On June 1, 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, stood up against Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin and his supporters, who were undermining American democracy in a crusade against “communism.”
THE LIST OF "PRINCIPLES" I POSTED APPEARS BELOW TO BE AN AI-GENERATED response, which I am unable to recreate in new searches.
About 11 hours ago, I posted a statement listing Margaret Chase Smith's Five Principles. In response, Dennis Galletta stated he believed that list to be incorrect, and posted one from Smith's Declaration of Conscience, which he found at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/margaretchasesmithconscience.html.
Seeing his post and being overwhelmed by the fact that over 1000 people "liked" my post, I am even more aware of the grave responsibility one has when posting search results. I tried to regenerate my search results without success. I then carefully read HCR's link in her Notes: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf
In her Declaration of Conscience, MCS refers to four "principles of Americanism" that are part of the "principles" in the search results below. At the end of her Declaration, MCS provides a Statement of Seven Republican Senators that lists the five statements HCR refers to as principles.
My sincere apologies to everyone whom I misled. Thanks to Dennis Galletta and Bob W for pointing this out, as well as to horhai for recognizing the difference in MCS's Declaration of Conscience between four principles and five statements
THIS SOUNDS great BUT IS NOT ACCURATE:
Margaret Chase Smith's Five Principles
Principle 1 — Respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Public officials must honor constitutional limits and legal processes rather than resorting to intimidation or extra-legal pressure.
Principle 2 — Respect for the right of all citizens to criticize. Citizens and elected officials must be free to speak and criticize government without fear of reprisal.
Principle 3 — The right to hold unpopular beliefs. Individuals should be allowed private beliefs or opinions without being punished or denied civil liberties.
Principle 4 — The right to protest. Peaceful protest and expression of dissent are legitimate parts of democratic life.
Principle 5 — The right to a fair trial and due process. Accused persons must receive fair hearings and be judged on evidence, not political accusation or innuendo.
The bad guys always make the good guys out to be the bad guys, and the good guys always make the bad guys out to be the bad guys, but only the good guys want to talk about how to tell the difference.
I agree. Bring back the five principles except state them as one principle: Deliberately practice politics like three musketeers by behaving as if it’s “all for one and one for all.”
Otherwise, by default, one is committing political malpractice like three stooges by behaving as if it’s “all for one but only when that one is me.”
What happens when the Democratic Party’s brand is acknowledged — by politicians and “we the people” and “they the political pundits” — as “the competent practice of politics?” Same thing as what happened in the late 1850s when it summoned up a thunder cloud (read the lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” song).
To make the complicated part possible, do the simple part right.
Yes, the Five Principles and the role of government as promoted by Frances Perkins, FDR's Sec. of Labor and the person most responsible for our having Social Security: "The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life." Pragmatic Capitalism, IMO. On a note, Senator Smith was the commencement speaker at my college graduation from Whittier College in 1965 (following 4 years of service in the U.S. Army.) Also in attendance: Richard M. Nixon and Bob Hope.
As we think about what’s next, what we demand from our government going forward, we’d do well to look back at the New Deal years. Also the International Declaration of Human Rights! Thank you Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt!
Yes, Eleanor and Frances were GIANTS. Their actions improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people. What a legacy! In my home office I have a photo of Frances Perkins standing by FDR as he signs the Social Security Act into law. We should have a statue of Frances Perkins erected somewhere in D.C.
It's hard to stay at a requisite level of outrage for an entire decade under trump's presence. Now, outrage has become normalized. There is a hard core of crazy in the US.
David Crosby would be 84 today, and he was 28 when wrote about it in his "Déjà Vu" song. And you know it does make me wonder what's going on under the ground (we have all been here before).
False patriotism has always been one of democracy’s most dangerous masks. It wraps fear in the flag, calls cruelty strength, and treats dissent as treason. Heather’s reminder of Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience” is painfully timely because Smith understood what too many still refuse to see: those who shout loudest about “Americanism” are often the first to betray its principles.
A true patriot does not need enemies at home to feel loyal to the country. A true patriot does not destroy reputations with lies, silence critics through intimidation, or use fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear as tools of political power. Those are not acts of national defense. They are acts of democratic vandalism.
The people who would destroy democracy rarely announce themselves as enemies of the republic. They arrive waving flags, quoting founders, praising “freedom,” and insisting that only they represent the “real” America. But beneath the costume is the old authoritarian bargain: surrender your conscience, hate whom we tell you to hate, and call obedience patriotism.
Margaret Chase Smith’s warning remains clear. A party, a movement, or a leader that seeks victory by degrading truth and crushing dissent may win an election, but it wounds the nation. False patriotism asks us to worship symbols while abandoning the values those symbols are meant to defend. Real patriotism requires courage, honesty, due process, free speech, and the moral strength to say no when the mob demands applause.
Michael, your comment brought these thoughts to my mind.
If we truly love someone, we acknowledge their weaknesses, their faults and their shortcomings. By doing so, we name those frailties so we can begin the process of healing them. This is Step One in the Twelve Steps to Sobriety promoted by Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, it's the first step in any problem-solving process.
My uncle was an incurable alcoholic. Everyone in my family knew it and didn't conceal it. We didn't love him any less because of his disease. The truth is, we wanted him to get sober because we loved him and wanted him to experience life and love with his wife, daughter and the rest of his family. He never recovered, and died a beggar and thief, drunk and homeless. He could never take Step One.
When we criticize the actions of the people who are supposed to govern us, it's not because we don't love our country. It's Step One of repairing the damage.
When Colin Rand Kaepernick knelt during the National Anthem, his critics immediately claimed he was disrespecting the flag, the anthem and his country. He took a knee to call out injustice in the country he loved. He was the patriot. Those who booed him were not.
Exacly right and beautifully said. Real love is not denial. It is honest enough to name what is broken because it still believes healing is possible. That applies to families, communities, and nations. Patriotism is not pretending America has no wounds. Patriotism is caring enough to face them. Kaepernick’s kneeling was never hatred of the country. It was a moral appeal to the country’s better self. Sometimes the most faithful act is not standing silently, but kneeling truthfully.
trump and the republicans have betrayed us again, and it's worse than you think. We're in maximum greed phase. Those institutions which symbolized wisdom, comprehension and the cosmic order have disappeared. What is sufficient power for our dear leader for whom the world is not enough?
Stephanie, I love your phrase maximum greed phase. On Mary Geddry's blog I read an essay written by relative of hers involved in environmental issues. He describes in detail what is happening and lays the problems on short term policies primarily run by greed. Just when we need what you describe in your post, we get death star and the elite greedy graspers (this phrase from Elizabeth I). Of course there is a direct line from McCarthy to death star through the odious Roy Cohn.
Indeed, until trump learned that Cohn was dying of Aids and trump henceforth abandoned him. I am not giving Cohn any sympathy here. And the decline, has you cited, has only accelerated under trump. Checks and balances and the Constitution are up in the air. One motto of the "greedy" class is "take what you can and ask for more."
Authoritarian power is never satisfied because it is not really seeking leadership, service, or even ordinary political victory. It is seeking possession. That is why institutions rooted in wisdom, restraint, law, education, science, history, and moral order become threats. They remind the would-be ruler that power has limits, truth has standing, and the public good is larger than his appetite. For someone who believes the world is not enough, no amount of power will ever be sufficient. That is the warning. This is not governance anymore. It is consumption dressed up as patriotism.
Yes, brilliant. Plus trump is probably intimidated by these institutions you listed because he knows his ignorance is a severe liability. And that is why he dehumanizes his targets. He can't discern the difference between conversation (negotiation) and violence. You are right - his "patriotism" is used to deceive and to hold up false symbols that he thinks support his "policies."
I'm very critical of the current state of the White House, but I don't agree with this post by Linda Slater, who said that Republicans have always been cowards. Republicans were the ones who pushed for abolition of slavery, which I hope everyone would agree, was the right path. See https://factually.co/fact-checks/history/which-party-supported-slavery-freedom-of-slaves-2e9600. I'm not sure that source is perfect, but it is bolstered by many other sites and Lincoln was a Whig-turned-Republican.
As relevant but forgotten today as they seemed to be then. Senator Smith played a key role in American success of the 60s and 70s. I have looked for some principled R woman in the senate to drag the country back to the principles that made it different and successful but have so far been disappointed. This essay is important.
