On Wednesday, May 22, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who had been the candidate for anti-Trump Republicans, said she will vote for Trump. Haley ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination and maintained a steady stream of criticism of him, calling him “unstable,” “unhinged” and “a disaster…for our party.” Since she suspended her campaign in early March, she has continued to poll at around 20% of Republican primary voters.
I'm just trying to keep my growing outrage in check each night so I can sleep. I'm glad you are reporting the facts and giving them historical context, but it's enough to make me start a medicine to prevent heart attacks lately! And my wife is an Ob/Gyn. It is another outrage what is being done with women's health and bodily autonomy, with the mifepristone and implied criminality encroaching upon absolutely safe standards of medical care. I'm only half joking about starting a statin for heart protection! Good night, breathe in, breathe out...
As a retired OB/GYN, along with your wife we have seen the deadly outcomes of criminalizing the full array of reproductive health care.
These abortion bans are so overreaching that the many "exceptions to the rule" that a reasonable person would consider as an option
emphasize how important these decisions be left up to the individual and (her) health care provider - not a legislator and certainly NOT a man without a uterus.
Totally agree, and I'm following along. Thanks for your career of grueling yet rewarding service to women and mothers. It is a career like no other, and I have massive respect for what you all do, the risks you take, and the personal sacrifice and stress you endure to make the world a better place from our first breaths!
I completely agree with this. Had my daughter not had adequate medical care when her second pregnancy took a nose dive she would probably not be here today. Thank you in the maternal health care field for all you do day in and day out.
I have a question for you and the other physicians and medical professionals. Why are so many Doctors and other health care professionals sympathetic to Donald Trump's vision of America? I know at least half a dozen Doctors who fully embrace Trump and the maga movement. Most of them are intelligent people and swore an oath to "Do no harm."
I’ve always believed that racism is the core of the love of trump. Racism has always been here, but with trump embracing it out loud he brought it to the surface. As to educated professionals I’d add the greed of tax breaks.
Yes, I totally agree with you. I also believe racism is the glue that holds Trump World together. Put simply, they all hate the same people and things.
Ally, I never got an answer from any of the LFAA Attorney family regarding how to register a complaint about Alito, but this was in Jessica Craven's "Chop Wood, Carry Water" Substack yesterday.
She credits one of her subscribers for the info. I have copy/pasted it below for you (and any others also sickened by the SCOTUS)
One of my subscribers has made it easy to file a formal complaint against Justice Alito! Thank you to Aiden H. for this incredible work!
From Aiden:
Recent news coverage has demonstrated that Justice Alito has abandoned all pretense of being an unbiased arbiter of justice. First it was revealed that the American flag was flown upside-down outside his home for several days after the January 6 insurrection. Since then it has also been documented that Alito has flown the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his vacation home. This flag represents the Christian Nationalist movement.
All of this goes against the essence of the oath of office that Justice Alito swore when he entered the Supreme Court, namely to adjudicate the cases before him without bias. It is simply not possible to be unbiased while being willing to publicly associate oneself with a symbol of a movement that is antithetical to the principles of our Constitution.
By filing an official complaint regarding his actions which demonstrate his unsuitability to rule on any matter concerning the insurrection, we can make our voices heard by the Chief Justice and the other members of the court.
Filing the complaint is simple: fill in your personal information in the complaint form, print the three pages, sign it, and send it to the Clerk of the Supreme Court. The form and instructions are available for download on www.dumpalito.com.
I’ve downloaded and printed mine and will be mailing it today—plus a copy to Dick Durbin for good measure! Join me?
I think you need to check your own mirror. And ask yourself if you're honestly believing the claptrap that the MAGA gang throw all over the place. (Maybe in doing so, they figure that whatever sticks to the wall, must be true?) I think you need to read a history book or text, if it isn't banned in your home. Don't forget that if you don't study the past, you're condemned to repeat it. As a woman, are you willing to go back to the Dark Ages, when women were the property of men? Do you want to live a life in trammels? If so, more power to you. It's not a life I'd choose, nor the majority of women in this country.
And the inability to distinguish truth from fiction. Or the unwillingness to realize there are actual opinions other than your own which are the better choice.
possibly just a transposition of "god-fearing" behavior — they presume that it's better to placate the economically powerful, increasing their chances (however meager) of being thrown table scraps.
I spoke frankly with a friend months ago about why she eould be voting for Trump, even after I pointed out the control of women’s reproductive choices, book banning, and his various calls for violence (I stopped there).
She agreed with all of it, acknowledging how bad all of it was. Then she blurted out “Biden wants our money”.
What the hell does that even mean, Biden wants your money? tRUMP is the one who cut taxes for his 1% pals, not Biden! Jeez, I wish these people would find the truth. Facts matter!
The reality is that all candidates want our money. It just depends on who you want to give it to toward their campaigns. But I guess she believes the lie that Republicans claim they will lower taxes and they claim that Dems want to raise taxes. What is left out is that Repubs don't give a whit about the working people, and would happily tax them, while lowering the taxes for those who can most afford to contribute. I shake my head at how so many people insist on remaining ignorant of not only the facts, but allowing themselves to be swayed by the simplistic and incorrect message of the Rethugs.
I agree…..this is all backlash from our having elected Obama. Remember what McConnell said!! They never giot over it - or how minorities haven proven themselves to be equals. When will we learn to learn from each other?!
You mean, Becky, like TFFG is actually doing…hosting foreign dignitaries at Mara Lago & “controlling” the R legislature & spouting “policy” when in the public eye…things that seem to violate the Logan Act. The only time I can recall any prior admin’s doing anything remotely like the liberties TFFG is taking, is when former POTUS’s came together for humanitarian purposes some years back.
Yes, racism is at the core of MAGA as well as the KKK. Google the study by two Univ. of Kansas professors: "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?"
As for Nikki Haley, she has just consigned herself to the junkpile of history - no character, no vision.
I agree racism is a huge factor. But the circle of cult members just keeps widening, because too many Americans can’t think or be logical, and care only about themselves. And have goldfish memory.
Our education system needs to be revamped. Too many states (red ones), are truncating their curricula, often out of fear that students might be exposed to differing points of view. The ability for so many states to deprive students of necessary work, is simply wrong. On the other hand, it would be considered a "states' rights" issue. Would "honest" history books be allowed? And science texts? Or mathematics? Then there's the problem with the MAGA parents who are terrified of their children reading about Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk, or MLK, to name a few. Those the students are poorly prepared for college due to the banning of books such as "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Catcher in the Rye", "Brave New World", "198","Fahrenheit 451", to name a few. (My guess is that Shakespeare's works are no longer taught.) The Parental Rights groups, in the name of "protecting children", are doing the exact opposite of what they claim they're trying to accomplish. The long term result of all the *rumpster's war against "woke-ism", and all critical thinking, means that the current and future generation of kids will lack those necessary critical thinking skills to think and discern what is the truth and what is not. Those are the kind of people who will follow MAGA, and buy into what they're told to believe. Those people are exactly the kind of citizens that are willing to be led around by their noses by an autocrat or dictator. Not having to think for themselves would be a "freeing" experience for the True Believers.
Francine…yes, racism and GREED. My brother owns a small eatery, very popular, but works his azz off (and has refused multiple offers/pitches to make it a regional or national chain) & is located in a state that’s income tax-free & a highly desirable resort/vacation destination (think second, even third, home ownership). He tells me that otherwise intelligent & thoughtful folks support TFFG for his tax cut policies (promoted first and foremost to benefit HIM)…my bro has a hard time understanding it as he & his family always step up to contribute to “the commons” of his town & residents.
And don't forget the cruelty they seem to enjoy inflicting on others. I'm not a psychologist, but there seems to be something very deep and dark that connects these folks into the 'cult.'
Yes, racism is a principal motivator for support Trump along with misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia. Google "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?"
Totally wrong. When you can give some examples of trumps racist behavior perhaps people will listen. Don’t cite Charlottesville either - without quoting the transcript in it’s entirety which tells a much different story.
"The FBI has released nearly 400 pages of records on an investigation the bureau conducted in the 1970s into alleged racial discrimination in the rental of apartments from President Donald Trump's real estate company."
That's just for starters.... just Google it. Maybe your first clue should have been Trump's well-publicized, infamous talk about "s---hole countries in Africa".
I know some too, they worshipped Ronnie and bought the “Dems are evil for promoting equality of ‘lessers’ and that just ain’t right.” Basically Buckley’s mantra. I find it crazy that they now welcome people as repubs that Buckley would have kicked to the curb. But it’s a “who hates Dems the most” party now. You should hear Abbott’s political ads.
This mean and bitter man reminds me of a college roommate, who, had she not had polio, would have been a New York debutante. She was, like Abbott, confined to a wheel chair but lived a full life into her 70’s, never bitter, an example of courage to all who knew her. Would that the governor had a bit of her courage and intellect.
Mmmm, that “mudsill” attitude that some people belong at the “bottom” of our culture and we should never try to raise them up. The ancient attitude of the Royals and the Serfs.
Me, personally, I was raised economically OK by economically OK parents, and my kids did OK, too. I have lots of entrepreneurial family who did GREAT {millionaires …}.
This business of cultural stratification and staying in your lane is garbage.
I’m old enough that, as a young woman, I was told I should shut up, let my husband keep me in line, and stop rejecting my feminine role as “help meet.”
Just GUESS what I think of all that “stay in your assigned place” … stuff.
Misogyny and bigotry...they are intelligent people who hate women and people who are different from them. I know a lot of them....they have a general undercurrent of dislike for really, everyone.
When I was having my children, in the 1960s, I couldn’t find any woman gynecologist/obstetrician, so I looked for any doctor that didn’t have an Irish or Italian name. Why the prejudice? Because those doctors were likely to be Catholics, and would prioritize a fetus’s life ahead of mine - the doctrine being that the fetus wasn’t yet baptized, so it must be saved for baptism…. And of course, I had to avoid a Catholic hospital.
And now, Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett - to think that my granddaughters have fallen into the same doctrinaire bind!
Thanks for bringing that up. I, too, was a Catholic woman of childbearing age in the 1960s. My friends and I talked of it. It scared the hell out of me.
Fast forward to the 2010s: I was back home in Pennsylvania for the holidays and suddenly my eye became very, very itchy, red and swollen. A friend offered to call her eye doctor to get an "emergency" appointment. When I checked in at his office, one of the questions I was asked was did I have a living will. When I said yes, I was told the doctor would not honor my no extraordinary life-saving request. A strange declaration from an eye doctor who specializes in cataract surgery! The doctor today is a major Republican donor and ardent Trump supporter. (And known for his pious devotion to the Catholic Church.)
Odd what pregnant women think ! I, too had 3 children in the early 60’s - 2 in a Catholic hospital and was stunned when I heard the same arguments as Jane G explained above many years ago. Fat and happy but also an RN and an ex labor and delivery nurse. It never occurred to me that my doctor and the many nurses and aids who cared for me would not do anything within their means to save us both. What a nicer, saner time it was to be in the medical field.
You don't understand, it was taught -- taught -- by the nuns in religion classes (called catechism classes as opposed to the Protestant term Bible school)
I was in those classes. But, as a nurse, I never thought that the doctors and nurses would not try their best to save us both in the delivery room. I never even thought about it.
Gary — The dean of a medical school in New York told me some years ago that he was dismayed at the changes to how young students were being educated to become doctors — He said students full of fervor to “do good” and “help people” were having it driven out of them to be replaced by “you are starting a business and you need to think like a businessman now.” Perhaps some of those doctors you speak of are more in the business of medicine than the vocation …
Too many Republicans think business is an end in itself, instead of being an aspect of society and culture that enables an economy that facilitates humans living on a small planet together.
I’ve been around for a long time, and the R’s have been the party of “business” for all that time. If the D’s are not currently a party for all of us, we will make it so …
As one of my highly educated friends expressed it, “ I will vote for whoever the Republican candidate is”. Frustrating that all people don’t put in the effort to evaluate issues or the character of candidates, but it explains the tribalism of what may be a significant segment of voters
People who say that don't realize that the Republican Party is now a hollow shell of what it was even 10 years ago. Trump and his henchmen have driven out the people who still have the values of standards and ethics of the old Republican Party. Everything Trump touches dies, including the GOP.
Psychiatrist here. The field of medicine is VERY hierarchical. Doctors at the top. It's amazing how much deference they get from patients and staff. Especially the surgeons. So they like this model of social structure.
Good question. I spent this morning pointlessly arguing with a MAGAt doctor who ultimately revealed he is homophobic, misogynistic and doesn’t believe in research & reading—he just assumes his “MD” accounts for all types of expertise. He is as ignorant as any uneducated MAGAt cultist . He recites the same old, RNC spiel from their propaganda handbook, spoon-fed by Fox. Look him up: Roger Kimber MD. A family practice guy from back-ass Missouri, without a clue about who/what trump is.
Doctors, in general, don’t have the time or inclination to do any reading outside of medicine. Not until the recent political upheaval re: Roe did my own husband sit up and take notice.
Unfortunately there are many more physicians that are republican than Democratic. I practiced in AR for 20 years, and it was difficult to talk about social issues or even how bad our healthcare system is. And Drs are on the front lines of it! It was always "look at Canada's system, they have to wait 6-12 months for a hip replacement" yet in the US there are people who can't get it AT ALL unless they're on Medicare. Look at the numbers of bankruptcy due to medical bills.
But I doubt as many would support trump now, if they know anything about Project 2025.
My own ob,whom I've known for almost 20 years and have had many frank discussions with, told me she would prescribe me hydroxychloroquin for me during covid. Before turning to hormone therapy she was a pulmonologist.
She is not stupid.
But she always voted Republican, back when they may have had a good idea. It was habit.
It's also that many doctors really would like to be wealthy and consider themselves sort of the wealthy class who vote Republican.
That’s not “a good doctor.” She may have had a rapport, but that’s not sound medicine. You say she’s an OB? No. A pulmonologist is not a trained OB, and anyone with a medical license can get into the very lucrative business of hormone replacement. From that description, I’d ask if she even has hospital privileges and what, exactly, is she allowed to do.
She's in her 60s. And my background is medicinal chemistry, so we had a talk. I also read the original ivermectin paper, which I think was pulled because I had the link but not the article and now can't find it.
She started out in pulmonology., switched to OB. I wouldn't have known except for a stint she did in the respiratory ward during covid.
Breathing in and out has become so much more difficult since trumpism raised its ugly and destructive head! Now into my 7th decade, I've had to kick into much higher gear a multitude of physical activities to get a serotonin boost! It may not be enough, but at least it has reduced the time I spend stress eating!! Most importantly, the outrage we all feel needs to be managed so the anxiety of being a thinking group of people does not literally kill us!! Get some good zzzz's as well.
Amen! Exercise is so key, and I crave it each day as the stressors build. Need to do better with the sleep ;) Here I am still reading comments! Ok, bed within 15 minutes! Good night for reals.
Same here, Donna. I have found that having my evening practice session after any news that I watch really does get different parts of my brain engaged. That makes it far easier to sleep.
Ha! Not enough for sure, but the worst was during residency training before the 80 hour work week cap. I can recall working every other night in the hospital (Q2 call) for a surgical rotation, easily hitting 120 hours worked per week, and fighting a sinus infection at the same time. What were we thinking training (abusing) young doctors like this for decades?! Now they strike for even better benefits and sleep! I'm not a crab in the bucket, I support them.
Good morning Janet. I look forward to waking up with Professor Richardson as opposed to going to bed with her. (credit to Ken Burns). Oftentimes I go back several times during the day to read the enlightening comments from all of you. Many of these comments are soothing to my anger and rage towards TFFG.
But, for me at least. I find I sleep so much better if I don't check in past early afternoon.
The physical activity is a great way to overcome anxiety but, I need the time away from here to overcome my insomnia.
Wow. I’ve been struggling so much with this… waiting for HCR in CA and then: awake! Sooooooo… mornings only from now on. Hilariously easy solution that evaded me. I’m an addict, I guess!
Or go a bit further east and come to Newfoundland. We're off the beaten track but the two best things this unique place has are the relative isolation and the notoriously bad weather. Without those two, everyone else would want to live here and then it wouldn't be so amazing. Only 500,000 people in the entire enormous, wild and quirky place.
I had not really made the connection of the constant anxiety to my increased stress eating, so thank you. This has become one of the few reports I consume so as not to get myself too anxious, yet facts alone are anxiety inducing!
Ryan, states with abortion restrictions are already seeing fewer Ob/Gyn residents since the residents want to learn all the female healthcare options. Since specialists tend to practice in the region where they do their residency, there are already fewer new Ob/Gyn’s in restricted states. All women in those states lose.
I read about this, and it makes sense not to train or practice in these states because your hands are tied, and perhaps to be bound in jail, with that inability to take the best, safest, most compassionate and evidence-based care of women being a true moral injury for the vast majority of doctors.
Essentially, these politicians are rendering the Hippocratic oath hollow, correct? They are looking at people who spent all the time, energy, and money to become an MD/DO and making them choose between their physical freedom and their basic principles. Why some states have any doctors left at all after last year is a mystery.
The daughter of a friend of mine is a plastic surgeon as is her husband. They are both MAGAs. My friend is pre-2016 Republican and is appalled at how hateful her daughter and her husband are.
I wish more people would hold their hateful maga family members accountable. It’s like nobody wants to rock the boat. Not me though. I’m shunning people to the fullest extent.
Ryan, when I started my career as a Med Tech, we didn't glove up in the lab. Many of the older techs still mouth-pippetted. The rare patient that was known to have Hepatitis (I recall when C was called "non-A non-B"! And HIV was in the future!) had their name written on a whiteboard and their blood tubes stickered with warning labels. Then when HIV came to be known, the stigma of the disease did away with the white board, and we now wore gloves. "Universal Precautions"
This is when HIPPA became the norm.
I am astounded that in TX and other states, it seems like people can be outed and hunted for their personal medical history. Can you explain why HIPPA doesn't apply to these?
Guess we're the same age! and your question is a good one. Pharmacies now track Schedule 2 and 3 Rx's (meds w/abuse potential) linked to pt names that are available in state databases (PDMP - prescription drug monitoring program) and nationally for high risk side effect meds (REMS - risk evaluation and mitigation strategies). Who, exactly, besides pharmacists and prescribers, can get access to this info on the back end?
Louisiana will be putting mifepristone and misoprostol onto the PDMP list by making them Schedule 3 drugs. Clearly a job for legislators, not pharmacologists.
Marge, I saw the ramifications of Catholic doctrine on birth control in the 1960’s—two fathers of more than 6 children who lost their wives in childbirth —their doctors had warned them that another pregnancy might be fatal and offered to prescribe birth control. Unfortunately, the only hospital was Catholic and would not permit tubal ligations.
I think Catholic hospitals should not be able to obtain a license to operate. When the Pope can make papal/ medical decisions that could cost you your life, they forfeit their right to operate.
I won’t go that far, just require any hospital that accepts federal funds (Medicare, Medicare) must allow tubal ligations, vasectomies and any surgeries that are not prohibited by law.
What I don’t understand, or maybe I’ve missed it, is why the medical associations and certification boards are not making statements, or taking action, on these reproductive issues. Or put another way, talking about the medical dangers women face without these rights.
Ooops , i just noticed a similar post above, but mine relates to the organizations who supposedly represent the voice of the specialty and the drs and patients they serve.
Hi DE - the statements are out there, but as physicians we should be more visibly out there protesting. Here is what ACOG (OB/GYN) stated earlier this year:
““Today, ACOG observes the 51st anniversary of the day when the U.S. Supreme Court enshrined the right to abortion across the country but also left a pathway for restrictions, limitations, and burdens that prevented full access to that right.
“As we look toward what is to come in 2024, we recognize that many will call for the restoration of Roe v. Wade as a standard. However, ACOG also recognizes that Roe was imperfect: it was fragile, penetrable, and—for many—inadequate.
“This year, we will continue to call for the ability of every patient to access an abortion when they need it. We call for the ability of clinicians to provide abortion care without threats, penalties, or criminalization. We call for the end of legislative interference in the practice of medicine and for the restoration of privacy in medical treatment and the lives of our patients.
“Abortion is an essential part of comprehensive reproductive health care. In 2023—the first full year after the catastrophic Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—ACOG members have witnessed the crisis perpetuated by abortion bans and the devastating cost to pregnant patients and our communities.
