with white skin are the dominant force in America. The idea that racism is a root cause of discord and dysfunction in America is not easily accepted by many people who want to point to issues like prices, “owning the libs”, stock market gains, illegal immigration etc.
For people who know the true history of America it’s easy to see that racism (and misogyny) have limited our nation’s ability to “perfect our union”. Going backwards will not help us.
I hope one day the “majority” will face facts. We’ll never make progress until we acknowledge the ways white supremacy rules over all of us. To keep it simple, Trump would never have gotten away with any of his misdeeds if his skin color was Black or brown.
Perfect explanation! Unfortnately, our whole history has been shaped by both racism and sexism now with transphobia thrown in. You would think trans people make up 50% of the population with the number of anti-trans Trump ads on tv during the election. But mostly it was 'eeeeekkkkkkkkk, brown people are invading our country' and 'evil brown woman with evil laugh wants to take over country!'.
"mixed with a healthy dose of racism" I still think this is the biggest piece of the puzzle. When people act irrationally, what is driving them emtionally? In the US, that has often been an ism.
Yes Georgia, some. people need to feel there is a class beneath them to feel good about themselves. My argument is even with this made up inferior class beneath them they still feel bad. People who feel good about themselves don't act this way, do they?
This is the way authoritarianism works--it is an exercise in psychological manipulation. It involves instilling a mindset into your followers.
Were all ardent Nazis mentally ill? No. But they all shared a mindset and worldview that was carefully crafted by the Nazi leadership.
We are only now starting to see fractures over the Epstein Files and Trump's in-your-face corruption and the betrayal of "America First" principles in the groupthink.
Controversial take: Trump is, objectively and on the face of things, a much worse candidate than Hitler. In 1930s Germany, an average German who was not even particularly anti-seminitc might have thought 'maybe this guy really can make things better for us as there is no reason to doubt that he can't, there is no reason to believe he doesn't care about us and want to make our miserable lives better'. Compare and contrast to Trump where from the beginning: there was the twice divorced adulturer with three different Baby Mommas, there was the very public stint with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, there was the very public tape where he admitted that he sexually assaults women and 27 women have accused him of sexual assault or improptiety, there were the 8 bankruptcies, there were the cases brought where he swindled people and committed fraud against average people (Trump U), there was the racism in housing cases going back to his father's control of the business, etc. The guy is objectively scum and it takes about 5 minutes for any reasonable open person to realize it. And UNLIKE the Germans in the 1930s who really were in a severe depression, the economy in 2016 and 2024 US was objectively good (even if many felt it was bad). They will be studying Trump for decades and it really is a complex mystery how he could have won when he is so bad!
Hitler came to power after a disastrous war in a depression. There was an entirely different media landscape.
Trump came to power after 50 years of preparation by conservative oligarchs who wanted a low-tax, low-regulation, pro-business environment with a conservative, pro-business complicit Supreme Court. Trump was inserted into the political landscape by Russia as a potential asset. I think Trump was adopted as a standard-bearer for the oligarchic agenda because of his populist anti-elite appeal and all his self-made-man swamp-draining iconoclastic Apprentice schtick, without the oligarchs fully appreciating the Putin/Epstein connection. Trump 1.0 was all about controlling him by surrounding him with “the adults in the room” while the oligarchic agenda was put in place.
After Biden won in 2020, there was a concerted effort by the oligarchs to deny Democratic reforms. Democratic accomplishments were under-reported in a siloed media environment, with Russian propaganda again taking an important role in normalizing Trump’s rhetoric, and with the oligarchs handling the suppression of the voices of non-MAGA Republicans. Democrats were painted as engaging in a hysterical overreaction to January 6. Democrats failed to pass critical reform legislation. and failed to explain the causes of inflation. The Democrats continued to make mistakes by failing to realize that Russian election interference was a returning threat, along with the willingness of oligarchs like Musk to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign. Finally, no one was willing to tell Biden early on that he shouldn’t run for a second term and that he had to work with Harris to demonstrate she was capable and competent. Harris was the perfect candidate to draw the most racist, misogynistic MAGA voters to the polls in droves, egged on by Russian trolls on social media. And then she was thrown into an impossible situation with a shortened campaign.
So here we are in Trump 2.0, after Trump learned some lessons well—to accomplish his agenda, he needed sycophants, not adults, around him in key positions. He needed a compliant Congress—that was handled by the oligarchs putting their money to work sinking the candidacy of any Republican who was not completely loyal to Trump. SCOTUS was already in the bag. The question now is, will Trump’s blatant corruption destroy the oligarchs’ game plan?
Hitler’s authoritarian methods still apply, but there are additional influences at work with Trump.
I can't say you are wrong about any of that except there is no objective proof that Trump was placed as a Russian asset. He *acts* just like a Russian asset would in all circumstances but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof so that's not enough. I remember Biden actually ran saying he would not try for a 2nd term. Despite his incredible accomplishments, he should have stayed with that.
What part about "I believe" requires studies proving a hypothsis?
Roughly one third of the population supports the ideas from the Confederate south: Blacks are inferior, women belong barefoot and pregnant, and that Evangelical Christian Nationalism should be the national religion. These poll numbers have been consistent over time for at least the last 15 years or so, right after operation "Red Map" went into effect.
All "I believe" statements require studies to prove whether the belief is true or false.
That's even more important when it comes to understanding the causes that lead one-third of the country to continue voting for a neofascist GOP.
Simply claiming that they're all "bad people" is too easy. Fascism is real and extremely dangerous, so now's the time to fact-check our hypotheses about the causes, so that we can work on real solutions, rather than simply feeling morally superior...
EUWDTB, not only is your handle a pain-in-the-ass to type, your comment behavior here is troll-adjacent. You are not the proctor, here. Nobody is obliged to provide citations to satisfy your requirements.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of commenters here are obviously well-read. Their opinions are the product of extensive reading, but they are not obligated to take a pop quiz created by you.
You're hassling Georgia Fisanick?? She is probably the best-read commenter here. I don't know how she has time to read everything she cites. Most of her comments are loaded with citations.
Come to think of it, where are YOUR citations? All I ever see from you is heckling. If you want to run the show, create your own Substack and have at it.
Bad news: for democracy to thrive, we need all citizens to be interested in proof. The whole point of a democracy is that collective decisions will be better IF we all work together to fact-check each other's "intuitions" and vague beliefs than if we only let a handful of people make all decisions in our place (fascism).
From the very beginning, however, Plato refuted this argument pro democracy by claiming that most citizens will always cling to their own beliefs too much to be able to do so, so if we want society as a whole to thrive, we have to take away people's right to vote and put a small number of the wisest people, who do a lot of fact-checking each day, at the top of the government.
So one of the main causes of the destruction of US democracy today is precisely the fact that BOTH people on the left and right imagine that fact-checking is a luxury that we don't need, we can all just go with our gut feeling and then, miraculously, things will get better.
History proves the opposite.
Obviously, racism and income inequality are bad, for society as a whole. But that's not what we're discussing here. What we're discussing here is whether it IS racism and sexism that are the main reasons for why GOP voters continue to vote for the GOP. For questions like these, you cannot possibly indulge vague guesses. You HAVE to check real studies.
There is mountains of it out there, especially after the 2016 election, showing that racism was the single biggest predictor of a vote for Trump. Here is a little blurb going over some of it. And while anecdotal, I don't think it is an accident that two women lost to Trump while the old white guy beat him. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-and-racism-what-do-the-data-say/
Yes, of course, if you have racist ideas, you are NOT going to vote for Democrats, and you're going to like Trump's tweets. No surprise there.
Here, the question is not whether "racists" vote for Trump. The question is rather: what are the main motives of traditional Republicans to continue to consistently vote for the GOP?
What we need are studies that would show that one of the main reasons why registered Republicans continue to vote for the GOP is racism.
I have to keep reminding myself this as honestly, I do not encounter that much overt racism in my bubble. I keep going back to history and specifically, the photos that show happy smiling men, women and children in front of dead, mutilated lynched black men, joking and sometimes, even having a picnic. These same people had kids and grandkids and it is unreasonable to think that that kind of hate was not passed down like a family heirloom. Those people are voting in our elections and finally, have been enboldened by Trump not to be ashamed of their hatreds but to embrace them. When they say that they relate to Trump and feel he is JUST LIKE THEM despite him being born a rich guy who has never had to work a day in his life, has never changed his own oil, has never cleaned his own toilet or his own clothes, has never cooked himself a meal, etc, that is what they mean.
The Republican wall of blind faith in Trump is beginning to crack. Republicans are beginning to realize that they are losing much of their base over their inability to stand up to Trump’s demands and utterly ridiculous decisions regarding his failing war, his spending, his dementia, the wealthy who have supported his outrageous decisions regarding the economy, his White House “modifications” and the faltering economy.
The cracks in his support will become huge fractures as his legacy becomes a joke
and embarrassment. Women. Voters are disgusted by him and his policies/ actions.
The billionaires are beginning to worry about their fortunes as well as citizens rebel against the growing inequity and insecurity Americans are feeling. I know that over $5.00 a gallon for gas and rising food prices in Chicago are beyond ridiculous and frustrating!
I don't think the broligarchs are ready to give up the pay-to-play bribery of Trump because he is still putting out for the cash--the flavored vaping policy reversal to help the tobacco industry being yesterday's example. $30 million donated to support a Trump-endorsed candidate is chump change for these guys compared to what they will make from deregulation.
It will take a major recession to cut their profits before they will abandon Trump. Right now, they are borrowing like crazy to finance as-yet-unprofitable AI ventures and are relying on Trump's hyping of various corners of the industry — yesterday's $2 billion largesse for quantum computing being an example of that. Back not so long ago, new technology was developed with competitive grants funded by NSF and other government agencies like DARPA — not handed out as party favors to donors or to Don Jr. and his drone buddies, without any hint of competitive bidding.
Trump is handing out money that hasn't been authorized by Congress, and Congress is willing to go along because they think they can ride the green wave of bro money to keep them in office and avoid being primaried.
So the question for the midterms is simple. Will the Democratic blue wave, powered by grassroots activism, be bigger than the green wave of broligarchic cash and election interference?
What does each of us have to do in the next 4.5 months to make it so?
HCR interviewed Kate Barr yesterday who ran for a seat in NC using the tagline 'Kate Barr, who can't win in NC'.
Kate and her team tested a new system they put in place where one volunteer finds 15 non-affiliated voters to mentor thru the campaign season - up until the time of the election. The results for voter turnout is astounding.
Decent and caring? I would have conceded the possibility at some point, but anyone who still supports the man after the immigration raids that stole away innocents, the performative bombing of innocent fishing boats, and the careless war of choice that started with the deaths of innocent school girls... Do you see a common thread here?
If, after the past year and a half, you still consider the slaughter of innocents to be a fair exchange for a fat 401k, the words "decent" and "caring" no longer apply to you.
It’s the fake food. Do you know the count of diabetics in America? Sports has been subverted for TV. Just sit, snack, and watch. No playing (exercise of mind or body) required.
Dana, at the risk of using that cliché, there are two kinds of Trumpers. Ligia has accurately described the majority first group. The second group, a minority, are well-educated and well-heeled. They support Donald because he always caters to the wealthy with reduced tax liabilities and business regulations. The wealthy supporters have the money – thus, the power – to influence the majority.
The wealthy are not affected by the harms of the Trump regime's policies. When gas rises to $5.00, $6.00 or $7.00 a gallon, the increase has an unnoticeable effect on their lifestyle. It may be annoying, but it's considered "the cost of doing business." That business is avoiding taxes and operating without restraints to their revenue streams.
Tariffs? Not a problem; just pass the higher cost to their customers. Increased business costs? Not a problem; just pass them on to their customers. When one is at the top of the food chain, one just offloads potential damages to the people below.
Good point. I knew we were in trouble when all the billionaire class publically supported him this time while last time, at least publically, they said how horrible he was. Those tax cuts alone will make a lot of wealthy people lots of money. Add in the deregulation and it's no wonder the stock market is still doing well despite the mad man behind the wheel. That and the fact that that the very rich have SO MUCH MONEY that they don't even have enough places to invest it any longer. They will gamble until it is obvious the train is right at the cliff.
There's definitely an emotional investment in Trump on the part of much of his MAGA base. Somehow, this wealthy and profligate businessman has managed to convince them that his imagined grievances and their sometimes very real ones are both the result of the same dark forces operating against the American people. He tells them that these dark forces somehow continue to operate even when he's the president and his party controls Congress, necessitating extreme measures to remove them. What's the alternative for these folk other than admitting that the real reason for their woes is that they are just too stupid to understand the actual causes of their misery? One can understand their reluctance to accept that they have been catastrophically wrong in their choices because it's a very human trait.
Many "very human traits" have been the cause of our suffering as a species since the beginning. Many of us are cheaters, bullies capable of physical and mental violence, and crooks who live within society because others are watching and there are consequences.
How many people, given the same opportunities Trump has had - and enough practice - would do exactly what he's doing? Remove consequences to bad behavior and create a society that justifies this kind of behavior at all, and people will step up to take advantage.
These people are objecting because these "very human traits", built into us through evolution, are obsolete now that cooperation is out best chance of species survival. They see Trump as their best chance to recreate a world based on dominance, with themselves at the top of the pyramid. There are probably more people who feel this way than we would ever know, covered by a veneer of civilization but chafing at the limits. Trump gives them a chance to shed that skin and join with like-minded others.
Very dark forces have been unleashed by the permissions this man has granted. It will be extremely hard to put this genie back in the bottle.
Mobiguy, your comment gets at an observation I've made before. Unlike all the animals on the planet, the human animal has the capacity for greed and hate. All the harms we find on Planet Earth can be traced back to these two human-only traits.
While a few animals, such as squirrels, hoard food for future lean times, even they have limits. They may eat food they didn't store, but it's a matter of happenstance, not defying ownership. By contrast, humans will try to accumulate as much as possible in resources unless constraints are placed on them.
Predator animals hunt and eat their prey, but do so only for survival. At no time do predators hate their prey. Meanwhile, prey animals fear predators and first choose to avoid harm by fleeing and/or hiding. They become vicious only when cornered with no other options.
Only humans are capable of actively hating other humans. Hate, by the way, is not instinctual; it is taught by one human to another.
“Enlightenment” means more than a lot of US realize. Being reminded of Benjamin Franklin this morning (“unalienable rights”) was the clue. Those who don’t accept the “self evident” truths are easily caught in a web of deceit.
I think that the fusing of their identities is that he has given them permission to hate the people they hate and fear getting "more than they deserve" (that is women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+)
Exactly. If someone criticizes Trump for being a racist, anti-gay, misogynist, then they are also directly attacking the identity-fused MAGA follower’s beliefs.
Mine to them, Georgia: "God, I hate academic dehumanized writing such as this."
Everything in this neutered, wonk-speak-only pabulum testifies to the worst of bad writing as Orwell listed in "Politics and the English Language."
Millions go to school -- and go deep in debt, too -- in order to reduce themselves as the pod people otherwise but identically arranged in the 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
These academics have nothing human about them. Zero human reference. Zero humanities.
I learned to hate them ("the best and the brightest") in the Viet war. I hate them more now that their elite brethren have destroyed 1,000s of American communities by offshoring those tens of millions of working-class jobs -- and turned schools into test factories only to hide what they've done. And turned most Dems into our most effete, slogan-ridden, money-obsessed only.
This liberal arts educated person understands that you mourn the passage of pre-1952 public school education, but you should say it. And there are even Democrats who understand the Constitution. This ferocious liberal Democrat takes umbrage at your condemnation of DEI.(😁) Phil, you are hitting the quality of American education, not the Democratic Party. Please qualify.
And it was a not too bright “Republican” who embraced trickle down economics. Do you think of bread and circuses some days?
Well said, Virginia. Thank you for embracing your ferocious liberal Democratic side and disdain of the "not too bright Republican" trickle down economist!
Georgia, thank you. It’s an excellent piece, to be read after, not before coffee. Had to laugh thinking about the simple sentences of the endless GOTV postcards I write to remind people to vote, which allows me, at 92, to live in the endless joke of having been the best printer in my first grade class in a small, poor public school in Virginia in 1940, now printing because cursive writing (the one art many students had after the 1950’s) was eliminated from the curriculum. The joke is extended because I read that dementia is shown by one’s handwriting becoming smaller and after all the printing have discovered that my cursive tends to be smaller because of a stiff wrist that must be shaken out. (The postcards help me psychologically too. ICE sirens 24/7 are devastating to this WWII child and reader.)
I do not think the idenity-fused Trump supporters are the ones who sustain the regime. They usually provide the background visuals, but Trump has not been doing big rallies, and JD's crowds have been pathetically small. Even the Rededication 250 Christian Nationalist "faith" rally was small, only around 15,000, when DC protests typically draw 300,000.
It's the broligarch's money that sustains the regime. They are paying for access and favorable executive orders. David Sacks, the previous AI and crypto czar and now the co-Chair of Trump's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, got negative feedback on the upcoming executive order on AI, and he got Trump to pull it at the last minute.
You are right. I take your point. There still have to be primaries for the appearance of legitimacy. But the amount of money being spent is so huge it skews the result.
Doubtful that's true currently, if it ever used to be.
MAGAworld is shedding its outer core of electrons right now faster than a fission bomb. While dertainly there's a core of cultified loonies left, the nucleus shrinks every day. Independents are abandoning it in droves, virtually all Democrats are united against it, and Republicans are coming unglued too fast for Lindsey Graham to make the room stop spinning around.
It's clear they're already thinking about 'the day after.' It's time we should too.
Then how did Massie lose? That’s really weighing on me. I saw some people being interviewed who were saying they would only vote for someone who supported by Trump…because he’s so strong and has kept all if his promises. I’m flummoxed
Because Massie's district was part of the nucleus, not the outer core. There are about 50-60 other districts which decidedly purple.
Far more important is what's happening deep in the heart of the whole, ginormous state of Texas. Trump's slapping James Cornyn in the fact to endorse Ken Paxton was a gift wrapped in gold leaf to James Talarico, who's not just been assiduously courting independents and hispanics who've fled MAGA (he's fluent in Spanish), but the critical black vote as well. You can bet Ken Paxton won't be stopping by Opal Lee's house anytime soon (the 'grandmother of Juneteenth')!
I thank Massie for pushing forward on the Epstein files. I'm sure Trump hates him for that. We must keep pushing Epstein, I'm sure that's part of Trymp-Blanche get out of jail free card. He knows nothing stays secret forever
Senator Ron Wyden is following the money trail, though information is being withheld by Blanche. I think you’re correct. The IRS immunity stinks of Epstein and his merry band of financial puppeteers.
Heather- Keep in mind that typically it’s the most extreme partisan voters who vote in the primaries. MAGA has an established track record of electing candidates in primaries who can’t win in the general election when most voters chime in. The electorate in the general, even many republicans don’t want to be ruled by the wackadoodles.
You’re right - I just had a very visceral reaction to Massie’s loss in particular because the guy who primaried him is literally a hollowed out puppet for the tangerine toddler. He didnt even have policy or talking points other than ‘i’ll just do whatever trump wants me to do’. I mean…i guess at least he was honest 🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
They do not read they listen and believe OAN or Fox, 24/7. It is also an example of the result of so many countries testing better than the U.S. (as a whole - and we know the states)…. Dumbing down of America
So sad but so very true! We lived overseas for much of my kids primary & secondary education so they went to international schools. The kids from the US were the ONLY kids who were not at least bilingual (most spoke 3-4 languages). We were very fortunate and grateful to have had that opportunity. I had to find a similar setting for my youngest to finish out school here in the States and that was a challenge! But, even here in GA, we found a great fit at a very diverse magnet school. It’s a majority Muslim school, so he was one of the only white American kids there. He was thrilled because he knows the world is not white or American ;) But, we had to be careful who we told because…well…GA. Most Americans will never be able to survive anywhere outside of their limited local bubble…and that’s why our ‘superpower’ status is slipping away
OMG, native Mississippian here. Faux is literally all the vast majority of rethiglikkkans watch. And their local news is appallingly biased. When the local paper happens to actually use an AP story, it’s something I read on the app weeks prior. My 87 year old father died last year and never had a clue how limited their facts are. But football, Bloomberg during the day, and Hannity were every day. It’s appalling to me that the man who feared his children would be brainwashed into a cult? Um NO- that’s why you sent me to college, where by chance I met lots of people different from me. I learned things.