Another (mostly) forgotten US Senator was George Norris, Republican from Nebraska. He was among the last progressive Republicans. He recognized that rural America needed to be electrified and pushed through the TVA. He then helped found the REA (Rural Electric Association). He realized that utilities like electric and water were likely to be monopolies, he urged the formation of cooperatives to provide electricity to rural America.
In Nebraska, he traveled to every county urging citizens to vote to change the legislature to a non-partisan one house unicameral system. His main goal was to reduce costs, but it ended up working so well, that the state has never returned to a bi-cameral system.
Please note that with few exceptions electricity is now in the hands of giant corporations where they're raising prices regularly and we're going to be swamped with carbon sourced power to boost the production of Green House gases that will choke us all.
Just like in Norway, where they also have nationalize the North Sea oil. Their public trust fund has over $2 trillion which is staggering when you consider the population is around 6 million people.
Of course many states have already coops that run their grid without profit to shareholders. In Nebraska the monopolistic utilities are not allowed to be for profit, with the exception of the phone companies.
Go Solar (if you can afford it/ the upfront cost).
Just ran across a person (family) with it on their roof. All their need for electricity throughout the year they got through those solar panels. Literally all of it. And this was a decent size house, around 2500 sq/ ft. With five people living there.
We live in Alberta and put collectors on or garage roof when we installed a geothermal heat pump for heating (AND cooling) and replaced our gas stove with induction. On balance over the year we make a little money selling power back to the grid, slip no C back into the atmosphere and are very happy with the outcome. We’ll do more on the house when we replace the roof and there is a little improvement in battery technology. Then also, we’ll have an EV. Yes, there are up-front costs, but we live in greater comfort and expect to amortize them in 7-8 years. We have no N gas bills and E bills (only Oct-Apr) are a fraction of what we paid formerly and (as above) very close to $0 when compiled over the year.
It should be noted this house was not in an area of the country that has an over abundance of sunny days throughout the year. It’s in an area of New England which has on average about 200 sunny days each year.
And in winter, when the demand for electricity is higher the days are shorter, their ability to produce enough electricity is impressive. Not to mention they produce no electricity when covered in snow.
George, we have solar on our roof. It does help, but does not provide all the power we use at times. Our house is about 1700 sq ft and there are only two of us. We also have battery storage in the garage (not Tesla) which will power everything but large 220 appliances if there is a power outage. Of course, death star is working against wind and solar power.
“NextEra Energy is known in its home state, Florida, as a political force whose tactics have sometimes put it at odds with regulators, residents, consumer groups and news organizations.
Now, with a proposed takeover of Dominion Energy, it wants to become the nation’s largest utility and power company.”
Small corporations cannot afford the immense capital required to supply electricity. And grrenhosue gases will not choke us all. Even the UN had to revise its recent models.
He (we) did. $42 billion. The money was there. But the project didn't really connect that many households or small businesses. Bureaucratic bullshit got in the way. States and the entrenched utilities seemed to down trees in the road to connectivity. It's actually pathetic.
I'm a fortunate customer of First Electric Cooperative. The co-op embraced the federal rural broadband program as soon as it was available and created a subsidiary, Connect2First. They (we) built out a fiber network and made it available to members area by area. For $99/month, I enjoy symmetrical* gigabit internet service, meaning I can stream content on every device I own in a "smart home" without buffering or lagging.
Before the Biden administration jumpstarted this program, I struggled for mobile phone and internet service in my remote location. The solutions I used were expensive and unreliable. Prospects of ever getting up-to-date services were zilch because the low population density in my area doesn't justify the capital expenditure to build out the infrastructure. Ironically, now that we have connective services, developments of McMansions are cropping up all around me (not that I'm pleased about that).
*Symmetrical service means that uploads are as fast as downloads. Only fiber makes that possible. Copper wire can't handle the load so providers "throttle" uploads to speed up downloads. Both are only a fraction of fiber speed.
That is, he raised her, my great uncle, and my great aunt on Beaver Creek, tributary to the Clinch river. This in the days well before the Norris Dam, when almost no one had electricity in those mountains and river valleys.
After we moved to East Tennessee in 1950, Norris Lake, with its clear mountain water, became the favorite fishing lake for my father and me. We had our own outboard motor, a 4-cycle, 3-horse Lawson that was perfect for trolling, and we'd rent a boat at Hickory Star dock. Later, as a teen and a post-military young adult, I hunted squirrels, quail and deer on the lake's Central Peninsula and caught trout from the Clinch River immediately below the dam, where c. maybe 1963, another fisherman caught what for a time was the USian record rainbow, a 39-pounder that was mounted by a taxidermist and for a while was displayed at Hickory Star. I also regularly caught trout in the mouth of Clear Creek where it entered the river, about a mile downstream from the dam.
My Marxian father always cited TVA as a perfect example of socialism in action; one of TVA's now-forgotten facts is that the reason Oak Ridge was built nearby is the TVA-area was the only place on the entire planet there was a sufficient (and sufficiently dependable) supply of electricity to refine uranium ore into weapons-grade U235.
I have not been in the Norris Lake area since 1964, but it will always have a special place in my romantic memories. The dense, mostly coniferous forests around the lake were absolutely undeveloped and relatively free of underbrush and poison ivy, with access limited to a few dirt roads, and were thus a favorite trysting-place where teen-age romances, mine included, could "go all the way" atop an army blanket, comfortably and without fear of discovery
Well the lake may be beautiful as Atwood Lake and others but many so called man made read white males lakes came from flooding over villages and towns. See Brother Where Art Thou and the flood scene. The problem was with the earlier Industrialization and then modernization by reshaping the landscape problems many surprising were created. The indigenous folks took a different approach as stewards of the land versus owners. The Hebrew Bible ‘s Book of Genesis and other sacred texts and was the command to be stewards or owners? Similar to Gondor and its second rank family who were in charge while the kings had to be hidden in JRR Tolkien ‘s Lord of the Ring series.
TVA has a fascinating history and I never have read an entire account of all of it both good , bad, and indifferent.
My daughter would have attended George W. Norris School in Firth, NE if we hadn't moved to ME. John Kennedy wrote about him in Profiles in Courage. Many scholars consider him to be one of the greatest Senators of all time.
Actually, REA was the acronym for Rural Electrification Administration. (I distinctly remember my "there-goes-the-neighborhood" reaction as I watched its workers string the wire when they electrified the AuSable River's South Branch country in 1956. And oh was I correct; the no-electricity/no-telephones/no-indoor-plumbing challenges had kept Mother Nature's destroyers out of the Northern Lower Michigan wilderness until then, but within a decade the legendary trout fishing was gone forever and the whole region had become just another low-income rural suburb.)
This is playing out in Louisiana right now. Ashley Cleaves with Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket today: Want an example of how this works? Alabamians pay some of the highest electric bills in the country. The body that could address that, the Alabama Public Service Commission (APSC), is made up of three Republican members — two of whom are elected statewide — who have done little to bring prices down. Because white voters are a majority in the state, and few will support candidates favored by Black voters, it’s all but impossible for Black Alabamians to elect a candidate who will prioritize the issue.
This year, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would eliminate elections for the APSC entirely. After voter pushback, the state enacted legislation that expanded the number of seats on the commission and moved to a system of electing one member from each of the state’s seven congressional districts — which at least would likely have allowed Black voters to elect two candidates of their choice.
But after Callais, legislators scrapped one of the two majority-Black congressional districts in the state. If their gerrymander is allowed to stay in place, it would reduce Black representation on the state’s only body dedicated to regulating utilities.
The Republican women I’ve seen in the Senate just vote in lockstep with the rest of their party. Susan “Concerned” Collins doesn’t have an independent thought in her head. She is certainly no Margaret Chase Smith.
Very true--even though Collins claims Senator Smith as inspiration. Margaret Chase Smith would surely be completely disgusted by Susan-the-Ever-Concerned-Weathervane-Collins.
I daresay that most of the men and women of the current representative of the Republican party have embraced a form of McCarthyism on steroids. With the very worst the person they've embraced for president. Mark the number of times they have fled the Congress in fear of this man. Let's work to cast out any further sickness of this kind now and going forward. At the very least embrace the five principles.
Principled Rs of either gender have managed to travel from “uncommon” straight through to “on the verge of extinction” in the blink of an eye. Some hold out hope that one may yet be found in the deep recesses of a cypress swamp, like the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. My sense is that ship probably sailed a long time ago.