“The protections afforded by Roe helped many in need access the abortion care that was right for them, their health, their values, and their lives but still left many behind, subject to the legislative, regulatory, and judicial machinations that were designed to stymy their ability to access the care they needed.
“As we look to the future on this 51st Roe anniversary, ACOG asserts our ongoing commitment to protections that surpass those provided by Roe, so no patient is prevented from accessing the care they need and no clinician is prevented from providing it.”
I think they’re more worried about the younger generation wanting to revolutionize healthcare and putting the medical insurance industry out of business, and who can blame them? I certainly don’t.
I am definitively pro choice. I am definitively pro women making decisions about their bodies and health. Still I believe, we are here fighting over abortion because our society has failed to correctly identify who is responsible for pregnancy. And that is men.
Women can have orgasm after orgasm, all day long and never get pregnant. On the other hand, men can impregnate a women with every orgasm. If there was imprisonment or legal consequences for out of wedlock pregnancy for men, I promise you we would have a fool proof male birth control method today...that would not interrupt a mans pleasure. Instead we have Viagra.
So much here, Susan. The responsibility for every single pregnancy is the man's, yet the bearing and raising of the child resulting becomes the woman's and far too many men dance away when a pregnancy results. I would love for every male child to have a DNA profile on record, and that every male adult whose sperm results in a pregnancy is financially liable for at least 75% of that child's expenses.
And or more.....I think there are a million different ways men would escape a financial penalty....and I know....from having worked with hundreds of single parent moms...child support doesn't even begin to cover the cost of food, daycare, housing, transportation and clothing. Nor does it address the challenges of single parenthood that is stigmatized by society and left without safety nets. It doesn't help the family coping with the challenges of a full time working mother with no family support meet the nurturing and guidance all children need to grow into healthy adults.
Abbots answer to helping a single parent woman in Texas is to sign her up for parenting classes and give her 6 months worth of free diapers.
The cap on child support barely covers the cost of daycare, transportation and larger house to accommodate a child or food, formula and clothing.
I agree with paternity testing but think the motivation for men assuring they don't impregnate women has to be significant....a true deterrent.
Does anyone remember Every Sperm is Sacred from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life? When all things trumpian really raise your blood pressure, discombobulate your heart rate, and send you racing to the emergency room, you might want to try a dose of satire to get you back to something close to healthy.
I'm with you! I'm on a Twitter fast, which is helping with the outrage. More and more I have to limit exposure to all news as it's hurting my heart figuratively and, likely, literally.
I'm not sure that's true. I've seen several articles and clips about his use of Nazi-adjacent language: "unified Reich, vermin, poisoning the blood" etc. The MSM does have to be careful about vocabulary as calling him a Nazi could get them sued.
Ryan McCormick, M.D. my outrage has grown to epic proportions to the point of making me tremble and shake every time i read about the blatant outrageous garbage Donald TUMP spews daily. I have to take 100 mg of Metoprolol a day to keep my heart in check now as i had triple bypass surgery back in 2014. It also doesn't help that the articles i read online have his absolutely putrid horrific picture plastered on every article i read and that doesn't help matters. I have a dry wash cloth on hand now to put over his disgusting face on my computer monitor when i read an article online. Gotta go take another Metoprolol to calm my heart and body down some so i can go to sleep!
Rupert makes it an Everest climb for Dems. X and FB add another mountain, then Dem spoilers try to block Joe’s path. Decency and competence may not have the gravitas of a junior high bully but I would so love to be bored again.
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity.
The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
From “Freedom and Government” an essay by Bertrand Russell
Marj, you are so right about the media being the blame for this outrageous circus. The very sight of his rusty face and it's horrible ugly gross face is about too much for me to bear.
I watch a lot of documentaries by a guy named Steven Greer are about UFO's and alternate energy sources and the corruption of the big fossil fuel companies suppressing them in order to protect their huge profits. Steven Greer is undoubtedly a democratic type of person, but even on his documentaries he is constantly showing Donald TUMP on them with his deranged and lie filled speeches. It seems to me, everywhere we look we have see that despicable SOB shoved in our faces!! I hate and despise DJT, he is the worst a-hole on the planet!
I keep a big fat sharpie ready to mark up any tffg pics in the newspaper. I also have a sticky note for use on the computer monitor. Absolutely cannot stomach the grotesqueness!
A lot of us are feeling the outrage daily and it not a good thing. I have always said that I think a good part of this country and the world in general are suffering from a form of PTSD due to the actions of this horrible man and his cult.
Jennifer, my GP noticed a marked spike in patients presenting with anxiety (as was I) after he was elected….did not abate as his still thrumming presence is like having a bad case of tinnitus.
John, it took me probably 6 months of recommendations from LFAA readers to sign up for Jessica Craven's "Chop Wood, Carry Water" Substack. Her can-do attitude with concrete steps to make change, along with her weekly list of all the positive changes in the US (most of which don't hit the mainstream media) helps keep me sane.
Thank you for this validation John. I’m sorry to hear it but it’s the truth, and I see this in many of my patients. The worst part for me is the outrage coming from the right wing, as their whole media apparatus is built around fear and outrage. I’d like to think ours is built around truth at least, but it certainly focuses on the outrageous. I’m going to write a post about this thanks for the inspiration and hang in there! Tune out frequently for survival
John, I have posted this here before, but one way to mentally override seeing him on TV, is to channel this: Life Accordion to Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65jqrHQi_c. At least now when I see him I have a mental soundtrack that makes me giggle whenever he does that hands-thing (it is just made for parody!).
That politicians assume power over medicine fails all logic. The FDA, AMA and other well qualified entities provide strict ethical and science-based oversight to the safety and ethics of health care. This seems an egregious overstepping of professional boundaries.
I'm a retired urologist and I share your outrage. Republican politicians and judges need to get the F..K out of our exam rooms and ORs and let us do our jobs with the moral, ethical, and dare I say "legal" guidelines dictated by our professional societies.
Containing outrage proves to be a challenge every day. 🤬 I listen to people Senators Cotton, Kennedy (LA), Cruz et many al., especially Trump, speak nastily and in peevish tones; then I find me yelling, "¡F*CK YOU!" 🤭 Fortunately for my fellow man, I live alone. 😉
The Republicans are headed for a historic disaster in November. In Florida, there are initiatives on the ballot to protect women's right to choose, and to legalize marijuana. Both require supermajorities of 60% to pass, but are very popular with voters. If the Florida Democrats can convince the majority of those voting for Amendment 3 and 4 to also vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump will be very embarrassed.
This site is real news for real adults. No haranguing and bellowing, just following the factual tilt of America toward a more pluralistic and colorful democracy.
I've already posted this above, but in case you don't see it, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Jessica Craven's Substack "Chop Wood, Carry Water". I wish I had signed up when I first started hearing about it right here in the LFAA comments! Her positive attitude and concrete steps to bring about change, plus her weekly list of positive changes in the US is well worth the cost of subscription--which, btw, is free!!
I'd like to believe you, EcstaticRationalist -- "historic disaster" impending for Republicans.
Heather's concluding sentence here today has both your and Simon Rosenberg's happy-happy spin on things.
But look at Heather's penultimate sentence here: on how the MAGA minions "are working to seize power through voter suppression, violence, gerrymandering, and packing the legal system."
Trouble is, the huge amount of dark money the predator billionaires have. They know how to use it. Alito like others on the Clarence court knows that this Sunami of money lets them scoff at any accountability for their toxic stew of medieval and faux-aristocratic conceits. Fox news will echo any number of lies any time they detect any sensationalism further to rile up their goon base -- look at the nonsense Heather also cites today on their lying about Biden's supposed plan to assassinate their waddling fat, orange-encrusted diaper boy.
American schools aren't getting better anytime soon to reverse the damages that decades of teaching-to-the-test have spawned. Alito, Clarence, and their ilk 14 years ago already delivered the major Citizens United immunity on which our predator billionaires have since floated.
Wish, wish, wish, however, I could believe you, Simon, and Heather at her most radiant.
Forget who the messengers are. Rather, believe how people vote: Actual election results.
It's not about the messengers (Simon, HCR, Hubbell, Jess Craven). It's about emprical reality.
Which party has been winning elections across the country since 2018? And why? Have the forces of MAGA evil and massive amounts of money stopped Democrats from overperforming? Or kept Rs from struggling and underperforming? No!
Um, Phil? You and I both know that the Repubs having a lock on legislatures in small states is irrelevant to who wins power nationally. Ditto the Dems holding down the fort in Vermont or Hawaii. All that matters is the swing states, and the Democratic electoral record in those states has been mighty impressive for a party-in-power. That IS empirical reality, and to interpret it as promising is not optimistic, it's just basic analysis. The idea that a political party would overperform in off-years in swing areas, raise more money, have stronger infrastructure, rack up early NGO endorsements left and right, hold the power of incumbency... and then all of a sudden do badly is not exactly a result an objective observer would conclude to be most likely.
It's even more than that, Will. Here in Ohio, no longer a swing state, overrun with MAGAts, and yet all the Republican attempts at overt corruption are met with large majorities saying, "Oh HELL NO!!". And in other states, as well. I'm personally feeling an old fashioned ass whuppin' for MAGAts everywhere this November, and I can't wait. And I especially want to see the MSM try to get the egg off their collective faces!!
Yes, the Ohio legislature is trying to keep Joe Biden off of the ballot in November.Get your head around that. Our governor, Mike DeWine is calling a special session of the legislature on Tuesday to try to remedy this situation.
The vote counters in MN, WI, MI, PA and AZ are all under the rubric of democratic governors and democratic secretary of states, who oversee the election results.
ALL potential swing states are overseen by democratic party governors and secretaries of states.
Save for the outlier of 2016, these Staes have been trending blue since ... 2000
Unstated by HCR, President Biden's weird but lasting unpopularity with a vast swath of deeply ignorant and misinformed voters. Condemned for being "old" and unentertaining, condemned for busying himself too exclusively with hard and successful labor on behalf of ordinary Americans.
More important, deep unpopularity with young voters, disgusted by Biden's unwavering support for Israel, despite the crimes of that country's government, in the hands a suicidally extreme criminal faction well to the right of MAGA. The mainstay of that government? Resisting America, resisting every attempt by the Biden Administration to put the brakes on mass killing of the Gaza population and the systematic oppression of Palestinians.
Resisting. And waiting for TrumpMAGA to ride to the rescue.
Once again, for the people in the back: Israel is not a major factor in vote choice for all but a very small fraction of young voters. We now have months worth of multiple surveys from reputable outlets testing the question in differen ways and the data is clear. Whether they approve or not, the number of young people who prioritize this specific bit of foreign policy over jobs, housing, health care, education, civil rights, public safety, and climate change *combined* is smaaaaalllll. These folks are disproportionately loud in the extreme, and while I understand how to those passionate about this issue the narrative that a key voting bloc may be equally passionate would be a compelling one to repeat, but it just is not the case.
Also, approval does not inherently translate neatly to voting intent. You don't have to like someone to prefer them or vote for them. We now have large-sample youth surveys from Tufts, Harvard, and Pew all indicating a repeat of the midterms among this demo: high voter turnout with a Biden/Dem margin of at least 20 points, possibly 30 with some work.
It has not won every election at all. It has won a lot in certain states especially where there are or will be referendums on reproductive choice. But MAGA is taking over the Republican Party in primaries and in the many non-swing red states that means entrenched power in the hands of committed fascists.
with the young voters, the disconnect is the result of the incredible social media blitz they get hit with by the bad actors (Russia, Iran, China). Biden admin is hamstrung by the need to not discuss openly what they are doing. Sadly, we know what the MAGA leadership would do and it is not pretty.
That isn’t true. The moral rage young voters feel about our complicity in genocide and other war crimes, and their panic about Biden’s friendliness with the fossil fuel industry, are based on informed attention—the 30% of young people who actually vote are not the ones most susceptible to bad actors on tik-tok.
"Biden's friendliness with the fossil fuel industry."
Are you kidding me? Who's the candidate who met with the oil executives recently, asked them to donate to his campaign & also told them he would scratch his opponents' electric vehicle & wind energy policies? Hint, it wasn't Joe Biden.
Well, I'm not kidding you. He has issued hundreds of drilling permits in the Gulf and the Arctic, avoided COP meetings, OK'd many dirty oil pipelines including across and under major water sources and agricultural areas in indigenous treaty lands, allowed fracking into green bills, and has been a friend of the fossil fuel industry all his political life--unsurprisingly as a man from Pennsylvania representing Delaware. The major oil and gas companies donate to both parties. Some Democrats (not many) make a point of not accepting fossil fuel donations. Biden is not one of them.
You're not looking at this from the point of view of young people terrified about their future--and deciding not to have children because of it. I'm working hard to get them to vote for Biden (whom I don't like either). But from their POV as people who'll have to try and live, and finally fail to, under the skies of a 2.7-3.0 degree Celsius temperature rise and all the resulting climate migration and resource wars, the difference between not-enough-action-to-make-a-difference plus no resistance to the industry's asks and the Former' Guy's asinine assurances to potential donors is moot.
I and many old people who have always been well-informed -- meaning, among other things, well aware of the age, extent and depth of anti-Semitism in Christian countries, the Shoah and America's and other countries' refusal to help fellow-human refugees in mortal danger -- may well feel even greater rage than relatively ill-informed youngsters about America's complicity in mass murder and other war crimes... together with systematically turning a blind eye to decades of habitual oppression by Israel and the equally habitual coddling of corporations (fossil fuels, chemicals, armaments, agri-food, you name it).
In America, entrepreneurship is all too often coming to be seen, not as risk taking but a divine right to coddling, treats, pacifiers and privileges... Pathetic...
But sharp awareness of Biden's professional failings and blind spots -- all too understandable in a deeply experienced elder statesman -- won't distract us from his almost unique achievements or deviate us one millimeter from our bounden duty to defend him and the world from forces committed to the overthrow of democracy and democratic institutions... however imperfect.
*
If, elsewhere, I referred to TrumpMAGA as "the enemy", this was quite deliberate.
If these people have their way, America will join Putin et al as the universal enemy.
All too possible still, a massive damburst. Violent ignorance sweeps all before it...
Israel is too much like America writ small.
America's too like Israel writ large.
Microcosm and macrocosm.
Americans still have no inkling of how total a disaster a TrumpMAGA triumph will be.
Apocalyptic.
Given America's vast power -- power unprecedented in human history -- any ignorant fool at the head of the country could unleash harm beyond the dreams of Hitler and all the evil mass destroyers that ever lived.
Yes, Peter, much to fear in the tens of millions of besotted MAGA.
Much to fear in the bribed, perjured, and corrupt who rule for medievalism on the Clarence court -- zero accountability for their fascism, their ever sucking up to the humanly empty, dehumanized billionaires floating them.
Much to fear in frauds such as the Howdy Doody speaker of the house, who parades piety while defending the pussy-grabber, rapist, business fraud, mocker of our disabled, racist, scorner of our veterans, and friend to all the world's worst dictators.
Still, from my isolated perch here in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan, I most fear nukes in the hands of the orange fat boy's Putin. His fellow oligarchs have despoiled Russia, as U.S. billionaires by their offshoring have created America's mass embittered former working classes.
And, sadly, pathetically, Putin in his arrogance has faced off against, as you say, "power unprecedented in human history." He may blow us all away with nukes, if only to salvage his own bearded, long-skirted, mega-jewelry-adorned eastern orthodox priests themselves all chanting for mass hatred and mass death.
What we're seeing here is often pure emotionalism. Strong feelings, justified, but not supported by any critical thinking.
I suspect that this may have less to do with Israel-Palestine than with rage and disgust at America's homegrown injustice, hypocrisy, ironclad inequalities and institutionalized racism.
But if we move beyond the momentary satisfaction of venting rage, we'll become aware of the priorities that must govern our actions and avoid cutting off our nose to spite our face.
Thinking is dynamic. It means opening up space, opening our minds to reality and the possibility of practical remedial action.
This explains the importance that so-called "conservatives" attach to destroying public education and so formating students' minds as to prevent any possibility of them learning to think for themselves (heaven forbid!).
Just saw a telling article by Jessica Winter in the New Yorker on The Texas School District That Provided the Blueprint for an Attack on Public Education...
Subheading: When conservative activists began waging battle against diversity plans, some had a much bigger target in mind.
As we've seen with Islamist assaults, especially 9/11 and the recent 10/7 assault on Israel, those who never venture beyond the short term are at a severe strategic disadvantage when faced with attackers whose timescale is centuries long and whose attacks are designed to trigger endless chain reactions.
Likewise, so-called conservatives like Leonard Leo act in the medium and longer term, building up strategic networks over decades and only showing their true intentions when they have completed all logistical preparations. They invert Clausewitz's aphorism about war. For them, politics is war pursued by other means.
I heard that on a podcast with Rick Wilson the other day - wouldn't that be something? I've learned not to get my hopes up though. But wouldn't it make sense? It sure would!
Perhaps we need a "One Person, One Vote Amendment" to mandate that the right to vote and to have that vote count in equal measure is a fundamental precondition for democracy and liberty and justice for all. Even if it doesn't pass, politicians will have to come out visibly and explicitly. $COTUS is immune to such accountability.
Hi JL, It is my understanding, the worse thing we could do is open up the Constitution to amendments now, while there is so much turmoil. Does anyone have information on this?
Amending the Constitution is a very serious matter, but what is more fundamental to a democratic republic than the integrity of the right to vote? It's increasingly under attack, and the lack of ironclad guarantees of the right to vote and have it equally counted play an oversized role in our current difficulties. All that might be beside the point if Trump is declared Fuher, but I think it's something to start talking about.
Amending the Constitution would require the approval of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress as well as approval by three-quarters of state legislatures.
So it is less whether it would be a good or bad idea right now and more that it is not even worth discussing considering the logistics.
JL, you may have just given me my new way to refer to that "high" court! I've been using SCROTUS, with the "R" being "Republican" and my junior high brain thinking of a part of male anatomy. $COTUS is far, far more accurate.
I listed NGOs. Government: DOJ, e.g. Civil Rights division. Secretaries of State (at least mine in Colorado, the heroine Jena Griswold! ... and in AZ and MI, for other prominent example), and state AGs. Also, the FBI responds to voter intimidation cases.
(I'm not an expert on these topics. That's just off the top of my head.)
Not counting on it until it is done. The republicans think that what the leaders say is what they do, but never look carefully at those actions. Case in point - the conservatives will cut you medicare and SS - response from voters is no they won't. Why? Because the voters read the propaganda the reps send out saying the opposite, but pass bills that do. The disconnect is astounding. But in fairness to the voters, many of them are too busy just putting together a living to know.
I think you are far too optomistic about the Florida revolt against abortion and the possibility of Florida voters voting more for Democratic candidates. In Florida (as in Texas where I live) the Republican Party is practically the only thing that voters care about. They may vote for the abortion initiative (although 60% is a high bar). But they will still vote majority republican for their legislature. And that legislature will find some way to bypass the abortion initiative if it squeaks by. We are seeing these same type of efforts happening in Ohio (where I lived until 1985). And the only way to defeat trumpism is to defeat republican politicians across the board in state and federal elections.
We don't need red states, ANY of them, to win. Please don't worry about red states vis-à-vis the prez election ... even Democratic Senators John Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio are expected to cruise to victory, due to their campaign operations
(including $$$ raised) their respective and popularity
Already, more than 300 electoral votes are safely in Democratic Party column - and not including AZ and GA, which are heavily trending blue - having voted statewide for Democratic Senators since 2018!!
Just look at recent voting trends in the states, especially the ones I point to.
LOOK at the last 6 years of statewide voting in all of the states I mention --->. THE elections for the U. S> Senate AND for the Governorship sin the states I mention --->. THESE are all statewide elections, and so is the 2024 presidential election - votes are counted statewide, as one aggregate for each state.
It sounds like Trump is flying too high and on a trajectory to crash and burn. Let's hope. I like HCR's interpretation of Nikki's motive for endorsement. It is hopeful that she gets 20% of the primary votes in some states when she's not even on the ballot.