They watch Fox on purpose. It’s what they insist on hearing. If Fox didn’t supply it, they’d watch something else, probably something even worse. They are not stupid. They are willfully ignorant biggots who have bought into the promise the Republican Party has made and delivered on since Nixon and Atwater initiated the Southern Strategy (which works throughout the land, just as George Wallace said it would) to preserve and solidify systemic economic, political, and legal advantages for white Americans. I guess you could call it self-inflicted brainwashing, but it isn’t something done to them by Fox. They did it to themselves. On purpose.
Thank you for stating this. I'm so tired of the excuses made for these vile trump supporters, akin to "the devil made me do it". Funny their Bible states that men commit evil because God gave mankind free will. Yet at the same time we excuse these trumpers for not having a "choice".
I live in a Mass. town that is trump all the way. They voted fro trump three times. I think this time by a greater margin than before. Our cable provider has fox, MSNow and CNN as choices for news sources, plus PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC and C-span. Facebook is free and one can follow different news feeds for free. Youtube offers many news videos. AP news is free. The Guardian is free, The New Republic is free. Heather posts these same columns on FB for all to read as do others. Meidas Touch posts on youtube for free. There is no excuse to be this ignorant of what trump and his dangerous cohorts are doing.
I agree Rex, they are choosing ignorance. And each one is a bigot and selfish person. It may be subtle but this vein of bigotry and selfishness runs through every trumper I have the displeasure of knowing.
But we're fortunate that Dems and, I would assume, independents outnumber these dangerous, willfully ignorant people. We have some of the most progressive members of congress including Sens. Liz Warren and Ed Markey, rep Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley and others. At least this helps to keep me sane, though it's quite lonely and depressing in our corner of the world.
If people read John Christopher’s Tripod series if study for young people it is a wonderful metaphor for this. I found the series in my grade school Roman Catholic school library. We had a radical volunteer school librarian who gave us this series of books along with early Virginia Hamilton and all sorts of interesting diverse literature. This was in NEO. Her son became a very radical lawyer. It was changed by ALEC and because of all the layoffs starting from the 1970’s. And before that the power of corporations and the elite powers that were and are. Much less the take over of indigenous lands. If we could help heal the Cuyahoga perhaps there is still hope. That river burned not just once but several times!
Rex, I describe that as "supping at the trough of mis/dis information" because it feeds their collective amygdalae it's daily dose of anger and hatred of all us "others".
"It’s appalling to me that the man who feared his children would be brainwashed into a cult?"
Hi Lou! Are you and I siblings? I lost my folks to Faux News as well. My parents were both good people who taught me empathy for others. Both of them got sucked into The Fox New Cult in the 1990s. I was surprised that they fell into that, but cults are insidious that way.
When I was a kid and I got a new album, I would listen to it until I started to wear out the vinyl, imprinting the new music on my brain. My dad was very concerned that I was being brainwashed by "rock and roll". Fast forward a couple of decades and he kept multiple TVs on in his house, with Fox News on each one, all the time. Same with my mom. He died before Trump took over his party. He was a good, caring man, so I'm not sure how he would have reacted to Trump.
Now for the happy ending to my story. My mom, who continued the Fox News barrage in her house, came out of the cult last year. For her, she realized what was going on when she saw Elon Musk throw the Nazi salute. She was a little girl in Nazi occupied Norway back in the 1930s and 40s, and lived through that horror. That woke her up. Once the spell was broken, she started to see that Fox was lying to her and started to fact check outside the bubble. She is now very proud of her Google skills, and I'm trying to teach her to have what Carl Sagan called a "baloney detector".
I suppose so if I also wasn’t curious, read a lot (newspapers, mags, variety of online content) and had NO other source of national/worldly events…that would be a stretch, tho, because I AM curious and naturally a bit skeptical of folks trying to sell me something, be it a candidate, TV commercial for any product…you know, a sales pitch. But if that’s all you know and all you want to know, yeah I could see how someone would be a bit (or a lot) brainwashed. I recently saw Andrew Weissman interviewed on MSNow about his new book “Liar’s Kingdom” about how there are laws to regulate “lying” in all sorts of areas and persons/businesses can be held legally accountable, there is no similar law(s) to prohibit it in political speech (the segment on it—I forget which show—was much more in-depth and clearer than I describe here).
Outlawing lies is kinda pointless in a society where we don't have a broadly common notion of what truth is. Truth is a values-based construct. I was brought up to value things like the scientific method and historical research and and thoughtful self-criticism and achievements of civilization that benefit everyone (like the Constitution). My notion of truth is bound up in those values.
Agree, Tony, just saw a brief vid of Carl Sagan speaking broadly to this issue….in it he mentions how lack of critical thinking (scientific methods, etc) could lead to authoritarian-like control of a population/country. Nowadays with so much thrown at the wall (so to speak), I’m doubly careful and critical of info coming my way. But I think it is good to hold folks accountable for blatant lies, especially if it is broadcast & can do real harm—not talking about a “belief system” here. What gobsmacks me is how, when lies are called and proven to be lies, some folks will still choose falsehood over truth….and is just weird to me!
Outlawing lies is tricky, and much deference need be paid to genuine free speech, often though it may be provably erroneous, or unkind. Yet there are limits and means of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that misrepresentation was intentional. That got Nixon impeached, and facing conviction by even enough of his own party. You can be fined or jailed for certain lies to the government. You can be convicted of fraud. Prohibition of certain sorts of lies can be like a hazardous drug that is curative yet prone to serious negative side effects. It is not to prescribed lightly. Careless or deliberate misuse of a dangerous drug might add up to criminal negligence or murder. Do lies kill? Wars built on lies kill, as does racism, sexism and homophobia. Lies, and they were lies, about COVID killed many who would likely have survived with better guidance.
In modern US society we a pretty inured to lies (more so than in the Nixon era, and while some lies are pretty harmless, some are very consequential. Was the aggressive seizure of the US Capitol building "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse"; literally the official claim of the "Republican" party?
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and of your ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Should not we as a society more saliently honor and protect tellers of truths, especially those who faced retribution to do so? Should we not disqualify serious and proven liars a civilized social response? In the very end. the buck stops with us.
The only way to rid the world of Fox is to boycott their advertisers, and contact said advertisers to tell them exactly WHY you no long buy their products/services.
Yeah, that (if it's anywhere near accurate) is discouraging. But -- there's an immutable, immovable hard core immune to facts or reason, in every cult and cult-adjacent movement, so invested in its belief set that it often cannot act even in its own self interest.
If you've ever taken a baseball apart, you have an image for this: a tough cover, under which lie many yards of yarn tightly wrapped around a very hard, impermeable sphere little bigger than a marble.
Our challenge now and for the next six months is to mobilize the people who are dropping away from the cult -- the windings of yarn, if you will -- to vote in huge numbers in November and commit to participating in good faith in the construction of a fascist-proof America 2.0 in which the cutthroat pursuit of profit and permanent control is forever subordinated to the greater good and the commitment to long-term prosperity broadly distributed.
Also, remember than when Nixon walked out to Marine One in 1974 having just resigned the presidency in utter disgrace (yes, I'm old enough to remember it clearly), 26% of the populace still supported him.
Don, they are stone-cold, White Supremacists. Apparently we have way too many of them.
Each day I am not surprised, but I am shocked by the corruption of Trump. Part of the shock is the American acceptance of his bad behavior. There seems to be a stupor with people not knowing what to do, at least not legally.
On top of all this he seems to be leaving the Iran war in a state of permanent mess, Trump is again going aggressively after Greenland and Cuba, and perhaps Canada but trying to slip it under the media's radar. Trump may be more corrupt than Richard Nixon who carried an illicit war on Cambodia and had the Watergate Files. More corrupt than George Bush whose halfwit brother Jeb and the corrupt SCOTUS stole the election for him. At this point he seems to be the most corrupt president that we have had, if not in the top contenders. We have given presidents a lot of leeway in the past, and it has been a mistake. Trump is banking on that and running away with it, particularly as the election comes closer and he gets more desperate. We need to stop him.
Linda, since most requests to "sign my petition" are in order to build mailing lists and sell products, can you please tell us why we should treat your petition differently? How will those "signatures" be used? Apologies for being skeptical, but this is the world in which we live.
Signe, I asked the people from Free Speech for People, who presented to us at Indivisible Abroad, how they used the data. They said,
"Free Speech For People pays a fee to use a CRM platform. And separately, the data that Free Speech For People collects and holds within that platform.
In terms of the data in the CRM -- IE anyone who signs the petition -- Free Speech For People does not sell that data or use it for cookie-based advertising or modeling. We don't provide rights to third-parties to sell the data.
People who sign the petition opt-in to receive emails from Free Speech For People about our campaigns. They can unsubscribe at any time."
The CRM they use is Bonterra, and I read their privacy policy. They say they do not personally do anything with data, they let their clients, in this case Free Speech for People decide what to do with that data.
I must admit that I do sign political petitions for causes, and write letters to politicians. I am mostly getting petitions online in Germany. There data use laws are strict. It is one of the reasons that I have all the emails and phone numbers of my indivisible group written down on paper, and kept in a folder, because I am not clear on the EU data storing laws and don't want to violate the law.
So, I understand if you do not feel secure signing this.
I don’t believe it either.I would say his approval rate has to be approaching the single digits.Those who stand with him do so at their own peril.This ship is starting to sink.
Don, translate 34% into how millions of "Americans" it includes and then you'll be really surprised. I'm not surprised anymore, I'm, plainly speaking, absolutely upset.
25 years of very active and widespread, neofascist GOP propaganda. Watch their "news" media. It's all lies. But if you live in a red state and everyone watches the same "news", multiplied on many TV channels etc and repeated in church, at the work floor, during family gatherings and so on, then you believe it.
It's how neofascist propaganda works.
The GOP by now has truly managed to put its base in an "alternative facts" bubble.
34% of our country is so full disdain for anyone other than white men they will back anyone if they preach their brand of hate. It is generational hate handed down from the their antecedents that lost the Civil War.
Good to see the mutiny beginning. But the corruption near totally yet engulfs us.
Let’s remember, though, we let the universities be taken over by lawyers, accountants, and “human resources” bureaucrats. We let the departments self-isolate specialized silo by neutered silo.
We let the public schools toss civics and humanities, give up reading whole books, suborn all K-12 to one big captive audience for the billionaire testers. One where none of the peons, none of the serfs may ever ask any question of the anonymous elites and their myth that from A)-B)-C)-D) there is always one correct answer, never anything humanly complicated.
Donald has no complications. A straight-up, predictable fraud, criminal, pal to pedophiles, rapist, murderer, thief.
And we, with our jettisoned Constitution, cowardly, extortion-caving universities, elite law, supine legacy media, hate-fielding social media, Supreme Court on the take, and do-nothing Congress – total corruption, ours.
Republicans are “pitching ideas about how to draw some limits” around Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund?? Fascinating that THIS is the constitutional crisis finally inspiring caution — not Iran, not the Epstein files, not the industrial-scale corruption, but the possibility the grift account may need… guardrails. I’m dying to know what these “limits” might look like:
– Only three oligarch yacht reimbursements per quarter.
– Bribes over $10 million require bipartisan approval.
– The Constitution may only be ignored on weekdays.
It’s extraordinary watching people who treated accountability as communism suddenly discover the concept of “some limits.”
The monster they have been stitching together for something like 45 years now is complete and walks abroad, and to their surprise, they can't really control it. Indeed, it's even lashing out at them. Their patrons, the billionaires seem satisfied, however.
It baffles me that all they want to do is "draw some lines" when this fund is so absurd and preposterous and no doubt illegal. If ever there was an easy vote this is it. Yet Trump has Bessent on board as well as the odious Blanche -- does Bessent control the strings of the Treasury -- which is Congress' job, if they are willing to hold onto it.
Just FYI, the funds are coming directly from the DOJ, not a newly constituted withdrawal from the Treasury. DOJ has a "settlement fund" they use in the ordinary course of business to settle official lawsuits against the government. To be sure, though, it's all taxpayer money.
Exactly. It’s like watching people politely discuss speed limits while the Constitution is being driven into a lake. Congress is supposed to control the purse strings and the involvement of Bessent and Blanche only gives the scheme a thin veneer of institutional respectability — which in some ways makes it more dangerous, not less.
It is unbelievable to me that the Dems and media still fall for focusing on the first thing Trump, Inc throws out.
Everyone focusing on the slush fund. What Trump really wants is no investigation of him, his kids, his businesses and his associates. THAT’S THE SLUSH FUND!
Blanche and Trump are beyond happy we are focused on the 1.776 billion. Is it legal? Who controls it? Can we whittle it down?
Who gives a fuck? Congress just continues to not fund it…problem solved.
Now can we please focus on the added tiny little thing of no investigations of Trump, his sons, his co and ASSOCIATES? I don’t remember SCOTUS extending the ridiculous “immunity” to presidents for any crimes…CORRECTION…this president only. I’m guessing the first suit they take in 2029 if a Dem is president is to reverse that decision.
But now…..no one around trumo can be investigated. Like WATERGATE….FOLLOW THE MONEY. Almost every criminal investigation is threaded together by a miney trail now the IRS can’t investigate how the Trumps made BILLIONS in a year and a half…can’t see where the money comes from?
THIS IS NOT ABOUT A TAX BILL….IT’S ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO EVEN INVESTIGATE WHERE THOSE BILLIONS CAME FROM.
Fuck the shiny object thrown out which is the slush fund, just finally assert the power of the purse and not fund it. Focus on the dull DAY TWO true goal- banning investigating corruption.
The pickpocket is Jr version of the reining kleptocrat. I read in a travel guide that when some of the shrewder pickpockets are caught in the act, they will yell "Thief! Thief!" and vanish before aid might arrive.
" Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - Lincoln
The word "mutual" here seems a principle of Lincoln's philosophy, with respect to the philosophical conception and dedication of our social system. It contrasts with the "same old serpent" of subjugation and extortion.
Why does Trump’s $1.776 b slush fund remind me of the Marcos regime, where the machinery of government was turned into a family enrichment project while presenting itself as the saviour of the nation? Trumpism’s only point of difference, it seems is politics as permanent branding, monetisation, and immunity. Both equally famous for their obscene personal spends: Imelda Marcos’ 3,000 pairs of shoes; Trump’s billion dollar ballroom. Theatrical displays of fantasy monarchies - hers the aristocratic empress, his the casino emperor, all while ordinary people struggle.
The Republicans aren’t upset about Trump’s graft and corruption. They ran away from this pending vote because the vast majority of Americans see that this particular grift—the ballroom and slush fund—stinks to High Heaven. They don’t want to be burdened with this crap as they seek reelection. They’re not taking a moral stand, it’s purely political.
Jazz There should be guidelines to this billion dollar plus Political slush fund. I suggest:
1) a cool million to everyone of the yo-yos jailed after their January 6th Capitol Building insurrection, with an extra million for any Proud Boy or Oath Taker;
2) Zippo for any policeman killed or wounded defending the Congressmen in the Capitol Building;
3) At least $5 million for Giuliani and the My Pillow guy;
4) At least $1 million for any lawyer whose credentials were sullied by their sucking Trump’s hind teat;
5) A random distribution of the remaining loot for those who have/will done Trump’s illegal bidding.
Yes, the idea of “limits” on his blatant disregard for the law, the Constitution and actual justice is absurd. He should be impeached before he can do any more damage.
As usual, you ignore virtually everything in Heather's post (once you've thrown out your apple-polishing first sentence). Night after night, you insist on diverting conversation about her research into your own bizarre, personal obsessions with school testing, carried to its usual ad absurdum end.
But the conversation still stands, waiting to be grasped. Pete Buttigieg has long said that Republicans are already paying attention to 'the day after' Trump. Why don't we? he asks. If the GOP is starting to chew its own tail for breakfast, it tells us the Potemkin's village built for deception with an expiration date stamped on it is crumbling. And how could it not? We are in the middle of a rickety Rube Goldberg contraption never held together by anything more than lies, scotch tape and intimidation. A hundred new possibilities break through every day. Even for those us who lived through standardized testing and somehow survived to tell the tale!
Endlessly repeating how evil evil is just drains all passion and point away. It diverts energy from the task at hand -- how to take advantage of the light now seeping through the cracks -- before the opportunity passes.
We have seen the leadership and they are us. Strive toward solidarity of purpose and building no brittle coalitions. Pack a lunch, as there is much work to be doing. Agitate and organize.
What are some planks you would add to the Democrat platform? Here are some of mine: (1) a draft. Not necessarily military service, but SOME form of service to America, even if for just one year. (2) a non-partisan board that creates all Congressional districts. (3) greatly expand the number of members of the House. (4) limit the Supreme Court members to a single 18-year term, House members to nine two-year terms, and Senators to three six-year terms.
If there is a lamp and a genie involved, he'll likely grant just 1 wish, rather than 14. So pick and choose carefully! Mine involves a constitutional amendment with regard to the Time and Manner clause in Article 1 relating to elections and redistricting.
17 other democracies approach the same idea with better results than we do. In Canada, federal and provincial judges nominate those who will sit on those non-partisan commissions that redraw districts, with rules governing how they do their job are many and substantive. To put it lightly, these people are never party hacks. The court of Canadian public opinion would never permit a political party to choose its own voters any more than it would a partisan legislature to draw boundaries accordingly -- the idea wouldn't even pass a giggle test.
The same is true with Britain's more than 500 constituencies. In South Africa, complex algebraic formulas are used to ensure no party gets an unfair advantage in 'first past the post' elections. Ranked-choice voting forms another part of that -- we just introduced that here in the nation's capital, which will help improve inclusive outcomes, rather than simple majoritarian ones.
We can point to more or less successful liberal democracies that take more care to see that, to the degree it is possible, every citizen gets a chance to vote and have each vote count no more or no less than others. Statistically voter fraud at the polling place (or mail in ballot) is trivial, but such "dirty tricks" such as gerrymandering or material and unneeded barriers to voting are serious voter fraud on a grand scale. Play whatever rhetorical game you want, it is blantant theft of a citizens most needed and entitled right to meaningfully participate in a democratic republic.
Re ITCC's comment to Phil Balla: Yes. And while testing may be 'more standardized' (if that's a grammatically correct term) today than it was forty or fifty years ago, the fact is that commenters here have all come through standardized educational systems. Yet every day we benefit from their impressive research , analytical and writing skills. Teaching to test results has gone too far, and the subject matter included in curricula may need tweaking. Maybe we've left the classics and humanities too far behind and leaned too heavily into science and technology. The problem might be less about the schools and more about parenting. Phil needs to be less of a one-note musician.
The problem (dangerous to boil it down to one) is has nothing to do with testing, but technology. “Is this a dagger I see before me?” or is it a cellphone — which Mr. Balla apparently hasn’t heard much about. Kids literally spend 20 hours a day staring at their small, glowing friends (second only to their parents who spend only about 15 hours). Everybody’s brains are being scrambled and attention spans chipped away like a woodpecker going after a dead tree.
But those conversations belong somewhere else, not on Heather’s newsletter.