The larger dynamic of the past decade only underscores just how important parties really are to maintaining the health of a republic. In 2000, too many sniffed at the idea of Party, choosing someone ‘out of principle’ in key states. They didn’t get ‘principle’ but Dubya as the consolation prize instead. We paid a great price for that kind of self-indulgence back then. So, it has to be blue all the way now, despite the obvious clunkers like John Fetterman.
In fact, I haven't even gotten out of bed yet when I start to read Heather's letters and many of your brilliant responses - curiosity and voracity for the next new insight.
I'll name names: Susan Collins has disappointed many of us in Maine, hopefully for her last term. The disappointment is on two levels: that she refuses to condemn the obvious scourge of DJT and the harm that he's doing to this country, and that she connives with her "leadership" to cast just enough no votes of no consequence to attempt to bolster her moderate cred. She aspires to be seen as a modern Margaret Chase Smith, yet her only commonalities are that she's a female senator from Maine.
We were closer to Margaret Chase Smith with Sen Olympia Snowe, though she proved smartest by getting out before this current "fecal spectacular" got fully going.
My wife and I were waiting for a flight in Portland connecting through DC. It was a Sunday afternoon. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe were waiting for the same flight. During the 30 minutes or so we were there neither one of them acknowledged the other at any time. Too bad the uber conservatives in the ME Republican Party chased Olympia Snowe from running and not Susan Collins.
Maine splits its four electoral votes consistent with the percentages of votes returned in the election. Maine has gone consistently blue for some time, with Trump peeling off a single electoral vote. That can hardly be characterized as 'Maine likes Trump.' Not sure why you'd say that, but it's not accurate.
Nobody at all. Susan Collins voted the OBBBA out of committee to the floor saying that she did it to open it up for debate. There was no debate of course.
I found out yesterday, the OBBBA gives DonOld $150 million for the 250th celebration which will likely just line his and the oligarchs pockets. They're all sleaze bags.
Cortez? Meaning Cortez-Masto in the Senate? Who voted to approve Collins at Veteran Affairs; Burgum at Interior; Rollins at Agriculture; Driscoll at Defense,; and Chavez-DeRemer at Labor? These Cabinet members are some of the worst - and none needed approval by Cortez-Masto to win. The Women in the Senate who said NO were correct. They are the Democracy First/No Rubber Stamp Democrats.
In fairness, Marj, why would any Democratic candidate have wanted to change anything about the Biden administration's trajectory? The economy had turned around from a catastrophic plummet, jobs were steadily added at over 100,000/month, and inflation was gradually coming down from the post-epidemic surge without causing stagflation. Recall that the Biden economy was "the envy of the world." Despite this success, all Donald and Faux Noos brayed about was the price of gas and eggs.
Harris might have taken a different position on the Israel/Gaza issue, but I doubt that would have changed enough minds to put her over the top.
Harris' problem wasn't her Biden association; it was first her being a woman, and second, having excess skin pigmentation.
Your Constitution never guaranteed the social and economic rights of citizens and that means you've always neglected the welfare of society in favour of individual rights. You're paying the price for that now and perhaps you have always been willing to pay that price on the altar of individual freedom and myth of the American Dream.
You want to see a comprehensive set of principles for civilized life? Take a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document inspired by a great man, H.G. Wells whose 'The Rights of Man' was a precursor and carried through by another great woman, Eleanor Roosevelt.
I’ll go a step further. The Declaration of Independence expressed freedom from taxation not freedom of the individual. And freedom was applied to white Anglo men only. So square that hole.
Gently reminding freedom from taxation without representation. Yet the current representation has excluded too many at the top from any taxation at all. AND rapacious codicils that let them live off their wealth and pay nothing at all. Or worst let those in power steal from the taxes real work has produced.
Some days I feel that we will expunge this madness because there are enough residuals in the system, ie, judges, state governments to secure a shift in voting. But knowing what we are up against, in which he will stop at nothing, I’m not so sure. Recent riots in New Jersey at the concentration camp will be used as a reason to invoke the insurrection act. This is his stock in trade. I’m sure he was advised by other strongmen dictators. Can it really happen here? So many go about their daily lives as if nothing has changed. My neighbors up the street are Jahovas witnesses and they explained they don’t vote because it goes against something religious.
Then we will have to claim that those rioting at Delaney are really merely "tourists", subject to the same privilege of being pardoned and paid as the J6 rioters. Sauce for the gander is also sauce for the goose.
Not correct either, Jo Jo. But neither was I fully correct. The white individual was freed from the bondage of paying tribute to George III. And in the 1860s, after Lincoln made the historic mistake taking the border state leader of Andrew Johnson as his VP and later becoming president, reversed much of the reasons for fighting to free the enslaved. It’s a dricken mess from beginning to end. And George Washington was no saint either who spent much time trying to have returned on of his female enslaved who ran away.
[rides into the conversation on my favorite hobby horse] Russell, the American colonies were established by Protestants, some Catholics and a handful of sympathetic non-deists. A leading reason for Europeans leaving their homes and coming to America in the 17th and 18th Centuries was freedom from the unholy marriages of religion and government. Although community cooperation was necessary for survival, at the core of virtually all colonists' beliefs was "personal salvation from eternal damnation through the redemption of Jesus Christ." One had to personally embrace the dogma to be "saved." If one's sibling or neighbor didn't embrace the dogma, they were damned. This, I believe, is the origin of American individualism. "Cowboy culture" in the next century would reinforce the notion of "rugged individualism."
It would not be until the 20th Century that Christianity would split into two belief systems. Mainline denominations introduced the idea of a "faith community," and began to emphasize service to others as equally important to embracing salvation. Conservative Christians, influenced by John Calvin, remained preoccupied with a "personal relationship with Jesus," and believed it was up to them to evangelize all the "hell-bound heathens" who didn't "accept Jesus as their personal savior." They called themselves "evangelicals."
It is no wonder that we U.S. citizens have so much trouble living in community.
Dale-Thanks for reminding us about a part of our nation’s origin story that greatly influenced the roots of our society.
If we add to this history the ways religion has been framed and manipulated to justify genocide, race based slavery and misogyny, it’s easy to see the weeds that have grown around a nation struggling to be “united” and democratic.
I learned from gardening that if weeds are not pulled up by the root, they grow and reappear every year choking out “good” seeds that could produce the nutrients (common good, health, kindness etc) we need to survive and thrive as a nation.
Our history has much to teach us if we are honest about our roots.
I’m less interested in debating your main point than I am curious about the rhetorical distance in the phrasing.
Why “your Constitution” and “you’re paying the price” rather than “our Constitution” or “the price we are paying”? The wording comes across less as civic self-critique and more as standing outside the society being criticized and pronouncing judgment on it.
If you’re not American, that framing makes sense and adds useful context. But if you are American, the language feels oddly detached from shared responsibility and ends up sounding more condescending than persuasive, at least to me.
Go that right Lynell. Sometimes you must take legal action to protect those rights in courts of law
On 5/29/26 a Class Action was filed in the U.S. District Court in Western District of Texas, El Paso Division against the inhumane conditions at "Camp East Montana". See, Federal Case No. 3:26-cv-01515.
The Class Action was filed by GERALD ANGYE, et al & on behalf of ALL others similarly situated against Todd Lyons, ICE, DHS, the brand new Department Chief, Markwayne Mullins & Pete Hegseth.
I expect a Temporary Restraint Order (TRO) to be filed shortly. Such motions require substantial supporting ADMISSIBLE evidence & SUPPORTING DECLARATIONS UNDER OATH to demonstrate "irreparable harm" at the Prison.
Norman Rockwell did illustrations of them and interesting to look at them. Very classic Americana but he evolved as a human being and artist and some of his last paintings were humdinger as with his work on Ruby Bridges and the Field Marshalls and his The Golden Rule painting. I had hoped somehow certain folks would be able to evolve like Mr Rockwell so very tragic for us all. We need adepts like in L Frank Baum’s Oma of Oz who save the day.
That was a speech that could be useful to our current leadership and legislators everywhere. It could be played via their ear buds, all night long, every single night, until such time they espouse these ideals and secure legislation and constitutional consensus to enact worldwide! What if we could have a world without conflict devolution into war?
The 20th-century Rethuglicans (that is, the party of NOT-Lincoln) have always been long on self-dealing rhetoric and very short on gumption, bottom (a British term), and courage. They have consistently kicked people of conscience out of the party, e.g. John Lindsay. Smith these days would be an Independent because she would not be tolerated in the current party. And she would not be a simpering wimp like the execrable Susan Collins.