This is as timely as it is excellent. This might be seem a little off subject but the point is to remind people of the real character of Citizen ( not President Trump). I am in Shanghai this week and met an American Architect who cane to China in the early 2000’s and has done well here as well as his early career in the United States and he gave me an autobiography he just wrote. He recounts a meeting he had with 3 investors, one of whom was Donald Trump back in the early 90’s at the former Ambassador Hotel and had been abandoned after Robert Kennedy was assassinated there. It was up for sale and the investor group was considering the site for a new hi rise development, ( the sale never went through and is now a high school campus). The caretaker gave them a tour of this boarded up structure and took them to the basement and rolled back a carpet covering the spot of RFK’s murder. His blood stains were still in the concrete slab. Trump muttered everyone to hear “ He must have been dumb to get shot”. As the story goes on the three developers were to share the architecture fees but Trump never paid his share. No reverence, no empathy, no integrity. The exact opposite of President Biden.
The GOP wants to paint a “disastrous” picture of the solid accomplishments in the economy, foreign affairs and the vested interests of the citizens of this country by good governance. The GOP wants the slaveholders of today to control the country for their own interests and everyone else in the US and the world be damned. This may be the most dangerous cancer in this world since WWll. So this memorial weekend we honor those who gave their lives by fighting to preserve what they fought for.
So many possible diagnoses… I am holding out hope for his dementia to turn him into a babbling idiot - oh, wait, he’s been a babbling idiot for decades. I want him to become unable to complete a word or sentence. Oh, wait, he’s already there. And I guess his his acolytes just assume he’s speaking in tongues and continue to tithe to the Orange Jesus.
Marge, don’t know if you’ve seen these YouTube vids….Life Accordion to Trump…lol…cannot see him now making his hand gestures without this musical accompaniment playing in my head!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65jqrHQi_c
He is definitely a pariah. The history books will have the final say. What an ego buster to be the absolute worst President ever, he who though he was the greatest on earth!
He will be able to boast “I was greatest worst president EVER…number one worst, the best worst that no one else can beat! And a big strong man came up to me, with tears in his eyes, saying you are my favorite worst president ever, please don’t stop being the worst you can be.”
I may be playing arm chair psychologist here, but I think IQ45 is an insecure, self loathing, narcissistic bigot. Two of his three wives were/are immigrants, thus 4 of his spawn from those women are anchor babies, as he is fond of saying. He vilifies immigrants because of a deep seated insecurity about the women he has married (#2 baffles me except to think she was looking for a sugar daddy and a golden parachute to get out of the marriage. She got pregnant to win the prize spouse.) He never really made it in Manhattan, always thought of as the crass upstart from Queens who abused or ignored laws and conventions to claim success. No cushy charity board seats for his indentured wives; the current “400” showed no tolerance for the vulgar parvenues. No respect for the marbled, gold-leafed edifices he built with undocumented immigrant labor except from other superficial wannabes. With his brilliant business acumen, he bankrupted 3 casinos. How in the world does that happen?! What his insecurities have done for him is make him like a rabid dog backed into a corner, belligerently defending himself while casting blame on everyone else for his failures, weaving fantasies out of loss after loss, posturing with a grandiosity that borders on the psychopathic. He courts, woos and wins over those who have even less self respect than he does or are so power hungry and nefarious that they don’t care about his obvious defects, using him as a means for their own corrupt plans. I have no problem hating the 2020 loser. He is beyond redemption, undeserving of any forgiveness, not worthy of any accolades so callously heap upon him by those who take advantage of whatever sort of “power” he seems to hold. In light of all his legal problems, I wish he would board his highly mortgaged jet and slink off to a country with no extradition treaty with the United States and live in lonely, gilded captivity devoid of fawning crowds and ass kissing minions, never to set foot in our country again. His current immigrant wife may even go with him.
Thank you for the story, I'm sure there are hundreds more, probably thousands more, like this that illustrate how callous, contemptible, vile and sociopathic Trump really is. All he has to do is speak and he reveals how horrible he is.
I was born in 1968 just about a month after Robert Kennedy was assassinated, not all that far from the Ambassador Hotel at Cedars of Sinai Hospital. If he'd have been the Democratic candidate things would have been very different. Maybe there never would have been a Nixon presidency. The 1968 Democratic National Convention might not have become the melee and brutal display of a police state and not a democracy. Would RFK have ended the Vietnam War?
But tonight as I was driving home on a Bay Area freeway, the traffic came to a standstill as it often does here. Then I saw that there were banners with Kennedy for President on the overpass in both directions. There were a lot of older people there that weren't MAGA types but don't seem to understand that a vote for RFK Jr. is a vote for Trump. Spoiler alert! He has been practically disowned and disavowed by the remaining Kennedy family. RFK Jr. could really start affecting this election with stunts like this, and hopefully it will pull more votes from Trump but it could take needed votes from Biden too. Egos and brain worms can have such horrible consequences on elections.
With any luck, the fat old traitor will finally eat the fatal hamberder and welcome the arrival of his long-awaited (by the rest of us) massive fatal myocardial infarction. Which will preferably happen mid-rant at one his hatealongs in front of the shitkickers.
You are not alone. My Mom told me the other day tfg is the first person she has ever actually hated. She thinks he is so disgusting and evil that he actually makes her sick, and she can't help but think less of people that do not have the same reaction. The poor woman is so kind-hearted even after a couple years she can't seem to process having this reaction to anything.
I told her that hating someone who is hateful is simply having the appropriate reaction to what is being presented to you. Full stop. As long as you yourself are not mimicing their hatred, there is no shame there.
Cal, for a while now I have searched and searched for one scintilla of compassion/understanding of a toddler/child/teen/young adult Trump and, nope, can find none, mostly based on his apparent gleeful adherence to the socio-pathological actions that fed his ever-hungry ego and bottomless need for adoration and blatant cruelty. I only learned this in bits and pieces as he was not really on my radar much at all before he became POTUS. Shame on us (USA) for allowing it….when the inept losing team wins the championship & runs amok….gods & goddesses help us! Watching this play out—his presidency and post-presidency game-show-carnival-act—is still surreal to me & I keep thinking I will wake up from this nightmare.
I only had two nightmares I could remember in my first 70 years, one when had a fever when I was 10, and another at 37 in 1983 the night before the movie "The Day After" was shown, knowing the subject I had dreamed of watching all the missiles managed from Wyoming being launched simultaneously (like the dual test launch of two minuteman missiles from Vandenberg, but many more). I was working in the missile warning business at the time and discussed it the next day with the people at our site and the tech school I'd taught at for 6 years. We shared stories of the false detections we knew of as individuals, and learned of so many more where our operators (and Soviets/Russians), had suspected false detections, or learned no other sources had seen the same false indications and avoided responding. We were amazed at the the restraint shown by a few Soviet/Russians who were under orders to fire retaliatory missiles under conditions where they were supposedly not supposed to wait for other sources to verify they were being attacked, but did so anyway. We had a renewed faith that we would never initiate a first strike, though Reagan had committed to too realistic wargames that came very close to unintentionally scaring the Soviets into thinking we were doing something they seemed to think justified from their side , a real first strike they thought might be their only option because of their weaker actual strength than they ever let on to the world. Scared people do stupid things, scaring them more can be the very worst thing to do.
We felt much more comfortable that cooler heads were on both sides and the nuclear fever was broken, with what looked like an excellent opportunity half a decade later when the cold war seemed over for good.
Then came the night before Trump's electoral college "win." I had a deep sense of foreboding despite the polls that night and nightmares for most of the following four years.
In 2020 I had no doubt at all that Trump could not win the popular or electoral vote because of all of his own appointees that would not cross the lines of their oaths of office, and were resigning in many cases not noticed by the public, and some stayed (though they wanted to leave), as the last barriers to prevent even worse abuses by Trump.
No severe nightmares until we barely lost the House in 2022, and started to see just how bad the Lenard Leo Court could be. The damage to the US from the sabotaged transition, grift based distribution plans for what Covid vaccines and supplies were needed for the massive new cases resulting from reckless downplaying of the threat was just one part of new catastrophes brought on by that slim majority in the House. The nightmare 118th Congress combined with what seemed the vindictively weakened Afghanistan (5,000 Taliban released, and Trump post election loss cuts to US troops and firm date for removal of all) created a worse disaster. That is an ongoing nightmare for all who tried to do their best for Afghanistan.
I thought it would be different for Ukrainians, especially once they united so completely against Russia after they were attacked. It seemed the perfect opportunity to stop countries taking over others by military conquest against a populations so determined to fight for their freedom no matter what the odds.
The corrupt House leadership sabotaging their superhuman efforts and chances for an easier defensive victory, have been sickening new nightmares (especially since "the majority of the majority" (disgusting Hastert Rule) would have voted for aid so often in the months it was denied the floor.
With this McConnell/Leo nightmare court, I think we need to make maximum effort to take back every elected position we can so the Court has no other allies to do their dirty work.
Wonderfully said, Jim, and thanks for sharing your experiences of the nuclear tender-hooks the major powers navigated & am ever grateful for those level-headed folks that stepped back from the brink just in time (and hopefully will still do). I am aghast at the level of power grubbing obsequious boot licking & ass kissing going on now in the halls of Congress and on Judicial benches (and admire/applaud those who push back/resist)….it’s like some demented Shakespearean farce but with real life consequences…I see this playing out and wonder who ARE these people?
I'm with your mom Will. If you've read Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen he says the same thing without saying it. Something like, "before Trump I never truly hated another person."
Many surely do (especially the leaders with money and power) but cult logic is in a realm all by itself. Never saw anything in the DSM that explained it.
Truly, every morning whe he was President the first thing I did every morning was to check to see if he had died overnight. Maybe one of these days we’ll get lucky!
I justify my guilt by telling myself his demise would benefit the world in every possible way. I have never despised anyone like this. His existence is an affront to humanity.
Chris, unfortunately tho’ brain dead, his mouth still works & spews hateful gibberish. Ever try to read a transcript of his words?? Stream-of-consciousness is not even close, it’s more like sewer-rapids-down-the-drain-consciousness. There is no “there” there….worse than a word-salad, it’s a word-hash.
We could get rid of Guantanamo with the right combination of his words set to his favorite weird ass music that he likes to dance too.!!! Make the prisoners stand for hours playing the air accordian!!
I agree. Trump is disturbing, but worse is that so many think he is good for the country. Bewildering and infuriating. Maybe a summer of tornados, hail and hurricanes along with a fast food price war will convince his supporters that climate change is real and the economy is improving.
Exactly! If the orange turd cheats his way in, I'd give it 2 - 3 months before the 25th Amendment is invoked, and vance moves in, and America ends. He then becomes our Putin, and 30 years later........
Don't think it will be HIS choice. The REAL string-pullers, like L. Leo, and those atop the "Heritage Foundation", will make the choice 'with' him. Like they did with Pence, to get the christo-fascist vote. No way is someone like Pence a TFFG kinda guy, you know?
So a Vance, Greene or ____ (fill in the blank with nutty VP candidate of your choice)? Of course they would have to pick someone who will take marching orders when Agent Orange becomes too demented to dress himself or suffers a cheeseburger-inflicted CVA…
Well, first, I can't imagine them selecting a female, no matter who she is, or how evil (Noem!). But it all mirrors Germany 100 years ago. Whichever nightmare it turns out to be ( imagine Cotton of Arkansas ), they will not be able to control him, any more than Germany could with Hitler. When will we as humans learn? Hopefully, enough of us have!!
I’m also one of those who has never known hate for any human being before TFFG. And I hate him so much that I would prefer a stroke that leaves him unable to move or speak for the remainder of his short life.
Beyond reproach is what has become of your beloved Republican party. If you can't recognize, and HATE, the new NAZI party, you'll get what you deserve.
If they are going to make mifeprestone a controlled substance they had better add viagra to the list as well. Not only is this whole shambles about controlling women it is also about controlling the medical professionals that treat them.
Maybe TX and other states should start processing all of the rape kits they have stored.
And prosecuting the rapists, especially the ones that impregnate their victims.
Under Abbott they are prosecuting about 1/3 the number of rapist they did before he took office. They might as well legalize rape and incest in TX and many of the other red states.
That won't happen because the extreme Christian MAGA right needs to force women to have more babies (even those resulting fron incest or rape) to provide workers the oligarchs can underpay as they oppose immigrants and immigration reform in order to avoid being outnumbered by nonwhite people. They need to make the anti-abortion and anti- contraception laws consistent nationwide to prevent giving medical professionals (and educated professionals in general) reasons to move to states that will allow them to use their training and judgement.
Even the traditional "establishment" Republicans enabled and welcomed Trump's ascendancy because winning was - and is - everything. Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, and other GOP leaders having noble motivations is laughable. Republicans embraced alternative facts as well as alternative principles.
The secret that all Republicans know but won't speak about is that they are all aware that Donald won't be around forever. Today he's their poster-boy and he draws all the public attention & loyalty, but he's clearly not the brains behind the movement. They're all working frantically to cement their positions and put themselves firmly in charge before he self destructs.
The situation being what it it, they back him lavishly, but it's only for the time being.
He isn't permanent and they all know it. Once he's out of the picture any of their plans that are incomplete will lose a lot of momentum.
I believe that they think he is a useful tool/fool they can eventually do without, but I spent my earliest years in Germany during the Nuremberg Trials. Some Germans thought the same of Hitler.
Trump has many more former appointees and followers who seem to at least stop short of the extremes that Hitler supporters were willing to do. I'm very afraid of the damage the smarter pushers of Trump will be able to do if they can get a more diabolical and effective version of Quislings able to remain in power.
Gary, I’ve been wondering for some time WHO is the actual Puppet Master? TFFG has almost no remaining executive function, so he can’t possibly make and execute plans. WHO is pulling the strings?
Maybe everyone with an agenda? If Big Oil is drafting executive orders to roll back regulations and open more federal land to drilling, who else is doing the same? Putin gives tffg orders for Ukraine and NATO? Boeing drafts legislation to delegate self-regulation to the airlines? Hedge funds hand him a list of the ever-more-favorable tax cuts?
Maybe it’s a free-for-all. Every corrupt politician, oligarch and dictator would get a piece of him…..
Follow the money & read the Project 2025 mandate & see the big big big bucks behind the support of it. Been a long time in the making w/ one of the seeds being the “Powell memo” planted in the Reagan years. TFFG is just the current fake-gold-plated shiny thing that captures attention—look! squirrel!!!—for his outrageous buffoonery. He doesn’t even know that he’s a mockery of a sham (to paraphrase Woody Allen).
And I wonder who would be promoted to presidential candidacy should tffg implode before the election. As others have said, it could be someone with less baggage, more likable to waffling Rs.
True, but if the replacement was less threatening and unstable, they (face it: HE) wouldn’t be able to hold control. Fear is TFFG’s most effective weapon.
Yes, I have come to realize that there was only ever going to be Liz Cheney (and Kinzinger) standing up as elected officials during Trump. It still astounds me that every.single. elected. Republican failed to grow a spine. Looking back at VIDEO of Lindsay Graham, Cruz, Rubio, even Haley herself -- it's surreal. Historians like Heather will hopefully explain it some day.
Yeah, quoting all those historical *alternative facts* they have so many of—just so long as you don’t, you know, look at actual footage or actual records….just *trust us* to tell you the truth.
When I first heard the retelling of FDR’s role in ending the depression, I was shocked. Not much shocks me anymore. 44 years of Rupert Murdoch, the likes of Frank Luntz, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove and their ilk does that. And then came chump…
The only abortion laws a state or nation should have is none. The decision to abort or carry should be solely between the woman and her doctor(s). Women are smart enough to do what's right for them and their situations without the "help" of lawmakers.
Proof? Canada has zero abortion laws, having abandoned them decades ago. The decision to abort is entirely between the woman and her doctor(s), no laws in between. The rate of abortion vs. carried to term is exactly the same as the U.S. rate--the vast majority of abortions are performed early, only 1 percent are performed late, and of those latter, virtually all are for medical emergencies to mother and/or child.
Canadian women aren't any smarter than American women. But Canadian legislators are light-years ahead of ours in respect for women's ability to decide this issue sensibly.
Alito and his fellow right-wing SCOTI don't think very much of our wimmens, seeming to agree with the KC Chiefs' field goal kicker that a wimmen's only place is in the home with babiez.
Short-term-thinkers: How else to increase the population of workers, who are content to live in a hovel, eat gruel, die young building mansions for the 1%ers? So Melania can buy $57K blouses.
Long-term-thinkers: 1%ers need control if they are to be the survivors of global warming... shut down those feminine values like nurture everyone. Radical women, back to the bedroom and kitchen, no where else. OH DEAR, now I've really gone off the cliff!
But even barefoot she must have elegant, well-painted toenails in case her man comes home early from the football field and needs some attention. That way she can attend to his needs without a moment's hesitation, as one does when one is a Godly Wife and Mother.
Alito—not ‘WE”—starts with assumptions . . . And from there, he weaves hypotheticals and ignores precedent or actual law. He just makes it all up as he goes. It’s criminal that this is tolerated on any bench, let alone the Supreme Court.
To be fair, the bulk of neither party's congresscritters understand most of what a law means or intends when they're voting for it. But MAGA Republicans seem unduly proud of their sheer ignorance when voting.
Very well said, Bruce, thanks. My own Judaism specifies that what grows inside a mother is a fetus without any human rights until it is out of the womb and takes its first breath. At that point fetus becomes a baby with full human rights and protections.
Which makes legislating abortion on the grounds of ANY religion both wrong and unconstitutional.
Abortion prohibitions are also insults to women, who are smart enough to make their own decisions about aborting vs. carrying to term. Who the hell are legislators to say they know better? They don't. Leave women alone.
Governmental decisions, as in a court of law, need to be based so far as possible on empirical evidence which religion specifically lacks. Our trial system is far from perfect, but justice is demonstrably served when the empirical standard at the core of the sciences is observed. Charges are meant to be proved, with accountable reason and evidence. If that is the ideal standard for enforcement of the law, it should surely be observed in making the law. Wouldn't that be nice?
The ultimate law that rules human lives lie in "laws" of physics, which are utterly indifferent to our pleadings. Where we can configure our behavior in to conform to those laws, we accomplish remarkable things. To the extent that we ignore them, we eventually are forced to pay; as we are currently seeing in the form of climate abuse.
That said, we live not only in a mechanical world, but one of individual and shared internal experience that is uniquely human (even as it overlaps with other species). That matters very much to us a sentient creatures and I see plenty of room in it for religious interpretation that is respectful of the rights of others. But not in matters of state which define rights and duties. Religion may or may not inform our values, but cannot be the justification of civil law.
As one whose brother was sentenced to 18 months labor in a Soviet gulag for trespassing on Soviet soil in a sham trial in Murmansk in November, 1965, and subsequently murdered on January 20, 1966, on a train taking him to serve out his sentence in Siberia, any statement by the demonstrably anti-American hideous GOP presidential nominee praising the current Russian dictator I consider an indecent affront to all Americans who value democracy. His praise of dictators should be called out, and hard.
Totally agree. It is an overt act of treason!! Rusty, I remember your brother's case. I know it has been decades. But I also know the pain does not go away. Please accept my heartfelt condolences.
Never, never, never trust or vote for any Republican—ever! Nikki Haley is every bit as evil as Trump, and she proved it by selling her soul without a second thought, just like every other Republican in office. Anyone who supports the outright insanity of Trump and his criminal, authoritarian wanna-be regime is not only stupid but shrouded in evil. There are no excuses, no justifications for their opinions or actions.
Haley apparently believes she has some influence with peoppe who voted for her that might lead ghem to follow her into Trump’s camp. She is delusional. They weren’t voting for her. They are never-trumpers and will stay home or vote third party.
While most of the similarities are superficial, Nikki Haley’s changed public statements about Trump remind me in some ways of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Like Trump, Reagan ran on personality politics and while I don’t claim to understand Haley’s - or anyone’s - reasons for supporting Trump, perhaps she also thinks she can temper personality with policy, if she is in fact using this as a bid to enter the Veepstakes. She will fail at least as miserably as Bush Sr and Pence did, if so.
"Like Trump, Reagan ran on personality politics ..."
Like Reagan, Trump is running on hostages as a weapon against . his political opponent. In order to make Pres. Jimmy Carter look weak and ineffectual, Reagan's operatives infamously convinced the Iranians to hold onto American hostages until after the election. Few wanted to credit the GOP with such profound cynicism, but that was naive.
Yes, as soon as I heard Trump’s vile boast that only he could free Evan Gershkovich, I immediately thought of Reagan and the Iranian hostages, an act that should have been charged as criminal, perhaps treasonous.