What does and does not belong in this discussion? Yes, digression can get out of hand, but postings of a troll in residence, one need not respond. I think that there is some potential to learn from anyone who argues in good faith.
As for technology, it seems to me that for any tech, it's not the tool itself so much as how it is used (and yes, I would regulate exceptionally dangerous technologies, such as firearms and explosives). As an long-time fan of emerging technologies (I wired a "Mr. Wizard" electrical circuit at 5 and got involved with computers in the mid 1970's) it appears to me that the development and application of technologies has lately been leaning away from serving the will of the general public to increasingly serving the more narrow objectives of the very rich and powerful; and if so, that bodes ill for democracy. Take the dossiers now collected on everyone who uses the internet. Who gets to say how that information gets collected and how it is used? I think it was back perhaps 20 years ago that a data mining company bragged that they could tell if a woman was pregnant by processing her records of purchases. But who seemed to care?
Who gets to say how AI will be used? It does not seem to be us the people. Cell phones? They are a legitimate medium of free speech, but should kids be exposed to so much endless, addictive crap? It's complicated, right? Yet I think we would be wise to shift our national conversation toward far more discussion of what constitutes the "common good", government of, by and for the people, and what enhances that, and what gets in the way.
correct. Dems are always reactionists not like the GOP, White Christo Fascists....they've been planning this patiently since the mid '60s. Who are the Dems that have a vision?
I find many of Phil's observations insightful and relevant, even though his obsession with standardized testing is tiresome. I don't think he is wrong that standardized testing, or at least the about the way we currently over-value and apply it, is more of a barrier that an aid to a perceptive, thoughtful and just society. We humans learn to comprehend (the "prehend" part from the same Latin root as "prehensile") n=by building mental models of it, and those models can vary in their breadth, depth and accuracy; qualities that can be improved by probing contemplation, empirical verification, and formal education. Put simply, I think we often, reflexively impose simplistic, cliched models on complex realities to a point that precludes an effective response. That even the old "shades of gray" thing is linear, when realities often involve distinctions and connection on multiple levels, and certainly human behavior and social policy often presents such complications.
The "centrist" thing can be a trap for understanding because real world circumstances may have no provable "center" or reveal many. Often the "right" answer is "It's complicated"; and not to say "insoluble", but rather that an adequately fruitful understanding will take a lot of work. Generally speaking, that's not what politicians try to sell (though it is helpful to triage and promote one's most important handful of objectives for campaigning).
Democracy IS a lot of work if it's going to adequately function, and that's why con-men like Reagan can so easily demean it, and perhaps that's why the "only I can fix it" types find many eager takers.
But please remember that mine on testing always ties to the larger eviction of humanities from our schools and from our public discourse.
Testing's conceits and dominance have allowed this disappearance to continue, at the cost of the thugs, thieves, and corrupt whom we've thus let rule instead.
I don't disagree on standardized testing, and (I am biased because I do poorly on THAT TYPE of testing) and see it as a way to standardize people; which I view as contrary to the philosophical underpinning of the Declaration of Independence, and contrary to my personal concept of liberty. My own view is that people are far more neurodiverse (just look at the diversity of human talents) than we care to admit, and that diversity of personality, individual skills, hobby interests, opinion, cuisines, you name it, enriches and strengthens our society; so long as ones behavior does not rob others of the same share of freedoms. Freedom to rape, steal, murder, derpive others of "unalienable" rights, being subject to public intervention. To preserve such rights, governments are formed with the consent of the governed.
I have not researched how "The Humanities" got to be named "The Humanities". To me it seems to fit. The scientific method, which I love, tries to let Kant's "thing in itself" do the talking, Yes, we poke and probe and build gigantic machines, like the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva to coax information from Nature, but the notion is that Nature is the authority and we the audience,
Then there are the arts (which I also love) which seem to me to be about what we experience as instances of humanity. By "experience" I mean our own sense of sensate existence; I think AND feel, therefore I am. We enjoy, we suffer, we experience. Einstein said "It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." He "got it" that our internal resonance to sequences of audio frequencies is human. I can't "pick" the importance of the art or sciences one over the other, They both greatly serve our humanity, and frankly, I would argue, also our existence as a species. As Human beings I think that we all, from second to second, are engaged in decisions about both "truth" and "value". What luck to be sentient beings, so long as we transcend our tendency to be our own worst enemy.
You forget -- you always forget, ICTT -- testing never stands just by itself.
In our time it stands in the context of how the schools rid themselves of humanities. With the aid of the fantastically well-moneyed far-right foundations formed after the Powell memo, all dismissed humanities as only marginal, decorative at best.
Here is James Agee, a few months after the conclusion of WWII, seeing the need for the very humanities you yourself never use. He was film critic for Time magazine, and this bit concluded his review of a very good film recently from that war:
“Few Americans either behind or in front of our cameras give evidence of any recognition or respect for themselves or one another as human beings, or have any desire to be themselves or to let others be themselves. On both ends of the camera you find very few people who are not essentially, instead, just promoters, littler racketeers, interested in ‘the angle.’ I suspect it will some day be possible to deduce out of our nonfiction films alone that the supposedly strongest nation on earth collapsed with such magical speed because so few of its member honored any others, or even themselves, as human beings.”
Yes corruption, abuses of power, are the root of many evils, and while we have reigned it in for some threads of social justice, we have seemed indifferent to many others. In particular we have been indifferent to what Business Week referred to as the Walmart-Tiffany divide that continues to grow in our society, and the contrast of social influence and law that favors great wealth over survival wages. That's always been an issue, including with respect to race and gender, but the government of, by and for the people was supposed to be the egalitarian mediator, yet it feels like we have been letting go of that since Reagan. Yes, we did elect a two term black president, and that's saying something; and yet creeping on the interstate on errands earlier today, I had to notice the special lanes open only to those who can afford to pay for them (I can, but don't). That and many other instances of special treatment by our government for those with money (including going to lunch or on vacation with them) is surely a dilution of democratic principles, as well as elephant-in-room conflicts of interest. In the end I have to wonder if it's the grotesque corruption enacted by Trump that so bothers today's Republicans, or the fact that does nothing that matters to hide it. Indeed their feckless leader lives to break the rules and glories in it.
Republicans have finally discovered a principle, and, naturally, it was located under a pile of invoices.
After years of treating Trump’s assaults on democracy as bold leadership, his threats as strength, his lawlessness as branding, and his corruption as just another weather system over Mar-a-Lago, GOP senators reportedly reached their moral limit at a $1.776 billion slush fund. Not the attempted monarchy. Not the war-making. Not the threats against other nations. The slush fund.
Apparently, authoritarianism is one thing. Authoritarianism with paperwork is where the caucus draws the line.
Then came the tax immunity arrangement, which could save Trump more than $600 million, followed by the billion-dollar ballroom request, because every republic in decline needs a gold-plated events space for the man holding the wrecking ball. By then, Republicans were not defending democracy so much as trying to avoid being photographed standing beside the cash register.
One senator reportedly said, “Our majority is melting down before our eyes.” That is unfair. It melted down years ago. What they are seeing now is the puddle asking for reimbursement.
The real joke is not that Republicans are shocked. It is that they expect credit for discovering the fire after selling the matches, disabling the alarms, and calling the smoke “patriotism.”
Thanks for summing up the moral courage of our Republican colleagues so deftly. Your writing reminds me of Barney Frank's wt -- may his memory be a blessing. Real grace is blending outrage in equal parts with humor. Appreciate the metaphors!
Phil, your screed "we let the universities be taken over by lawyers, accountants, and “human resources” bureaucrats." sounds awfully like the DOGE approach to government, painting everything as "waste fraud abuse." I worked for colleges and universities for roughly 40 years. I contest your claim. What is your evidence? I would agree that universities have been quietly coopted for decades, but that tends to occur in how faculty get and use research grants -- ex: pharmaceutical giants paying for research, the findings of which benefit the eventual sale of their products. But this is not every grant, nor every prof.
There is, of course, much, much more, but I'll defer to how your 40 years of local experience has only kept you as innocent to reality as has similarly allowed most Americans, and all the status quo Dems, so to be swamped by the regnant corruption.
Phil, I’m reading “The Well Educated Child” by Dr Deborah Kenny.. you might like it. I disagree on a few points like not letting kids fidget but her overall thoughts about making sure the kids do the thinking (instead of the teachers), getting away from testing, having high expectations of kids, writing to learn, actually reading etc is really important.
Your point about “the myth that from A/B/C/D there is always one correct answer” is so true. I also see this in tv/movies/games that kids consume as well… very little gray area to think about. And very little time for them to think in the quick, fast moving stories. It’s so much straight up good vs evil.. very few address complex reality (With the exception of PBS kids). My pet peeve.
"As many as 25 Republican senators spoke out against the slush fund and pitched ideas about how to draw some limits around it."
NO, WRONG! Drawing limits says the fund is legal and should exist. The right action is to ensure the fund never exists, never plays $1 to anyone. Further the no action agreement is rendered null and void.
My message to my Trumplican Congressman, Ben Cline, just now on his official website: “What is your position on this $1.776 billion slush fund of our tax dollars being handed over to Trump to dole out to “the worst of the worst” insurrectionists who tried to destroy our democracy? I thought this regime couldn’t get much worse but this may be the most corrupt scheme in American history. Surely, there is a spec of decency and a spec of a spine within you that will lead you (& your Republican co-conspirators in Congress) to condemn and prevent this.”
If your Congress member pushes back with some nonsense about J6 being fomented by Antifa, you might want to send him/her THIS quote.
“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chatted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they’d been fed wild, falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he lost an election.”—Mitch McConnell, Feb. 2021.
Did the exact thing on Jon Husted website who’s running to keep that Senate seat from Ohio after Gov. DeWine gave him the job. Looked this morning on his website and it was deleted. Got the email notification from that website that it was deleted. Seems Jon Husted answered..
Did the same on my Rethuglican House Reps website who’s also running. Looked and it’s still there. Not holding my breath for a response.. His idea of Townhalls are Fundraiser’s for his campaign. Keep it in the family..
Thank you , Mack! I sent it to Bill Huizenga but I added a little. I added a sentence about how our healthcare, education, cancer research for children and SNAP benefits are being slashed and asked him how he could support this money grab by Trump while slashing all these important benefits that our tax dollars should pay for. I doubt that I will hear back from him. He will hide behind his supposed “christian “ faith and lies.
Most people might think that the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) are important entities in the Democrat’s chances of winning in the 2026 election and beyond. But when the chairman of the DNC, Ken Martin, was interviewed on Pod Save American by Jon Favreau, it did not go well: “DNC report and Ken Martin” https://americamattershq.substack.com/p/this-finally-leaked-its-bad?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios. Martin paid an incompetent friend (sound familiar?) to make a report on what went wrong in the 2024 election but the full report was never released. On the video Martin sounds like a Trump toady explaining to Congress why they aren’t releasing the Epstein files (projection, gaslighting, misinformation, etc.). It was also asserted that the DNC is $3 million in debt 5 months before an election that may determine the survival of our democracy. (Apparently he pulled a Trump-like grift by using valuable funds to pay off an incompetent buddy to make a worthless report.) Martin was elected DNC Chair in 2025 by backroom lobbying of Democratic power brokers (state party leadership, state elected members, major donors, etc.) when grassroots organizer Ben Winkler of Wisconsin who overcame Musk’s millions to elect a Democratic Supreme Court Justice, Susan Crawford, was the best candidate. He represents the grassroots zeitgeist rather than the monied special interests like AIPAC and Chuck Schumer. This can be clearly seen by the DNC/Ken Martin and Chuck Schumer/AIPAC using their money to finance Janet Mills against grassroots Graham Platner, etc.. Martin also gave $20,000 grants to Guam, Mariana Islands, etc. the same as he gave to cash strapped swing states. The shock of the interview forced the release of the report and it was a disaster. “BREAKING: DNC’s Secret 2024 Autopsy FINALLY Goes Public - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0LtIe3C4Qw This is not a good omen for the Democrats. The DNC and DCCC are major fund raisers for Democratic candidates for office. My opinion is that the importance of the moment should dictate that Martin be replaced by a much more competent and honest person. The Democratic Party needs to be supporting authentic, trustworthy candidates who are focused on the needs of the people like the economy, healthcare, government services, anti-corruption, a working and fair immigration system, diplomacy rather than war, etc.. Not a slush fund for criminals and seditionists, a billion dollar ballroom, wars on foreign countries, suppressing the ability to vote, etc..
On 5/20/26 Heather recorded an American Conversations interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UFE7L9QZOQ) of Cleve Jones, human rights advocate, lecturer, author (“When We Rise: My Life in the Movement”), historic and iconic AIDS and LGBTQ activist, who conceived the NAMES AIDS Memorial Quilt, co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, worked as a student intern in Harvey Milk’s office, works with UNITE HERE, an amalgam of labor unions, on human rights issues, etc.. In the 1980’s HIV/AIDS was poorly understood and largely underestimated (it wasn’t clear exactly what was causing it) and the AIDS Memorial Quilt drew attention to and sympathy for the thousands of victims. Each patch of the quilt was 2 by 6 feet (to symbolize a grave) and represented an individual death - memorializing the more than 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS. Jones says he was infected with HIV in the late 1970s and credits his activism with saving his life since it put him into the early antiviral “cocktail” trials to which he responded. Note that at that time over 90% of HIV+ patients died. In the interview Cleve Jones advocated for public health and deplored the Trump administrations extensive cuts to healthcare funding. The dismantling of USAID and the destruction of its vaccine and antibiotic stockpiles will result in an estimated >500,000 deaths. He supports and recommends www.sevendaysinjune.org, a decentralized, nonpartisan, grassroots-driven campaign that focuses educating the public on how healthcare funding cuts will devastate local communities and what to do about it. He feels the same public health mistakes that were made in the HIV epidemic were made with the COVID epidemic and the Trump cuts to healthcare and public health make our society susceptible to a repeat of the HIV and other infectious disease epidemics. I agree. Cleve Jones life shows how activism can change society for the better. So “Don’t Give Up The Ship!”
Thanks for the detailed post. The "DNC Autopsy" got essentially no coverage, but it should because it puts the nail in the coffin of the current national Democratic party structure. The silence on their part ahead of the midterms, with the 2024 platform still up on the website when I last looked a few weeks ago, is deafening.
Time to get the shadow cabinet model of party governance in place so that policy development and party leadership are integrated, aligned, and coherent.
At this point, with so little time left before the midterms, I think Obama has to step in, acting as an interim eminence grise, to get the shadow cabinet up and running and to act as a fundraising draw.
Love it, Georgia -- even a possibility Dems might be "integrated, aligned, and coherent."
Seems futile, though. So long as all learn in school to ignore humanities, Dems will forever be as for decades they have been: totally out of touch with -- and contemptuous of -- our working classes.
Ongoing reform for school curricula for sure, but we can't wait for that to to affect a national epiphany. In this corner we have Corruption Inc. and "unlimited" wealth. In the other corner??? It better be good. As good as we can manage.
DNC leadership? Dems repeatedly prove that it’s the same old game that they lose over and over. If a Democrat wins, it’s a miracle. Time for the worm to turn…
Einstein is falsely credited with saying "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.", but perhaps it fits. Reportedly he said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." which also seems to fit. In any case Einstein asked the right questions to transcend conventional thinking, and ongoing experiments keep proving him right.
My limited and perhaps not truly representative experience with Democratic Party organizational infrastructure is that it's incurious and dictatorial, which is ironic for a party whose ostensible goal is democracy. I have always supported the Democratic Party, but am often disappointed in it. I seems to me that insiders in any organization often seem more involved in expanding and protecting their own personal power than extending the wider empowerment the organization may have been founded to facilitate. Lord knows that conversion has become complete for the former "Party of Lincoln".
Graham Platner echoed those points last night JL about the DNC. He also said that they have already contacted him and offered help ($$$) but with strings. He said that the campaign will take the money but they will use it as they deem fit.
“Republicans are starting to crack, and momentum is building to check him [Trump].” (Chuck Schumer)
It’s…..about…..time.
I was beginning to believe that there was nothing; no bottom, no overt, in-your-face crime or corruption, no ethical or moral vacuity, no human depravity, (such as raping children) that would stir even a single congressional Republican to publicly stand up and say “No! No more!”
I’m still skeptical the “momentum” will build within the gutless, spineless Republican majority.
Way to go Chuck. Let’s see if democrats can avoid a circular firing squad. In all of the election blather, I have detected not one instance of democrats using repubs own verbiage against them. They give Dems ammunition with every utterance, but tv ads are the same old tripe.
Maybe there is hope if Mitch can identify “morally wrong.” Ha, best joke of the night.
From a speech by women's suffrage activist Helen Todd and picked up by women of the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike for better wages and dignified working conditions.
PS: When we look at the necessities of life that need to be included when we calculate what a living wage should be (i.e. enable the wage earner to pay for), I always include things like an annual vacation, a little spending money for a concert, books, etc. It's not just about a roof over our heads and bread, is it.
Mitch, Donald Trump is the fruit of your party. The party that has hated government for as long as I can remember and pounded that table endlessly, ultimately producing the Tea Party, the MAGA party, and finally the January 6 party, where they burst into the House chambers and wanted to kill you. It’s a little late for you to complain.
Yeah, Ken, and he punted when he could have had the Senate R’s vote to convict trump on his second impeachment. He wanted the courts to handle it, absolutely knowing trump should have been held accountable. What a putz & this will be his legacy.
As far as I can see it, if Republicans don't get their way in Congress, don't know what to do, or face having to vote contrary to Trump's wishes, they don't do anything. This time they are using the excuse of Memorial day to head home. Of course, these phonies don't ever have to do anything except what Trump wants. But just wait until Americans realize that a much larger slush fund was established some time ago to pay these do-nothings their salaries, perks, and expense accounts. Let's pull that, shall we?
Yes. But they kowtow to Trump because he holds sway over their electorates. Trump’s power derives entirely from the 77 million misguided (to put it mildly) voters who elected him.
They went home early to give Trump's minions time to come up with some Band-Aids to cover the wounds Trump self-inflicted. This is going to be political theater to try to salvage seats in the midterms. Time to turn craven ass-licking into "principled opposition that led to positive change." "I have been seriously concerned. But see, I made Trump see reason. I stood up for you. And Trump has done so many wonderful things for America." I am sure they will all be running Susan Collins tapes to see how it is done over the next week before they reconvene.
I did *not know that Mitch McConnell was capable of calling a wrong - a wrong. Well, I guess even old dudes can perform new tricks. HCR wrote "former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) put it: “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong—Take your pick.” Where was Mitch stashing that skill when he told us all to shut up and pray after each mass shooting over the years, instead of calling gun policies wrong or their manufacturers opportunists?
Don’t get too excited about what Mitch says, watch what he does. Remember this?
“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chatted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they’d been fed wild, falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he lost an election.”—Mitch McConnell, Feb. 2021.
And then, this gutless weasel didn’t do a damn thing. He will go down in history as a coward, and rightly so.
1.7 billion slush fund when there are cuts to every program so many Americans rely on line SNAP, Medicaid, VA benefits and so much more.
I heard on NPR one of the January 6th rioters say he expected to get a million dollars and that he and the other rioters that were convicted then pardoned by Trump deserved the money because they were patriots.
Our military, the men and women who actually put their lives on the line for this country every day deserve pay raises and better VA services, not the one day yahoos that assaulted Capital police, defiled the Capitol building and treated Congress.
The following quote from 1850, relates to an issue of that time, but is does resonate with the current state of America.