Those aren't the five principles. I managed to find the correct five principles at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/margaretchasesmithconscience.html. Funny how the Wikipedia page doesn't have them nor does the Margaret Chase Smith library link at Wikipedia. Here are the five principles, according to the AmericanRhetoric site. They are mostly criticisms of the Democratic party back then. They don't really add to the arguments but I just wanted the correct 5 principles on record here.
1. We are Republicans. But we are Americans first. It is as Americans that we express our concern with the growing confusion that threatens the security and stability of our country. Democrats and Republicans alike have contributed to that confusion.
2. The Democratic administration has initially created the confusion by its lack of effective leadership, by its contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances, by its complacency to the threat of communism here at home, by its oversensitiveness to rightful criticism, by its petty bitterness against its critics.
3. Certain elements of the Republican Party have materially added to this confusion in the hopes of riding the Republican party to victory through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance. There are enough mistakes of the Democrats for Republicans to criticize constructively without resorting to political smears.
4. To this extent, Democrats and Republicans alike have unwittingly, but undeniably, played directly into the Communist design of “confuse, divide and conquer.”
5. It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques -- techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.
parties before the 1960s, it’s helpful to remember that the Democrats were greatly influenced by the southern “Dixiecrats” who were part of the D coalition.
I hope there are still members of the Republican party who believe in the old values and who would take pride in Trump calling them RINOs. I believe that Trump with his megalomania is beyond dispute Republican in name only.
Donald Trump was a registered Democrat for more than eight years, officially changing his party affiliation to Democratic in August 2001. He did not switch back to the Republican Party until September 2009
The official "War on Drugs" in the United States began on June 17, 1971, when President Richard Nixon delivered a special message to Congress declaring drug abuse to be "America's public enemy number one" and a national emergency.
51 years later we’re worse off than when when we started.
We could instead spend money to prevent systemic problems in the future. Problems like poverty, education, health security, food insecurity and drug addiction, lack of opportunity all could be drastically reduced with a little effort.
BUT republicans call that socialism. They would rather breed criminals and run on “tough on crime”!
I wish I could believe that the voting system will not be corrupted. Having so many CRIMINALS I, FROM THE SO CALLED PRESIDENT, TO HIS MINIONS, it is hard to keep the hope and the faith.
The Fascist Republicans in ME, tried to add an anti-trans in sports initiative to the November ballot. After months of trying to get enough signatures to get on the ballot, they turned in the signed petitions. The Maine Secretary of State's office checked the signatures and found that 40%, were from out-of-state. And so it failed to make the ballot.
I have no doubt that the mid-term elections in ME will be fair unless Trump illegally sends his ICE goons into the polling places.
As a reminder, check your voting status at least 90 days before the midterms to make sure you are still registered to vote.
It's hard to do but possible. Working in Information Technology makes it tougher but I turn off my cell phone for overnight and at least six hours a day to concentrate on reading and walking and all the other life tasks we have.
They will certainly do their utmost to corrupt, to intimidate, to deter — particularly in places where they believe a little finagling will do the trick for them. Which is why our goal must never waver from ‘too big to rig.’ They fear this immensely. Perhaps that will help you keep hope and faith alive.
Republican dirty tricks are on display in the NJ07 Democratic primary. NJ07 is currently represented by the still-missing-in-action Republican Thomas Kean, Jr., who has not been seen publicly since March 3. There are 4 Dems vying for the nomination. Rebecca Bennett, Tina Shah, Mike Roth, and Brian Varela in order of polling. The primary is tomorrow, June 2.
Shah, in an apparent last-ditch effort to derail Bennett's momentum, put out attack ads last week claiming Bennett was a registered Republican when she lived in Texas in 2016, that she refused to disclose if she voted for Trump back then, and that she took donations from ICE contractor Palantir employees. She handed a gift to the Republicans for November.
Separately, a new super PAC called Real Change PAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anti‑Bennett ads and mailers in a false flag operation, framing her as insufficiently progressive and promoting Shah and Brian Varela as alternatives.
Local NJ news coverage describes Real Change PAC as a “murky” outside group with GOP-linked fingerprints that is not required to disclose donors until after the primary. There is no public evidence of formal coordination between it and Shah’s campaign as of the latest reporting.
Available reporting says Bennett accepted “a pair of donations” from Palantir employees totaling “thousands” of dollars, but the exact dollar amount has not been publicly specified.
A detailed write‑up on the NJ‑07 race explains that Tina Shah’s attack ad claims Bennett took “thousands from ICE contractors to fund her campaign,” and that this wording refers specifically to contributions from two Palantir employees.
That same report characterizes the contributions as “a pair of donations” from those employees but does not list exact figures or itemize them by FEC line item.
Public filings and campaign statements indicate that Rebecca Bennett has not self‑funded her NJ‑07 congressional campaign; all of her money has come from contributions and committees, not personal loans or candidate contributions.
Bennett’s campaign says that she raised more than 700k in Q1 2026 “with no self‑funding and no corporate PAC money,” and says she has raised over $2.65 million in total without self‑funding. Her campaign emphasizes that it is “powered by over 13,000 individual donors,” with the vast majority of contributions under 100 dollars, reinforcing the message that she is not putting her own money into the race.
The FEC candidate overview for Bennett’s 2025–2026 cycle shows 0 dollars in “candidate contributions” and 0 dollars in “loans made by candidate,” which is where self‑funding would appear. Her total receipts (about $2.94 million) are almost entirely contributions (mostly individual) plus some other committee contributions and transfers, again consistent with a non‑self‑funded campaign.
Bennett is the only one of the 4 major Democratic contenders whose war chest is not boosted by personal money.
Judd Legum of Popular Information uncovered other GOP PACs masquerading as left-wing, including "Lead Left PAC," running operations in Texas and Nebraska supporting fringe Democratic candidates or smearing leading Democratic candidates with allegations that they are secret Trump supporters.
Proof of the absolute necessity to take money out of political campaigns. If ever there was. I surely can't vote in NJ. You're faced with a quandary there.
I think the self-funding or in some cases loaning money to your own campaign so you are a creditor to yourself—I don’t know if that means you get preferential payment as a creditor over a vendor. But it basically means that you have to have $1 million to burn to run in just the primary—
We need shorter campaign seasons, and to prohibit self-funding. Give whoever gets enough signatures to file get a fixed amount of money and then limit the amount of money an individual person can donate to a specific campaign.
Speaking of election tricks, Georgia, have you heard about the bizarro situation in the Alaska senate race? I searched for a straight publication article to link, but I love me some Catherine Rampell. She and Will Summers, both of The Bulwark, did the best job of explaining.
I agree, Georgia. It's too much of a rookie move for the Peltola campaign to have tried such a stunt. But it's a perfect play-dirty-think-never Republican trick.
My guess is that the Orange Goblin King will declare a National Emergency, have the elections cancelled and then send in the military to deal with the “domestic terrorists”, formerly known as protesters. The Extreme Court will be 6:3 in favour of that.
I do hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid Donny-boy will go to ANY lengths to stay in power.
Not for the first, or the last time to be said, but that worst-case scenario isn’t likely, though the Bloviating Mango will threaten it every other Tuesday.
Far more likely is the easy stuff around the margins that’s already happening — gerrymandering, changes in Post Office rules, challenging married women with absurd technicalities, suddenly disappearing precincts in Fulton County, ICE showing up at polling stations and the like. All serious stuff but much of it in real legal jeopardy (they are losing lots of these battles in Court) and not trustworthy at all during a Blue Wave.
Sometimes I think many on this Newsletter take a kind of perverse pleasure by obsessing about the worst what-ifs imaginable to frighten themselves or others to death or despair. I can’t think of anything less useful. ‘Steady at the helm’ remains the byword of the day.
Oh, you do have to stay steady at the helm; no way you can just "lay down and roll over". But you shouldn't underestimate the sheer malice and astronomic corruption that flows from Donny Jay Junior, a toddler dictator who only wants to stay in the White House so he can stay out of jail...
Your fear betrays you. Remember what was said about fear. Mr Roosevelt brought us a great speech about fear itself at the height of the Great Depression. Embrace the strengths of the past and make them relevant again.
In that case, I would soon be arrested for pooping on or at his mausoleum as I have promised. And I’ll need to hire cat sitters to feed my cats while my attorney negotiates my bail.
lol. Right on. The first annual POOP FESTIVAL complete with rock and hip hop,band singing about pooping on his Shiny Hiney. I think there is a song in there somewhere. If a car passes Mar-a-Lago at night and casually rolls down a window and lets drop a bit of turd, hum…
Staying in power means only one thing to Donnie……..