Bill Barr made his bones in Iran-Contra. As a cleaner for Reagan and to give GHW Bush deniability. It is why Barr was brought out of retirement and made Trump's AG. Barr's personal reward was the power to implement the vision Barr shares with Leonard Leo of an American corporate clerical fascist state.
There really is no comparison, though. Images of the Iranian hostages were blared across the airways every single night in America for hundreds of nights in a row. It was a genuine political crisis with very wide recognition. Apologies to him and his family, but Gershkovich is a single unlucky person and most Americans in 2024 don't know he exists.
Will, there are vids of Joy Reid interviewing Brittney Griner on her detention/imprisonment in Russia—I can’t find the exact segment of the interview I saw recently on MSNBC, but she spoke of how the Biden admin is doing as much as they can both publicly and behind the scenes to bring all the hostages/prisoners home & how she is in it for the long haul to bring awareness and support these very efforts knowing first hand what it’s like.
Now I’m going to spend my time thinking who Luke, Han and Leia are. I can think of a number of candidates for some aspects of Palpatine - Alito and Leonard Leo come to immediately to mind - but since the closest thing to Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn is dead and so far as I know not cloned, none really fit.
Honestly doubt that she's vying to become VP -- she's too smart and has been too critical of trompy to suddenly be his obsequious cheerleader the way Pence was -- both she and he know that.
Maybe it's as simple as Haley's wanting to preserve her status in 2028 by falling in line now. She clearly continues to have a lot of supporters-- if she manages them carefully, she has a leg up on the competition in a few years.
I’m don’t have precognition but I can’t help but think there will be a republican backlash and those who fell in with Trump will suffer. Of course, that course be just be my vindictive side coming out…
Assuming this fall's election leads to a spectacular failure of MAGA Republicans top to bottom with Biden reelected and a strong D majority in Congress, perhaps the former grand old party will renounce trompy and change course. One can hope…
Sioux, perhaps Haley imagines she can temper [tRump's] personality with policy, however, one suspects that physical appearance plays some role on both sides of the aisle, especially the MAGAts. Like Howdy-Doody, it's easier to deal with her face than the orange scowl.
I thought so too until the picture I saw the other day, in full harangue, mouth wide open. As attractive as a meat-axe. The eyes are the windows of the soul.
You know that our current reality is dystopian when a candidate for the highest public office (or ANY office, for that matter) is pleased to accept an endorsement by "alleged gang members."
"Last night, at a rally in New York, Trump accepted the endorsement of alleged gang members, rappers Michael Williams (Sheff G) and Tegan Chambers (Sleepy Hallow). In 2023 the two men were indicted with 30 other people on 140 counts, including murder, attempted murder, illegal possession of firearms, and at least a dozen shootings. Sheff G was released from jail in April after posting a $1.5 million bond."
As a pop culture and music fan, this part of today's news made me literally LOL. Hip-hop is half a century old, and is America's most influential cultural export of that time period, maybe ever (check out the recent Smithsonian Anthology!). It is so malleable and universal it has become a dominant cultural force on every continent sans Antarctica, to the degree that the already beautifully varied and epically complex American genre is now being influenced by its foreign offshoots. By now there are a ton of possible rap stars to get endorsements from. Hillary got to be on stage with Jay-Z! Joe got Eminem and Beastie Boys to OK ads for him!
And tfg gets... these losers, who I have never heard of in my whole life. In an entertainment industry obsessed with attention, I guess we've finally found who is too toxic to be seen with outside of a jail cell. This is like attempting to impress sports fans by appearing onstage with the kid who won the local hot dog eating contest, and acting as if it's LeBron.
Will, I am someone who appreciated the evolution of both punk and rap genres (although I have listened to punk, rap does not appeal to me in the slightest) and I noted that one of the appeals of rap was the same "outcast" theme that the rock music of the 50's and folk music from the 40's to the 60's. I can get really upset over autotune, however.
I also love your comparison at the end. Yeah, Taylor Swift those two gentlemen ain't.
It's not about Trump. It's about a Trump administration and the opportunities it presents. In 2016 it was the Supreme Court. Now with Project 2025 it is about remaking the Executive Branch. So that with court capture skewing the judiciary, the Constitution skewing the Senate and extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression skewing the House, the Executive branch will make it total. As in effect totalitarianism. A nominal democracy, going through the motions, hollowing out the institutions of government while preserving the protocols - as with the Roberts Court.
Don't let Trump fool you. He fully intends to restrict women's rights completely.
From project 2025 chapter 17 DOJ pg 562.
"Announcing a Campaign to Enforce the Criminal Prohibitions in 18 U.S. Code §§ 1461 and 1462 Against Providers and Distributors of Abortion Pills That Use the Mail. Federal law prohibits mailing “[e]very article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”75 Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, there is now no federal prohibition on the enforcement of this statute. The Department of Justice in the next conservative Administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills."
Repubs (and especially the SC five) hate women. Period. They need to get back in the kitchen. And be so overwhelmed with child care that they can’t think of anything else. Like my mother was…
It's shameful. I read the entirety of Project 2025 to see for myself the horrors contained within it. I was shocked to see the wide-ranging radical, anti-democratic, propositions it proposed.
I didn’t read it, just read about it. Same goals they have had for decades, although I have to say, the unmitigated gall is astonishing. In your face, piss on you all
It’s so much to absorb on a regular basis. A deluge of bad news with a deluge of fake news. I’m leaning far to the left these days, with very limited tolerance for the right.
As a retiree woman 1973 was a historic win for women. We fought to stop the coat hanger abortions in back ally’s. Women were dying in droves b/c they could not have a safe abortion. Having a choice in fertile years was amazing. I think if women lived in the years before Roe v Wade They should be terrified to have not have this choice. I fought the good fight once, now all l can do is vote blue. I’m just too tired to go backwards. Live and learn.
It’s seems similar to the vaccine craziness. My now-young-adult kids’ former pediatrician once said the problem was that people didn’t experience polio, measles, etc so even the legit side effects seemed too much. That was before the COVID-vaccine hysteria
As a 78 year old woman, I remember that too. I have been so grateful that my daughters and granddaughters don't have that awful memory. We know that legal or not, there will still be abortions.
Same here. Helped women get to New York for abortions in 1972. I think it is worse today, though. The MAGA Abortion Police are a big threat to women's lives. This is not about saving ANY life.
Voters don’t care about anything but what they believe you’re going to do for them. Black men don’t believe Biden has done anything special for them so they’re leaving him. How many is a question but definitely some are leaving. Union workers and workers in general,are supportive of Biden. He’s been publicly for them and has produced . Intelligent voters know that Trump is a narcissistic bum and understand that he will ruin the country for Democrats and Republicans. Older people need to understand, if they don’t already, that Social Security and Medicare will be cut and likely ruined. Young people should also be made to understand that it will be there for them but they have to elect people who will protect those programs. Intelligent women realize that their freedom to care for their bodies and families will be taken away from them even more than SCOTUS already has. Abortion, contraception and family planning are on the ballot. After Democrats gain the power of the Presidency and both houses of Congress they can then begin to strengthen our democracy. Before they can do that they need to get elected. Tellig voters how you’ll help them is the only way to do that.
Beware the polls. On the NewsHour, Jonathan Capehart made fun of a poll of fewer than 200 respondents where the "outcome" was reported as if it had been a poll of thousands.
I may think for a moment about what my elected official will do for me personally. Mostly though I think about the overall country. If selfish and mean spirited people are elected as our representatives, the nation will also become selfish and mean spirited.
"How many is a question but definitely some are leaving."
What a weird and vauge claim to make! If you don't know how many then you by definition can't say "definitely," there is absolutely no actual evidence that this is taking place, and it would go against decades and decades of history.
"Voters don’t care about anything but what they believe you’re going to do for them."
Not all of us are selfish narcissists who view civic duty as transactional. And even if we DID all view it that way, how ending a pandemic and giving us record job and small business creation and high wage and opportunity growth is not "doing something" for all the people who benefitted from those things is anybody's guess.
Will, for once I’m going to disagree with you. While vaccines have given us the gift that Covid infections aren’t as deadly in the acute phase, the pandemic is far from over. We have squandered years when we could have been installing mitigations that actually work, not just for Covid, but for other illnesses as well. By that, I mean addressing indoor air quality by way of ventilation and filtration, especially in schools and health care settings. The Biden administration did as good a job with vaccine rollout as they could have, but are now silent on Covid. The CDC remains a shambles and a shadow of its former glory.
We ignore that Covid causes long term damage, and repeat infections increase that risk. Most people are blissfully unaware that increased rates of heart disease, diabetes, sudden death, and cognitive impairment, among many other things, are caused by Covid and its lingering effects in the body.
Covid tests here cost around $10 per test. I just ordered some from Germany, and they cost less than 50¢ per test. Wtf? And we wonder why people don’t test anymore. Likewise masks. This is possible here too, but we do not have government policy to make that happen. Because the political and economic costs of actually dealing with Covid are too high, due to Trump’s malignant behavior.
I’m in my third year of remission from cancer. I’m still immunocompromised from treatment, which makes me hyper vigilant around Covid. My cancer was caused by a virus, and literally no one can tell us that Covid won’t do such things too. Mine took 40 years to rear its ugly head. Where will we be 40 years from now? What are we doing to our children?
I think it’s important for activist Democrats like me, and I hope like you, to know what we’re up against as we try to rouse a voting public to the importance of voting for the Democrat no matter how much they don’t happen to like him. He or his people have done some good things for working class people, but rattling statistics at them doesn’t do much, pointing to a soaring stock market even less.
Not sure what your question is looking for. According to NPR yesterday, union members in America are not lining up behind their leaders' support of traditionally pro-union Biden, first American president to walk a picket line. This is an important but unsurprising development given the effect of toxic online media directed at them. They think unemployment is at an all-time high rather than the lowest it's been in 50 years, and are unaware that the stock market (where their pensions, 401(k)s and retirement IRAs are invested) is booming.
There is no nicer way for me to say this as a young person with older parents: this is unmitigated horsesh!t. The only thing I don't like about my parents getting Medicare and Social Security is that they should be getting way more. Young people by and large strongly approve of MORE social safety net programs, so why on Earth would we begrudge the biggest and best ones we already have? Answer: we don't.
I haven't heard that from young people, but I live in New England and my family in Cleveland, regions where Social Security and Medicare are valued, so that may be why. I'm sorry to know they swallowing that Republican myth. What I'm hearing from young people is how they can't make themselves vote for Biden, or can hardly bear to, because of war crimes in Gaza committed with weapons we paid for, or because of his buckling to the fossil fuel industry on drilling permits, pipelines, fracking--which they rightly think will doom them to lives "poor, nasty, brutish and short." (I'm trying to write a difficult letter to my nephew about why he has to vote for Biden in spite of everything, while admitting that "everything" is very bad. But even if it works, there are more where he came from.)
In the 80s it was Robert Kennedy Jr and a group of his college friends who were making a big deal of this, with funding from his mother Ethel (maybe thinking she had to be supportive of her problem son’s initiative? I remember finding her support a real head scratcher at the time.)
I'm just trying to keep my growing outrage in check each night so I can sleep. I'm glad you are reporting the facts and giving them historical context, but it's enough to make me start a medicine to prevent heart attacks lately! And my wife is an Ob/Gyn. It is another outrage what is being done with women's health and bodily autonomy, with the mifepristone and implied criminality encroaching upon absolutely safe standards of medical care. I'm only half joking about starting a statin for heart protection! Good night, breathe in, breathe out...
https://mccormickmd.substack.com/p/can-you-develop-diabetes-by-taking
As a retired OB/GYN, along with your wife we have seen the deadly outcomes of criminalizing the full array of reproductive health care.
These abortion bans are so overreaching that the many "exceptions to the rule" that a reasonable person would consider as an option
emphasize how important these decisions be left up to the individual and (her) health care provider - not a legislator and certainly NOT a man without a uterus.
Totally agree, and I'm following along. Thanks for your career of grueling yet rewarding service to women and mothers. It is a career like no other, and I have massive respect for what you all do, the risks you take, and the personal sacrifice and stress you endure to make the world a better place from our first breaths!
I completely agree with this. Had my daughter not had adequate medical care when her second pregnancy took a nose dive she would probably not be here today. Thank you in the maternal health care field for all you do day in and day out.
I have a question for you and the other physicians and medical professionals. Why are so many Doctors and other health care professionals sympathetic to Donald Trump's vision of America? I know at least half a dozen Doctors who fully embrace Trump and the maga movement. Most of them are intelligent people and swore an oath to "Do no harm."
I’ve always believed that racism is the core of the love of trump. Racism has always been here, but with trump embracing it out loud he brought it to the surface. As to educated professionals I’d add the greed of tax breaks.
Yes, I totally agree with you. I also believe racism is the glue that holds Trump World together. Put simply, they all hate the same people and things.
And have been given permission to shout that hatred every day.
Ally, I never got an answer from any of the LFAA Attorney family regarding how to register a complaint about Alito, but this was in Jessica Craven's "Chop Wood, Carry Water" Substack yesterday.
She credits one of her subscribers for the info. I have copy/pasted it below for you (and any others also sickened by the SCOTUS)
One of my subscribers has made it easy to file a formal complaint against Justice Alito! Thank you to Aiden H. for this incredible work!
From Aiden:
Recent news coverage has demonstrated that Justice Alito has abandoned all pretense of being an unbiased arbiter of justice. First it was revealed that the American flag was flown upside-down outside his home for several days after the January 6 insurrection. Since then it has also been documented that Alito has flown the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his vacation home. This flag represents the Christian Nationalist movement.
All of this goes against the essence of the oath of office that Justice Alito swore when he entered the Supreme Court, namely to adjudicate the cases before him without bias. It is simply not possible to be unbiased while being willing to publicly associate oneself with a symbol of a movement that is antithetical to the principles of our Constitution.
By filing an official complaint regarding his actions which demonstrate his unsuitability to rule on any matter concerning the insurrection, we can make our voices heard by the Chief Justice and the other members of the court.
Filing the complaint is simple: fill in your personal information in the complaint form, print the three pages, sign it, and send it to the Clerk of the Supreme Court. The form and instructions are available for download on www.dumpalito.com.
I’ve downloaded and printed mine and will be mailing it today—plus a copy to Dick Durbin for good measure! Join me?
Exactly!
Trump voters are not haters. Look in the mirror.
Really? tRUMP is a proven lier! Check the FACTS (not the alternative facts) bc they are lies.
My dad was a tRUMP supporter. You know why, bc he hated the same people tTUMP hates. Maybe it’s time to check your own mirror?
I don't hate Trump voters, I hate Trump. I just don't understand how they can be so gullible.
You vote against yourself when you vote for trump. Wake up. Look at what his policies do to you!
I think you need to check your own mirror. And ask yourself if you're honestly believing the claptrap that the MAGA gang throw all over the place. (Maybe in doing so, they figure that whatever sticks to the wall, must be true?) I think you need to read a history book or text, if it isn't banned in your home. Don't forget that if you don't study the past, you're condemned to repeat it. As a woman, are you willing to go back to the Dark Ages, when women were the property of men? Do you want to live a life in trammels? If so, more power to you. It's not a life I'd choose, nor the majority of women in this country.
Totally agree Francine.
Most of the MAGAs benefitted little from the 2017 tax cut bill yet they are happy to make the wealthy richer for some reason.
Propaganda
And the inability to distinguish truth from fiction. Or the unwillingness to realize there are actual opinions other than your own which are the better choice.
possibly just a transposition of "god-fearing" behavior — they presume that it's better to placate the economically powerful, increasing their chances (however meager) of being thrown table scraps.
… and possibly minimize their chances (pretty good, probably) of being ditched.
True, people do not vote their "best interest" which leaves us with racism as the rockbed of their beliefs....
Because they vote against their own best interests.
I spoke frankly with a friend months ago about why she eould be voting for Trump, even after I pointed out the control of women’s reproductive choices, book banning, and his various calls for violence (I stopped there).
She agreed with all of it, acknowledging how bad all of it was. Then she blurted out “Biden wants our money”.
There you have it.
What the hell does that even mean, Biden wants your money? tRUMP is the one who cut taxes for his 1% pals, not Biden! Jeez, I wish these people would find the truth. Facts matter!
The reality is that all candidates want our money. It just depends on who you want to give it to toward their campaigns. But I guess she believes the lie that Republicans claim they will lower taxes and they claim that Dems want to raise taxes. What is left out is that Repubs don't give a whit about the working people, and would happily tax them, while lowering the taxes for those who can most afford to contribute. I shake my head at how so many people insist on remaining ignorant of not only the facts, but allowing themselves to be swayed by the simplistic and incorrect message of the Rethugs.
So sad, Bonnie.
Yes. Very regrettable. Her main source for info is Newsmax.
I’d be curious what money & why? If she is upper-upper income perhaps she’s upset about the prospect of paying her fair share.
Egad .. Republicans are stealing it!!!
I agree…..this is all backlash from our having elected Obama. Remember what McConnell said!! They never giot over it - or how minorities haven proven themselves to be equals. When will we learn to learn from each other?!
MAGA content claims that Obama is actually running things from behind the scenes.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/tuberville-latest-echo-latest-anti-obama-conspiracy-theory-rcna134147
You mean, Becky, like TFFG is actually doing…hosting foreign dignitaries at Mara Lago & “controlling” the R legislature & spouting “policy” when in the public eye…things that seem to violate the Logan Act. The only time I can recall any prior admin’s doing anything remotely like the liberties TFFG is taking, is when former POTUS’s came together for humanitarian purposes some years back.
Absolutely, Francine! He says it out loud and the racists love it.
Yes, racism is at the core of MAGA as well as the KKK. Google the study by two Univ. of Kansas professors: "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?"
As for Nikki Haley, she has just consigned herself to the junkpile of history - no character, no vision.
I agree racism is a huge factor. But the circle of cult members just keeps widening, because too many Americans can’t think or be logical, and care only about themselves. And have goldfish memory.
Our education system needs to be revamped. Too many states (red ones), are truncating their curricula, often out of fear that students might be exposed to differing points of view. The ability for so many states to deprive students of necessary work, is simply wrong. On the other hand, it would be considered a "states' rights" issue. Would "honest" history books be allowed? And science texts? Or mathematics? Then there's the problem with the MAGA parents who are terrified of their children reading about Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk, or MLK, to name a few. Those the students are poorly prepared for college due to the banning of books such as "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Catcher in the Rye", "Brave New World", "198","Fahrenheit 451", to name a few. (My guess is that Shakespeare's works are no longer taught.) The Parental Rights groups, in the name of "protecting children", are doing the exact opposite of what they claim they're trying to accomplish. The long term result of all the *rumpster's war against "woke-ism", and all critical thinking, means that the current and future generation of kids will lack those necessary critical thinking skills to think and discern what is the truth and what is not. Those are the kind of people who will follow MAGA, and buy into what they're told to believe. Those people are exactly the kind of citizens that are willing to be led around by their noses by an autocrat or dictator. Not having to think for themselves would be a "freeing" experience for the True Believers.
Francine…yes, racism and GREED. My brother owns a small eatery, very popular, but works his azz off (and has refused multiple offers/pitches to make it a regional or national chain) & is located in a state that’s income tax-free & a highly desirable resort/vacation destination (think second, even third, home ownership). He tells me that otherwise intelligent & thoughtful folks support TFFG for his tax cut policies (promoted first and foremost to benefit HIM)…my bro has a hard time understanding it as he & his family always step up to contribute to “the commons” of his town & residents.
Francine. BINGO
And don't forget the cruelty they seem to enjoy inflicting on others. I'm not a psychologist, but there seems to be something very deep and dark that connects these folks into the 'cult.'
They pulled the wings off flies as children
Yes, yes, yes! 100%
Yes, racism is a principal motivator for support Trump along with misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia. Google "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?"
Francine - got that right.
Totally wrong. When you can give some examples of trumps racist behavior perhaps people will listen. Don’t cite Charlottesville either - without quoting the transcript in it’s entirety which tells a much different story.
How about this - https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/02/trump-fbi-files-discrimination-case-235067
"The FBI has released nearly 400 pages of records on an investigation the bureau conducted in the 1970s into alleged racial discrimination in the rental of apartments from President Donald Trump's real estate company."