On 8 May 1850, Representative James L. Orr said:
“When the phrensy of madness sears the brain, reason, the great helm of human action, fails to control its motions ... [t]he masses may be sincere; but … cool-headed and discreet men must rise up in the majesty of their strength and crush it, or consent to give up our institutions, and be crushed by it. Fanaticism is not often sated until it has gorged itself with blood or ruin”:
Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 546 (8 May 1850).
“Your neighbor's house might soon be renting GPUs to OpenAI.”~Timothy Bramlett
“NVIDIA just announced one of the wildest deals of 2026. Small AI data center boxes attached to the outside of suburban homes. Wait, what?
The product is called XFRA. A small white box installed on the side of your house. Inside: 16 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. Liquid-cooled. Silent. Industrial-grade hardware. On suburban homes.
The partners are wild. NVIDIA supplies the chips. Span (the smart electrical panel startup) builds the box. PulteGroup (one of America's biggest homebuilders) installs them in new homes.
Here's the part that breaks your brain. The homeowner doesn't get to use the AI. The box is renting compute to AI cloud customers. Like OpenAI, Anthropic, or whoever else is buying GPU time.
So what's in it for the homeowner? A free smart electrical panel. Battery backup. Optional solar. Heavily discounted electricity and internet. No cash. Just subsidized utilities, for life.
The scale they're planning is insane. 100-home pilot in 2026. Already underway. Target: 80,000 nodes by 2027. Over 1 gigawatt of distributed compute capacity.
Why is NVIDIA doing this? Span's CEO claims 8,000 XFRA units can be deployed 6x faster and 5x cheaper than a traditional 100MW data center. They skip the years-long grid interconnection queue. The big bottleneck in AI right now.
Skeptics aren't sold. Replacing GPUs in 80,000 homes every 18 months sounds like a maintenance nightmare. Residential security isn't data center security. And AI works better clustered, not isolated on suburban siding.
Big AI is running out of land. And power. And grid connections. The next wave isn't bigger data centers. It's smaller ones, everywhere.
In a few years, you might walk down your street and not realize half the houses are quietly running AI for OpenAI.
It has long been clear that it is not effective for individual Republicans on Capitol Hill to stand up to Trump - he simply gets them removed from office. What would be effective is if they find a collective backbone and stand up to him as a party. He is lawless and offered broad immunity, so it might still be difficult to actually make change, but at least his unseating them would no longer be an effective counter attack for him...
i agree -- for years I've thought it would just take a handful of them to vote with Democrats and stop this insanity. With Cassidy and Massie having lost their primaries the spines of the others will no doubt become even weaker than they are now.
How can 34% of Americans still support him?
Don, I think the term Trump Derangement Syndrome is being applied to the wrong group….it SHOULD apply to his ardent “true believer” followers. IMHO, the “derangement” is strong in them.
I agree Barbara! TDS is another example of every accusation is a confession. MAGA are the ones who are “deranged” and still support this clown and the circus of an administration. They have absolutely nothing to offer Americans after inheriting the strongest post-COVID economy on the planet. If only Biden had done half of the things he is accused of - specifically weaponizing the government - Trump would be in jail along with the other J6 mobsters and we wouldn’t currently be the laughingstock of the world. This is generational damage and most of us will not live long enough to hopefully see our country actually become great again. This should be a year of celebrating our country’s 250th anniversary instead we are on the brink of world war and another Great Depression.
So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops and former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn't see this coming? Utterly stupid and morally repressible.
Blanche at the senate hearing, was asked “and you are going to pay money to people who assaulted the members of the Capitol police force?” He arrogant replied that “it happens all the time, that people are compensated for an altercation with a member of the police.” Obviously Blanche, who in reality is trump’s fixer, confuses payments to innocent citizens who were illegally detained by some careless or corrupt officer of the law and awarded compensation through a jury trial vs payments to the rioting mob of insurrectionists who assaulted Capitol police personnel on Jan6 at the direction of trump!
We need criminal jury trials (plural) of the co-conspirators & the murderers of Renee Nicole Good & other citizens.
What we the people need:
To paraphrase, Republican POTUS 26, nobody cares what or how much you know, until they know who you care about.
How do you measure the content of MLK's character? Divide the number of people he cared about by the number of people = 100% full.
Honest Abe? 100% full.
HCR? By my estimate, 100% full.
Dissembling Don? One divided by more than eight billion and counting.
When will MLK's dream of a nation in which people are judged by the content of their character be realized? You do the math.
During Watergate, we had televised hearings with Senate and Congress all working together, in spite of their political differences, to get at the Truth. That's what is needed now. Hopefully, as Heather summarized, the revolt against tRump actions in the ranks of the Senate and Congress will lead to this. And let's not forget Epstein files! So much investigation and public media coverage required! Resist!!!
The problem is that in order to stay in the circus Blanche must prove his loyalty by completely ignoring what happened on J6 and framing it not as an insurrection but as a patriotic act in support of the clown. He will never admit that the clown riled up that mob and unleashed it on the Capitol. He will follow the circus’s script and refer to that day as an example of patriots fighting for their clown. Unless the context needs a different version of the script then all of the supporting clowns flip it and say that J6 was an inside job by the FBI and Antifa and this is why those patriots deserve compensation for their mistreatment. They have a script for every scenario.
It’s obvious that Blanche is not very bright. Has anyone checked his law school class standing? Do I remember correctly that he was a federal prosecutor? We could use more details of his background. Or perhaps he just looks stupid and is truly evil. The way he expressed his love for DT was creepy, sickening.
We all saw what happened - live!!! I prefer to believe in reality, as painful as it was. These fools still pretending it was a patriotic act, or worse, a tourist visit, are wrong - and deep down, they know it.
Please, enough with the clown/circus theme. Clowns are most usually funny and the circus is exciting, can be breathtaking in an amusing way and when one leaves after seeing this it is with a sense of happiness and awe. None of this is present in this time or this administration. Please, can we find some other way to address what are your very good ideas with different sybmolism?
Donna I would just replace the word " script " with "lie"
Someone at the hearing did not make the distinction? Blanche needed big and loud pushback. They do this a lot and get away with it. That’s weakness and why Trump keeps going. He never gives up especially when he smells weakness. They are not smart but they get away with crimes and lies by being relentless and tiring us out.
Potter, watching some of the Congressional hearings, I muse “so these are adults?”🤦🏻♀️ Lots of grandstanding by all to catch that “viral moment”, but the response from members of the current admin to questions are particularly cringy…thinking of Pam Bondi and her “slam book” she referred to to sling zingers at some Congressional reps instead of answering their questions. A lot of deflection and whataboutism and yada yada yada instead of answers. Embarrassing and troubling to witness.
Blanche is the new Michael Cohen. It didn't work out too badly for MC after the dust settled.
Marj, I found your comment to be interesting. I'm not insulting you, I'm just curious what you mean by this? Cohen went to jail for 14 months and was even in solitary for over 50 days, I believe. He's fortunate his family stuck by him. His life was totally upended.
He wrote a book (which I haven't read) and he now has a Substack and a YouTube channel. He was part of the Midas Touch Network until he had a disagreement with Ben Meiselas who is sure that Cohen knows more about Epstein and is furious that Cohen won't share. Cohen denies knowing about Epstein--and I tend to believe him as I truly don't think Trump considered Cohen worthy of including in his close social circle; I tend to think Trump used him as he used all his servants.
I do watch some of Cohen's YouTube channel clips, because I think of ALL the pundits out there, he's the only one of them who actually worked with and new Trump. Many can speculate about Trump, but Cohen was in the circle--a close one but I don't think the truly innermost circle.
Yes, it is classic MAGA doublespeak, and it is always intentional misdirection.
Hello Louis... From HCR Today: "Republican senators met for nearly two hours today with acting attorney general Todd Blanche in a meeting that Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News reported was “incredibly hostile.”" || Do you think that Todd Blanche will get a Senate Confirmation as permanent Attorney General now?... Everything that Trump Touches Dies... Trump's Lawyers Inevitably Get Lawyers.... OBW: Tulsi Gabbard Resigned Today... Another Road-Kill on DJT's Path to Glory... ;-)
McConnell now begins to raise him voice since he is on his way to retirement. You can rest assured that had he still been Majority Leader he would be lauding the arrangement. So, I take this as just another shift going nowhere. When he had the power to sway votes and take away the menace he defaulted.
100pct. no redemption for that pos. he had the chance, made his choices, now he has to live with the consequences. wants to rewrite history with convenient memory lapses - not happening.
Joseph, the only problem I have with your statement is that now ALL of have to live with the consequences.
Kentucky Fried Voldemort's outrage is a bit like a the deathbed conversion to vegetarianism by a tyrannosaurus in hospice care, but it does represent a marker of sorts.
I'm no Dante's "nine rings of inferno" expert, but I'm thinking whatever ring Mitch ends up in will be a lot closer to nine than one.
100pct. He's the main cause we are in this mess. He blocked Obama's scotus appt opportunity, then rammed in one for rump going against the very rationale he used to block Obama. There is no redemption for that pos.
His personal senatorial mission was to stack the SCOTUS and he ruthlessly did so. Limiting the tenure of judges to less than life-long, might be a good idea. It's hard to find a high ranking politician without butt smears.
Ain't he a real piece of work?!
I suppose there is a glimmer of hope, a sign of some kind of sea change there.
Back when Trump and the MAGAs were looming on the horizon, I came to believe that Mitch was the most dangerous person in Washington. I even went so far as to contribute $$ to the campaign of his opponent, and I don't live anywhere near KY.
My wish for him is that he go quickly and not "stand upon the order of his going.' (Apologies to the Bard of Avon).
It's, OMG, so funny. First rollicking laugh of the am and so true. Also love your name for him.
McC will always be a snake in turtle’s clothing in my eyes forever!
The precedent was set when $5 million was paid to the family of the insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt's family.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-administration-pay-5-million-settle-lawsuit-ashli/story?id=121959389
You make a good point, but to me, the precedent was set when an incompetent candidate's convenient "welfare queen" lies defeated the competent candidate's inconvenient truths. In other words, the precedent was set when Jimmy Carter lost to Ronny Raygun 1980.
James, if we're going back in U.S. history searching for the first axe-wound to American democracy and presidential accountability, then I'm going to suggest Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon the Crook.
Ford's claim that he was "ending the national nightmare" had nothing to do with compassion or moving forward. He was gaslighting the American public. The pardon was merely giving his boss a get-out-of-jail-free card. It was the beginning of the standard Republican procedure when addressing the public: gaslighting. They've been doing it ever since.
I’m about to say something relatively disgusting. I am fed up with this thing called Donald John Trump. I have stated previously and I will state again, that in the time of his ending life on earth (and I do intend to outlive this piece of turd), I will crap on his gravesite. I will do so in spite of potential arrest by Park Police or any other authorities. I will have an attorney in waiting to argue why I’m not a public threat for one time only, craping on Trump’s grave. The only question I might have is which foods should I allow to churn in my stomach and intestines to create a rather stinky byproduct. I welcome any suggestions.
No one would have predicted it. No one. Not even Ebenezer Scrooge himself. But Ebenezer Scrooge did redeem himself THEN die. I know it's a made-up story, but it (and Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" song) makes me think, "Who cares! Either way, he makes the world a much better place, and I'll stand over his grave until I'm sure that he's dead."
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) warned, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." Thanks, Fred. Box checked.
Just put an outhouse above his grave.
A golden toilet perhaps…now that would be a fitting monument!
Actually the receiver might actually enjoy that. His obsession with excrement is getting much worse lately - the cartoon he put out of himself flying a plane over Manhattan and gleefully letting loose a major load over the residents, the video of Obama, Pelosi and other Democratic icons floating happily in the new Lincoln swimming pool filled with floating excrement...
Fran, what an astute observation! It's like toddlers often do: they discover the contents of their diapers and smear it everywhere.
Sadly, that is what my own Alzheimer's addled brother did a few months before his demise. I expect the same from Trump.
Bill, don't know if there is a franchise in your area, but I highly recommend White Castle sliders. While I loved them as a teen, my adult GI track sadly revolted. I've tried to eat them several times as an adult an I ALWAYS regret it, so now I just take a deep whiff as I pass by one of them and remember my childhood good ol' days when my Dad would bring a sack of them home for us kids.
Oh that’s so funny. I couldn’t figure out what you referred to until I opened. Man… White Castle. A blast for the past. My street friends used to grab a coffee there in town. I haven’t heard the name in awhile. Wow.
Katz food
We should probably remember that it is McConnel who engineered the Jim Crow Supreme Court.
(BTW, Monroe, you need to change your little bio. You obviously DO--and DID just--have something worth saying.)
And so, this is for you: 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
That'll be referenced on two plaques ... one under 45's portrait plus a "just in case you missed it" copy and paste on the plaque under 47's portrait.
trump is obnoxious and avaricious, lacks predictability and stability. Not profound thoughts, but it's what I'm thinking at the moment. He thinks with weapons and not with his brain.
Stephanie ... thank you for the soapbox. Much appreciated.
Dissembling Don very predictably thinks as if he cares about his own short-term self-interest and nothing else. Apparently, I used to think like that. How do I know? My mom told me she witnessed it. My guess? I was thinking some version of, "Who changed everything? What was wrong with the way things were? Why wasn't I consulted? I'm going to poop myself and scream bloody murder, and I'm not stopping until things are great again!!!"
Long story short, Dissembling Don is immature.
Both!
Comment fixed. Thanks for heads up.
James, I hold Mitchy responsible for a lot that has happened like the Supreme Court. He ranks with death star and John Roberts as the worst.
And ... we know what happened to the death star.
IF THE SLUSH FUND BECOMES REALITY, THE MONEY IS GOING TO NO ONE BUT TRUMP’S POCKET! ALL THE LOSERS THINKING THEY ARE GETTING A WINDFALL ARE IN FOR A BIG SURPRISE! TRUMP DOES NOT PAY PEOPLE! TRUMP DOES NOT GIVE TO CHARITY! TRUMP DOES NOT GIVE PHILANTHROPY! THE ONLY PERSON HE GIVES TO IS HIMSELF!
Eileen, I had a bit of a daydream where recipients of this fund had to travel to the WH to personally receive their prize. When they arrived trump ceremoniously gave them a large Slurpee slush and said here’s your part of the slush fund, I’m keeping the millions it cost to produce.
Eileen ... they're not listening to you, but we are. Thanks for speaking up for us.
Bingo!
Am right there with you, Donna. Celebrating our country this year is the last thing I want to do w/ that rotting whale carcass @ the helm. Despite paying for the goddamn arch w/ my tax $$, I'll pay a separate fee-for-a-swing with a sledgehammer to take it down ASAP!
Cary, would you allow me take one swing at it? I’m thinking at $1 a swing we could raise enough $$$ to bring back deported immigrants, reunite them w their children, open horrendous detention facilities…. I know dream on.
I’m thinking of the song by Bruce Cockburn “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” reading your comment!!! Indeed!!! [link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdXNw6BKNLY]
Don, Barbara, Donna— You have taken the words right out of my mouth. I am coming to grips with the fact that I probably won’t live long enough to hopefully watch our country turn itself around. A woman I talked with last evening expressed the same sentiment. Sad, really sad.
My thought too, Janet…but if I can I’ll haunt the bastards until they make it right & give encouraging dreams to the freedom fighters! My “cosmic” contribution!
And Donna, since their doge budget cutter was morally reprehensible, tens of 1000s of children are dying of starvation due to the slashing of USAID.
Donna, I have had people accuse me of TDS when they could not discuss what I was actually talking about and had nothing left to say. Needless to say, I told them that this syndrome applied to them.
Forget the anniversary, I suggest. Wait until it returns to its imperfect but still competent democracy. Otherwise you're just waving the flag for fascism.
I agree with you Barbara. We the People who can see Trump for the snake that he is, we have TDS as in Total Discernment Syndrome.
A more relevant question is: when will "we the people" see that the GOP is the problem, and Trump merely their clown in chief?
Good one Carol!
Ha! Carol…love it!!!!
I attended an interesting webinar on Russian Disinformation campaigns and its influence on the far right in the UK. This was sponsored by a Ukrainian Support group that provides things for Ukraine including supporting children in Schools.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-ukraines-children-learn-in-safety-support-t
Anyway, they discussed breaking up those who supported the far right into 5 groups, and some of them are people who fall on hard times and don't feel listened to. Desperation. We should try to get people back that we can by taking care of them.
I think we are living in a master class of how trauma affects us all. We are seeing the history of our nation in a clear way many of us for the first time. Selma Fraiberg MSW at University of Michigan was a professional who realized parents hold trauma from their childhoods and many times unknowingly replay the trauma . In the program that she created they have expanded her concept of ghosts in the nursery into the ghosts and angels of the nursery. I think we need to keep this yes and focus in mind. Humans are survivors all of us in uniquely different ways but if we can all fare forward it woukd be so helpful and for the first time in our civilization not forget the influence of trauma. This goes with the environmental collapse issues we are facing. Heal the human, heal the earth. There you go Linda an addendum to your words.
Mary OMalley, I agree we are !giving in a 'Master Class' of trauma. However, it can be a guy rational emotional growth experience. I lived thru a master class in trauma at the age of 20/21 in Vietnam. It took me 17 years to recover, but I did recover when I realized it was truly a Master Class in Emotional Intelligence. We have seen the enemy and it is not uz. It is the ignorance that comes from stopping Emotional Growth when greed racism and lack of empathy block the progress of human growth. Wisdom, Peace and Compassion will lead us to the Future, the Future we deserve.
Both of you deserve honorable mentions for your important posts, and for real courage.
John thanks for replying and thanks for serving in that time. I have known several Vietnam Vets and always liked them. One told of coming home and no ticker tape parades not even at times respect. And let’s hope!
The greatest depravity. That which leads one to the next level. Our own nightmares coming in machine gun staccato. Night after night. It’s not even real, or is it? Edgar Allen Who? I watched a sow birth 11 piglets and then eat them alive one by one. Preparation for the silhouettes hanging in the afternoon sun of the children hanging by their heels. Not a twitch left of their lives. Basket of deplorables? Can a society bend this to some sort of reconciliation? Upon whose god? And yet the hour changes, and the next basket fills.
Linda, bless you for looking at this in a compassionate light. From the start of the “frumph” years I have spent hours trying to understand how desperate someone would have to be to vote for him. I slowly, sadly and reluctantly boiled it down to racism. Unfortunately, the term, “basket of deplorables” landed heavily, and negatively. The phrase struck a blow against HC from all sides. Even now it seems harsh, but I tend to agree.
It is a basket of deplorables. Does it matter that a depraved or a sane person eats you? Either way one is eaten.
Yes, absolutely.
Thanks. ❤️
I am finding it very hopeful that Republicans that Trump has "primaried "are breaking ranks with him, and perhaps more will do so. It looks like the Dems have enough votes to do things that they could not do for most of the past 3 years.
Maybe they expect to be paid out of the slush fund!
100%
It s true, and sad. Many of us have become disconnected from loved ones over this.
Yup. I have a very “curated” relationship with my 85 yr old conservative > maga mom. We have to tread very lightly if we want to avoid a blowup. I refuse to visit her family in the south. She has lived in Los Angeles since ‘84 and hates CA. She only stays for my sister’s kids.
It’s tough to manage.
Totally agree think that this TDS is more along the lines of Trump ‘Devotion’ Syndrome.. as well as its very difficult for some to ever admit they were wrong..
I honestly thought that was true until a year ago. Anyone who still supports trump is truly deranged. Wait until the provisions of the BBB kick in after the midterms and many people lose their healthcare, their food benefits etc.
Meighan, and wait 'til they start blaming the dems for the cuts.
Oh, it’s all Biden’s fault…I can hear it now (and trump has never stopped saying it!).
Accusing Trump opponents of TDS is simply the end-of-the-line rationalization for their support for him. They've been making excuses for his bad behavior for so long that it makes sense that those who oppose him must have something wrong with them.