Not facing a third impeachment and a likely conviction this time. The people around him and our Corporate Overlords are the ones who want him to remain in power because he is so utterly corruptible and stupid that they have a free hand in sucking up all the wealth of this country into their private coffers.
Yeah... He is SO good for them that Peter Thiel has moved to Argentina because he's fearing societal collapse in America. Wait - wasn't this EXACTLY what you wanted, Darth Thiel?? Weren't you the one shouting that democracy was obsolete??
If any of these "financial geniuses" could think through their actions to any sort of logical conclusion, perhaps they would not be doing the stupid things that they seem to do daily. They are like 3 yr olds who want something, and they want it NOW! and damn any consequences.
Yet, we MUST do that hard thing! We must keep the faith, do the work of getting out every eligible voter, and then closely watch the polls for any funny business. Hope springs eternal!
Exactly the task at hand. For strengthening resolve see the substack from Robert Hubbell who daily posts pictures from across the country of people openly protesting as we are guaranteed the right to do. Take heart from the people who refused to participate for a birthday party of the president. AND take action for voter turnout. Action relieves fear every time.
A- Politics has always been corrupt it depends on the times and the people involved. Read The Last Hurrah by Edwin OConner to get a Birds Eye view of certain sides of old Boston politics. My parents were not at all Kennedy fans. So your comment doesn’t surprise me. And I will still say despite the games he and his brother were involved and more his father and his compromised connections ( their speeches and or their speech writers were just amazing ) they not only visited Dorothy Day they both were invited to stay for a meal. Dorothy never would have asked them unless she felt they had chutzph. I know this because my late husband also met and had dinner with Dorothy and he said she did not suffer fools gladly. Please tell me how many politicians have sat and served at a Catholic Worker or other free community meal? Not all for sure. They also visited West Va and saw the epic poverty as the only non West Virginia senator to do so was Senator Elizabeth Warren going up into Kermit West Va. named after Kermit Roosevelt. Another book to read about politics is All The Kings Men or the film with Broderick Crawford and Mercedes Cambridge . We all carry some sort and size of stain in our hands. Which goes back to this time the Christian Bible and Jesus ‘s statement with the men ready to throw stones- He who has not sinned…. And they all walked away. Snark is not becoming. Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snarks might also be a good read.
I read Last Hurrah and Kings Men. They evidence some acts but don't provide material to extrapolate. I lived in Boston for a decade. It's a mess, but not always because of corruption, more because of stupidity and tribalism.
"We can begin to end the abuse and corruption if enough of us vote in November."
Only if all of us Vote Blue No Matter Who.
The Trump administration abuse and corruption has been one more step in an intentionally systemic attack on government itself by Republicans.
Abetted by those nominally in opposition who put person over party and treat voting as an individual exercise in personal expression - instead of a joint exercise in taking power.
Voting party is the path to power. As right wing Republican voters have demonstrated.
It’s hard for an idealist to really grasp this necessity. I know; in my youth (about a century ago) I was just such an idealist. In fact, if the situation were less dire I might still be tempted to vote for a principled, socialist-Democrat. Not recently though. There really were, way back, reasonably decent Republicans, like MCS or Ike. Not any more, as Clousseau said.
This is no time for idealistic thought that a principled person remains in the Republicans. Maybe an independent but more likely a Democrat. When John McCain died I was convinced there were no more decent Republicans.
I'm sure that I've posted abut this before, but when I was about eight years old, my sister and I took piano lessons from a friend of my mother's. So did the children of all of the friends in their group. Any one of them could have taught beginning piano equally well, maybe even better than Edith, but they all hired her to teach their children because her husband had committed suicide after being targeted by McCarthy. They supported her and her children in a way that allowed her to keep her dignity and provide for her family. How many similar stories could people tell today, about lives being lost through "Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear" while friends supported their families as best they could? We need to be reminded every so often of the courage and compassion of leaders like Margaret Chase Smith, but frequently, we don't hear about the courage and compassion of individuals and groups who sustain our society.
I wonder Betsy how much it affected you, a prolific and clarifying poster,the fact that the teacher's husband had died by suicide due political pressure rather than by any other reason even lf at that time,being so young, you didn't know the difference. Just wandering...
It's very personal and you don't have to answer Betsy. 🤗
I'm happy to try to answer, but I can't really say to what extent this death, and this coming together of a group of friends affected me. I'd say rather that many of the circumstances of my upbringing worked together to shape me. Most, maybe all, of my father's good friends were educators in the NYC public schools. Many of them, "the boys," whom my father played first pinochle, and then bridge with, knew each other when they were orphans at a Jewish home, so their experiences were undoubtedly part of my collective growing up. I've written about my father, an elementary school principal who knew the names of all of the Black and Latino kids in his school and taught them the same poems he taught my sister and me. And who, when he retired, became a docent at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, leading tours of school children around the gardens. I don't think I've written about my mother. She went back to grad school when I was in college, got all As, and went on to become a librarian in a local tech high school, turning kids who had never opened a book into readers. She also organized, with others, a group that demanded that the city fund an ice skating rink in Prospect Park. So lots of concern for others and for learning in the environment in which I grew up. I guess one specific thing that I learned from the Army-McCarthy hearings that we watched on the small black and white tv in my parents bedroom was to refuse to sign a loyalty oath to any group or cause or person.
This is probably more than you expected, but that's what happens when people start to reflect on their past.
Have you done your part yet to save science by entering your comment at OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule
Trump sued the federal government for $10 billion to compensate him for his alleged pain and suffering resulting from an IRS contractor’s disclosure of Trump’s tax returns, which revealed how rich he really is and how much in taxes he actually paid. Now that Trump is President, he and his Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, who reports directly to Trump, have agreed between themselves on a resolution of Trump’s law suit.
I should add that Blanche previously served as Trump’s personal defense attorney in a criminal case in New York in which Trump was ultimately convicted of multiple felonies. I should also add that Blanche, as Deputy Attorney General, was placed in charge of overseeing what should and should not be disclosed from the Epstein files to Congress and the American people. There has been considerable conjecture that Blanche has erred on the side of non-disclosures, especially as they relate to his boss.
It was recently announced that Trump and Blanche decided upon a resolution of Trump’s law suit. Blanche has agreed to Trump’s proposal to divert over $1.7 billion in taxpayer money into a fund, to be overseen by Trump himself, to distribute compensation to alleged victims whom Trump would determine were mistreated by the Biden administration. Trump has made it clear that examples of such compensation from the taxpayers’ money would include those rioters who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6 at Trump’s urging and those who called for Pence’s hanging and who left dead bodies in their wake as they smashed through the Capitol windows and walls. No doubt Trump’s discretionary disbursements may also be viewed as a vehicle to buy the votes of those who claim to have been mistreated by anyone in the Biden administration or even any Democrat at the time, given that Biden was the head of the party. Trump would undoubtedly view the disbursement of such taxpayer money as “good will” gestures to console them for their alleged mistreatment.
Trump also induced his subordinate to legally bind the IRS into agreeing not to review any of Trump’s prior tax filings, which would thereby confer on Trump total immunity for under-reporting income, fraudulent tax filings etc. Why any responsible public servant would agree to such immunity boggles the mind, until one realizes that it is Trump’s lackey who is signing off on Trump’s demand.
COMMON SENSE:
While much of the tidal wave of objections by Americans in all walks of life and across the entire political spectrum has centered upon the huge amount of this “settlement” and the outrageous reasons for which the taxpayers’ money is to be disbursed by Donald Trump at his discretion, less emphasis has been focused on the outrageousness of the blatant conflict of interest in Trump suing himself and deciding himself what he himself should receive from the taxpayers.
What is so amazing here is how brazen Trump and his flunky have been in slapping this preposterous “settlement” together between themselves of $1.7 billion dollars of taxpayer money for Trump to dispose of as he pleases and expects the American people to actually buy this total rip-off.
We can only imagine the amount of time and money that will be expended in legal research, briefs, oral arguments and in collateral litigations consumed by this scam, which Trump may seek to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, where he hopes that his loyalist Justices will rubber stamp his plundering of the U.S. Treasury.
If this scam is in any way upheld, it would provide a precedent that would embolden any Governor of any state, any Mayor of any city, and any CEO of any company to conspire with his or her chief legal officer to have the chief executive sue the entity and then unilaterally “settle” his or her own the claim by plundering the treasury or other financial assets of the entity.