That's just for starters.... just Google it. Maybe your first clue should have been Trump's well-publicized, infamous talk about "s---hole countries in Africa".
You must be deaf and blind….
I know some too, they worshipped Ronnie and bought the “Dems are evil for promoting equality of ‘lessers’ and that just ain’t right.” Basically Buckley’s mantra. I find it crazy that they now welcome people as repubs that Buckley would have kicked to the curb. But it’s a “who hates Dems the most” party now. You should hear Abbott’s political ads.
I’m glad not to hear ANYTHING Abbott says. Good luck, Texans!
His hatred of Dems, public schools and any opposition is front and center. As is his pseudo christanity
This mean and bitter man reminds me of a college roommate, who, had she not had polio, would have been a New York debutante. She was, like Abbott, confined to a wheel chair but lived a full life into her 70’s, never bitter, an example of courage to all who knew her. Would that the governor had a bit of her courage and intellect.
Mmmm, that “mudsill” attitude that some people belong at the “bottom” of our culture and we should never try to raise them up. The ancient attitude of the Royals and the Serfs.
Guess which one WE are …
Raised poor by poor parents, no doubt. Oddly, they thought we could do better than they were able to do.
Me, personally, I was raised economically OK by economically OK parents, and my kids did OK, too. I have lots of entrepreneurial family who did GREAT {millionaires …}.
This business of cultural stratification and staying in your lane is garbage.
I’m old enough that, as a young woman, I was told I should shut up, let my husband keep me in line, and stop rejecting my feminine role as “help meet.”
Just GUESS what I think of all that “stay in your assigned place” … stuff.
Misogyny and bigotry...they are intelligent people who hate women and people who are different from them. I know a lot of them....they have a general undercurrent of dislike for really, everyone.
When I was having my children, in the 1960s, I couldn’t find any woman gynecologist/obstetrician, so I looked for any doctor that didn’t have an Irish or Italian name. Why the prejudice? Because those doctors were likely to be Catholics, and would prioritize a fetus’s life ahead of mine - the doctrine being that the fetus wasn’t yet baptized, so it must be saved for baptism…. And of course, I had to avoid a Catholic hospital.
And now, Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett - to think that my granddaughters have fallen into the same doctrinaire bind!
Thanks for bringing that up. I, too, was a Catholic woman of childbearing age in the 1960s. My friends and I talked of it. It scared the hell out of me.
Fast forward to the 2010s: I was back home in Pennsylvania for the holidays and suddenly my eye became very, very itchy, red and swollen. A friend offered to call her eye doctor to get an "emergency" appointment. When I checked in at his office, one of the questions I was asked was did I have a living will. When I said yes, I was told the doctor would not honor my no extraordinary life-saving request. A strange declaration from an eye doctor who specializes in cataract surgery! The doctor today is a major Republican donor and ardent Trump supporter. (And known for his pious devotion to the Catholic Church.)
Odd what pregnant women think ! I, too had 3 children in the early 60’s - 2 in a Catholic hospital and was stunned when I heard the same arguments as Jane G explained above many years ago. Fat and happy but also an RN and an ex labor and delivery nurse. It never occurred to me that my doctor and the many nurses and aids who cared for me would not do anything within their means to save us both. What a nicer, saner time it was to be in the medical field.
You don't understand, it was taught -- taught -- by the nuns in religion classes (called catechism classes as opposed to the Protestant term Bible school)
I was in those classes. But, as a nurse, I never thought that the doctors and nurses would not try their best to save us both in the delivery room. I never even thought about it.
Gary — The dean of a medical school in New York told me some years ago that he was dismayed at the changes to how young students were being educated to become doctors — He said students full of fervor to “do good” and “help people” were having it driven out of them to be replaced by “you are starting a business and you need to think like a businessman now.” Perhaps some of those doctors you speak of are more in the business of medicine than the vocation …
Too many Republicans think business is an end in itself, instead of being an aspect of society and culture that enables an economy that facilitates humans living on a small planet together.
I’ve been around for a long time, and the R’s have been the party of “business” for all that time. If the D’s are not currently a party for all of us, we will make it so …
As one of my highly educated friends expressed it, “ I will vote for whoever the Republican candidate is”. Frustrating that all people don’t put in the effort to evaluate issues or the character of candidates, but it explains the tribalism of what may be a significant segment of voters
People who say that don't realize that the Republican Party is now a hollow shell of what it was even 10 years ago. Trump and his henchmen have driven out the people who still have the values of standards and ethics of the old Republican Party. Everything Trump touches dies, including the GOP.
Sadly not caring how profoundly that party has changed.
Psychiatrist here. The field of medicine is VERY hierarchical. Doctors at the top. It's amazing how much deference they get from patients and staff. Especially the surgeons. So they like this model of social structure.
Good question. I spent this morning pointlessly arguing with a MAGAt doctor who ultimately revealed he is homophobic, misogynistic and doesn’t believe in research & reading—he just assumes his “MD” accounts for all types of expertise. He is as ignorant as any uneducated MAGAt cultist . He recites the same old, RNC spiel from their propaganda handbook, spoon-fed by Fox. Look him up: Roger Kimber MD. A family practice guy from back-ass Missouri, without a clue about who/what trump is.
Doctors, in general, don’t have the time or inclination to do any reading outside of medicine. Not until the recent political upheaval re: Roe did my own husband sit up and take notice.
Unfortunately there are many more physicians that are republican than Democratic. I practiced in AR for 20 years, and it was difficult to talk about social issues or even how bad our healthcare system is. And Drs are on the front lines of it! It was always "look at Canada's system, they have to wait 6-12 months for a hip replacement" yet in the US there are people who can't get it AT ALL unless they're on Medicare. Look at the numbers of bankruptcy due to medical bills.
But I doubt as many would support trump now, if they know anything about Project 2025.
There is definitely Hate and Greed in the Koolaid!
My own ob,whom I've known for almost 20 years and have had many frank discussions with, told me she would prescribe me hydroxychloroquin for me during covid. Before turning to hormone therapy she was a pulmonologist.
She is not stupid.
But she always voted Republican, back when they may have had a good idea. It was habit.
It's also that many doctors really would like to be wealthy and consider themselves sort of the wealthy class who vote Republican.
That’s not “a good doctor.” She may have had a rapport, but that’s not sound medicine. You say she’s an OB? No. A pulmonologist is not a trained OB, and anyone with a medical license can get into the very lucrative business of hormone replacement. From that description, I’d ask if she even has hospital privileges and what, exactly, is she allowed to do.
She's in her 60s. And my background is medicinal chemistry, so we had a talk. I also read the original ivermectin paper, which I think was pulled because I had the link but not the article and now can't find it.
She started out in pulmonology., switched to OB. I wouldn't have known except for a stint she did in the respiratory ward during covid.
Wealthiest people in this country vote democrat. You have it backwards. It’s not about money.
Please do cite your sources.
Bingo!
Breathing in and out has become so much more difficult since trumpism raised its ugly and destructive head! Now into my 7th decade, I've had to kick into much higher gear a multitude of physical activities to get a serotonin boost! It may not be enough, but at least it has reduced the time I spend stress eating!! Most importantly, the outrage we all feel needs to be managed so the anxiety of being a thinking group of people does not literally kill us!! Get some good zzzz's as well.
Amen! Exercise is so key, and I crave it each day as the stressors build. Need to do better with the sleep ;) Here I am still reading comments! Ok, bed within 15 minutes! Good night for reals.
I wait till the morning to read the posts from Heather and Joyce Vance. I find quieting my mind to sleep hard enough as it is.
Same here, Donna. I have found that having my evening practice session after any news that I watch really does get different parts of my brain engaged. That makes it far easier to sleep.
I never read this stuff after 6. But I'm exhausted by all the stuff during the day and often sleep hard. But with weird dreams.
I sit down with MSNBC every night just so I can remember that yes, there are still sane people out there living in the same reality I am.
Do doctors get to sleep?
Ha! Not enough for sure, but the worst was during residency training before the 80 hour work week cap. I can recall working every other night in the hospital (Q2 call) for a surgical rotation, easily hitting 120 hours worked per week, and fighting a sinus infection at the same time. What were we thinking training (abusing) young doctors like this for decades?! Now they strike for even better benefits and sleep! I'm not a crab in the bucket, I support them.
Good morning Janet. I look forward to waking up with Professor Richardson as opposed to going to bed with her. (credit to Ken Burns). Oftentimes I go back several times during the day to read the enlightening comments from all of you. Many of these comments are soothing to my anger and rage towards TFFG.
But, for me at least. I find I sleep so much better if I don't check in past early afternoon.
The physical activity is a great way to overcome anxiety but, I need the time away from here to overcome my insomnia.
Totally agree. I read HCR post first thing in the morning only.
Wow. I’ve been struggling so much with this… waiting for HCR in CA and then: awake! Sooooooo… mornings only from now on. Hilariously easy solution that evaded me. I’m an addict, I guess!
Move to Nova Scotia. It's still on the ocean and four hours time difference from CA. 😎
Or go a bit further east and come to Newfoundland. We're off the beaten track but the two best things this unique place has are the relative isolation and the notoriously bad weather. Without those two, everyone else would want to live here and then it wouldn't be so amazing. Only 500,000 people in the entire enormous, wild and quirky place.
And Newfoundland is four and a half hours time difference from CA. We even have our own little time zone.
Gary, I do the same, she is better than cable news.
It's like taking a college course without worrying about passing.
Question Trump. Question voodoo. Question everything.
Its how I deal with caffeine intake! A few cups in the morning, nothing after 1pm or it keeps me awake!
Love Rachel Maddow, but 9pm means I'm fuming and agitated at bedtime.
She is amazing.
Listen to her show as a podcast the next day. He analysis is so succinct.
I appreciate your factual w your good humored thoughts in the middle of the night 😘
I had not really made the connection of the constant anxiety to my increased stress eating, so thank you. This has become one of the few reports I consume so as not to get myself too anxious, yet facts alone are anxiety inducing!
Stress eating. My stress eating borders on addiction. Ok, it Is addiction.
LOL . . . I'm with you!
I have horses. I go to the barn.
I agree with you wholeheartedly!!
Ryan, states with abortion restrictions are already seeing fewer Ob/Gyn residents since the residents want to learn all the female healthcare options. Since specialists tend to practice in the region where they do their residency, there are already fewer new Ob/Gyn’s in restricted states. All women in those states lose.
https://crosscut.com/news/2024/05/medical-residents-are-avoiding-abortion-ban-states-survey-finds#:~:text=The%20AAMC%20analysis%20found%20the,states%20where%20abortion%20is%20legal.
I read about this, and it makes sense not to train or practice in these states because your hands are tied, and perhaps to be bound in jail, with that inability to take the best, safest, most compassionate and evidence-based care of women being a true moral injury for the vast majority of doctors.
Essentially, these politicians are rendering the Hippocratic oath hollow, correct? They are looking at people who spent all the time, energy, and money to become an MD/DO and making them choose between their physical freedom and their basic principles. Why some states have any doctors left at all after last year is a mystery.
The daughter of a friend of mine is a plastic surgeon as is her husband. They are both MAGAs. My friend is pre-2016 Republican and is appalled at how hateful her daughter and her husband are.
I wish more people would hold their hateful maga family members accountable. It’s like nobody wants to rock the boat. Not me though. I’m shunning people to the fullest extent.
Hard to fathom unless they swallow Rupert’s garbage pretending it is health food,
Catering to their clientele perhaps?
Is it a violation of the Hippocratic oath to do nothing when a patient is in need of immediate medical attention?
Ryan, when I started my career as a Med Tech, we didn't glove up in the lab. Many of the older techs still mouth-pippetted. The rare patient that was known to have Hepatitis (I recall when C was called "non-A non-B"! And HIV was in the future!) had their name written on a whiteboard and their blood tubes stickered with warning labels. Then when HIV came to be known, the stigma of the disease did away with the white board, and we now wore gloves. "Universal Precautions"
This is when HIPPA became the norm.
I am astounded that in TX and other states, it seems like people can be outed and hunted for their personal medical history. Can you explain why HIPPA doesn't apply to these?
Guess we're the same age! and your question is a good one. Pharmacies now track Schedule 2 and 3 Rx's (meds w/abuse potential) linked to pt names that are available in state databases (PDMP - prescription drug monitoring program) and nationally for high risk side effect meds (REMS - risk evaluation and mitigation strategies). Who, exactly, besides pharmacists and prescribers, can get access to this info on the back end?
Louisiana will be putting mifepristone and misoprostol onto the PDMP list by making them Schedule 3 drugs. Clearly a job for legislators, not pharmacologists.
Mary, women lose, but their families are also harmed by the ramifications of inadequate medical care. :-(
Marge, I saw the ramifications of Catholic doctrine on birth control in the 1960’s—two fathers of more than 6 children who lost their wives in childbirth —their doctors had warned them that another pregnancy might be fatal and offered to prescribe birth control. Unfortunately, the only hospital was Catholic and would not permit tubal ligations.
I think Catholic hospitals should not be able to obtain a license to operate. When the Pope can make papal/ medical decisions that could cost you your life, they forfeit their right to operate.
I won’t go that far, just require any hospital that accepts federal funds (Medicare, Medicare) must allow tubal ligations, vasectomies and any surgeries that are not prohibited by law.
Women will flee those states. Companies will have trouble hiring. It's a birth spiral.
Tech companies are already having trouble hiring in Texas.
Really?
I used to call on Micron in Boise, made displays and other things at the time. I bet they are seeing an exodus.
Yes. Idaho is losing Ob/Gyn doctors daily. Also Planned Parenthood has a new clinic in Ontario, Oregon (an hour's drive from Boise) that is very busy.
I understand that there is a similar situation in Spokane, Washington.
So terribly sad to deal with an unwanted pregnancy and have to get there.
What I don’t understand, or maybe I’ve missed it, is why the medical associations and certification boards are not making statements, or taking action, on these reproductive issues. Or put another way, talking about the medical dangers women face without these rights.
Ooops , i just noticed a similar post above, but mine relates to the organizations who supposedly represent the voice of the specialty and the drs and patients they serve.
Hi DE - the statements are out there, but as physicians we should be more visibly out there protesting. Here is what ACOG (OB/GYN) stated earlier this year:
““Today, ACOG observes the 51st anniversary of the day when the U.S. Supreme Court enshrined the right to abortion across the country but also left a pathway for restrictions, limitations, and burdens that prevented full access to that right.
“As we look toward what is to come in 2024, we recognize that many will call for the restoration of Roe v. Wade as a standard. However, ACOG also recognizes that Roe was imperfect: it was fragile, penetrable, and—for many—inadequate.
“This year, we will continue to call for the ability of every patient to access an abortion when they need it. We call for the ability of clinicians to provide abortion care without threats, penalties, or criminalization. We call for the end of legislative interference in the practice of medicine and for the restoration of privacy in medical treatment and the lives of our patients.
“Abortion is an essential part of comprehensive reproductive health care. In 2023—the first full year after the catastrophic Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—ACOG members have witnessed the crisis perpetuated by abortion bans and the devastating cost to pregnant patients and our communities.
“The protections afforded by Roe helped many in need access the abortion care that was right for them, their health, their values, and their lives but still left many behind, subject to the legislative, regulatory, and judicial machinations that were designed to stymy their ability to access the care they needed.
“As we look to the future on this 51st Roe anniversary, ACOG asserts our ongoing commitment to protections that surpass those provided by Roe, so no patient is prevented from accessing the care they need and no clinician is prevented from providing it.”
https://www.acog.org/news/news-releases/2024/01/statement-51st-anniversary-roe-v-wade
I think they’re more worried about the younger generation wanting to revolutionize healthcare and putting the medical insurance industry out of business, and who can blame them? I certainly don’t.
I am definitively pro choice. I am definitively pro women making decisions about their bodies and health. Still I believe, we are here fighting over abortion because our society has failed to correctly identify who is responsible for pregnancy. And that is men.
Women can have orgasm after orgasm, all day long and never get pregnant. On the other hand, men can impregnate a women with every orgasm. If there was imprisonment or legal consequences for out of wedlock pregnancy for men, I promise you we would have a fool proof male birth control method today...that would not interrupt a mans pleasure. Instead we have Viagra.
So much here, Susan. The responsibility for every single pregnancy is the man's, yet the bearing and raising of the child resulting becomes the woman's and far too many men dance away when a pregnancy results. I would love for every male child to have a DNA profile on record, and that every male adult whose sperm results in a pregnancy is financially liable for at least 75% of that child's expenses.
And or more.....I think there are a million different ways men would escape a financial penalty....and I know....from having worked with hundreds of single parent moms...child support doesn't even begin to cover the cost of food, daycare, housing, transportation and clothing. Nor does it address the challenges of single parenthood that is stigmatized by society and left without safety nets. It doesn't help the family coping with the challenges of a full time working mother with no family support meet the nurturing and guidance all children need to grow into healthy adults.
Abbots answer to helping a single parent woman in Texas is to sign her up for parenting classes and give her 6 months worth of free diapers.
The cap on child support barely covers the cost of daycare, transportation and larger house to accommodate a child or food, formula and clothing.
I agree with paternity testing but think the motivation for men assuring they don't impregnate women has to be significant....a true deterrent.
As someone who worked for 35 years with a front row seat to that, I appreciate the work you did with that cohort.
Does anyone remember Every Sperm is Sacred from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life? When all things trumpian really raise your blood pressure, discombobulate your heart rate, and send you racing to the emergency room, you might want to try a dose of satire to get you back to something close to healthy.
"Conception begins at erection. "
Perfect bumper sticker.
Not sure some people would get the sarcasm!
I'll have to watch that again. Lines from the "Search for the Holy Grail" are part of my daily lexicon.
Thank you.
I've long advocated a national database of male DNA. Every baby born is tested for paternity and financial responsibility assigned.
That would put an end to all this.
Yes, they are going after women’s contraceptives.Why not men’s? Outlaw condoms and vasectomies.
Imagine how many pregnant women would "go missing" tho.
Scary, yet probably true. Look at how many women “go missing” even now, and indigenous women especially go missing/murdered at much higher rates.
I'm with you! I'm on a Twitter fast, which is helping with the outrage. More and more I have to limit exposure to all news as it's hurting my heart figuratively and, likely, literally.
I was lucky. I got banned for calling chump a Nazi wannabe three years ago.
Bless you
Seemed clear as a bell to me, Goebbels rules for propaganda. W’s crew did it too. Accuse your enemy of what you do.
and look how he has proven you correct! yikes....
He did indeed, but MSM doesn’t seem to notice
I'm not sure that's true. I've seen several articles and clips about his use of Nazi-adjacent language: "unified Reich, vermin, poisoning the blood" etc. The MSM does have to be careful about vocabulary as calling him a Nazi could get them sued.
All they have to do is repeat Repub verbiage. They tell the tale loud and clear.
Ryan McCormick, M.D. my outrage has grown to epic proportions to the point of making me tremble and shake every time i read about the blatant outrageous garbage Donald TUMP spews daily. I have to take 100 mg of Metoprolol a day to keep my heart in check now as i had triple bypass surgery back in 2014. It also doesn't help that the articles i read online have his absolutely putrid horrific picture plastered on every article i read and that doesn't help matters. I have a dry wash cloth on hand now to put over his disgusting face on my computer monitor when i read an article online. Gotta go take another Metoprolol to calm my heart and body down some so i can go to sleep!
I cover my screen too when his picture appears! The media is to blame for this circus, if not wholly at least partially.
Mediaanddemocracyproject.org is fighting this very thing.
They followed Rupert down the money trail.
It’s like a bread & roses circus. Trump is a master at grabbing the attention. We Democrats are too boring.
Rupert makes it an Everest climb for Dems. X and FB add another mountain, then Dem spoilers try to block Joe’s path. Decency and competence may not have the gravitas of a junior high bully but I would so love to be bored again.
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity.
The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
From “Freedom and Government” an essay by Bertrand Russell
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/02/28/fools-muzzle/
I always run the news 20 minutes behind. If Drumpf comes on I mute it and fast forward. Thst whiny voice and tiny hands.
smart strategy!
Marj, you are so right about the media being the blame for this outrageous circus. The very sight of his rusty face and it's horrible ugly gross face is about too much for me to bear.