No. Fascist propaganda works. That's all. If you'd be plunged into it for decades, and your whole social environment is, you'd believe all the crap their "media" dump on them each day too.
Also, fascism vitally needs "othering", so if we want to defeat it, we have to make sure not to "other" GOP voters themselves...
Oh, I'm not sure about fascist propaganda here. These people are not that sophisticated. But they do understand that they have been excusing the inexcusable--from mocking a disabled reporter to "grab 'em by the p****y" to telling his supporters at rallies to beat up on protesters, to... well, you name it; just about everything he does is inexcusable. So they're attempting to excuse their own inexcusable rationalizing by attacking those who recognize how inexcusable his behavior really has been with accusations of mental illness. It's a covering up their own culpability mechanism.
So you're just going to cultivate feeling superior to them and that's it?
Some hardcore republicans are wondering what to do now as they become disillusioned. They are looking ahead now to the next republican to carry their flag.
MHO ... Here's the reason for the 34%.... "Deliberate ignorance refers to the intentional choice to avoid acquiring knowledge about a fact that one has good reason to believe exists. This concept is often relevant in legal contexts, where it can demonstrate culpability for wrongful acts."
Source: legal-resources.uslegalforms.com
Except that this is not a legal context but a media war.
Fascist propaganda is real. And it has been proven to work.
Or they only watch Fox “News” and don’t know everything that’s happening.
Do you remember when you only read “Dog” stories or “Horse” stories? I considered myself well-read. Probably was at that emotional maturity level. Fox nudes is a naked industry bereft of sentient morality. Have you ever had a conversation with 300 sheep bleating insatiably? They all sound alike so you might miss the one who is frantic about the bear. I’m extremely hard of hearing because I worked for a man from Missouri who tried to show me. I didn’t catch the warning in time about the bear. The thing is, neither did the twelve sheep who were killed that night.
Agree 💯
Safe to say Barbara, your "TDS" comment has been the consensus all along. I liken it to an expression my Mother used sparingly: What ails them? Knowing that there is no suitable answer. Even so, May I just offer: Clearly "they" have just been badly misled from the gitgo. And, I would compare that with how the civil war was fraughted (yes, I meant fraught with an 'ed'...., in an effort to accentuate that the act which was knowingly done, and done with so much purpose - so sick of MAGGATTS). Thanks for reading.
Someone somewhere coined the term, "deplorables" and it is still a fitting description.
Yeah, Bill, and Hillary got so much flak for telling it truthfully!!!
they always project about themselves
Trump DELUSION Syndrome!
Love it, David!
I’ve been saying the same thing for years! TDS is also called trump devotion syndrome.
National shame
Thank goodness this is finally happening. It's never too late. In a majoritarian based system, 34% approval rating and falling is a death spiral nightmare for incumbents. Let's hear from more of them. All Americans need to hear from leaders they trust that the Trump agenda is an anti-Amrrican scam.
When Congress has to slither out of DC early to avoid answering for Trump's idiotic grifts you know things are really really bad.
Last night I attended my 3rd rally where Graham Platner and Paige Loud stumped. I was truly inspired. The Cons have already announced $50 million in support for Collins, so it's an uphill battle for Platner.
Paige Loud, a 29 year old, Cherokee social worker from Oklahoma received a standing ovation from the crowd. She is running for Jared Golden's 2nd district seat and she has only raised $30k. She will likely finish 4th of 4 in the race but I hope she has a future in politics. She showed more empathy than any Republican I can recall in my 71 years. Graham Platner referenced her remarks three times in his presentation, so maybe she can work for him in one of his offices in ME once he's elected.
Thank you, GJ, for your good reporting on good, younger souls emerging.
Susan Collins has nothing to run on! What has she done for the people of Maine?? I hope Platner destroys her.
Exactly. And she voted to approve 4 of the 6 SCOTUS Republicans nominees. As you have pointed out, Leonard Leo hosted a fundraiser for her last time she ran. That alone is reason enough for me not to vote for her.
This isn't entirely true unfortunately. Susan's PACs have been blanketing us with internet and USPS ads about the wonderful job she is doing. She actually facilitated a couple earmarks that directly affect the second district. Getting back grant funding for things that she had cut as head of the Appropirations committe (and some of the DOGE cuts).
So they are literally 'celebrating' her for getting back the money she took away to make Trump happy. I guess in Republican circles that makes you an altruist.
But these endless ads all celebrate the same 3 earmarks. I would think that even MAGA could figure it out. But I've been wrong before.
I will vote for Graham and delight to see both MAGA and Dem heads explode because they think he's "rude, crude and socially unacceptable". When your only exposure to someone is through their /reddit posts during a time that they were literally in mental health crisis then I guess I can kinda see it.
But anyone who has seen him in action can see that he is real and has put actual work into ideas for the future that aren't just sound bites and slick ads.
I'm over 'bipartisanship'. Schumer and King used it to keep Trump's government in power and strip away my healthcare. So everytime I see another of these "the democrats can only be relevant if they move to further to the right" I lose my bloody mind.
I'll know MAGAs are waking up when that approval rating is 24%.
Trump agenda?
Since when is Trump interested in politics?
America is NOT Epstein's Island Phase II where immunity protects "King Donald" from fucking us all using our tax dollars. Waging wars, building bunkers cloaked in a ballroom, killing citizens, releasing and paying insurectionests, threatening comedians and journalists is NOT normal for an American President.
These "Red Tie" crimes must end!
Read The Rational League substack
https://therationalleague.substack.com/p/you-are-not-talking-to-their-reasoning
The 34% have psychologically fused their identities with Trump, so they see any attack on him as a direct attack on them. Well worth the read.
But that's like 90 MILLION AMERICANS! How can that many be that mentally ill?
I have a feeling a great majority of their education is limited; they have barely left their own state, not to mention the country; they have never been exposed to "other" cultures; they believe their religion is the only true faith... on and on... it is much easier to influence narrow minded, bigoted people than those who are curious, research ideas and dogmas, don't blindly believe in all they hear and watch.
Yes, Ligia…you have described several of my family members to a T(rump). Nothing will change their minds about the clown. All they care about is the size of their 401K and my aunt in particular uses that as a defense against everything corrupt that this administration does. When I try to explain to her that the majority of Americans do not have enough disposable income to even participate in the stock market she says that I’m lying. When I show her proof, she says it’s fake news. She says he is the only POTUS “brave enough” to deport illegals and close our borders. When I tell her that he lied about deporting only “the worst” and instead deports immigrants with no criminal record she says they are criminals just for being here illegally. She has no idea what it takes to become a citizen, she has never left the country and had no understanding of any other culture or religion but her own. This ignorance and lack of empathy, mixed with a healthy dose of racism make her one of the most loyal MAGATS I have ever met. And there are so so many of them. Fortunately there are more of us and we must do everything to ensure a blue tsunami in November and in 2028!
I think I know your aunt
She’s only one of many family and friends who are lost to me because I cannot have a rational discussion with them. My circle has become much smaller for my own sanity!
Me, too. The rock-brain TDS has caused painful rupture of friendships and an even more painful revelation of this malicious mindset in people we thought we knew.
😂😂
Unfortunately Donna you are not alone. So many have lost family and friend relationships due to this walking ‘disease’. Have mourned the loss of these family and friends often yet for the purpose of sanity decided to no longer engage with them. The arguments are exhausting. When you come with proof it’s called ‘fake news’ or that it’s all a lie printed by now what is called Dumbocrats or from George Soros. At one point in a discussion remarked George Soros must be the best private investigator to have the ability to bring all of this to light from around the world headlines. Guess he was involved in bringing to justice all those Epstein survivor’s assailants from other countries and brought down a prince. Seems the King decided to believe that his brother did wrong and stripped him of everything.
In a final conversation with my brother about anything to do with Trump he said and I quote, “I just don’t want to be found wrong for following him” my response was “We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.” My brother came back and said “I don’t make mistakes” - a footnote: He’s been married four times, divorced four times is now 66 years old wanting to retire but can’t and still has all four children living with him and two are teenagers. The two adults moved back in with him because one lost his job and can’t find another and the other brought his pregnant wife with him because they can’t afford to pay all the costs of living.
Yea, just walked away and didn’t bring up anything about “learning from mistakes”. He can enjoy watching the Fox propaganda machine and live within that bubble..
Sounds like he’s living in an emotional concrete bunker.
Oh Donna, Thank you for writing back, and I must admit my heart goes out to you. It must be difficult to feel so helpless against such irrationality. I know deep in heart that the orange buffoon will eventually be gone, however, I do worry about being able to hold him accountable.
And Ligia the fools who will replace him.
Does she deny his rape convictions as fake news?
Of course! And she says she doesn’t believe he had anything to do with Epstein…that it’s just another witch hunt created by Democrats. She only watches FOX news and she watches it all day long.
It truly boggles the mind trying to converse with people like your aunt. I am happy to know my nephew and his wife look shameful when they talk of their conversion from believing the BS. They told me that at the time they did not believe my Project 2025 warning.
Donna, we lost my father in law to Faux. He was an angry, bitter man to begin with, and the hatred feed something in his soul. You could not have a rational conversation with him.
We have to face up to the primary reason for the GOP’s entrenched support. We often portray their supporters as the people who have been “forgotten” or have suffered economically, but the GOP “coalition” actually involves people from all classes including a hefty contingent of people who are doing very well economically and socially.
There are also contingents who are proudly and loudly fighting to maintain white supremacy. The common denominator among these groups is racism. The GOP has successfully branded itself as a safe place for White people who don’t want to live in a multicultural democracy.
Making America great again means making sure that people with white skin are the dominant force in America. The idea that racism is a root cause of discord and dysfunction in America is not easily accepted by many people who want to point to issues like prices, “owning the libs”, stock market gains, illegal immigration etc.
For people who know the true history of America it’s easy to see that racism (and misogyny) have limited our nation’s ability to “perfect our union”. Going backwards will not help us.
I hope one day the “majority” will face facts. We’ll never make progress until we acknowledge the ways white supremacy rules over all of us. To keep it simple, Trump would never have gotten away with any of his misdeeds if his skin color was Black or brown.
Perfect explanation! Unfortnately, our whole history has been shaped by both racism and sexism now with transphobia thrown in. You would think trans people make up 50% of the population with the number of anti-trans Trump ads on tv during the election. But mostly it was 'eeeeekkkkkkkkk, brown people are invading our country' and 'evil brown woman with evil laugh wants to take over country!'.
"mixed with a healthy dose of racism" I still think this is the biggest piece of the puzzle. When people act irrationally, what is driving them emtionally? In the US, that has often been an ism.
One of the main points is that they are drawn in by grievance. They get to feel that they are better than whoever the leader is "othering."
Yes Georgia, some. people need to feel there is a class beneath them to feel good about themselves. My argument is even with this made up inferior class beneath them they still feel bad. People who feel good about themselves don't act this way, do they?
And they limit their news sources and never hear an alternative point of view.
"I love the poorly-educated."
This is the way authoritarianism works--it is an exercise in psychological manipulation. It involves instilling a mindset into your followers.
Were all ardent Nazis mentally ill? No. But they all shared a mindset and worldview that was carefully crafted by the Nazi leadership.
We are only now starting to see fractures over the Epstein Files and Trump's in-your-face corruption and the betrayal of "America First" principles in the groupthink.
Judge Williams, USDC SDFL may have jurisdiction to hear a Rule 11 motion against Blanche.
Controversial take: Trump is, objectively and on the face of things, a much worse candidate than Hitler. In 1930s Germany, an average German who was not even particularly anti-seminitc might have thought 'maybe this guy really can make things better for us as there is no reason to doubt that he can't, there is no reason to believe he doesn't care about us and want to make our miserable lives better'. Compare and contrast to Trump where from the beginning: there was the twice divorced adulturer with three different Baby Mommas, there was the very public stint with a porn star while his wife was pregnant, there was the very public tape where he admitted that he sexually assaults women and 27 women have accused him of sexual assault or improptiety, there were the 8 bankruptcies, there were the cases brought where he swindled people and committed fraud against average people (Trump U), there was the racism in housing cases going back to his father's control of the business, etc. The guy is objectively scum and it takes about 5 minutes for any reasonable open person to realize it. And UNLIKE the Germans in the 1930s who really were in a severe depression, the economy in 2016 and 2024 US was objectively good (even if many felt it was bad). They will be studying Trump for decades and it really is a complex mystery how he could have won when he is so bad!
Hitler came to power after a disastrous war in a depression. There was an entirely different media landscape.
Trump came to power after 50 years of preparation by conservative oligarchs who wanted a low-tax, low-regulation, pro-business environment with a conservative, pro-business complicit Supreme Court. Trump was inserted into the political landscape by Russia as a potential asset. I think Trump was adopted as a standard-bearer for the oligarchic agenda because of his populist anti-elite appeal and all his self-made-man swamp-draining iconoclastic Apprentice schtick, without the oligarchs fully appreciating the Putin/Epstein connection. Trump 1.0 was all about controlling him by surrounding him with “the adults in the room” while the oligarchic agenda was put in place.
After Biden won in 2020, there was a concerted effort by the oligarchs to deny Democratic reforms. Democratic accomplishments were under-reported in a siloed media environment, with Russian propaganda again taking an important role in normalizing Trump’s rhetoric, and with the oligarchs handling the suppression of the voices of non-MAGA Republicans. Democrats were painted as engaging in a hysterical overreaction to January 6. Democrats failed to pass critical reform legislation. and failed to explain the causes of inflation. The Democrats continued to make mistakes by failing to realize that Russian election interference was a returning threat, along with the willingness of oligarchs like Musk to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign. Finally, no one was willing to tell Biden early on that he shouldn’t run for a second term and that he had to work with Harris to demonstrate she was capable and competent. Harris was the perfect candidate to draw the most racist, misogynistic MAGA voters to the polls in droves, egged on by Russian trolls on social media. And then she was thrown into an impossible situation with a shortened campaign.
So here we are in Trump 2.0, after Trump learned some lessons well—to accomplish his agenda, he needed sycophants, not adults, around him in key positions. He needed a compliant Congress—that was handled by the oligarchs putting their money to work sinking the candidacy of any Republican who was not completely loyal to Trump. SCOTUS was already in the bag. The question now is, will Trump’s blatant corruption destroy the oligarchs’ game plan?
Hitler’s authoritarian methods still apply, but there are additional influences at work with Trump.
I can't say you are wrong about any of that except there is no objective proof that Trump was placed as a Russian asset. He *acts* just like a Russian asset would in all circumstances but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof so that's not enough. I remember Biden actually ran saying he would not try for a 2nd term. Despite his incredible accomplishments, he should have stayed with that.
I believe that a solid third of Americans are racist and sexist. This pole lines up.
Sadly I do too Julia.
Too easy.
Try to come up with studies that prove your hypothesis instead.
What part about "I believe" requires studies proving a hypothsis?
Roughly one third of the population supports the ideas from the Confederate south: Blacks are inferior, women belong barefoot and pregnant, and that Evangelical Christian Nationalism should be the national religion. These poll numbers have been consistent over time for at least the last 15 years or so, right after operation "Red Map" went into effect.
All "I believe" statements require studies to prove whether the belief is true or false.
That's even more important when it comes to understanding the causes that lead one-third of the country to continue voting for a neofascist GOP.
Simply claiming that they're all "bad people" is too easy. Fascism is real and extremely dangerous, so now's the time to fact-check our hypotheses about the causes, so that we can work on real solutions, rather than simply feeling morally superior...
EUWDTB, not only is your handle a pain-in-the-ass to type, your comment behavior here is troll-adjacent. You are not the proctor, here. Nobody is obliged to provide citations to satisfy your requirements.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of commenters here are obviously well-read. Their opinions are the product of extensive reading, but they are not obligated to take a pop quiz created by you.
You're hassling Georgia Fisanick?? She is probably the best-read commenter here. I don't know how she has time to read everything she cites. Most of her comments are loaded with citations.
Come to think of it, where are YOUR citations? All I ever see from you is heckling. If you want to run the show, create your own Substack and have at it.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Bravo, Dale! Troll EUW…was pissing me off.
Life is too short to prove hypothesis when one still needs to earn a living, Especially when the truth seems to be staring at us.
I'm with you Julia. Get rid of racism and income inequality and the world will be a better place. I do not need proof - just a little common sense.
Bad news: for democracy to thrive, we need all citizens to be interested in proof. The whole point of a democracy is that collective decisions will be better IF we all work together to fact-check each other's "intuitions" and vague beliefs than if we only let a handful of people make all decisions in our place (fascism).
From the very beginning, however, Plato refuted this argument pro democracy by claiming that most citizens will always cling to their own beliefs too much to be able to do so, so if we want society as a whole to thrive, we have to take away people's right to vote and put a small number of the wisest people, who do a lot of fact-checking each day, at the top of the government.
So one of the main causes of the destruction of US democracy today is precisely the fact that BOTH people on the left and right imagine that fact-checking is a luxury that we don't need, we can all just go with our gut feeling and then, miraculously, things will get better.
History proves the opposite.
Obviously, racism and income inequality are bad, for society as a whole. But that's not what we're discussing here. What we're discussing here is whether it IS racism and sexism that are the main reasons for why GOP voters continue to vote for the GOP. For questions like these, you cannot possibly indulge vague guesses. You HAVE to check real studies.
Good point but I stick with my one third estimate based on life experience.
So you admit your belief is irrational. That's what I thought already ;-)
There is mountains of it out there, especially after the 2016 election, showing that racism was the single biggest predictor of a vote for Trump. Here is a little blurb going over some of it. And while anecdotal, I don't think it is an accident that two women lost to Trump while the old white guy beat him. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-and-racism-what-do-the-data-say/
Actually, that's something else.
Yes, of course, if you have racist ideas, you are NOT going to vote for Democrats, and you're going to like Trump's tweets. No surprise there.
Here, the question is not whether "racists" vote for Trump. The question is rather: what are the main motives of traditional Republicans to continue to consistently vote for the GOP?
What we need are studies that would show that one of the main reasons why registered Republicans continue to vote for the GOP is racism.
I have to keep reminding myself this as honestly, I do not encounter that much overt racism in my bubble. I keep going back to history and specifically, the photos that show happy smiling men, women and children in front of dead, mutilated lynched black men, joking and sometimes, even having a picnic. These same people had kids and grandkids and it is unreasonable to think that that kind of hate was not passed down like a family heirloom. Those people are voting in our elections and finally, have been enboldened by Trump not to be ashamed of their hatreds but to embrace them. When they say that they relate to Trump and feel he is JUST LIKE THEM despite him being born a rich guy who has never had to work a day in his life, has never changed his own oil, has never cleaned his own toilet or his own clothes, has never cooked himself a meal, etc, that is what they mean.
What pole?
Before coffee poll.
🤣🤣🤣
I've been known to have those. I refer to those moments as "inadequately caffeinated."
The Republican wall of blind faith in Trump is beginning to crack. Republicans are beginning to realize that they are losing much of their base over their inability to stand up to Trump’s demands and utterly ridiculous decisions regarding his failing war, his spending, his dementia, the wealthy who have supported his outrageous decisions regarding the economy, his White House “modifications” and the faltering economy.
The cracks in his support will become huge fractures as his legacy becomes a joke
and embarrassment. Women. Voters are disgusted by him and his policies/ actions.
The billionaires are beginning to worry about their fortunes as well as citizens rebel against the growing inequity and insecurity Americans are feeling. I know that over $5.00 a gallon for gas and rising food prices in Chicago are beyond ridiculous and frustrating!
I don't think the broligarchs are ready to give up the pay-to-play bribery of Trump because he is still putting out for the cash--the flavored vaping policy reversal to help the tobacco industry being yesterday's example. $30 million donated to support a Trump-endorsed candidate is chump change for these guys compared to what they will make from deregulation.