This is such a blatant abuse of power by both Trump and Blanche that it qualifies for all time as being a textbook example of a conflict of interest that “shocks the conscience of the court” and is patently against the public interest.
It’s time that the courts unite in wiping that smirk off of Trump’s face that he successfully pulled off this scam on the American people.
Hello LD.... Mary Trump had a Good Posting in her Substack about how DJT has actually been a repeated Business Failure that has always Grifted his way out of personal Bankruptcy... DJT has 6-Business Bankruptcies demonstrating DJT's Stable Genius Skills... An example of his actual Negotiating Skills are the current Iran Negotiations...
Thank you for such a clear assessment of yet another crime by Trump and his lackeys. It is time for all members of the government to decide what they want history to remember them for, long after they are gone. Truth and patriotism have shown that, sooner than later, they will shine through. Let the sooner be NOW.
I remember when Senator Margaret Chase Smith boldly spoke out against scum bum Joseph McCarthy in his early months of McCarthyism. She took a political risk when Republicans leaders were supporting McCarthyism as a possible way to get back in the White House.
One of Senator Smith’s colleagues, Senator Tydings, was defeated for re-election because of his bold attack against McCarthy. (When you drive down to Washington you will cross over the Tydings Bridge, a late recognition of his integrity).
In sharp contrast, Maine Senator Susan Collins has ‘straddled’ rather than emulate Senator Smith. For example, during the Kavanaugh Senate hearing, there was a major controversial over a woman who clearly attacked Kavanaugh’s personal behavior (which Kavanaugh vigorously denied).
It was agreed that the FBI would immediately investigate. This was a sham investigation in which none of the principal witnesses were interviewed. After a few days Senator Collins publicly stated that the FBI investigation was thorough and complete. Thus Kavanaugh became a Supreme Court justice.
I fervently hope that Maine voters realize that Collins lacks Senator Smith’s unflagging integrity.
Susan Collins has missed her Margaret Chase Smith moment many times. She hasn't even held a town hall anywhere in Maine for over 20 years. You can Goggle that fact!
I remember the the day that Joe McCarthy's evil spell came crashing down. I was still a little kid and the intrigues of politics were still well beyond me, but my mother who was had been listening to the table radio broadcasting the hearing said "This is a very important day", and I took her at her word. Much later I filled in the gaps. Some people prosper by means of mutuality, win for me, win for you and win for society. Others with extortion. That's was predatory McCarthy's gimmick, and that's what Trump learned, likely for his dad, and surely from Roy Cohn and his involvement with the mob. Lies and extortion is his core MO, from his Orwellian "Department of Justice", he and his cohort conspire to bully everyone else in pursuit of absolute power. It's a game as old as dirt, but has not every salient moral thinker, every moral-centered novel or movie, condemned that choice? It's a wonderful Life? Lord of the Rings? Find the classic "bad guys" in this picture.
JL I personally experienced the McCarthy nightmare. Edward R. Murrow was also a family friend (I last saw him in October, 1960).
The Murrow broadcast on McCarthy has gained mythical importance. In fact, it was one of a number of increasing attacks on McCarthy.
The unquestioned dagger were the Army Senate hearings conducted by Joseph Welch, a distinguished Boston lawyer. McCarthy was counseled by Roy Cohn, who later slithered over to a young Donald Trump.
Welch had invited Fred Fisher, a bright young lawyer, to join him in Washington. Fred told him that, back in the 1940s he had joined a legal organization that later was on the Attorney General’s ‘commie’ list. Welch excused Fred and spoke about this with McCarthy, who promised not to raise these at the Senate hearings.
Later, when things were going badly for ‘Tail Gunner Joe’ (he received a medal without being in combat), McCarthy started to raise Fred Fisher in a most negative manner.
This is when Welch responded: “Sir, have you no sense of decency.” This was a dramatic TV turning point. It concluded with the press giving Welch a hearty ovation. (Soon thereafter McCarthy was censured by the Senate and later died of alcoholism.)
[[I knew Fred from a Ford Foundation week end for students who had run a successful international student trip. His experience in starting the National Student Association was exemplary. My major contribution to the week end was to bring two cases of beer to a dry Putney.]
After Stalin’s death two of us founded American Students for International Understanding at Yale. President Griswold supported us. (Harvard’s President Conant would have nixed us.] How our proposed trip to the Soviet Union ended up in the Middle East is a separate story.
As Heather often recalls, some parts of our history just keep popping up in different eras. So back then, the senator from Maine was perfectly well aware of the threats of "Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear."
Do we sufficiently guard against their reappearance now? I don't mean are we aware that some of that might recur in some forms. I mean they've taken over the national government. In the intervening years since that fine senator from Maine, we allowed some most ugly things to take root in some of our most vital institutions. Elites from corporate interests, banking, testing, and lobbying (with tons of $$$) for many foreign governments forgot some of the key things schools in turn forgot to teach.
We've got some basics in our republic to attend to. And only about five months for enough public officials to speak to real dangers abroad the land now, to hone clear English at the real fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear all riding the techies' algorithms and Donald's unabated further criminality.
Yes, but funny, too, Nancy, how the bad men mainly replicate types of men.
That is, they hew to character formulae. Zealous for power, they avail themselves of the repetitions which cardboard and other cut-out types model.
For fuller individuals don't we need to go to artists who've some mastery over access to personal complications, combinations, contradictions, and fearlessness at serendipity?
The Cohns also took an impressionable young man, barely out of high school, and groomed him to be a bigoted, heretical, and completely misguided mouthpiece for their political agenda, That young man’s name was Charlie Kirk. I blame Trump and the Cohns for how Kirk turned out - and for his death. The Cohns will answer for that, if not here on Earth, then on Judgment Day.
Were she still with us, Sen Smith could have given that 1947 speech today and have it equally pertinent to the condition of our country. More’s the pity.
Hello Phil... Elon Musk purchased the USG for about $220 Million in Campaign Contributions to DJT in 2024... Elon's DOGE Boys & Girls vacuumed Terabytes of our Personal Data in early 2025... Now DJT wants to determine who votes... Peter Thiel is now living in Argentina because he fears Societal Collapse in the USA....
Let's hope Argentina keeps him. I don't know if we have an extradition agreement with them. I'm not so sure about societal collapse, but Thiel and the tech bros are probably going to be facing some hard questions after Jan 27. That's probably his main concern at the moment.
And let’s go back to criticizing and chastising white supremisists, bigots, Fascists and thugs! Since when were their beliefs acceptable in American society. They are FRINGE and will always be fringe; they need to be moved off the main stage once more and banished to the basement!
Another HCR American history lesson that shines as much light on the present as the past.
I note that it was a woman who first stood up publicly to sound the alarm about McCarthyism. I further note that one of the pillars of Christian Nationalism is the dis-empowerment of women.
Therefore, we must make our daughters and sisters strong to keep our democracy.
She was an upstander -even when the majority of her party ran for cover...sound familiar? Then and now, there are the upstanders like Smith and there are the cowards, sycophants and miscreants.
I would not honor Massie with that title (at least yet) but he is worth watching to see if he has a sufficient backbone. Honestly I do not know any, which is part of the point I am making. The Republican Party is toast - you are either Maga (at best a miscreant) or you are out. We need to stop referring to the party as Republican, it is in the waste can, just like the Whig Party.
(3) NYU School of Law Professor Melissa Murray, author of a recent book “The U.S. Constitution”, was interviewed by legal experts Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz of LegalAF The Court of History on 5/31/26: “Supreme Court Justice Roberts and the monster he created”. https://michaelpopok.substack.com/p/justice-roberts-runs-scared-from?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios They feel John Roberts is a Dr. Frankenstein who created the monstrous and unconstitutional Trump presidency. They discuss the fallacy of “originalism”, the history of the Reconstruction Amendments, how Roberts replaced the Constitution with a neo-Confederate vision by wrecking the 14th and 15th Civil War Amendments, etc.. A very informative discussion. Their opinions are supported by a recent (5/22/26) survey of Federal judges by Bright Line Watch and UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project: 94% of legal experts (Federal Judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law. https://brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-the-rule-of-law-in-trumps-second-term/ Lots of data.
Judge John Roberts is the Brown Cowbird of the Supreme Court. Through disingenuousness and dishonesty he arrived at where he is now. He must be impeached and removed.
There is an interesting idea proposed on substack and elsewhere that we need a 4th branch of government to isolate various agencies from Executive overreach. It’s an interesting concept.