I watch a lot of documentaries by a guy named Steven Greer are about UFO's and alternate energy sources and the corruption of the big fossil fuel companies suppressing them in order to protect their huge profits. Steven Greer is undoubtedly a democratic type of person, but even on his documentaries he is constantly showing Donald TUMP on them with his deranged and lie filled speeches. It seems to me, everywhere we look we have see that despicable SOB shoved in our faces!! I hate and despise DJT, he is the worst a-hole on the planet!
I keep a big fat sharpie ready to mark up any tffg pics in the newspaper. I also have a sticky note for use on the computer monitor. Absolutely cannot stomach the grotesqueness!
A lot of us are feeling the outrage daily and it not a good thing. I have always said that I think a good part of this country and the world in general are suffering from a form of PTSD due to the actions of this horrible man and his cult.
In the psychiatry biz it has a name: secondary PTSD
Jennifer, my GP noticed a marked spike in patients presenting with anxiety (as was I) after he was elected….did not abate as his still thrumming presence is like having a bad case of tinnitus.
That so makes sense. Sigh
100% !!!
I use an extension for Google Chrome called Make Trump Kittens (or something like that) which substitutes images of the gilded turd with kitties.
That is just pathetic
John, it took me probably 6 months of recommendations from LFAA readers to sign up for Jessica Craven's "Chop Wood, Carry Water" Substack. Her can-do attitude with concrete steps to make change, along with her weekly list of all the positive changes in the US (most of which don't hit the mainstream media) helps keep me sane.
Please give her Substack a look.
Thank you for this validation John. I’m sorry to hear it but it’s the truth, and I see this in many of my patients. The worst part for me is the outrage coming from the right wing, as their whole media apparatus is built around fear and outrage. I’d like to think ours is built around truth at least, but it certainly focuses on the outrageous. I’m going to write a post about this thanks for the inspiration and hang in there! Tune out frequently for survival
My response to his image also
Take care of yourself. It's not worth it and we need you.
John, I have posted this here before, but one way to mentally override seeing him on TV, is to channel this: Life Accordion to Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65jqrHQi_c. At least now when I see him I have a mental soundtrack that makes me giggle whenever he does that hands-thing (it is just made for parody!).
That politicians assume power over medicine fails all logic. The FDA, AMA and other well qualified entities provide strict ethical and science-based oversight to the safety and ethics of health care. This seems an egregious overstepping of professional boundaries.
I'm a retired urologist and I share your outrage. Republican politicians and judges need to get the F..K out of our exam rooms and ORs and let us do our jobs with the moral, ethical, and dare I say "legal" guidelines dictated by our professional societies.
💪
Ryan ... with you on all of that. Trying to keep my A-Fib under control … Egad.
But also trying to make clear to voters that DJT is NOT an advocate for anyone but himself
Hey Ryan, consider reading Heather and any other Drump news in the morning 😄
Containing outrage proves to be a challenge every day. 🤬 I listen to people Senators Cotton, Kennedy (LA), Cruz et many al., especially Trump, speak nastily and in peevish tones; then I find me yelling, "¡F*CK YOU!" 🤭 Fortunately for my fellow man, I live alone. 😉
Maybe you should make that statin. There are a lot of us who will probably need it between now and November. This situation is sickening.
I’m with you. Breathe in breathe out. The only way to control our anxiety.
I don't read Substack posts before bedtime. I can't sleep if I do.
I am simultaneously terrified and encouraged!
The Republicans are headed for a historic disaster in November. In Florida, there are initiatives on the ballot to protect women's right to choose, and to legalize marijuana. Both require supermajorities of 60% to pass, but are very popular with voters. If the Florida Democrats can convince the majority of those voting for Amendment 3 and 4 to also vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump will be very embarrassed.
From your mouth to God's ear.
My same exact words/thoughts, also with Heather's: "But there are signs a bipartisan defense of democracy may be gathering strength." Let's hope so.
I just can't go down the rabbit hole I did in 2020 when I was sick (serious diverticulitis), there were crazy politics, the pandemic, isolation, etc.
I appreciate the positive comments shared here. I try to concentrate on them to keep me going upward & onward!
hopiumchronicles.org
This site is real news for real adults. No haranguing and bellowing, just following the factual tilt of America toward a more pluralistic and colorful democracy.
I've already posted this above, but in case you don't see it, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Jessica Craven's Substack "Chop Wood, Carry Water". I wish I had signed up when I first started hearing about it right here in the LFAA comments! Her positive attitude and concrete steps to bring about change, plus her weekly list of positive changes in the US is well worth the cost of subscription--which, btw, is free!!
I do subscribe! I also get receive "Chop Wood/Carry Georgia" with specific news/activities for my current state. It's great!
As a former member of the G.O.P., I keep hoping and hoping for that bi-partisan defense. 🤞
Then many of the decent ones, like Governor Haley, come out and say they will vote for Trump. 😳
I do not understand it. 🤬
Even Governor Hogan of my state of Maryland, now running for the Senate, said long ago that he will support whoever is nominated by the Republicans. 😱
I do not get it. 🤢
The only thing I get is sad that the Party of Lincoln has "whigged out." 😢
P.S., written 6½ years ago.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-republican-party-gop-whigging-out-you-make-call-ned/
I'd like to believe you, EcstaticRationalist -- "historic disaster" impending for Republicans.
Heather's concluding sentence here today has both your and Simon Rosenberg's happy-happy spin on things.
But look at Heather's penultimate sentence here: on how the MAGA minions "are working to seize power through voter suppression, violence, gerrymandering, and packing the legal system."
Trouble is, the huge amount of dark money the predator billionaires have. They know how to use it. Alito like others on the Clarence court knows that this Sunami of money lets them scoff at any accountability for their toxic stew of medieval and faux-aristocratic conceits. Fox news will echo any number of lies any time they detect any sensationalism further to rile up their goon base -- look at the nonsense Heather also cites today on their lying about Biden's supposed plan to assassinate their waddling fat, orange-encrusted diaper boy.
American schools aren't getting better anytime soon to reverse the damages that decades of teaching-to-the-test have spawned. Alito, Clarence, and their ilk 14 years ago already delivered the major Citizens United immunity on which our predator billionaires have since floated.
Wish, wish, wish, however, I could believe you, Simon, and Heather at her most radiant.
Forget who the messengers are. Rather, believe how people vote: Actual election results.
It's not about the messengers (Simon, HCR, Hubbell, Jess Craven). It's about emprical reality.
Which party has been winning elections across the country since 2018? And why? Have the forces of MAGA evil and massive amounts of money stopped Democrats from overperforming? Or kept Rs from struggling and underperforming? No!
Roe the Vote! Get Out the Vote!
". . . empirical reality," Eric?
Who controls more state legislatures.? Answer: far-right, MAGA Republicans.
Who controls the U.S. House of Representatives? Answer: far-right MAGA Republicans.
Who controls the Clarence court?
Um, Phil? You and I both know that the Repubs having a lock on legislatures in small states is irrelevant to who wins power nationally. Ditto the Dems holding down the fort in Vermont or Hawaii. All that matters is the swing states, and the Democratic electoral record in those states has been mighty impressive for a party-in-power. That IS empirical reality, and to interpret it as promising is not optimistic, it's just basic analysis. The idea that a political party would overperform in off-years in swing areas, raise more money, have stronger infrastructure, rack up early NGO endorsements left and right, hold the power of incumbency... and then all of a sudden do badly is not exactly a result an objective observer would conclude to be most likely.
It's even more than that, Will. Here in Ohio, no longer a swing state, overrun with MAGAts, and yet all the Republican attempts at overt corruption are met with large majorities saying, "Oh HELL NO!!". And in other states, as well. I'm personally feeling an old fashioned ass whuppin' for MAGAts everywhere this November, and I can't wait. And I especially want to see the MSM try to get the egg off their collective faces!!
Yes, the Ohio legislature is trying to keep Joe Biden off of the ballot in November.Get your head around that. Our governor, Mike DeWine is calling a special session of the legislature on Tuesday to try to remedy this situation.
Bush v Gore has entered the chat...
And so have the architects.
Yes, the empirical reality of election results.
Don’t forget what Stalin said, and Google knows. “It doesn’t matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes.” Or words to that effect.
The vote counters in MN, WI, MI, PA and AZ are all under the rubric of democratic governors and democratic secretary of states, who oversee the election results.
ALL potential swing states are overseen by democratic party governors and secretaries of states.
Save for the outlier of 2016, these Staes have been trending blue since ... 2000
Will they be enough to stop the planned steal.
Simply read my comment again - these states are CONTROLLED by Democrats, who simply count every vote.
Exactly so.
Amen!
Unstated by HCR, President Biden's weird but lasting unpopularity with a vast swath of deeply ignorant and misinformed voters. Condemned for being "old" and unentertaining, condemned for busying himself too exclusively with hard and successful labor on behalf of ordinary Americans.
More important, deep unpopularity with young voters, disgusted by Biden's unwavering support for Israel, despite the crimes of that country's government, in the hands a suicidally extreme criminal faction well to the right of MAGA. The mainstay of that government? Resisting America, resisting every attempt by the Biden Administration to put the brakes on mass killing of the Gaza population and the systematic oppression of Palestinians.
Resisting. And waiting for TrumpMAGA to ride to the rescue.
Once again, for the people in the back: Israel is not a major factor in vote choice for all but a very small fraction of young voters. We now have months worth of multiple surveys from reputable outlets testing the question in differen ways and the data is clear. Whether they approve or not, the number of young people who prioritize this specific bit of foreign policy over jobs, housing, health care, education, civil rights, public safety, and climate change *combined* is smaaaaalllll. These folks are disproportionately loud in the extreme, and while I understand how to those passionate about this issue the narrative that a key voting bloc may be equally passionate would be a compelling one to repeat, but it just is not the case.
Also, approval does not inherently translate neatly to voting intent. You don't have to like someone to prefer them or vote for them. We now have large-sample youth surveys from Tufts, Harvard, and Pew all indicating a repeat of the midterms among this demo: high voter turnout with a Biden/Dem margin of at least 20 points, possibly 30 with some work.
Worrying: the disincentive to vote.
Worrying, the near total lack of awareness of how heavily each American voter's decision (or indecision) weighs on the fate of the world.
A huge responsibility to which maybe 99% of Americans will be deaf and blind. Maybe more than 99%...
The rest of the world lives downstream...
Freedom and democracy will win this election, as it has with EVERY election since 2016
Democrat Marilyn Lands won a special election in ... ALABAMA ... by running on reproductive freedom and voting right rights.TH
2024 will be a deep blue wave, sweeping across AZ, GA and NC AND the rest of blue states. NO state will turn from blue to red
It has not won every election at all. It has won a lot in certain states especially where there are or will be referendums on reproductive choice. But MAGA is taking over the Republican Party in primaries and in the many non-swing red states that means entrenched power in the hands of committed fascists.
As someone said, "Voting is not a marriage."
Piece in yesterday's NYT makes one think this is THE issue with younger voters. So glad I cancelled my subscription
with the young voters, the disconnect is the result of the incredible social media blitz they get hit with by the bad actors (Russia, Iran, China). Biden admin is hamstrung by the need to not discuss openly what they are doing. Sadly, we know what the MAGA leadership would do and it is not pretty.
Young voters will vote for reproductive rights AND voting rights.
That isn’t true. The moral rage young voters feel about our complicity in genocide and other war crimes, and their panic about Biden’s friendliness with the fossil fuel industry, are based on informed attention—the 30% of young people who actually vote are not the ones most susceptible to bad actors on tik-tok.
"Biden's friendliness with the fossil fuel industry."
Are you kidding me? Who's the candidate who met with the oil executives recently, asked them to donate to his campaign & also told them he would scratch his opponents' electric vehicle & wind energy policies? Hint, it wasn't Joe Biden.
Well, I'm not kidding you. He has issued hundreds of drilling permits in the Gulf and the Arctic, avoided COP meetings, OK'd many dirty oil pipelines including across and under major water sources and agricultural areas in indigenous treaty lands, allowed fracking into green bills, and has been a friend of the fossil fuel industry all his political life--unsurprisingly as a man from Pennsylvania representing Delaware. The major oil and gas companies donate to both parties. Some Democrats (not many) make a point of not accepting fossil fuel donations. Biden is not one of them.
You're not looking at this from the point of view of young people terrified about their future--and deciding not to have children because of it. I'm working hard to get them to vote for Biden (whom I don't like either). But from their POV as people who'll have to try and live, and finally fail to, under the skies of a 2.7-3.0 degree Celsius temperature rise and all the resulting climate migration and resource wars, the difference between not-enough-action-to-make-a-difference plus no resistance to the industry's asks and the Former' Guy's asinine assurances to potential donors is moot.
I and many old people who have always been well-informed -- meaning, among other things, well aware of the age, extent and depth of anti-Semitism in Christian countries, the Shoah and America's and other countries' refusal to help fellow-human refugees in mortal danger -- may well feel even greater rage than relatively ill-informed youngsters about America's complicity in mass murder and other war crimes... together with systematically turning a blind eye to decades of habitual oppression by Israel and the equally habitual coddling of corporations (fossil fuels, chemicals, armaments, agri-food, you name it).
In America, entrepreneurship is all too often coming to be seen, not as risk taking but a divine right to coddling, treats, pacifiers and privileges... Pathetic...
But sharp awareness of Biden's professional failings and blind spots -- all too understandable in a deeply experienced elder statesman -- won't distract us from his almost unique achievements or deviate us one millimeter from our bounden duty to defend him and the world from forces committed to the overthrow of democracy and democratic institutions... however imperfect.
*
If, elsewhere, I referred to TrumpMAGA as "the enemy", this was quite deliberate.
If these people have their way, America will join Putin et al as the universal enemy.
Didn’t they already prove to be influenced by bad actors on TikTok?
Who is “they”?The voting minority among people under 25, or all people under 25?
Yet Biden is condemned by the right for abandoning Israel (because he stopped one shipment of arms) and supporting a two state solution. SMH.
Correct enough, Peter -- too many pieces that do not fit together. Too much still to go wrong.
All too possible still, a massive damburst. Violent ignorance sweeps all before it...
Israel is too much like America writ small.
America's too like Israel writ large.
Microcosm and macrocosm.
Americans still have no inkling of how total a disaster a TrumpMAGA triumph will be.
Apocalyptic.
Given America's vast power -- power unprecedented in human history -- any ignorant fool at the head of the country could unleash harm beyond the dreams of Hitler and all the evil mass destroyers that ever lived.
Yes, Peter, much to fear in the tens of millions of besotted MAGA.
Much to fear in the bribed, perjured, and corrupt who rule for medievalism on the Clarence court -- zero accountability for their fascism, their ever sucking up to the humanly empty, dehumanized billionaires floating them.
Much to fear in frauds such as the Howdy Doody speaker of the house, who parades piety while defending the pussy-grabber, rapist, business fraud, mocker of our disabled, racist, scorner of our veterans, and friend to all the world's worst dictators.
Still, from my isolated perch here in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan, I most fear nukes in the hands of the orange fat boy's Putin. His fellow oligarchs have despoiled Russia, as U.S. billionaires by their offshoring have created America's mass embittered former working classes.
And, sadly, pathetically, Putin in his arrogance has faced off against, as you say, "power unprecedented in human history." He may blow us all away with nukes, if only to salvage his own bearded, long-skirted, mega-jewelry-adorned eastern orthodox priests themselves all chanting for mass hatred and mass death.
Tim Snyder addressed this hair on fire fear last year. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/nuclear-war?r=6ptqj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Sad but in our face reality
Peter, how can they possibly think that Trump would support the Palestinian over his fascist buddy Bibi??
What we're seeing here is often pure emotionalism. Strong feelings, justified, but not supported by any critical thinking.
I suspect that this may have less to do with Israel-Palestine than with rage and disgust at America's homegrown injustice, hypocrisy, ironclad inequalities and institutionalized racism.
But if we move beyond the momentary satisfaction of venting rage, we'll become aware of the priorities that must govern our actions and avoid cutting off our nose to spite our face.
Thinking is dynamic. It means opening up space, opening our minds to reality and the possibility of practical remedial action.
This explains the importance that so-called "conservatives" attach to destroying public education and so formating students' minds as to prevent any possibility of them learning to think for themselves (heaven forbid!).
Just saw a telling article by Jessica Winter in the New Yorker on The Texas School District That Provided the Blueprint for an Attack on Public Education...
Subheading: When conservative activists began waging battle against diversity plans, some had a much bigger target in mind.
I have been so naive, not realizing how all of these things are related to an enormous strategy. Hitler would be envious.
We have all been caught unawares.
As we've seen with Islamist assaults, especially 9/11 and the recent 10/7 assault on Israel, those who never venture beyond the short term are at a severe strategic disadvantage when faced with attackers whose timescale is centuries long and whose attacks are designed to trigger endless chain reactions.
Likewise, so-called conservatives like Leonard Leo act in the medium and longer term, building up strategic networks over decades and only showing their true intentions when they have completed all logistical preparations. They invert Clausewitz's aphorism about war. For them, politics is war pursued by other means.
Phil, so elegantly said and so horrifying. They have more tools than Adolf ever could have dreamed of…and they know how to use them.
I heard that on a podcast with Rick Wilson the other day - wouldn't that be something? I've learned not to get my hopes up though. But wouldn't it make sense? It sure would!
Who is handling voter suppression & other shenanigans I'm sure is rampant?
Lynn:
Marc Elias. The ACLU. The Brennan Center for Justice. Common Cause. And many others!
GREAT! But no government agency, is that correct?
Perhaps we need a "One Person, One Vote Amendment" to mandate that the right to vote and to have that vote count in equal measure is a fundamental precondition for democracy and liberty and justice for all. Even if it doesn't pass, politicians will have to come out visibly and explicitly. $COTUS is immune to such accountability.
Hi JL, It is my understanding, the worse thing we could do is open up the Constitution to amendments now, while there is so much turmoil. Does anyone have information on this?
Amending the Constitution is a very serious matter, but what is more fundamental to a democratic republic than the integrity of the right to vote? It's increasingly under attack, and the lack of ironclad guarantees of the right to vote and have it equally counted play an oversized role in our current difficulties. All that might be beside the point if Trump is declared Fuher, but I think it's something to start talking about.
Amending the Constitution would require the approval of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress as well as approval by three-quarters of state legislatures.
So it is less whether it would be a good or bad idea right now and more that it is not even worth discussing considering the logistics.
Charles Koch would love to open that door. great idea but he has a plan that no sane American would like.
JL, you may have just given me my new way to refer to that "high" court! I've been using SCROTUS, with the "R" being "Republican" and my junior high brain thinking of a part of male anatomy. $COTUS is far, far more accurate.
The problem here is the Extreme Court, with its recent decision on political gerrrymandering and prior to that the Holder decision.
Expand the court and impose term limits.
I listed NGOs. Government: DOJ, e.g. Civil Rights division. Secretaries of State (at least mine in Colorado, the heroine Jena Griswold! ... and in AZ and MI, for other prominent example), and state AGs. Also, the FBI responds to voter intimidation cases.
(I'm not an expert on these topics. That's just off the top of my head.)
The DOJ handles 14th Amendment issues, and the Supreme Court was supposed to help, but that's not working too great right now.
The Supreme Court is now maverick.
You mean 'rogue' don't you Anne ?
No, DOJ has a civil rights division. Not sure what they’re working on. I hope they are getting ready for November.
Fair Fight out of Georgia works hard for voters in a difficult environment to put it mildly.
Thank you
Not counting on it until it is done. The republicans think that what the leaders say is what they do, but never look carefully at those actions. Case in point - the conservatives will cut you medicare and SS - response from voters is no they won't. Why? Because the voters read the propaganda the reps send out saying the opposite, but pass bills that do. The disconnect is astounding. But in fairness to the voters, many of them are too busy just putting together a living to know.
Let’s hope they can.
I think you are far too optomistic about the Florida revolt against abortion and the possibility of Florida voters voting more for Democratic candidates. In Florida (as in Texas where I live) the Republican Party is practically the only thing that voters care about. They may vote for the abortion initiative (although 60% is a high bar). But they will still vote majority republican for their legislature. And that legislature will find some way to bypass the abortion initiative if it squeaks by. We are seeing these same type of efforts happening in Ohio (where I lived until 1985). And the only way to defeat trumpism is to defeat republican politicians across the board in state and federal elections.