It will take a major recession to cut their profits before they will abandon Trump. Right now, they are borrowing like crazy to finance as-yet-unprofitable AI ventures and are relying on Trump's hyping of various corners of the industry — yesterday's $2 billion largesse for quantum computing being an example of that. Back not so long ago, new technology was developed with competitive grants funded by NSF and other government agencies like DARPA — not handed out as party favors to donors or to Don Jr. and his drone buddies, without any hint of competitive bidding.
Trump is handing out money that hasn't been authorized by Congress, and Congress is willing to go along because they think they can ride the green wave of bro money to keep them in office and avoid being primaried.
So the question for the midterms is simple. Will the Democratic blue wave, powered by grassroots activism, be bigger than the green wave of broligarchic cash and election interference?
What does each of us have to do in the next 4.5 months to make it so?
HCR interviewed Kate Barr yesterday who ran for a seat in NC using the tagline 'Kate Barr, who can't win in NC'.
Kate and her team tested a new system they put in place where one volunteer finds 15 non-affiliated voters to mentor thru the campaign season - up until the time of the election. The results for voter turnout is astounding.
I am now looking for folks to mentor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxTcH-LQios
Decent and caring? I would have conceded the possibility at some point, but anyone who still supports the man after the immigration raids that stole away innocents, the performative bombing of innocent fishing boats, and the careless war of choice that started with the deaths of innocent school girls... Do you see a common thread here?
If, after the past year and a half, you still consider the slaughter of innocents to be a fair exchange for a fat 401k, the words "decent" and "caring" no longer apply to you.
Trump is a rapist. Decent people do not vote for a rapist for anything.
We have seen similar epidemics tear though other societies.
It's called 25 years of neofascist propaganda.
You don't need to be "mentally ill" to become its victim. You just need to be in a social environment flooded with it, that's all.
These people are as decent and caring as you and I.
They all watch Fox propaganda or other state media. Its a cult.
It's who we are. We have ignored what has been festering. The trauma and abuse has been passed down in families for generations.
It’s the fake food. Do you know the count of diabetics in America? Sports has been subverted for TV. Just sit, snack, and watch. No playing (exercise of mind or body) required.
Kinda scary, Dana!
Dana, at the risk of using that cliché, there are two kinds of Trumpers. Ligia has accurately described the majority first group. The second group, a minority, are well-educated and well-heeled. They support Donald because he always caters to the wealthy with reduced tax liabilities and business regulations. The wealthy supporters have the money – thus, the power – to influence the majority.
The wealthy are not affected by the harms of the Trump regime's policies. When gas rises to $5.00, $6.00 or $7.00 a gallon, the increase has an unnoticeable effect on their lifestyle. It may be annoying, but it's considered "the cost of doing business." That business is avoiding taxes and operating without restraints to their revenue streams.
Tariffs? Not a problem; just pass the higher cost to their customers. Increased business costs? Not a problem; just pass them on to their customers. When one is at the top of the food chain, one just offloads potential damages to the people below.
Good point. I knew we were in trouble when all the billionaire class publically supported him this time while last time, at least publically, they said how horrible he was. Those tax cuts alone will make a lot of wealthy people lots of money. Add in the deregulation and it's no wonder the stock market is still doing well despite the mad man behind the wheel. That and the fact that that the very rich have SO MUCH MONEY that they don't even have enough places to invest it any longer. They will gamble until it is obvious the train is right at the cliff.
There's definitely an emotional investment in Trump on the part of much of his MAGA base. Somehow, this wealthy and profligate businessman has managed to convince them that his imagined grievances and their sometimes very real ones are both the result of the same dark forces operating against the American people. He tells them that these dark forces somehow continue to operate even when he's the president and his party controls Congress, necessitating extreme measures to remove them. What's the alternative for these folk other than admitting that the real reason for their woes is that they are just too stupid to understand the actual causes of their misery? One can understand their reluctance to accept that they have been catastrophically wrong in their choices because it's a very human trait.
" You are not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it." Malcolm X
Many "very human traits" have been the cause of our suffering as a species since the beginning. Many of us are cheaters, bullies capable of physical and mental violence, and crooks who live within society because others are watching and there are consequences.
How many people, given the same opportunities Trump has had - and enough practice - would do exactly what he's doing? Remove consequences to bad behavior and create a society that justifies this kind of behavior at all, and people will step up to take advantage.
These people are objecting because these "very human traits", built into us through evolution, are obsolete now that cooperation is out best chance of species survival. They see Trump as their best chance to recreate a world based on dominance, with themselves at the top of the pyramid. There are probably more people who feel this way than we would ever know, covered by a veneer of civilization but chafing at the limits. Trump gives them a chance to shed that skin and join with like-minded others.
Very dark forces have been unleashed by the permissions this man has granted. It will be extremely hard to put this genie back in the bottle.
Mobiguy, your comment gets at an observation I've made before. Unlike all the animals on the planet, the human animal has the capacity for greed and hate. All the harms we find on Planet Earth can be traced back to these two human-only traits.
While a few animals, such as squirrels, hoard food for future lean times, even they have limits. They may eat food they didn't store, but it's a matter of happenstance, not defying ownership. By contrast, humans will try to accumulate as much as possible in resources unless constraints are placed on them.
Predator animals hunt and eat their prey, but do so only for survival. At no time do predators hate their prey. Meanwhile, prey animals fear predators and first choose to avoid harm by fleeing and/or hiding. They become vicious only when cornered with no other options.
Only humans are capable of actively hating other humans. Hate, by the way, is not instinctual; it is taught by one human to another.
“Enlightenment” means more than a lot of US realize. Being reminded of Benjamin Franklin this morning (“unalienable rights”) was the clue. Those who don’t accept the “self evident” truths are easily caught in a web of deceit.
All to many in the maga core share trump’s disdain for never admitting that they were wrong!
This is a similarly good piece. It’s about culture of the white nationalist variety. https://substack.com/@leonardpitts/note/p-197910698?r=78pc9&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Definitely worth the read. Thanks for anothe great link to add to my library of favorite explainers!
I think that the fusing of their identities is that he has given them permission to hate the people they hate and fear getting "more than they deserve" (that is women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+)
Exactly. If someone criticizes Trump for being a racist, anti-gay, misogynist, then they are also directly attacking the identity-fused MAGA follower’s beliefs.
Mine to them, Georgia: "God, I hate academic dehumanized writing such as this."
Everything in this neutered, wonk-speak-only pabulum testifies to the worst of bad writing as Orwell listed in "Politics and the English Language."
Millions go to school -- and go deep in debt, too -- in order to reduce themselves as the pod people otherwise but identically arranged in the 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
These academics have nothing human about them. Zero human reference. Zero humanities.
I learned to hate them ("the best and the brightest") in the Viet war. I hate them more now that their elite brethren have destroyed 1,000s of American communities by offshoring those tens of millions of working-class jobs -- and turned schools into test factories only to hide what they've done. And turned most Dems into our most effete, slogan-ridden, money-obsessed only.
This liberal arts educated person understands that you mourn the passage of pre-1952 public school education, but you should say it. And there are even Democrats who understand the Constitution. This ferocious liberal Democrat takes umbrage at your condemnation of DEI.(😁) Phil, you are hitting the quality of American education, not the Democratic Party. Please qualify.
And it was a not too bright “Republican” who embraced trickle down economics. Do you think of bread and circuses some days?
Well said, Virginia. Thank you for embracing your ferocious liberal Democratic side and disdain of the "not too bright Republican" trickle down economist!
What????
I'd say you described yourself better than I ever could have.
Thank you Georgia! Yes. Well worth the read.
Georgia, thank you. It’s an excellent piece, to be read after, not before coffee. Had to laugh thinking about the simple sentences of the endless GOTV postcards I write to remind people to vote, which allows me, at 92, to live in the endless joke of having been the best printer in my first grade class in a small, poor public school in Virginia in 1940, now printing because cursive writing (the one art many students had after the 1950’s) was eliminated from the curriculum. The joke is extended because I read that dementia is shown by one’s handwriting becoming smaller and after all the printing have discovered that my cursive tends to be smaller because of a stiff wrist that must be shaken out. (The postcards help me psychologically too. ICE sirens 24/7 are devastating to this WWII child and reader.)
Keep on printing!!! You go, girl!!!! I am 75, hoping to get to 93. Have it posted on my fridge. IN BIG LETTERS ;-)
Keep on inspiring the young’uns!
Wow. That was enlightening. (The article about belief systems.)
Worth reading. Thank you.
Probably Georgia they deserve an attack on them, after all they are the ones that sustain the regime.
I do not think the idenity-fused Trump supporters are the ones who sustain the regime. They usually provide the background visuals, but Trump has not been doing big rallies, and JD's crowds have been pathetically small. Even the Rededication 250 Christian Nationalist "faith" rally was small, only around 15,000, when DC protests typically draw 300,000.
It's the broligarch's money that sustains the regime. They are paying for access and favorable executive orders. David Sacks, the previous AI and crypto czar and now the co-Chair of Trump's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, got negative feedback on the upcoming executive order on AI, and he got Trump to pull it at the last minute.
Georgia, when you are right you are right which is almost always 😉.
Still, the base, by voting in the primaries and showing up pays a role in sustaining the regime. Sometimes im right too. 😅
You are right. I take your point. There still have to be primaries for the appearance of legitimacy. But the amount of money being spent is so huge it skews the result.
Doubtful that's true currently, if it ever used to be.
MAGAworld is shedding its outer core of electrons right now faster than a fission bomb. While dertainly there's a core of cultified loonies left, the nucleus shrinks every day. Independents are abandoning it in droves, virtually all Democrats are united against it, and Republicans are coming unglued too fast for Lindsey Graham to make the room stop spinning around.
It's clear they're already thinking about 'the day after.' It's time we should too.
Then how did Massie lose? That’s really weighing on me. I saw some people being interviewed who were saying they would only vote for someone who supported by Trump…because he’s so strong and has kept all if his promises. I’m flummoxed
Because Massie's district was part of the nucleus, not the outer core. There are about 50-60 other districts which decidedly purple.
Far more important is what's happening deep in the heart of the whole, ginormous state of Texas. Trump's slapping James Cornyn in the fact to endorse Ken Paxton was a gift wrapped in gold leaf to James Talarico, who's not just been assiduously courting independents and hispanics who've fled MAGA (he's fluent in Spanish), but the critical black vote as well. You can bet Ken Paxton won't be stopping by Opal Lee's house anytime soon (the 'grandmother of Juneteenth')!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkCMVkHxrxs
I hope Paxton goes down in flames.
I thank Massie for pushing forward on the Epstein files. I'm sure Trump hates him for that. We must keep pushing Epstein, I'm sure that's part of Trymp-Blanche get out of jail free card. He knows nothing stays secret forever
Senator Ron Wyden is following the money trail, though information is being withheld by Blanche. I think you’re correct. The IRS immunity stinks of Epstein and his merry band of financial puppeteers.
It’s actually being hidden by Bessent. If Blanche too, it’s to a much lesser extent.
Thanks. I understood Blanche refused to turn over DOJ files.
Heather- Keep in mind that typically it’s the most extreme partisan voters who vote in the primaries. MAGA has an established track record of electing candidates in primaries who can’t win in the general election when most voters chime in. The electorate in the general, even many republicans don’t want to be ruled by the wackadoodles.
You’re right - I just had a very visceral reaction to Massie’s loss in particular because the guy who primaried him is literally a hollowed out puppet for the tangerine toddler. He didnt even have policy or talking points other than ‘i’ll just do whatever trump wants me to do’. I mean…i guess at least he was honest 🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
They do not read they listen and believe OAN or Fox, 24/7. It is also an example of the result of so many countries testing better than the U.S. (as a whole - and we know the states)…. Dumbing down of America
So sad but so very true! We lived overseas for much of my kids primary & secondary education so they went to international schools. The kids from the US were the ONLY kids who were not at least bilingual (most spoke 3-4 languages). We were very fortunate and grateful to have had that opportunity. I had to find a similar setting for my youngest to finish out school here in the States and that was a challenge! But, even here in GA, we found a great fit at a very diverse magnet school. It’s a majority Muslim school, so he was one of the only white American kids there. He was thrilled because he knows the world is not white or American ;) But, we had to be careful who we told because…well…GA. Most Americans will never be able to survive anywhere outside of their limited local bubble…and that’s why our ‘superpower’ status is slipping away
If your only news was Fox, could you support Trump?
OMG, native Mississippian here. Faux is literally all the vast majority of rethiglikkkans watch. And their local news is appallingly biased. When the local paper happens to actually use an AP story, it’s something I read on the app weeks prior. My 87 year old father died last year and never had a clue how limited their facts are. But football, Bloomberg during the day, and Hannity were every day. It’s appalling to me that the man who feared his children would be brainwashed into a cult? Um NO- that’s why you sent me to college, where by chance I met lots of people different from me. I learned things.
They watch Fox on purpose. It’s what they insist on hearing. If Fox didn’t supply it, they’d watch something else, probably something even worse. They are not stupid. They are willfully ignorant biggots who have bought into the promise the Republican Party has made and delivered on since Nixon and Atwater initiated the Southern Strategy (which works throughout the land, just as George Wallace said it would) to preserve and solidify systemic economic, political, and legal advantages for white Americans. I guess you could call it self-inflicted brainwashing, but it isn’t something done to them by Fox. They did it to themselves. On purpose.
Thank you for stating this. I'm so tired of the excuses made for these vile trump supporters, akin to "the devil made me do it". Funny their Bible states that men commit evil because God gave mankind free will. Yet at the same time we excuse these trumpers for not having a "choice".
I live in a Mass. town that is trump all the way. They voted fro trump three times. I think this time by a greater margin than before. Our cable provider has fox, MSNow and CNN as choices for news sources, plus PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC and C-span. Facebook is free and one can follow different news feeds for free. Youtube offers many news videos. AP news is free. The Guardian is free, The New Republic is free. Heather posts these same columns on FB for all to read as do others. Meidas Touch posts on youtube for free. There is no excuse to be this ignorant of what trump and his dangerous cohorts are doing.
I agree Rex, they are choosing ignorance. And each one is a bigot and selfish person. It may be subtle but this vein of bigotry and selfishness runs through every trumper I have the displeasure of knowing.
Northeast Ohio is every bit as “trumpified”, Sharon. Infuriating!
But we're fortunate that Dems and, I would assume, independents outnumber these dangerous, willfully ignorant people. We have some of the most progressive members of congress including Sens. Liz Warren and Ed Markey, rep Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley and others. At least this helps to keep me sane, though it's quite lonely and depressing in our corner of the world.
If people read John Christopher’s Tripod series if study for young people it is a wonderful metaphor for this. I found the series in my grade school Roman Catholic school library. We had a radical volunteer school librarian who gave us this series of books along with early Virginia Hamilton and all sorts of interesting diverse literature. This was in NEO. Her son became a very radical lawyer. It was changed by ALEC and because of all the layoffs starting from the 1970’s. And before that the power of corporations and the elite powers that were and are. Much less the take over of indigenous lands. If we could help heal the Cuyahoga perhaps there is still hope. That river burned not just once but several times!
Rex, I describe that as "supping at the trough of mis/dis information" because it feeds their collective amygdalae it's daily dose of anger and hatred of all us "others".
"It’s appalling to me that the man who feared his children would be brainwashed into a cult?"
Hi Lou! Are you and I siblings? I lost my folks to Faux News as well. My parents were both good people who taught me empathy for others. Both of them got sucked into The Fox New Cult in the 1990s. I was surprised that they fell into that, but cults are insidious that way.
When I was a kid and I got a new album, I would listen to it until I started to wear out the vinyl, imprinting the new music on my brain. My dad was very concerned that I was being brainwashed by "rock and roll". Fast forward a couple of decades and he kept multiple TVs on in his house, with Fox News on each one, all the time. Same with my mom. He died before Trump took over his party. He was a good, caring man, so I'm not sure how he would have reacted to Trump.
Now for the happy ending to my story. My mom, who continued the Fox News barrage in her house, came out of the cult last year. For her, she realized what was going on when she saw Elon Musk throw the Nazi salute. She was a little girl in Nazi occupied Norway back in the 1930s and 40s, and lived through that horror. That woke her up. Once the spell was broken, she started to see that Fox was lying to her and started to fact check outside the bubble. She is now very proud of her Google skills, and I'm trying to teach her to have what Carl Sagan called a "baloney detector".
Noble project. Thanks for your educational efforts with your mother. You are fortunate that it is possible. For most people, it isn’t.
I suppose so if I also wasn’t curious, read a lot (newspapers, mags, variety of online content) and had NO other source of national/worldly events…that would be a stretch, tho, because I AM curious and naturally a bit skeptical of folks trying to sell me something, be it a candidate, TV commercial for any product…you know, a sales pitch. But if that’s all you know and all you want to know, yeah I could see how someone would be a bit (or a lot) brainwashed. I recently saw Andrew Weissman interviewed on MSNow about his new book “Liar’s Kingdom” about how there are laws to regulate “lying” in all sorts of areas and persons/businesses can be held legally accountable, there is no similar law(s) to prohibit it in political speech (the segment on it—I forget which show—was much more in-depth and clearer than I describe here).
Outlawing lies is kinda pointless in a society where we don't have a broadly common notion of what truth is. Truth is a values-based construct. I was brought up to value things like the scientific method and historical research and and thoughtful self-criticism and achievements of civilization that benefit everyone (like the Constitution). My notion of truth is bound up in those values.
Agree, Tony, just saw a brief vid of Carl Sagan speaking broadly to this issue….in it he mentions how lack of critical thinking (scientific methods, etc) could lead to authoritarian-like control of a population/country. Nowadays with so much thrown at the wall (so to speak), I’m doubly careful and critical of info coming my way. But I think it is good to hold folks accountable for blatant lies, especially if it is broadcast & can do real harm—not talking about a “belief system” here. What gobsmacks me is how, when lies are called and proven to be lies, some folks will still choose falsehood over truth….and is just weird to me!
Outlawing lies is tricky, and much deference need be paid to genuine free speech, often though it may be provably erroneous, or unkind. Yet there are limits and means of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that misrepresentation was intentional. That got Nixon impeached, and facing conviction by even enough of his own party. You can be fined or jailed for certain lies to the government. You can be convicted of fraud. Prohibition of certain sorts of lies can be like a hazardous drug that is curative yet prone to serious negative side effects. It is not to prescribed lightly. Careless or deliberate misuse of a dangerous drug might add up to criminal negligence or murder. Do lies kill? Wars built on lies kill, as does racism, sexism and homophobia. Lies, and they were lies, about COVID killed many who would likely have survived with better guidance.
In modern US society we a pretty inured to lies (more so than in the Nixon era, and while some lies are pretty harmless, some are very consequential. Was the aggressive seizure of the US Capitol building "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse"; literally the official claim of the "Republican" party?
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and of your ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Should not we as a society more saliently honor and protect tellers of truths, especially those who faced retribution to do so? Should we not disqualify serious and proven liars a civilized social response? In the very end. the buck stops with us.
Good point! Fox must go!!!!
The only way to rid the world of Fox is to boycott their advertisers, and contact said advertisers to tell them exactly WHY you no long buy their products/services.
But why support fox?
It’s on every cable offering; that’s how it makes money.
Yeah, that (if it's anywhere near accurate) is discouraging. But -- there's an immutable, immovable hard core immune to facts or reason, in every cult and cult-adjacent movement, so invested in its belief set that it often cannot act even in its own self interest.
If you've ever taken a baseball apart, you have an image for this: a tough cover, under which lie many yards of yarn tightly wrapped around a very hard, impermeable sphere little bigger than a marble.