I see the problem differently. Perhaps because I don’t see how expanding bureaucracy will solve a fundamental problem. It is this, people simply not doing their jobs. The committees that appointed Roberts, Alito, and Thomas, etc. listened to bent testimony from the nominees and ignored countervailing evidence.
Today, in both Houses of Congress we have committees stonewalling speech, discussion, debate and dissent from the minority. This has reached such a pitch that the House has for a great part of the year been out of session. There is a self-disqualifying Speaker running amok. We have a Senate locked in a rictus of fear and greed. These people are either unwilling or unable to perform their jobs.
In the Judiciary at all levels, we see decisions that are not decisions at all but are grey naps of irresolution. These are the vague slaps on the wrist that we, the US public, have become accustomed to seeing when the wealthy and powerful are brought to trial. These are not people doing their jobs.
Remember in the first days and weeks of the current Administration whole Federal Agencies were dissolved, dismantled and dismissed either by an invented extra-governmental parasite, DOGE, through OMB’s Russell Vought, or personally by Drumpf. Oversite departments and individuals were summarily fired by Drumpf.
We get heavily massaged financial reports on the state of the economy. We no longer have access to what our trillion dollar Defense Department has undertaken. It is not accountable.
We, the citizens and voters have been reduced to pawns, no worse. We have become the bystanders in this government’s parade of lies, grift, theft and murder.
This is not a story of people doing their jobs, much less their duty.
Many good points here, Bill Pierce, but your broadband criticism of the Judiciary is not correct. There are many, many very good decisions by judges, state and federal, trial courts and appeals courts. For example: Albrego Garcia won, finally. Substacks by Meidas's Filipkowski, the two AKs: Adam Klasfeld and Adam Kinzinger, Jessica Craven's Sunday Good News roundup, and of course HCR as well, can keep you informed about them.
Sure, I agree with you. Several good decisions. Some earnest Judges. Difficult to make any bite. Abrego Garcia may or may not be a national hero. He’s emblematic as my hero. No! Nothing is won. The thoroughly corrupt Administration is not nearly done with him yet. He, his family, his close friends must persist in fear.
Fear runs rampant. Judges are careful. Their decisions are short term, temporary, long in time to comply, or indefinite, and leave room for reversal … yes no choice there in a land blind to justice. In a great many cases, Judges see too little choice. They know the road the Administration will take in an attempt to codify the nonsense of unitary power in one individual. Cast a little shadow docket on it
This is a clown show. There is no “theory” behind unitary power, only a bold, highly financed lie. Are we now to learn and adopt this double-speak? The use of language here is important.
Fascism has long enjoyed the game of turning words and meaning upside down. This should not be unfamiliar territory for anyone who’s been to grammar school. It’s a playground amusement.
The too long Civil Rights movement, the human rights movement, suffered many generations on a parallel path. Are we to walk backwards over the same ground yet again?
I guess the answer is supposed to be yes. Until we’re all bled dry upon that phony hill with a shining city atop.
Don’t pretend you imagine I’m misinformed. You shouldn’t be disgracing yourself that way. But, hey, “free” country. It’s entirely your choice.
Slandering members of the opposition party has a long history in America. (Watch "Mr Smith Goes to Washington," the 1939 motion picture starring Jimmy Stewart to see such slander portrayed in one of the greatest political dramas ever filmed.) Calling people "Communists" worked in the 1950s. Will calling James Talarico "transgender" work in 2026? I pray to God that it does NOT!!!
Thank you for giving credit to one of my heroes, Senator Margaret Chase Smith! We could use Republicans Senators like her now. Susan Collins looks even worse in comparison.
An adversarial two party system relies on both parties having the ultimate good of the nation at heart, when both parties first concerns are the nations wellbeing, then we benefit from multiple points of view in searching for solutions to our many problems. What we have today is one of the parties only interested in keeping power for it’s own sake, not because they can do more good for the nation as a whole, but because of the perks that come with elected office. Removing affordable healthcare from millions, and closing rural hospitals are just two examples of what the repugnantkins in congress have done recently.
"...I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.”
How naive this sounds in 2026! Sorry, Sen. Smith, but your party has been hoodwinked and hijacked by a faction that IS absolutely and totally desperate for victory. They will burn through any law and standard and principle to ensure that they remain in power.
Oh, and I have been reading WAY TOO many comments on FB and elsewhere defending Tailgunner Joe. "He was right, you know." (Truth to tell, ONE comment defending McCarthy is one too many.)
Trying to not oversimplify, but Joe McCarthy was a power-hungry bully. It took a while for reason to surface and lead to his downfall. Meanwhile, lives were ruined. “Those who ignore (or forget) history are doomed to repeat it.”
No argument from me, Linda. And I don't think you're oversimplifying at all. McCarthy was absolutely a bully and a thug.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Bradbury once. He said he remembering telling everyone he knew at the time that one person was all it would take to bring down McCarthy. "I was wrong," Bradbury admitted. "It took two: Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Welch."
Time and again I've offered. Say when and where; We'll meet on the mall in DC or nearby in the Virginia or Maryland suburbs, then march on the capital. I'll even take the lead, absorb of fall first to whatever opposes our right to demonstrate. But I won't do it alone; Someone must have my back, or conversely walk over my corpse to continue till principle prevails.
Well, it seems to me obvious that they hesitated because they know they will be cruelly punished by the predident and other republican leaders if they speak out boldly. It’s slmost like being willing to sacrifice your life!
I’m worried about the 204 Venezuelan fishermen who have been murdered by Pete Hesgarth without evidence of wrongdoing. Does he think he is playing a video game, shooting to kill his imagined enemies? I think he is insane. Sorry for being off topic. These murders have been weighing on my consciousness. Not to mention Renee Good, Alex Pretti and the hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people who have died in the ICE facilities this year.
And been starved, denied medical treatment, kept from family.
The U.S.A. has become home to much of the worst mass cruelty in the world -- organized, subject to the rule of dark money and techie titans thriving on hate.
THE LIST OF "PRINCIPLES" I POSTED APPEARS BELOW TO BE AN AI-GENERATED response, which I am unable to recreate in new searches.
About 11 hours ago, I posted a statement listing Margaret Chase Smith's Five Principles. In response, Dennis Galletta stated he believed that list to be incorrect, and posted one from Smith's Declaration of Conscience, which he found at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/margaretchasesmithconscience.html.
Seeing his post and being overwhelmed by the fact that over 1000 people "liked" my post, I am even more aware of the grave responsibility one has when posting search results. I tried to regenerate my search results without success. I then carefully read HCR's link in her Notes: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf
In her Declaration of Conscience, MCS refers to four "principles of Americanism" that are part of the "principles" in the search results below. At the end of her Declaration, MCS provides a Statement of Seven Republican Senators that lists the five statements HCR refers to as principles.
My sincere apologies to everyone whom I misled. Thanks to Dennis Galletta and Bob W for pointing this out, as well as to horhai for recognizing the difference in MCS's Declaration of Conscience between four principles and five statements
THIS SOUNDS great BUT IS NOT ACCURATE:
Margaret Chase Smith's Five Principles
Principle 1 — Respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Public officials must honor constitutional limits and legal processes rather than resorting to intimidation or extra-legal pressure.
Principle 2 — Respect for the right of all citizens to criticize. Citizens and elected officials must be free to speak and criticize government without fear of reprisal.
Principle 3 — The right to hold unpopular beliefs. Individuals should be allowed private beliefs or opinions without being punished or denied civil liberties.
Principle 4 — The right to protest. Peaceful protest and expression of dissent are legitimate parts of democratic life.
Principle 5 — The right to a fair trial and due process. Accused persons must receive fair hearings and be judged on evidence, not political accusation or innuendo.
The antithesis of MAGA
The bad guys always make the good guys out to be the bad guys, and the good guys always make the bad guys out to be the bad guys, but only the good guys want to talk about how to tell the difference.
Bring back the Five Principles!
I agree. Bring back the five principles except state them as one principle: Deliberately practice politics like three musketeers by behaving as if it’s “all for one and one for all.”
Otherwise, by default, one is committing political malpractice like three stooges by behaving as if it’s “all for one but only when that one is me.”
What happens when the Democratic Party’s brand is acknowledged — by politicians and “we the people” and “they the political pundits” — as “the competent practice of politics?” Same thing as what happened in the late 1850s when it summoned up a thunder cloud (read the lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” song).
To make the complicated part possible, do the simple part right.