I dream you are right, but legislatures in red states behave passed so many “voter integrity” laws, that the deck is stacked.
We don't need red states, ANY of them, to win. Please don't worry about red states vis-à-vis the prez election ... even Democratic Senators John Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio are expected to cruise to victory, due to their campaign operations
(including $$$ raised) their respective and popularity
Already, more than 300 electoral votes are safely in Democratic Party column - and not including AZ and GA, which are heavily trending blue - having voted statewide for Democratic Senators since 2018!!
MN, WI, MI and PA are solidly blue states now
Please share where you get this info. I’d love to read it.
Just look at recent voting trends in the states, especially the ones I point to.
LOOK at the last 6 years of statewide voting in all of the states I mention --->. THE elections for the U. S> Senate AND for the Governorship sin the states I mention --->. THESE are all statewide elections, and so is the 2024 presidential election - votes are counted statewide, as one aggregate for each state.
YOU will then realize of which I write!
Also read ...... hopiumconronicles.org
Don’t underestimate the absolutely evil machinations of repubs. Jan 6 should not be forgotten for a nanosecond
It sounds like Trump is flying too high and on a trajectory to crash and burn. Let's hope. I like HCR's interpretation of Nikki's motive for endorsement. It is hopeful that she gets 20% of the primary votes in some states when she's not even on the ballot.
Not hopeful that she could win the presidency, though!
May The Universe hear you and all evil.bevdeaf.
And perhaps very out of office as well.
This is as timely as it is excellent. This might be seem a little off subject but the point is to remind people of the real character of Citizen ( not President Trump). I am in Shanghai this week and met an American Architect who cane to China in the early 2000’s and has done well here as well as his early career in the United States and he gave me an autobiography he just wrote. He recounts a meeting he had with 3 investors, one of whom was Donald Trump back in the early 90’s at the former Ambassador Hotel and had been abandoned after Robert Kennedy was assassinated there. It was up for sale and the investor group was considering the site for a new hi rise development, ( the sale never went through and is now a high school campus). The caretaker gave them a tour of this boarded up structure and took them to the basement and rolled back a carpet covering the spot of RFK’s murder. His blood stains were still in the concrete slab. Trump muttered everyone to hear “ He must have been dumb to get shot”. As the story goes on the three developers were to share the architecture fees but Trump never paid his share. No reverence, no empathy, no integrity. The exact opposite of President Biden.
The GOP wants to paint a “disastrous” picture of the solid accomplishments in the economy, foreign affairs and the vested interests of the citizens of this country by good governance. The GOP wants the slaveholders of today to control the country for their own interests and everyone else in the US and the world be damned. This may be the most dangerous cancer in this world since WWll. So this memorial weekend we honor those who gave their lives by fighting to preserve what they fought for.
Thank you Heather for your voice and leadership.
Completely believable - 45 is a horrible person with murderous instincts, only concerned about himself.
Anti-social personality disorder
Psychopath with dementia🤔
All the above
LOL….all rolled into one…a fat & lumpy loser.
LOSER
So many possible diagnoses… I am holding out hope for his dementia to turn him into a babbling idiot - oh, wait, he’s been a babbling idiot for decades. I want him to become unable to complete a word or sentence. Oh, wait, he’s already there. And I guess his his acolytes just assume he’s speaking in tongues and continue to tithe to the Orange Jesus.
Marge, don’t know if you’ve seen these YouTube vids….Life Accordion to Trump…lol…cannot see him now making his hand gestures without this musical accompaniment playing in my head!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65jqrHQi_c
Brilliant!
Hilarious! I shared on FB. Thanks 🙏
Same here!
He’s a pathological lying psychopath with narcissistic personality disorder.
Strange how that could take over a whole society, but there is certainly precedent.
With a healthy amount of narcissistic personality disorder.
He is definitely a pariah. The history books will have the final say. What an ego buster to be the absolute worst President ever, he who though he was the greatest on earth!
He will be able to boast “I was greatest worst president EVER…number one worst, the best worst that no one else can beat! And a big strong man came up to me, with tears in his eyes, saying you are my favorite worst president ever, please don’t stop being the worst you can be.”
" The likes of which this country has never seen! Everyone's saying it! "
It would be funny if it weren't feasible. He might see it as an
accolade!!!! Hahaha
I may be playing arm chair psychologist here, but I think IQ45 is an insecure, self loathing, narcissistic bigot. Two of his three wives were/are immigrants, thus 4 of his spawn from those women are anchor babies, as he is fond of saying. He vilifies immigrants because of a deep seated insecurity about the women he has married (#2 baffles me except to think she was looking for a sugar daddy and a golden parachute to get out of the marriage. She got pregnant to win the prize spouse.) He never really made it in Manhattan, always thought of as the crass upstart from Queens who abused or ignored laws and conventions to claim success. No cushy charity board seats for his indentured wives; the current “400” showed no tolerance for the vulgar parvenues. No respect for the marbled, gold-leafed edifices he built with undocumented immigrant labor except from other superficial wannabes. With his brilliant business acumen, he bankrupted 3 casinos. How in the world does that happen?! What his insecurities have done for him is make him like a rabid dog backed into a corner, belligerently defending himself while casting blame on everyone else for his failures, weaving fantasies out of loss after loss, posturing with a grandiosity that borders on the psychopathic. He courts, woos and wins over those who have even less self respect than he does or are so power hungry and nefarious that they don’t care about his obvious defects, using him as a means for their own corrupt plans. I have no problem hating the 2020 loser. He is beyond redemption, undeserving of any forgiveness, not worthy of any accolades so callously heap upon him by those who take advantage of whatever sort of “power” he seems to hold. In light of all his legal problems, I wish he would board his highly mortgaged jet and slink off to a country with no extradition treaty with the United States and live in lonely, gilded captivity devoid of fawning crowds and ass kissing minions, never to set foot in our country again. His current immigrant wife may even go with him.
Thank you for the story, I'm sure there are hundreds more, probably thousands more, like this that illustrate how callous, contemptible, vile and sociopathic Trump really is. All he has to do is speak and he reveals how horrible he is.
I was born in 1968 just about a month after Robert Kennedy was assassinated, not all that far from the Ambassador Hotel at Cedars of Sinai Hospital. If he'd have been the Democratic candidate things would have been very different. Maybe there never would have been a Nixon presidency. The 1968 Democratic National Convention might not have become the melee and brutal display of a police state and not a democracy. Would RFK have ended the Vietnam War?
But tonight as I was driving home on a Bay Area freeway, the traffic came to a standstill as it often does here. Then I saw that there were banners with Kennedy for President on the overpass in both directions. There were a lot of older people there that weren't MAGA types but don't seem to understand that a vote for RFK Jr. is a vote for Trump. Spoiler alert! He has been practically disowned and disavowed by the remaining Kennedy family. RFK Jr. could really start affecting this election with stunts like this, and hopefully it will pull more votes from Trump but it could take needed votes from Biden too. Egos and brain worms can have such horrible consequences on elections.
I also know someone who was not paid for work he did for trump in Vermont.
…and the working men and women are supporting him….
Shysters have good PR, always it seems
No surprise here. He has always insulted immigrants; but he has regularly hired them and then refused to pay them.
Good lord, what a caricature of a human being…
Nope. A caricature of a lump of foetid fecal matter. To give him any semblance of being human is a fallacy.
Love your adjectives
Amen Christopher
With any luck, the fat old traitor will finally eat the fatal hamberder and welcome the arrival of his long-awaited (by the rest of us) massive fatal myocardial infarction. Which will preferably happen mid-rant at one his hatealongs in front of the shitkickers.
I swear I have dreams about this and I am a decent person! Or I was, pre-Trump. Now I just feel like I despise a percentage of my fellow humans.
You are not alone. My Mom told me the other day tfg is the first person she has ever actually hated. She thinks he is so disgusting and evil that he actually makes her sick, and she can't help but think less of people that do not have the same reaction. The poor woman is so kind-hearted even after a couple years she can't seem to process having this reaction to anything.
I told her that hating someone who is hateful is simply having the appropriate reaction to what is being presented to you. Full stop. As long as you yourself are not mimicing their hatred, there is no shame there.
I felt so damn wise!
Cal, for a while now I have searched and searched for one scintilla of compassion/understanding of a toddler/child/teen/young adult Trump and, nope, can find none, mostly based on his apparent gleeful adherence to the socio-pathological actions that fed his ever-hungry ego and bottomless need for adoration and blatant cruelty. I only learned this in bits and pieces as he was not really on my radar much at all before he became POTUS. Shame on us (USA) for allowing it….when the inept losing team wins the championship & runs amok….gods & goddesses help us! Watching this play out—his presidency and post-presidency game-show-carnival-act—is still surreal to me & I keep thinking I will wake up from this nightmare.
I only had two nightmares I could remember in my first 70 years, one when had a fever when I was 10, and another at 37 in 1983 the night before the movie "The Day After" was shown, knowing the subject I had dreamed of watching all the missiles managed from Wyoming being launched simultaneously (like the dual test launch of two minuteman missiles from Vandenberg, but many more). I was working in the missile warning business at the time and discussed it the next day with the people at our site and the tech school I'd taught at for 6 years. We shared stories of the false detections we knew of as individuals, and learned of so many more where our operators (and Soviets/Russians), had suspected false detections, or learned no other sources had seen the same false indications and avoided responding. We were amazed at the the restraint shown by a few Soviet/Russians who were under orders to fire retaliatory missiles under conditions where they were supposedly not supposed to wait for other sources to verify they were being attacked, but did so anyway. We had a renewed faith that we would never initiate a first strike, though Reagan had committed to too realistic wargames that came very close to unintentionally scaring the Soviets into thinking we were doing something they seemed to think justified from their side , a real first strike they thought might be their only option because of their weaker actual strength than they ever let on to the world. Scared people do stupid things, scaring them more can be the very worst thing to do.
We felt much more comfortable that cooler heads were on both sides and the nuclear fever was broken, with what looked like an excellent opportunity half a decade later when the cold war seemed over for good.
Then came the night before Trump's electoral college "win." I had a deep sense of foreboding despite the polls that night and nightmares for most of the following four years.
In 2020 I had no doubt at all that Trump could not win the popular or electoral vote because of all of his own appointees that would not cross the lines of their oaths of office, and were resigning in many cases not noticed by the public, and some stayed (though they wanted to leave), as the last barriers to prevent even worse abuses by Trump.
No severe nightmares until we barely lost the House in 2022, and started to see just how bad the Lenard Leo Court could be. The damage to the US from the sabotaged transition, grift based distribution plans for what Covid vaccines and supplies were needed for the massive new cases resulting from reckless downplaying of the threat was just one part of new catastrophes brought on by that slim majority in the House. The nightmare 118th Congress combined with what seemed the vindictively weakened Afghanistan (5,000 Taliban released, and Trump post election loss cuts to US troops and firm date for removal of all) created a worse disaster. That is an ongoing nightmare for all who tried to do their best for Afghanistan.
I thought it would be different for Ukrainians, especially once they united so completely against Russia after they were attacked. It seemed the perfect opportunity to stop countries taking over others by military conquest against a populations so determined to fight for their freedom no matter what the odds.
The corrupt House leadership sabotaging their superhuman efforts and chances for an easier defensive victory, have been sickening new nightmares (especially since "the majority of the majority" (disgusting Hastert Rule) would have voted for aid so often in the months it was denied the floor.
With this McConnell/Leo nightmare court, I think we need to make maximum effort to take back every elected position we can so the Court has no other allies to do their dirty work.
Wonderfully said, Jim, and thanks for sharing your experiences of the nuclear tender-hooks the major powers navigated & am ever grateful for those level-headed folks that stepped back from the brink just in time (and hopefully will still do). I am aghast at the level of power grubbing obsequious boot licking & ass kissing going on now in the halls of Congress and on Judicial benches (and admire/applaud those who push back/resist)….it’s like some demented Shakespearean farce but with real life consequences…I see this playing out and wonder who ARE these people?
I'm with your mom Will. If you've read Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen he says the same thing without saying it. Something like, "before Trump I never truly hated another person."
As well you should!
You are. Good advice.
You despise them because they are despicable. It’s a rational assessment, not a failing.
Cults suffer from temporary insanity. Of course, included with this crowd are those whose insanity predated chump. I know them too.
I think the insanity defense is far fetched. Almost to the last person, they know exactly what they’re doing and why.
Many surely do (especially the leaders with money and power) but cult logic is in a realm all by itself. Never saw anything in the DSM that explained it.
Rex is right.
Yes. Yes. Understand well. Keep an open heart and an open mind, as challenging as this task is. Thanks.
A very appropriate reaction!
Truly, every morning whe he was President the first thing I did every morning was to check to see if he had died overnight. Maybe one of these days we’ll get lucky!
Every single day I do that, hope for that. I never dreamed I could be like that. He is a hateful, hateful man!
I know. I used to feel guilty about it.
I justify my guilt by telling myself his demise would benefit the world in every possible way. I have never despised anyone like this. His existence is an affront to humanity.
Well,he is brain dead.
Chris, unfortunately tho’ brain dead, his mouth still works & spews hateful gibberish. Ever try to read a transcript of his words?? Stream-of-consciousness is not even close, it’s more like sewer-rapids-down-the-drain-consciousness. There is no “there” there….worse than a word-salad, it’s a word-hash.
He's doing a book on speaking in tongues. Maybe a cd too!!
LOL…used as a form of torture, playing a cd of his speeches, would have the bad guys confessing in mere minutes!!!!
We could get rid of Guantanamo with the right combination of his words set to his favorite weird ass music that he likes to dance too.!!! Make the prisoners stand for hours playing the air accordian!!
YES, YES. YES. PLEASE!!!
Don't just lance the boil, find the root cause.
The next Trump will be insidious and far more dangerous
The Heritage Society has an after-chump plan. I’d bet my life on it.
Yep. Project 2025.
The road is paved and ready for traffic. Hope we can make more than a few potholes
I’m guessing Pete Ricketts will be on that list.
He appears to be rich enough
I agree. Trump is disturbing, but worse is that so many think he is good for the country. Bewildering and infuriating. Maybe a summer of tornados, hail and hurricanes along with a fast food price war will convince his supporters that climate change is real and the economy is improving.
He will blame Biden for tornado damage if he gets a chance and knows about the tornadoes, which is doubtful
Yes. The likes of a jd vance; young, eloquent, good-looking. And as evil as the day is long.
heritage VP choice maybe
Exactly! If the orange turd cheats his way in, I'd give it 2 - 3 months before the 25th Amendment is invoked, and vance moves in, and America ends. He then becomes our Putin, and 30 years later........
About how long I give him, unless he falls out a window or a plane crashes
I can’t picture TFFG picking a VP who would have ambitions and is more TV-handsome than himself.
Don't think it will be HIS choice. The REAL string-pullers, like L. Leo, and those atop the "Heritage Foundation", will make the choice 'with' him. Like they did with Pence, to get the christo-fascist vote. No way is someone like Pence a TFFG kinda guy, you know?
So a Vance, Greene or ____ (fill in the blank with nutty VP candidate of your choice)? Of course they would have to pick someone who will take marching orders when Agent Orange becomes too demented to dress himself or suffers a cheeseburger-inflicted CVA…
Well, first, I can't imagine them selecting a female, no matter who she is, or how evil (Noem!). But it all mirrors Germany 100 years ago. Whichever nightmare it turns out to be ( imagine Cotton of Arkansas ), they will not be able to control him, any more than Germany could with Hitler. When will we as humans learn? Hopefully, enough of us have!!
LOL, TC, you are in fine form tonight.
And Biden will be blamed.
That is my devout hope, although I prefer a blown middle cerebral artery stroke to a myocardial event.
I’m also one of those who has never known hate for any human being before TFFG. And I hate him so much that I would prefer a stroke that leaves him unable to move or speak for the remainder of his short life.
I'm on Team Stroke with you, Ally
He just needs to hang on long enough that they can't take his name off the ballot.
And you all call republicans Haters. This thread is beyond reproach.
So then leave
Take your nice cheese plate to a different gunfight, please.
Beyond reproach is what has become of your beloved Republican party. If you can't recognize, and HATE, the new NAZI party, you'll get what you deserve.
If they are going to make mifeprestone a controlled substance they had better add viagra to the list as well. Not only is this whole shambles about controlling women it is also about controlling the medical professionals that treat them.
Plus a ban on Viagra would make the necessity of the abortion pills moot in some cases.
Maybe TX and other states should start processing all of the rape kits they have stored.
And prosecuting the rapists, especially the ones that impregnate their victims.
Under Abbott they are prosecuting about 1/3 the number of rapist they did before he took office. They might as well legalize rape and incest in TX and many of the other red states.
Abbot is so anti-women and anti-democrats that his ads make me heave.
What rapists? Abbott promised to clean the streets of them. You mean he didn’t?
OMFG
That won't happen because the extreme Christian MAGA right needs to force women to have more babies (even those resulting fron incest or rape) to provide workers the oligarchs can underpay as they oppose immigrants and immigration reform in order to avoid being outnumbered by nonwhite people. They need to make the anti-abortion and anti- contraception laws consistent nationwide to prevent giving medical professionals (and educated professionals in general) reasons to move to states that will allow them to use their training and judgement.
Even the traditional "establishment" Republicans enabled and welcomed Trump's ascendancy because winning was - and is - everything. Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, and other GOP leaders having noble motivations is laughable. Republicans embraced alternative facts as well as alternative principles.
The McConnell GOP only care about power.
That is the crux of it, right there.
The secret that all Republicans know but won't speak about is that they are all aware that Donald won't be around forever. Today he's their poster-boy and he draws all the public attention & loyalty, but he's clearly not the brains behind the movement. They're all working frantically to cement their positions and put themselves firmly in charge before he self destructs.
The situation being what it it, they back him lavishly, but it's only for the time being.
He isn't permanent and they all know it. Once he's out of the picture any of their plans that are incomplete will lose a lot of momentum.
I believe that they think he is a useful tool/fool they can eventually do without, but I spent my earliest years in Germany during the Nuremberg Trials. Some Germans thought the same of Hitler.
Trump has many more former appointees and followers who seem to at least stop short of the extremes that Hitler supporters were willing to do. I'm very afraid of the damage the smarter pushers of Trump will be able to do if they can get a more diabolical and effective version of Quislings able to remain in power.
Gary, I’ve been wondering for some time WHO is the actual Puppet Master? TFFG has almost no remaining executive function, so he can’t possibly make and execute plans. WHO is pulling the strings?
Maybe everyone with an agenda? If Big Oil is drafting executive orders to roll back regulations and open more federal land to drilling, who else is doing the same? Putin gives tffg orders for Ukraine and NATO? Boeing drafts legislation to delegate self-regulation to the airlines? Hedge funds hand him a list of the ever-more-favorable tax cuts?
Maybe it’s a free-for-all. Every corrupt politician, oligarch and dictator would get a piece of him…..
Follow the money & read the Project 2025 mandate & see the big big big bucks behind the support of it. Been a long time in the making w/ one of the seeds being the “Powell memo” planted in the Reagan years. TFFG is just the current fake-gold-plated shiny thing that captures attention—look! squirrel!!!—for his outrageous buffoonery. He doesn’t even know that he’s a mockery of a sham (to paraphrase Woody Allen).
And I wonder who would be promoted to presidential candidacy should tffg implode before the election. As others have said, it could be someone with less baggage, more likable to waffling Rs.
True, but if the replacement was less threatening and unstable, they (face it: HE) wouldn’t be able to hold control. Fear is TFFG’s most effective weapon.
Amen! McConnell has proven to be a sly and evil fox.
As well as his worthless do-nothing wife.
Yes, I have come to realize that there was only ever going to be Liz Cheney (and Kinzinger) standing up as elected officials during Trump. It still astounds me that every.single. elected. Republican failed to grow a spine. Looking back at VIDEO of Lindsay Graham, Cruz, Rubio, even Haley herself -- it's surreal. Historians like Heather will hopefully explain it some day.
There is only one explanation. They are co-conspirators at this point in attempts to over throw a democracy that has stood for nearly 250 years.
Unless they rewrite history, which some have been doing for decades.
Yeah, quoting all those historical *alternative facts* they have so many of—just so long as you don’t, you know, look at actual footage or actual records….just *trust us* to tell you the truth.