Our challenge now and for the next six months is to mobilize the people who are dropping away from the cult -- the windings of yarn, if you will -- to vote in huge numbers in November and commit to participating in good faith in the construction of a fascist-proof America 2.0 in which the cutthroat pursuit of profit and permanent control is forever subordinated to the greater good and the commitment to long-term prosperity broadly distributed.
Also, remember than when Nixon walked out to Marine One in 1974 having just resigned the presidency in utter disgrace (yes, I'm old enough to remember it clearly), 26% of the populace still supported him.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time…”
Disinformation + Omission by right wing media + cognitive dissonance
Don, they are stone-cold, White Supremacists. Apparently we have way too many of them.
Each day I am not surprised, but I am shocked by the corruption of Trump. Part of the shock is the American acceptance of his bad behavior. There seems to be a stupor with people not knowing what to do, at least not legally.
On top of all this he seems to be leaving the Iran war in a state of permanent mess, Trump is again going aggressively after Greenland and Cuba, and perhaps Canada but trying to slip it under the media's radar. Trump may be more corrupt than Richard Nixon who carried an illicit war on Cambodia and had the Watergate Files. More corrupt than George Bush whose halfwit brother Jeb and the corrupt SCOTUS stole the election for him. At this point he seems to be the most corrupt president that we have had, if not in the top contenders. We have given presidents a lot of leeway in the past, and it has been a mistake. Trump is banking on that and running away with it, particularly as the election comes closer and he gets more desperate. We need to stop him.
If you are a US citizen or have US residency, would you please read my piece explaining the Free Speech for People campaign to impeach Trump AND his cabinet and help them get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
If you can't find the link to the petition in the above piece, here it is. Just scroll down and you will find it.
https://www.impeachtrumpagain.org/
Linda, since most requests to "sign my petition" are in order to build mailing lists and sell products, can you please tell us why we should treat your petition differently? How will those "signatures" be used? Apologies for being skeptical, but this is the world in which we live.
Hi Signe,
Signe, I asked the people from Free Speech for People, who presented to us at Indivisible Abroad, how they used the data. They said,
"Free Speech For People pays a fee to use a CRM platform. And separately, the data that Free Speech For People collects and holds within that platform.
In terms of the data in the CRM -- IE anyone who signs the petition -- Free Speech For People does not sell that data or use it for cookie-based advertising or modeling. We don't provide rights to third-parties to sell the data.
People who sign the petition opt-in to receive emails from Free Speech For People about our campaigns. They can unsubscribe at any time."
The CRM they use is Bonterra, and I read their privacy policy. They say they do not personally do anything with data, they let their clients, in this case Free Speech for People decide what to do with that data.
I must admit that I do sign political petitions for causes, and write letters to politicians. I am mostly getting petitions online in Germany. There data use laws are strict. It is one of the reasons that I have all the emails and phone numbers of my indivisible group written down on paper, and kept in a folder, because I am not clear on the EU data storing laws and don't want to violate the law.
So, I understand if you do not feel secure signing this.
I don’t believe it either.I would say his approval rate has to be approaching the single digits.Those who stand with him do so at their own peril.This ship is starting to sink.
Dunning-Kroeger
His base.
Don, translate 34% into how millions of "Americans" it includes and then you'll be really surprised. I'm not surprised anymore, I'm, plainly speaking, absolutely upset.
25 years of very active and widespread, neofascist GOP propaganda. Watch their "news" media. It's all lies. But if you live in a red state and everyone watches the same "news", multiplied on many TV channels etc and repeated in church, at the work floor, during family gatherings and so on, then you believe it.
It's how neofascist propaganda works.
The GOP by now has truly managed to put its base in an "alternative facts" bubble.
Isn’t it truly astonishing! But even Hitler had a loyal believing followers towards the end.
34% of our country is so full disdain for anyone other than white men they will back anyone if they preach their brand of hate. It is generational hate handed down from the their antecedents that lost the Civil War.
Good to see the mutiny beginning. But the corruption near totally yet engulfs us.
Let’s remember, though, we let the universities be taken over by lawyers, accountants, and “human resources” bureaucrats. We let the departments self-isolate specialized silo by neutered silo.
We let the public schools toss civics and humanities, give up reading whole books, suborn all K-12 to one big captive audience for the billionaire testers. One where none of the peons, none of the serfs may ever ask any question of the anonymous elites and their myth that from A)-B)-C)-D) there is always one correct answer, never anything humanly complicated.
Donald has no complications. A straight-up, predictable fraud, criminal, pal to pedophiles, rapist, murderer, thief.
And we, with our jettisoned Constitution, cowardly, extortion-caving universities, elite law, supine legacy media, hate-fielding social media, Supreme Court on the take, and do-nothing Congress – total corruption, ours.
Republicans are “pitching ideas about how to draw some limits” around Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund?? Fascinating that THIS is the constitutional crisis finally inspiring caution — not Iran, not the Epstein files, not the industrial-scale corruption, but the possibility the grift account may need… guardrails. I’m dying to know what these “limits” might look like:
– Only three oligarch yacht reimbursements per quarter.
– Bribes over $10 million require bipartisan approval.
– The Constitution may only be ignored on weekdays.
It’s extraordinary watching people who treated accountability as communism suddenly discover the concept of “some limits.”
The monster they have been stitching together for something like 45 years now is complete and walks abroad, and to their surprise, they can't really control it. Indeed, it's even lashing out at them. Their patrons, the billionaires seem satisfied, however.
Excellent. That's like putting up guardrails at the bottom of a ravine.🤣
HEH! HEH! HEH! That's a good one!
I couldn't have said it better
It baffles me that all they want to do is "draw some lines" when this fund is so absurd and preposterous and no doubt illegal. If ever there was an easy vote this is it. Yet Trump has Bessent on board as well as the odious Blanche -- does Bessent control the strings of the Treasury -- which is Congress' job, if they are willing to hold onto it.
Just FYI, the funds are coming directly from the DOJ, not a newly constituted withdrawal from the Treasury. DOJ has a "settlement fund" they use in the ordinary course of business to settle official lawsuits against the government. To be sure, though, it's all taxpayer money.
Exactly. It’s like watching people politely discuss speed limits while the Constitution is being driven into a lake. Congress is supposed to control the purse strings and the involvement of Bessent and Blanche only gives the scheme a thin veneer of institutional respectability — which in some ways makes it more dangerous, not less.
Yes to everything you wrote!!!
It is unbelievable to me that the Dems and media still fall for focusing on the first thing Trump, Inc throws out.
Everyone focusing on the slush fund. What Trump really wants is no investigation of him, his kids, his businesses and his associates. THAT’S THE SLUSH FUND!
Blanche and Trump are beyond happy we are focused on the 1.776 billion. Is it legal? Who controls it? Can we whittle it down?
Who gives a fuck? Congress just continues to not fund it…problem solved.
Now can we please focus on the added tiny little thing of no investigations of Trump, his sons, his co and ASSOCIATES? I don’t remember SCOTUS extending the ridiculous “immunity” to presidents for any crimes…CORRECTION…this president only. I’m guessing the first suit they take in 2029 if a Dem is president is to reverse that decision.
But now…..no one around trumo can be investigated. Like WATERGATE….FOLLOW THE MONEY. Almost every criminal investigation is threaded together by a miney trail now the IRS can’t investigate how the Trumps made BILLIONS in a year and a half…can’t see where the money comes from?
THIS IS NOT ABOUT A TAX BILL….IT’S ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO EVEN INVESTIGATE WHERE THOSE BILLIONS CAME FROM.
Fuck the shiny object thrown out which is the slush fund, just finally assert the power of the purse and not fund it. Focus on the dull DAY TWO true goal- banning investigating corruption.
It's kinda like a magician, right? "Look here at this bright shiny object" while the other hand is picking your pocket.
The pickpocket is Jr version of the reining kleptocrat. I read in a travel guide that when some of the shrewder pickpockets are caught in the act, they will yell "Thief! Thief!" and vanish before aid might arrive.
Abracadaver.
"Supply-Side* Economics."
*
" Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - Lincoln
The word "mutual" here seems a principle of Lincoln's philosophy, with respect to the philosophical conception and dedication of our social system. It contrasts with the "same old serpent" of subjugation and extortion.
Why does Trump’s $1.776 b slush fund remind me of the Marcos regime, where the machinery of government was turned into a family enrichment project while presenting itself as the saviour of the nation? Trumpism’s only point of difference, it seems is politics as permanent branding, monetisation, and immunity. Both equally famous for their obscene personal spends: Imelda Marcos’ 3,000 pairs of shoes; Trump’s billion dollar ballroom. Theatrical displays of fantasy monarchies - hers the aristocratic empress, his the casino emperor, all while ordinary people struggle.
The Republicans aren’t upset about Trump’s graft and corruption. They ran away from this pending vote because the vast majority of Americans see that this particular grift—the ballroom and slush fund—stinks to High Heaven. They don’t want to be burdened with this crap as they seek reelection. They’re not taking a moral stand, it’s purely political.
Right.
I agree, It’s completely performative. Just like Marjory Taylor Greene’s opportunistic move to rebrand herself - akin to rolling a turd in glitter.
Jazz There should be guidelines to this billion dollar plus Political slush fund. I suggest:
1) a cool million to everyone of the yo-yos jailed after their January 6th Capitol Building insurrection, with an extra million for any Proud Boy or Oath Taker;
2) Zippo for any policeman killed or wounded defending the Congressmen in the Capitol Building;
3) At least $5 million for Giuliani and the My Pillow guy;
4) At least $1 million for any lawyer whose credentials were sullied by their sucking Trump’s hind teat;
5) A random distribution of the remaining loot for those who have/will done Trump’s illegal bidding.
Any crook that Trump has pardoned needs an adequate grubstake to continue large scale crooking.
They know he won't share any of the slushie with them. He doesn't share
He doesn't share, he bribes.
Yes, the idea of “limits” on his blatant disregard for the law, the Constitution and actual justice is absurd. He should be impeached before he can do any more damage.
As usual, you ignore virtually everything in Heather's post (once you've thrown out your apple-polishing first sentence). Night after night, you insist on diverting conversation about her research into your own bizarre, personal obsessions with school testing, carried to its usual ad absurdum end.
But the conversation still stands, waiting to be grasped. Pete Buttigieg has long said that Republicans are already paying attention to 'the day after' Trump. Why don't we? he asks. If the GOP is starting to chew its own tail for breakfast, it tells us the Potemkin's village built for deception with an expiration date stamped on it is crumbling. And how could it not? We are in the middle of a rickety Rube Goldberg contraption never held together by anything more than lies, scotch tape and intimidation. A hundred new possibilities break through every day. Even for those us who lived through standardized testing and somehow survived to tell the tale!
Endlessly repeating how evil evil is just drains all passion and point away. It diverts energy from the task at hand -- how to take advantage of the light now seeping through the cracks -- before the opportunity passes.
Absolutely! Where are the Democrats' plans for day one of their congressional majority? Where are the plans for new Democratic leadership?
We have seen the leadership and they are us. Strive toward solidarity of purpose and building no brittle coalitions. Pack a lunch, as there is much work to be doing. Agitate and organize.
Only the Democratic Socialists seem to be able to articulate a plan.
What are some planks you would add to the Democrat platform? Here are some of mine: (1) a draft. Not necessarily military service, but SOME form of service to America, even if for just one year. (2) a non-partisan board that creates all Congressional districts. (3) greatly expand the number of members of the House. (4) limit the Supreme Court members to a single 18-year term, House members to nine two-year terms, and Senators to three six-year terms.
add expand SCOTUS, repeal Citizens United. Those need to happen first and foremost.
If there is a lamp and a genie involved, he'll likely grant just 1 wish, rather than 14. So pick and choose carefully! Mine involves a constitutional amendment with regard to the Time and Manner clause in Article 1 relating to elections and redistricting.
17 other democracies approach the same idea with better results than we do. In Canada, federal and provincial judges nominate those who will sit on those non-partisan commissions that redraw districts, with rules governing how they do their job are many and substantive. To put it lightly, these people are never party hacks. The court of Canadian public opinion would never permit a political party to choose its own voters any more than it would a partisan legislature to draw boundaries accordingly -- the idea wouldn't even pass a giggle test.
The same is true with Britain's more than 500 constituencies. In South Africa, complex algebraic formulas are used to ensure no party gets an unfair advantage in 'first past the post' elections. Ranked-choice voting forms another part of that -- we just introduced that here in the nation's capital, which will help improve inclusive outcomes, rather than simple majoritarian ones.
We can point to more or less successful liberal democracies that take more care to see that, to the degree it is possible, every citizen gets a chance to vote and have each vote count no more or no less than others. Statistically voter fraud at the polling place (or mail in ballot) is trivial, but such "dirty tricks" such as gerrymandering or material and unneeded barriers to voting are serious voter fraud on a grand scale. Play whatever rhetorical game you want, it is blantant theft of a citizens most needed and entitled right to meaningfully participate in a democratic republic.
YES! PLUS, expand The Supreme Court to 13 members to be in line with the 13 appellate courts (and because 13 is my favorite number.).
Re ITCC's comment to Phil Balla: Yes. And while testing may be 'more standardized' (if that's a grammatically correct term) today than it was forty or fifty years ago, the fact is that commenters here have all come through standardized educational systems. Yet every day we benefit from their impressive research , analytical and writing skills. Teaching to test results has gone too far, and the subject matter included in curricula may need tweaking. Maybe we've left the classics and humanities too far behind and leaned too heavily into science and technology. The problem might be less about the schools and more about parenting. Phil needs to be less of a one-note musician.
The problem (dangerous to boil it down to one) is has nothing to do with testing, but technology. “Is this a dagger I see before me?” or is it a cellphone — which Mr. Balla apparently hasn’t heard much about. Kids literally spend 20 hours a day staring at their small, glowing friends (second only to their parents who spend only about 15 hours). Everybody’s brains are being scrambled and attention spans chipped away like a woodpecker going after a dead tree.
But those conversations belong somewhere else, not on Heather’s newsletter.
What does and does not belong in this discussion? Yes, digression can get out of hand, but postings of a troll in residence, one need not respond. I think that there is some potential to learn from anyone who argues in good faith.
As for technology, it seems to me that for any tech, it's not the tool itself so much as how it is used (and yes, I would regulate exceptionally dangerous technologies, such as firearms and explosives). As an long-time fan of emerging technologies (I wired a "Mr. Wizard" electrical circuit at 5 and got involved with computers in the mid 1970's) it appears to me that the development and application of technologies has lately been leaning away from serving the will of the general public to increasingly serving the more narrow objectives of the very rich and powerful; and if so, that bodes ill for democracy. Take the dossiers now collected on everyone who uses the internet. Who gets to say how that information gets collected and how it is used? I think it was back perhaps 20 years ago that a data mining company bragged that they could tell if a woman was pregnant by processing her records of purchases. But who seemed to care?
Who gets to say how AI will be used? It does not seem to be us the people. Cell phones? They are a legitimate medium of free speech, but should kids be exposed to so much endless, addictive crap? It's complicated, right? Yet I think we would be wise to shift our national conversation toward far more discussion of what constitutes the "common good", government of, by and for the people, and what enhances that, and what gets in the way.
correct. Dems are always reactionists not like the GOP, White Christo Fascists....they've been planning this patiently since the mid '60s. Who are the Dems that have a vision?
Pete Buttigieg, sharing that vision with Americans all over the country!!
Check out this video, "pete Buttigieg town halls" https://share.google/41ybKpvv5xzSga1KJ
I find many of Phil's observations insightful and relevant, even though his obsession with standardized testing is tiresome. I don't think he is wrong that standardized testing, or at least the about the way we currently over-value and apply it, is more of a barrier that an aid to a perceptive, thoughtful and just society. We humans learn to comprehend (the "prehend" part from the same Latin root as "prehensile") n=by building mental models of it, and those models can vary in their breadth, depth and accuracy; qualities that can be improved by probing contemplation, empirical verification, and formal education. Put simply, I think we often, reflexively impose simplistic, cliched models on complex realities to a point that precludes an effective response. That even the old "shades of gray" thing is linear, when realities often involve distinctions and connection on multiple levels, and certainly human behavior and social policy often presents such complications.
The "centrist" thing can be a trap for understanding because real world circumstances may have no provable "center" or reveal many. Often the "right" answer is "It's complicated"; and not to say "insoluble", but rather that an adequately fruitful understanding will take a lot of work. Generally speaking, that's not what politicians try to sell (though it is helpful to triage and promote one's most important handful of objectives for campaigning).
Democracy IS a lot of work if it's going to adequately function, and that's why con-men like Reagan can so easily demean it, and perhaps that's why the "only I can fix it" types find many eager takers.
Sorry you find mine on testing "tiresome," J L.
But please remember that mine on testing always ties to the larger eviction of humanities from our schools and from our public discourse.
Testing's conceits and dominance have allowed this disappearance to continue, at the cost of the thugs, thieves, and corrupt whom we've thus let rule instead.
I don't disagree on standardized testing, and (I am biased because I do poorly on THAT TYPE of testing) and see it as a way to standardize people; which I view as contrary to the philosophical underpinning of the Declaration of Independence, and contrary to my personal concept of liberty. My own view is that people are far more neurodiverse (just look at the diversity of human talents) than we care to admit, and that diversity of personality, individual skills, hobby interests, opinion, cuisines, you name it, enriches and strengthens our society; so long as ones behavior does not rob others of the same share of freedoms. Freedom to rape, steal, murder, derpive others of "unalienable" rights, being subject to public intervention. To preserve such rights, governments are formed with the consent of the governed.
I have not researched how "The Humanities" got to be named "The Humanities". To me it seems to fit. The scientific method, which I love, tries to let Kant's "thing in itself" do the talking, Yes, we poke and probe and build gigantic machines, like the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva to coax information from Nature, but the notion is that Nature is the authority and we the audience,
Then there are the arts (which I also love) which seem to me to be about what we experience as instances of humanity. By "experience" I mean our own sense of sensate existence; I think AND feel, therefore I am. We enjoy, we suffer, we experience. Einstein said "It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." He "got it" that our internal resonance to sequences of audio frequencies is human. I can't "pick" the importance of the art or sciences one over the other, They both greatly serve our humanity, and frankly, I would argue, also our existence as a species. As Human beings I think that we all, from second to second, are engaged in decisions about both "truth" and "value". What luck to be sentient beings, so long as we transcend our tendency to be our own worst enemy.
You forget -- you always forget, ICTT -- testing never stands just by itself.
In our time it stands in the context of how the schools rid themselves of humanities. With the aid of the fantastically well-moneyed far-right foundations formed after the Powell memo, all dismissed humanities as only marginal, decorative at best.
Here is James Agee, a few months after the conclusion of WWII, seeing the need for the very humanities you yourself never use. He was film critic for Time magazine, and this bit concluded his review of a very good film recently from that war:
“Few Americans either behind or in front of our cameras give evidence of any recognition or respect for themselves or one another as human beings, or have any desire to be themselves or to let others be themselves. On both ends of the camera you find very few people who are not essentially, instead, just promoters, littler racketeers, interested in ‘the angle.’ I suspect it will some day be possible to deduce out of our nonfiction films alone that the supposedly strongest nation on earth collapsed with such magical speed because so few of its member honored any others, or even themselves, as human beings.”
Yes corruption, abuses of power, are the root of many evils, and while we have reigned it in for some threads of social justice, we have seemed indifferent to many others. In particular we have been indifferent to what Business Week referred to as the Walmart-Tiffany divide that continues to grow in our society, and the contrast of social influence and law that favors great wealth over survival wages. That's always been an issue, including with respect to race and gender, but the government of, by and for the people was supposed to be the egalitarian mediator, yet it feels like we have been letting go of that since Reagan. Yes, we did elect a two term black president, and that's saying something; and yet creeping on the interstate on errands earlier today, I had to notice the special lanes open only to those who can afford to pay for them (I can, but don't). That and many other instances of special treatment by our government for those with money (including going to lunch or on vacation with them) is surely a dilution of democratic principles, as well as elephant-in-room conflicts of interest. In the end I have to wonder if it's the grotesque corruption enacted by Trump that so bothers today's Republicans, or the fact that does nothing that matters to hide it. Indeed their feckless leader lives to break the rules and glories in it.
Many subtle points you've most well detailed here, J L.
I'd not heard before of what you note of Business Week citing "the Walmart-Tiffany divide that continues to grow in our society." Thanks for that.
Just to keep it real...
Republicans have finally discovered a principle, and, naturally, it was located under a pile of invoices.
After years of treating Trump’s assaults on democracy as bold leadership, his threats as strength, his lawlessness as branding, and his corruption as just another weather system over Mar-a-Lago, GOP senators reportedly reached their moral limit at a $1.776 billion slush fund. Not the attempted monarchy. Not the war-making. Not the threats against other nations. The slush fund.
Apparently, authoritarianism is one thing. Authoritarianism with paperwork is where the caucus draws the line.
Then came the tax immunity arrangement, which could save Trump more than $600 million, followed by the billion-dollar ballroom request, because every republic in decline needs a gold-plated events space for the man holding the wrecking ball. By then, Republicans were not defending democracy so much as trying to avoid being photographed standing beside the cash register.
One senator reportedly said, “Our majority is melting down before our eyes.” That is unfair. It melted down years ago. What they are seeing now is the puddle asking for reimbursement.
The real joke is not that Republicans are shocked. It is that they expect credit for discovering the fire after selling the matches, disabling the alarms, and calling the smoke “patriotism.”
Thanks for summing up the moral courage of our Republican colleagues so deftly. Your writing reminds me of Barney Frank's wt -- may his memory be a blessing. Real grace is blending outrage in equal parts with humor. Appreciate the metaphors!
Michael, I love your writing. Thank you; "...the puddle asking for reimbursement."
Bravo!
Phil, your screed "we let the universities be taken over by lawyers, accountants, and “human resources” bureaucrats." sounds awfully like the DOGE approach to government, painting everything as "waste fraud abuse." I worked for colleges and universities for roughly 40 years. I contest your claim. What is your evidence? I would agree that universities have been quietly coopted for decades, but that tends to occur in how faculty get and use research grants -- ex: pharmaceutical giants paying for research, the findings of which benefit the eventual sale of their products. But this is not every grant, nor every prof.
Signe, read Diane Ravitch, "The Language Police."
There is, of course, much, much more, but I'll defer to how your 40 years of local experience has only kept you as innocent to reality as has similarly allowed most Americans, and all the status quo Dems, so to be swamped by the regnant corruption.
Tell it like it is, Phil!
Phil, I’m reading “The Well Educated Child” by Dr Deborah Kenny.. you might like it. I disagree on a few points like not letting kids fidget but her overall thoughts about making sure the kids do the thinking (instead of the teachers), getting away from testing, having high expectations of kids, writing to learn, actually reading etc is really important.
Your point about “the myth that from A/B/C/D there is always one correct answer” is so true. I also see this in tv/movies/games that kids consume as well… very little gray area to think about. And very little time for them to think in the quick, fast moving stories. It’s so much straight up good vs evil.. very few address complex reality (With the exception of PBS kids). My pet peeve.
Unfortunately, so true.
On point, as usual. Thank you.
"As many as 25 Republican senators spoke out against the slush fund and pitched ideas about how to draw some limits around it."
NO, WRONG! Drawing limits says the fund is legal and should exist. The right action is to ensure the fund never exists, never plays $1 to anyone. Further the no action agreement is rendered null and void.
THIS
My message to my Trumplican Congressman, Ben Cline, just now on his official website: “What is your position on this $1.776 billion slush fund of our tax dollars being handed over to Trump to dole out to “the worst of the worst” insurrectionists who tried to destroy our democracy? I thought this regime couldn’t get much worse but this may be the most corrupt scheme in American history. Surely, there is a spec of decency and a spec of a spine within you that will lead you (& your Republican co-conspirators in Congress) to condemn and prevent this.”
Wonder if he'll respond. Not holding my breath on that one, but kudos to you for writing.
If your Congress member pushes back with some nonsense about J6 being fomented by Antifa, you might want to send him/her THIS quote.
“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chatted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they’d been fed wild, falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he lost an election.”—Mitch McConnell, Feb. 2021.
Well, yeah, except Mitch, sniveling coward that he is, didn’t follow through and convict the bastard.
Agreed. He’ll go down in history as a coward who refused to defend the Constitution and rule of law.
May I use this to send to my corrupt congressman, Bill Huizenga or as we say,
HIDE-zen-Ugh since he refuses to have any in person town hall.
Please do. The more of these messages sent, the better!!!
I want to quote this message to my congressman and I would suggest that many others barrage their congressmen with this very clear message.
My Rep, Rob Wittman will respond with his support of the Chesapeake Bay. Then vote however he’s told. Odd that he holds stock in NextEra.
Mack kuddos to you.
Did the exact thing on Jon Husted website who’s running to keep that Senate seat from Ohio after Gov. DeWine gave him the job. Looked this morning on his website and it was deleted. Got the email notification from that website that it was deleted. Seems Jon Husted answered..
Did the same on my Rethuglican House Reps website who’s also running. Looked and it’s still there. Not holding my breath for a response.. His idea of Townhalls are Fundraiser’s for his campaign. Keep it in the family..
Thank you , Mack! I sent it to Bill Huizenga but I added a little. I added a sentence about how our healthcare, education, cancer research for children and SNAP benefits are being slashed and asked him how he could support this money grab by Trump while slashing all these important benefits that our tax dollars should pay for. I doubt that I will hear back from him. He will hide behind his supposed “christian “ faith and lies.
DNC, DCCC AND KEN MARTIN
Most people might think that the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) are important entities in the Democrat’s chances of winning in the 2026 election and beyond. But when the chairman of the DNC, Ken Martin, was interviewed on Pod Save American by Jon Favreau, it did not go well: “DNC report and Ken Martin” https://americamattershq.substack.com/p/this-finally-leaked-its-bad?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios. Martin paid an incompetent friend (sound familiar?) to make a report on what went wrong in the 2024 election but the full report was never released. On the video Martin sounds like a Trump toady explaining to Congress why they aren’t releasing the Epstein files (projection, gaslighting, misinformation, etc.). It was also asserted that the DNC is $3 million in debt 5 months before an election that may determine the survival of our democracy. (Apparently he pulled a Trump-like grift by using valuable funds to pay off an incompetent buddy to make a worthless report.) Martin was elected DNC Chair in 2025 by backroom lobbying of Democratic power brokers (state party leadership, state elected members, major donors, etc.) when grassroots organizer Ben Winkler of Wisconsin who overcame Musk’s millions to elect a Democratic Supreme Court Justice, Susan Crawford, was the best candidate. He represents the grassroots zeitgeist rather than the monied special interests like AIPAC and Chuck Schumer. This can be clearly seen by the DNC/Ken Martin and Chuck Schumer/AIPAC using their money to finance Janet Mills against grassroots Graham Platner, etc.. Martin also gave $20,000 grants to Guam, Mariana Islands, etc. the same as he gave to cash strapped swing states. The shock of the interview forced the release of the report and it was a disaster. “BREAKING: DNC’s Secret 2024 Autopsy FINALLY Goes Public - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0LtIe3C4Qw This is not a good omen for the Democrats. The DNC and DCCC are major fund raisers for Democratic candidates for office. My opinion is that the importance of the moment should dictate that Martin be replaced by a much more competent and honest person. The Democratic Party needs to be supporting authentic, trustworthy candidates who are focused on the needs of the people like the economy, healthcare, government services, anti-corruption, a working and fair immigration system, diplomacy rather than war, etc.. Not a slush fund for criminals and seditionists, a billion dollar ballroom, wars on foreign countries, suppressing the ability to vote, etc..
“Inside the furor plaguing Democratic National Committee leader Ken Martin | PBS News”. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/inside-the-furor-plaguing-democratic-national-committee-leader-ken-martin
On 5/20/26 Heather recorded an American Conversations interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UFE7L9QZOQ) of Cleve Jones, human rights advocate, lecturer, author (“When We Rise: My Life in the Movement”), historic and iconic AIDS and LGBTQ activist, who conceived the NAMES AIDS Memorial Quilt, co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, worked as a student intern in Harvey Milk’s office, works with UNITE HERE, an amalgam of labor unions, on human rights issues, etc.. In the 1980’s HIV/AIDS was poorly understood and largely underestimated (it wasn’t clear exactly what was causing it) and the AIDS Memorial Quilt drew attention to and sympathy for the thousands of victims. Each patch of the quilt was 2 by 6 feet (to symbolize a grave) and represented an individual death - memorializing the more than 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS. Jones says he was infected with HIV in the late 1970s and credits his activism with saving his life since it put him into the early antiviral “cocktail” trials to which he responded. Note that at that time over 90% of HIV+ patients died. In the interview Cleve Jones advocated for public health and deplored the Trump administrations extensive cuts to healthcare funding. The dismantling of USAID and the destruction of its vaccine and antibiotic stockpiles will result in an estimated >500,000 deaths. He supports and recommends www.sevendaysinjune.org, a decentralized, nonpartisan, grassroots-driven campaign that focuses educating the public on how healthcare funding cuts will devastate local communities and what to do about it. He feels the same public health mistakes that were made in the HIV epidemic were made with the COVID epidemic and the Trump cuts to healthcare and public health make our society susceptible to a repeat of the HIV and other infectious disease epidemics. I agree. Cleve Jones life shows how activism can change society for the better. So “Don’t Give Up The Ship!”
Thanks for the detailed post. The "DNC Autopsy" got essentially no coverage, but it should because it puts the nail in the coffin of the current national Democratic party structure. The silence on their part ahead of the midterms, with the 2024 platform still up on the website when I last looked a few weeks ago, is deafening.
Time to get the shadow cabinet model of party governance in place so that policy development and party leadership are integrated, aligned, and coherent.
At this point, with so little time left before the midterms, I think Obama has to step in, acting as an interim eminence grise, to get the shadow cabinet up and running and to act as a fundraising draw.
Love it, Georgia -- even a possibility Dems might be "integrated, aligned, and coherent."
Seems futile, though. So long as all learn in school to ignore humanities, Dems will forever be as for decades they have been: totally out of touch with -- and contemptuous of -- our working classes.
Ongoing reform for school curricula for sure, but we can't wait for that to to affect a national epiphany. In this corner we have Corruption Inc. and "unlimited" wealth. In the other corner??? It better be good. As good as we can manage.
Great idea; Obama to step up to action... How can we make it a plan?
DNC leadership? Dems repeatedly prove that it’s the same old game that they lose over and over. If a Democrat wins, it’s a miracle. Time for the worm to turn…
Einstein is falsely credited with saying "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.", but perhaps it fits. Reportedly he said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." which also seems to fit. In any case Einstein asked the right questions to transcend conventional thinking, and ongoing experiments keep proving him right.
My limited and perhaps not truly representative experience with Democratic Party organizational infrastructure is that it's incurious and dictatorial, which is ironic for a party whose ostensible goal is democracy. I have always supported the Democratic Party, but am often disappointed in it. I seems to me that insiders in any organization often seem more involved in expanding and protecting their own personal power than extending the wider empowerment the organization may have been founded to facilitate. Lord knows that conversion has become complete for the former "Party of Lincoln".
Graham Platner echoed those points last night JL about the DNC. He also said that they have already contacted him and offered help ($$$) but with strings. He said that the campaign will take the money but they will use it as they deem fit.
I did not know that about Ed Martin - though I've found him about as charismatic as Vance.
thanks for mentioning Ben Winkler, who saved the Wisconsin Democratic party, and gave Wisconsin voters hope.
“Republicans are starting to crack, and momentum is building to check him [Trump].” (Chuck Schumer)
It’s…..about…..time.
I was beginning to believe that there was nothing; no bottom, no overt, in-your-face crime or corruption, no ethical or moral vacuity, no human depravity, (such as raping children) that would stir even a single congressional Republican to publicly stand up and say “No! No more!”
I’m still skeptical the “momentum” will build within the gutless, spineless Republican majority.
Please prove me wrong.
Way to go Chuck. Let’s see if democrats can avoid a circular firing squad. In all of the election blather, I have detected not one instance of democrats using repubs own verbiage against them. They give Dems ammunition with every utterance, but tv ads are the same old tripe.
Maybe there is hope if Mitch can identify “morally wrong.” Ha, best joke of the night.
Irony, thy name is Mitch.
Alas.
It time we stop, hey what's that sound
Everybody LOOK what's going down...
Yes. It is astonishing to learn that one such as McConnell can plausibly lecture on morality.
The good news JD is that fewer than half of the households in the US have cable subscriptions and the number declines every year.
My wife had me opt out of ads on YouTube when we were looking for something about a year ago. And now I can't go back (to ads).
It's ironic that the people that can least afford $100 or more a month for cable still have it.
As the early union workers sang, Yes we want bread, but we want roses too.
From a speech by women's suffrage activist Helen Todd and picked up by women of the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike for better wages and dignified working conditions.
Thank you for providing the source!
PS: When we look at the necessities of life that need to be included when we calculate what a living wage should be (i.e. enable the wage earner to pay for), I always include things like an annual vacation, a little spending money for a concert, books, etc. It's not just about a roof over our heads and bread, is it.
Yes, we all NEED roses along with the other necessities.
Mitch, Donald Trump is the fruit of your party. The party that has hated government for as long as I can remember and pounded that table endlessly, ultimately producing the Tea Party, the MAGA party, and finally the January 6 party, where they burst into the House chambers and wanted to kill you. It’s a little late for you to complain.
Yeah, Ken, and he punted when he could have had the Senate R’s vote to convict trump on his second impeachment. He wanted the courts to handle it, absolutely knowing trump should have been held accountable. What a putz & this will be his legacy.
What evil lurks in the heart of Trump?? The weed of crime bears bitter fruit!!
As far as I can see it, if Republicans don't get their way in Congress, don't know what to do, or face having to vote contrary to Trump's wishes, they don't do anything. This time they are using the excuse of Memorial day to head home. Of course, these phonies don't ever have to do anything except what Trump wants. But just wait until Americans realize that a much larger slush fund was established some time ago to pay these do-nothings their salaries, perks, and expense accounts. Let's pull that, shall we?
Yes. But they kowtow to Trump because he holds sway over their electorates. Trump’s power derives entirely from the 77 million misguided (to put it mildly) voters who elected him.
A billion and three quarters here, a billion a day or so over there. That might be put to some better uses, no?
Talk is cheap, but let's see how quicklythese Senators are to bend the knee.
They went home early to give Trump's minions time to come up with some Band-Aids to cover the wounds Trump self-inflicted. This is going to be political theater to try to salvage seats in the midterms. Time to turn craven ass-licking into "principled opposition that led to positive change." "I have been seriously concerned. But see, I made Trump see reason. I stood up for you. And Trump has done so many wonderful things for America." I am sure they will all be running Susan Collins tapes to see how it is done over the next week before they reconvene.
Groan.
Like they always do..
I did *not know that Mitch McConnell was capable of calling a wrong - a wrong. Well, I guess even old dudes can perform new tricks. HCR wrote "former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) put it: “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong—Take your pick.” Where was Mitch stashing that skill when he told us all to shut up and pray after each mass shooting over the years, instead of calling gun policies wrong or their manufacturers opportunists?
Where was he during the impeachment vote?
Don’t get too excited about what Mitch says, watch what he does. Remember this?
“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chatted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they’d been fed wild, falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he lost an election.”—Mitch McConnell, Feb. 2021.
And then, this gutless weasel didn’t do a damn thing. He will go down in history as a coward, and rightly so.
McConnell had his chance to get rid of trump and now he complains? Such a hypocrite.
Hello! When has he not been a hypocrite?
1.7 billion slush fund when there are cuts to every program so many Americans rely on line SNAP, Medicaid, VA benefits and so much more.
I heard on NPR one of the January 6th rioters say he expected to get a million dollars and that he and the other rioters that were convicted then pardoned by Trump deserved the money because they were patriots.
Our military, the men and women who actually put their lives on the line for this country every day deserve pay raises and better VA services, not the one day yahoos that assaulted Capital police, defiled the Capitol building and treated Congress.
The following quote from 1850, relates to an issue of that time, but is does resonate with the current state of America.
On 8 May 1850, Representative James L. Orr said:
“When the phrensy of madness sears the brain, reason, the great helm of human action, fails to control its motions ... [t]he masses may be sincere; but … cool-headed and discreet men must rise up in the majesty of their strength and crush it, or consent to give up our institutions, and be crushed by it. Fanaticism is not often sated until it has gorged itself with blood or ruin”:
Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 546 (8 May 1850).
❇️ Finally, a computer scientist who has new options for better Data Centers ❇️
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYkNhBBlNrr/?igsh=Z3JtOHdtYzN4cWJ2
“Your neighbor's house might soon be renting GPUs to OpenAI.”~Timothy Bramlett
“NVIDIA just announced one of the wildest deals of 2026. Small AI data center boxes attached to the outside of suburban homes. Wait, what?
The product is called XFRA. A small white box installed on the side of your house. Inside: 16 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. Liquid-cooled. Silent. Industrial-grade hardware. On suburban homes.
The partners are wild. NVIDIA supplies the chips. Span (the smart electrical panel startup) builds the box. PulteGroup (one of America's biggest homebuilders) installs them in new homes.
Here's the part that breaks your brain. The homeowner doesn't get to use the AI. The box is renting compute to AI cloud customers. Like OpenAI, Anthropic, or whoever else is buying GPU time.
So what's in it for the homeowner? A free smart electrical panel. Battery backup. Optional solar. Heavily discounted electricity and internet. No cash. Just subsidized utilities, for life.
The scale they're planning is insane. 100-home pilot in 2026. Already underway. Target: 80,000 nodes by 2027. Over 1 gigawatt of distributed compute capacity.
Why is NVIDIA doing this? Span's CEO claims 8,000 XFRA units can be deployed 6x faster and 5x cheaper than a traditional 100MW data center. They skip the years-long grid interconnection queue. The big bottleneck in AI right now.
Skeptics aren't sold. Replacing GPUs in 80,000 homes every 18 months sounds like a maintenance nightmare. Residential security isn't data center security. And AI works better clustered, not isolated on suburban siding.
Big AI is running out of land. And power. And grid connections. The next wave isn't bigger data centers. It's smaller ones, everywhere.
In a few years, you might walk down your street and not realize half the houses are quietly running AI for OpenAI.
Source: Span, NVIDIA, CNBC (May 2026); Dell'Oro Group”
Wow, thanks JaKsaa, a new rabbit hole of tech info to explore….my insomnia thanks you! 🤣
Thanks for this information another fun filled thought from the tech bros world…
Yikes! Sounds like the people of PA (and I think a couple of other states) who sold rights to frack on their land to energy corporations.
It has long been clear that it is not effective for individual Republicans on Capitol Hill to stand up to Trump - he simply gets them removed from office. What would be effective is if they find a collective backbone and stand up to him as a party. He is lawless and offered broad immunity, so it might still be difficult to actually make change, but at least his unseating them would no longer be an effective counter attack for him...
i agree -- for years I've thought it would just take a handful of them to vote with Democrats and stop this insanity. With Cassidy and Massie having lost their primaries the spines of the others will no doubt become even weaker than they are now.