When I first heard the retelling of FDR’s role in ending the depression, I was shocked. Not much shocks me anymore. 44 years of Rupert Murdoch, the likes of Frank Luntz, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove and their ilk does that. And then came chump…
Some days, like today, I just want to "stop the world and get off." Anthony Newly, who wrote this words must have been a visionary.
Loved Anthony Newly. Thanks for the remembrance. No, I want to kick the cretins off…
McCain and Romney had their moments.
The only abortion laws a state or nation should have is none. The decision to abort or carry should be solely between the woman and her doctor(s). Women are smart enough to do what's right for them and their situations without the "help" of lawmakers.
Proof? Canada has zero abortion laws, having abandoned them decades ago. The decision to abort is entirely between the woman and her doctor(s), no laws in between. The rate of abortion vs. carried to term is exactly the same as the U.S. rate--the vast majority of abortions are performed early, only 1 percent are performed late, and of those latter, virtually all are for medical emergencies to mother and/or child.
Canadian women aren't any smarter than American women. But Canadian legislators are light-years ahead of ours in respect for women's ability to decide this issue sensibly.
Alito's said, “We start with a presumption that the legislature acted in good faith,”
WHERE IS THE PRESUMPTION THAT WOMEN ACT IN GOOD FAITH AROUND REPRODUCTION?
Alito and his fellow right-wing SCOTI don't think very much of our wimmens, seeming to agree with the KC Chiefs' field goal kicker that a wimmen's only place is in the home with babiez.
Short-term-thinkers: How else to increase the population of workers, who are content to live in a hovel, eat gruel, die young building mansions for the 1%ers? So Melania can buy $57K blouses.
Long-term-thinkers: 1%ers need control if they are to be the survivors of global warming... shut down those feminine values like nurture everyone. Radical women, back to the bedroom and kitchen, no where else. OH DEAR, now I've really gone off the cliff!
I like cliffs :-)
And no shuze.
But even barefoot she must have elegant, well-painted toenails in case her man comes home early from the football field and needs some attention. That way she can attend to his needs without a moment's hesitation, as one does when one is a Godly Wife and Mother.
You forgot her cellophane dress... all us 1950 women had cellophane dresses. You're probably too young. This is just a story you heard.
No! Cellophane? Crinkly fun!
Oh dear, why do I laugh? The picture was so Daisy Mae. Or Beulah in the laundrette ("A walk in the woods").
Alito—not ‘WE”—starts with assumptions . . . And from there, he weaves hypotheticals and ignores precedent or actual law. He just makes it all up as he goes. It’s criminal that this is tolerated on any bench, let alone the Supreme Court.
Hi Dawna, I think Alito is speaking for 6 people, his royal 'we,' the 6 who support his treachery.
I agree with you.
Why?
Former Speaker Paul Ryan said, publicly and famously, "I don't understand insurance."
He made laws governing insurance regardless of his ignorance.
As for abortion, note 1st and 14th Amendments carefully.
Abortion ban is supported by 1 religion and other religions have other beliefs.
Therefore, ban on abortion violates 1st Amendment prohibition of establishing religion.
It also treats other religions differently and that violates 14th Amendment equal treatment.
These arguments are "original text" type of arguments that the current Justices must honor.
Even Ms. Amy.
An axiom of the "GOP" is you don't have to understand a thing to make a law about it.
And never ever consider the unintended consequences of a law.
Especially when the harm is borne by others.
To be fair, the bulk of neither party's congresscritters understand most of what a law means or intends when they're voting for it. But MAGA Republicans seem unduly proud of their sheer ignorance when voting.
Bruce, I totally agree! Abortion bans are based on religious beliefs. Nothing else. And thus should be unconstitutional.
Very well said, Bruce, thanks. My own Judaism specifies that what grows inside a mother is a fetus without any human rights until it is out of the womb and takes its first breath. At that point fetus becomes a baby with full human rights and protections.
Which makes legislating abortion on the grounds of ANY religion both wrong and unconstitutional.
Abortion prohibitions are also insults to women, who are smart enough to make their own decisions about aborting vs. carrying to term. Who the hell are legislators to say they know better? They don't. Leave women alone.
Governmental decisions, as in a court of law, need to be based so far as possible on empirical evidence which religion specifically lacks. Our trial system is far from perfect, but justice is demonstrably served when the empirical standard at the core of the sciences is observed. Charges are meant to be proved, with accountable reason and evidence. If that is the ideal standard for enforcement of the law, it should surely be observed in making the law. Wouldn't that be nice?
The ultimate law that rules human lives lie in "laws" of physics, which are utterly indifferent to our pleadings. Where we can configure our behavior in to conform to those laws, we accomplish remarkable things. To the extent that we ignore them, we eventually are forced to pay; as we are currently seeing in the form of climate abuse.
That said, we live not only in a mechanical world, but one of individual and shared internal experience that is uniquely human (even as it overlaps with other species). That matters very much to us a sentient creatures and I see plenty of room in it for religious interpretation that is respectful of the rights of others. But not in matters of state which define rights and duties. Religion may or may not inform our values, but cannot be the justification of civil law.
As one whose brother was sentenced to 18 months labor in a Soviet gulag for trespassing on Soviet soil in a sham trial in Murmansk in November, 1965, and subsequently murdered on January 20, 1966, on a train taking him to serve out his sentence in Siberia, any statement by the demonstrably anti-American hideous GOP presidential nominee praising the current Russian dictator I consider an indecent affront to all Americans who value democracy. His praise of dictators should be called out, and hard.
Totally agree. It is an overt act of treason!! Rusty, I remember your brother's case. I know it has been decades. But I also know the pain does not go away. Please accept my heartfelt condolences.
💔❤️🩹☮️
Never, never, never trust or vote for any Republican—ever! Nikki Haley is every bit as evil as Trump, and she proved it by selling her soul without a second thought, just like every other Republican in office. Anyone who supports the outright insanity of Trump and his criminal, authoritarian wanna-be regime is not only stupid but shrouded in evil. There are no excuses, no justifications for their opinions or actions.
"Selling her soul" makes an assumption that may not be valid. I think that among the GOP "Christians," there are many who are soulless.
Park your soul (and conscience) at the door. It's the only way to get in these days. Ask Kinzinger and Liz Chaney.
I agree!
Haley apparently believes she has some influence with peoppe who voted for her that might lead ghem to follow her into Trump’s camp. She is delusional. They weren’t voting for her. They are never-trumpers and will stay home or vote third party.
While most of the similarities are superficial, Nikki Haley’s changed public statements about Trump remind me in some ways of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Like Trump, Reagan ran on personality politics and while I don’t claim to understand Haley’s - or anyone’s - reasons for supporting Trump, perhaps she also thinks she can temper personality with policy, if she is in fact using this as a bid to enter the Veepstakes. She will fail at least as miserably as Bush Sr and Pence did, if so.
"Like Trump, Reagan ran on personality politics ..."
Like Reagan, Trump is running on hostages as a weapon against . his political opponent. In order to make Pres. Jimmy Carter look weak and ineffectual, Reagan's operatives infamously convinced the Iranians to hold onto American hostages until after the election. Few wanted to credit the GOP with such profound cynicism, but that was naive.
Yes, as soon as I heard Trump’s vile boast that only he could free Evan Gershkovich, I immediately thought of Reagan and the Iranian hostages, an act that should have been charged as criminal, perhaps treasonous.
Bill Barr made his bones in Iran-Contra. As a cleaner for Reagan and to give GHW Bush deniability. It is why Barr was brought out of retirement and made Trump's AG. Barr's personal reward was the power to implement the vision Barr shares with Leonard Leo of an American corporate clerical fascist state.
Trump could rely on Barr to bend.
Nixon pioneered the technique. Trump says the quiet parts out loud.
There really is no comparison, though. Images of the Iranian hostages were blared across the airways every single night in America for hundreds of nights in a row. It was a genuine political crisis with very wide recognition. Apologies to him and his family, but Gershkovich is a single unlucky person and most Americans in 2024 don't know he exists.
Will, there are vids of Joy Reid interviewing Brittney Griner on her detention/imprisonment in Russia—I can’t find the exact segment of the interview I saw recently on MSNBC, but she spoke of how the Biden admin is doing as much as they can both publicly and behind the scenes to bring all the hostages/prisoners home & how she is in it for the long haul to bring awareness and support these very efforts knowing first hand what it’s like.
Reagan learned from Nixon, how not to get caught
Sioux, I am thinking that since death star is falling apart in front of us, that she is looking to step in.
Now I’m going to spend my time thinking who Luke, Han and Leia are. I can think of a number of candidates for some aspects of Palpatine - Alito and Leonard Leo come to immediately to mind - but since the closest thing to Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn is dead and so far as I know not cloned, none really fit.
Trump is
>> SpaceForce Galactic Emperor <<
or wanstabee.
Roger Stone should show up somewhere.
Honestly doubt that she's vying to become VP -- she's too smart and has been too critical of trompy to suddenly be his obsequious cheerleader the way Pence was -- both she and he know that.
Maybe it's as simple as Haley's wanting to preserve her status in 2028 by falling in line now. She clearly continues to have a lot of supporters-- if she manages them carefully, she has a leg up on the competition in a few years.
So many rich, rich Republican donors, Doug.
Sometimes a girl just likes to sit in a room so filled with so many far-right sugar daddies.
I find your remark quite offensive, Phil. I don’t like Haley’s politics but to portray her success in a paternalistic sexual way is a fail.
The outstanding majority of those who've "liked" it have been women, Gail.
I wasn’t aware this was a popularity contest.
For you, Gail, the only contest is anything that seems "paternalistic."
Most women see through that shibboleth and accept my language on Nikki as scorn for her immaturity, moral emptiness.
It boggles my mind to imagine that the November 2024 ballot could include two women of color in the Vice President role.
It shows both what is possible AND what is deeply ingrained in systemic racism in the nation.
It’s just a hue, but the purists (God knows what their DNA would reveal) would have a conniption fit.
I’m don’t have precognition but I can’t help but think there will be a republican backlash and those who fell in with Trump will suffer. Of course, that course be just be my vindictive side coming out…
Assuming this fall's election leads to a spectacular failure of MAGA Republicans top to bottom with Biden reelected and a strong D majority in Congress, perhaps the former grand old party will renounce trompy and change course. One can hope…
That's assuming that modern Republicans say anything but what seems to serve them to say in the moment.
Sioux, perhaps Haley imagines she can temper [tRump's] personality with policy, however, one suspects that physical appearance plays some role on both sides of the aisle, especially the MAGAts. Like Howdy-Doody, it's easier to deal with her face than the orange scowl.
I thought so too until the picture I saw the other day, in full harangue, mouth wide open. As attractive as a meat-axe. The eyes are the windows of the soul.
You know that our current reality is dystopian when a candidate for the highest public office (or ANY office, for that matter) is pleased to accept an endorsement by "alleged gang members."
"Last night, at a rally in New York, Trump accepted the endorsement of alleged gang members, rappers Michael Williams (Sheff G) and Tegan Chambers (Sleepy Hallow). In 2023 the two men were indicted with 30 other people on 140 counts, including murder, attempted murder, illegal possession of firearms, and at least a dozen shootings. Sheff G was released from jail in April after posting a $1.5 million bond."
As a pop culture and music fan, this part of today's news made me literally LOL. Hip-hop is half a century old, and is America's most influential cultural export of that time period, maybe ever (check out the recent Smithsonian Anthology!). It is so malleable and universal it has become a dominant cultural force on every continent sans Antarctica, to the degree that the already beautifully varied and epically complex American genre is now being influenced by its foreign offshoots. By now there are a ton of possible rap stars to get endorsements from. Hillary got to be on stage with Jay-Z! Joe got Eminem and Beastie Boys to OK ads for him!
And tfg gets... these losers, who I have never heard of in my whole life. In an entertainment industry obsessed with attention, I guess we've finally found who is too toxic to be seen with outside of a jail cell. This is like attempting to impress sports fans by appearing onstage with the kid who won the local hot dog eating contest, and acting as if it's LeBron.
Pathetic.
Will, I am someone who appreciated the evolution of both punk and rap genres (although I have listened to punk, rap does not appeal to me in the slightest) and I noted that one of the appeals of rap was the same "outcast" theme that the rock music of the 50's and folk music from the 40's to the 60's. I can get really upset over autotune, however.
I also love your comparison at the end. Yeah, Taylor Swift those two gentlemen ain't.
It's not about Trump. It's about a Trump administration and the opportunities it presents. In 2016 it was the Supreme Court. Now with Project 2025 it is about remaking the Executive Branch. So that with court capture skewing the judiciary, the Constitution skewing the Senate and extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression skewing the House, the Executive branch will make it total. As in effect totalitarianism. A nominal democracy, going through the motions, hollowing out the institutions of government while preserving the protocols - as with the Roberts Court.
Hard to "like" that summary, however it seems accurate to me.
Bottom line
However I wholly agree with you!
It’s about all of it!
Don't let Trump fool you. He fully intends to restrict women's rights completely.
From project 2025 chapter 17 DOJ pg 562.
"Announcing a Campaign to Enforce the Criminal Prohibitions in 18 U.S. Code §§ 1461 and 1462 Against Providers and Distributors of Abortion Pills That Use the Mail. Federal law prohibits mailing “[e]very article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”75 Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, there is now no federal prohibition on the enforcement of this statute. The Department of Justice in the next conservative Administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills."
Repubs (and especially the SC five) hate women. Period. They need to get back in the kitchen. And be so overwhelmed with child care that they can’t think of anything else. Like my mother was…
It's shameful. I read the entirety of Project 2025 to see for myself the horrors contained within it. I was shocked to see the wide-ranging radical, anti-democratic, propositions it proposed.
May project 2025 burn in hell with all it's proponents. Amen.
Amen
I didn’t read it, just read about it. Same goals they have had for decades, although I have to say, the unmitigated gall is astonishing. In your face, piss on you all
I find it all the more insidious for being beautifully laid out and presented, with no typos or grammatical errors.
It’s not a slapdash effort.
Cutting edge.
Deeply sad!!. May it never happen.
Guarantee that they will try it. With about every evangelical on the planet. Other religions already on board to varying degrees
It’s so much to absorb on a regular basis. A deluge of bad news with a deluge of fake news. I’m leaning far to the left these days, with very limited tolerance for the right.
I have no tolerance for those ignoramus traitors.
I have been on the market for a magic wand. It would be "puff" and they would ALL disappear!! Then I wake up....darn!!
me too
As a retiree woman 1973 was a historic win for women. We fought to stop the coat hanger abortions in back ally’s. Women were dying in droves b/c they could not have a safe abortion. Having a choice in fertile years was amazing. I think if women lived in the years before Roe v Wade They should be terrified to have not have this choice. I fought the good fight once, now all l can do is vote blue. I’m just too tired to go backwards. Live and learn.
It’s seems similar to the vaccine craziness. My now-young-adult kids’ former pediatrician once said the problem was that people didn’t experience polio, measles, etc so even the legit side effects seemed too much. That was before the COVID-vaccine hysteria
As a 78 year old woman, I remember that too. I have been so grateful that my daughters and granddaughters don't have that awful memory. We know that legal or not, there will still be abortions.
Same here. Helped women get to New York for abortions in 1972. I think it is worse today, though. The MAGA Abortion Police are a big threat to women's lives. This is not about saving ANY life.
Voters don’t care about anything but what they believe you’re going to do for them. Black men don’t believe Biden has done anything special for them so they’re leaving him. How many is a question but definitely some are leaving. Union workers and workers in general,are supportive of Biden. He’s been publicly for them and has produced . Intelligent voters know that Trump is a narcissistic bum and understand that he will ruin the country for Democrats and Republicans. Older people need to understand, if they don’t already, that Social Security and Medicare will be cut and likely ruined. Young people should also be made to understand that it will be there for them but they have to elect people who will protect those programs. Intelligent women realize that their freedom to care for their bodies and families will be taken away from them even more than SCOTUS already has. Abortion, contraception and family planning are on the ballot. After Democrats gain the power of the Presidency and both houses of Congress they can then begin to strengthen our democracy. Before they can do that they need to get elected. Tellig voters how you’ll help them is the only way to do that.
Beware the polls. On the NewsHour, Jonathan Capehart made fun of a poll of fewer than 200 respondents where the "outcome" was reported as if it had been a poll of thousands.
I may think for a moment about what my elected official will do for me personally. Mostly though I think about the overall country. If selfish and mean spirited people are elected as our representatives, the nation will also become selfish and mean spirited.
"How many is a question but definitely some are leaving."
What a weird and vauge claim to make! If you don't know how many then you by definition can't say "definitely," there is absolutely no actual evidence that this is taking place, and it would go against decades and decades of history.
"Voters don’t care about anything but what they believe you’re going to do for them."
Not all of us are selfish narcissists who view civic duty as transactional. And even if we DID all view it that way, how ending a pandemic and giving us record job and small business creation and high wage and opportunity growth is not "doing something" for all the people who benefitted from those things is anybody's guess.
Will, for once I’m going to disagree with you. While vaccines have given us the gift that Covid infections aren’t as deadly in the acute phase, the pandemic is far from over. We have squandered years when we could have been installing mitigations that actually work, not just for Covid, but for other illnesses as well. By that, I mean addressing indoor air quality by way of ventilation and filtration, especially in schools and health care settings. The Biden administration did as good a job with vaccine rollout as they could have, but are now silent on Covid. The CDC remains a shambles and a shadow of its former glory.
We ignore that Covid causes long term damage, and repeat infections increase that risk. Most people are blissfully unaware that increased rates of heart disease, diabetes, sudden death, and cognitive impairment, among many other things, are caused by Covid and its lingering effects in the body.
Covid tests here cost around $10 per test. I just ordered some from Germany, and they cost less than 50¢ per test. Wtf? And we wonder why people don’t test anymore. Likewise masks. This is possible here too, but we do not have government policy to make that happen. Because the political and economic costs of actually dealing with Covid are too high, due to Trump’s malignant behavior.
I’m in my third year of remission from cancer. I’m still immunocompromised from treatment, which makes me hyper vigilant around Covid. My cancer was caused by a virus, and literally no one can tell us that Covid won’t do such things too. Mine took 40 years to rear its ugly head. Where will we be 40 years from now? What are we doing to our children?
In fact union workers appear to be ignoring their leaders’ support of Biden.
Where did you get THAT idea from? Fox News??
No. NPR, the Guardian, the Atlantic.
I think it’s important for activist Democrats like me, and I hope like you, to know what we’re up against as we try to rouse a voting public to the importance of voting for the Democrat no matter how much they don’t happen to like him. He or his people have done some good things for working class people, but rattling statistics at them doesn’t do much, pointing to a soaring stock market even less.
Where?
Not sure what your question is looking for. According to NPR yesterday, union members in America are not lining up behind their leaders' support of traditionally pro-union Biden, first American president to walk a picket line. This is an important but unsurprising development given the effect of toxic online media directed at them. They think unemployment is at an all-time high rather than the lowest it's been in 50 years, and are unaware that the stock market (where their pensions, 401(k)s and retirement IRAs are invested) is booming.
Young people feel they have been sold out to Social Security and Medicare.
There is no nicer way for me to say this as a young person with older parents: this is unmitigated horsesh!t. The only thing I don't like about my parents getting Medicare and Social Security is that they should be getting way more. Young people by and large strongly approve of MORE social safety net programs, so why on Earth would we begrudge the biggest and best ones we already have? Answer: we don't.
Scott Galloway
I haven't heard that from young people, but I live in New England and my family in Cleveland, regions where Social Security and Medicare are valued, so that may be why. I'm sorry to know they swallowing that Republican myth. What I'm hearing from young people is how they can't make themselves vote for Biden, or can hardly bear to, because of war crimes in Gaza committed with weapons we paid for, or because of his buckling to the fossil fuel industry on drilling permits, pipelines, fracking--which they rightly think will doom them to lives "poor, nasty, brutish and short." (I'm trying to write a difficult letter to my nephew about why he has to vote for Biden in spite of everything, while admitting that "everything" is very bad. But even if it works, there are more where he came from.)
I have been hearing this since the 1980s when I was a young person.
Somebody must be telling them so.
In the 80s it was Robert Kennedy Jr and a group of his college friends who were making a big deal of this, with funding from his mother Ethel (maybe thinking she had to be supportive of her problem son’s initiative? I remember finding her support a real head scratcher at the time.)