Yes, the Five Principles and the role of government as promoted by Frances Perkins, FDR's Sec. of Labor and the person most responsible for our having Social Security: "The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to facilitate the means by which all the people under its jurisdiction can access the best possible life." Pragmatic Capitalism, IMO. On a note, Senator Smith was the commencement speaker at my college graduation from Whittier College in 1965 (following 4 years of service in the U.S. Army.) Also in attendance: Richard M. Nixon and Bob Hope.
As we think about what’s next, what we demand from our government going forward, we’d do well to look back at the New Deal years. Also the International Declaration of Human Rights! Thank you Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt!
Yes, Eleanor and Frances were GIANTS. Their actions improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people. What a legacy! In my home office I have a photo of Frances Perkins standing by FDR as he signs the Social Security Act into law. We should have a statue of Frances Perkins erected somewhere in D.C.
History repeats itself 😬😳🤔
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” – Mark Twain
Hmmmm…. At 90 and living thru ‘those times’… indeed….
Being ‘a part’ of NOW times… I am reminded of ‘THEN’ times…
??????????!!!!!!!!!
It's hard to stay at a requisite level of outrage for an entire decade under trump's presence. Now, outrage has become normalized. There is a hard core of crazy in the US.
David Crosby would be 84 today, and he was 28 when wrote about it in his "Déjà Vu" song. And you know it does make me wonder what's going on under the ground (we have all been here before).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL-xI_nmr64
False patriotism has always been one of democracy’s most dangerous masks. It wraps fear in the flag, calls cruelty strength, and treats dissent as treason. Heather’s reminder of Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience” is painfully timely because Smith understood what too many still refuse to see: those who shout loudest about “Americanism” are often the first to betray its principles.
A true patriot does not need enemies at home to feel loyal to the country. A true patriot does not destroy reputations with lies, silence critics through intimidation, or use fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear as tools of political power. Those are not acts of national defense. They are acts of democratic vandalism.
The people who would destroy democracy rarely announce themselves as enemies of the republic. They arrive waving flags, quoting founders, praising “freedom,” and insisting that only they represent the “real” America. But beneath the costume is the old authoritarian bargain: surrender your conscience, hate whom we tell you to hate, and call obedience patriotism.
Margaret Chase Smith’s warning remains clear. A party, a movement, or a leader that seeks victory by degrading truth and crushing dissent may win an election, but it wounds the nation. False patriotism asks us to worship symbols while abandoning the values those symbols are meant to defend. Real patriotism requires courage, honesty, due process, free speech, and the moral strength to say no when the mob demands applause.
Michael, your comment brought these thoughts to my mind.
If we truly love someone, we acknowledge their weaknesses, their faults and their shortcomings. By doing so, we name those frailties so we can begin the process of healing them. This is Step One in the Twelve Steps to Sobriety promoted by Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, it's the first step in any problem-solving process.
My uncle was an incurable alcoholic. Everyone in my family knew it and didn't conceal it. We didn't love him any less because of his disease. The truth is, we wanted him to get sober because we loved him and wanted him to experience life and love with his wife, daughter and the rest of his family. He never recovered, and died a beggar and thief, drunk and homeless. He could never take Step One.
When we criticize the actions of the people who are supposed to govern us, it's not because we don't love our country. It's Step One of repairing the damage.
When Colin Rand Kaepernick knelt during the National Anthem, his critics immediately claimed he was disrespecting the flag, the anthem and his country. He took a knee to call out injustice in the country he loved. He was the patriot. Those who booed him were not.
Exacly right and beautifully said. Real love is not denial. It is honest enough to name what is broken because it still believes healing is possible. That applies to families, communities, and nations. Patriotism is not pretending America has no wounds. Patriotism is caring enough to face them. Kaepernick’s kneeling was never hatred of the country. It was a moral appeal to the country’s better self. Sometimes the most faithful act is not standing silently, but kneeling truthfully.
trump and the republicans have betrayed us again, and it's worse than you think. We're in maximum greed phase. Those institutions which symbolized wisdom, comprehension and the cosmic order have disappeared. What is sufficient power for our dear leader for whom the world is not enough?
Stephanie, I love your phrase maximum greed phase. On Mary Geddry's blog I read an essay written by relative of hers involved in environmental issues. He describes in detail what is happening and lays the problems on short term policies primarily run by greed. Just when we need what you describe in your post, we get death star and the elite greedy graspers (this phrase from Elizabeth I). Of course there is a direct line from McCarthy to death star through the odious Roy Cohn.
Indeed, until trump learned that Cohn was dying of Aids and trump henceforth abandoned him. I am not giving Cohn any sympathy here. And the decline, has you cited, has only accelerated under trump. Checks and balances and the Constitution are up in the air. One motto of the "greedy" class is "take what you can and ask for more."
Stephanie, take what you can as fast as you can....then run off to Argentina.
Yea, I heard that Peter Thiel has bought a very expensive property there. We were in Buenos Aires in February. Nice place until the next coup....
He sure makes the Gilded Age look like the middle class.
Authoritarian power is never satisfied because it is not really seeking leadership, service, or even ordinary political victory. It is seeking possession. That is why institutions rooted in wisdom, restraint, law, education, science, history, and moral order become threats. They remind the would-be ruler that power has limits, truth has standing, and the public good is larger than his appetite. For someone who believes the world is not enough, no amount of power will ever be sufficient. That is the warning. This is not governance anymore. It is consumption dressed up as patriotism.
Yes, brilliant. Plus trump is probably intimidated by these institutions you listed because he knows his ignorance is a severe liability. And that is why he dehumanizes his targets. He can't discern the difference between conversation (negotiation) and violence. You are right - his "patriotism" is used to deceive and to hold up false symbols that he thinks support his "policies."
It would appear that Republicans have always been cowards, so this current bunch are nothing new in the history of that party.
I'm very critical of the current state of the White House, but I don't agree with this post by Linda Slater, who said that Republicans have always been cowards. Republicans were the ones who pushed for abolition of slavery, which I hope everyone would agree, was the right path. See https://factually.co/fact-checks/history/which-party-supported-slavery-freedom-of-slaves-2e9600. I'm not sure that source is perfect, but it is bolstered by many other sites and Lincoln was a Whig-turned-Republican.
As relevant but forgotten today as they seemed to be then. Senator Smith played a key role in American success of the 60s and 70s. I have looked for some principled R woman in the senate to drag the country back to the principles that made it different and successful but have so far been disappointed. This essay is important.
Another (mostly) forgotten US Senator was George Norris, Republican from Nebraska. He was among the last progressive Republicans. He recognized that rural America needed to be electrified and pushed through the TVA. He then helped found the REA (Rural Electric Association). He realized that utilities like electric and water were likely to be monopolies, he urged the formation of cooperatives to provide electricity to rural America.
In Nebraska, he traveled to every county urging citizens to vote to change the legislature to a non-partisan one house unicameral system. His main goal was to reduce costs, but it ended up working so well, that the state has never returned to a bi-cameral system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Norris
Please note that with few exceptions electricity is now in the hands of giant corporations where they're raising prices regularly and we're going to be swamped with carbon sourced power to boost the production of Green House gases that will choke us all.
Nationalize the whole grid. Electricity and broadband and water should all be in the public domain. No profit. Just equitable distribution.
Just as health insurance was non-profit until Nixon allowed insurance companies to profit in the 70's.
We did use to have public utilities. Now nearly all are private for-profit plunderers.
Just like in Norway, where they also have nationalize the North Sea oil. Their public trust fund has over $2 trillion which is staggering when you consider the population is around 6 million people.
Of course many states have already coops that run their grid without profit to shareholders. In Nebraska the monopolistic utilities are not allowed to be for profit, with the exception of the phone companies.
Yes, thank you. I remember when landline telephone system was broken up as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
Go Solar (if you can afford it/ the upfront cost).
Just ran across a person (family) with it on their roof. All their need for electricity throughout the year they got through those solar panels. Literally all of it. And this was a decent size house, around 2500 sq/ ft. With five people living there.
We live in Alberta and put collectors on or garage roof when we installed a geothermal heat pump for heating (AND cooling) and replaced our gas stove with induction. On balance over the year we make a little money selling power back to the grid, slip no C back into the atmosphere and are very happy with the outcome. We’ll do more on the house when we replace the roof and there is a little improvement in battery technology. Then also, we’ll have an EV. Yes, there are up-front costs, but we live in greater comfort and expect to amortize them in 7-8 years. We have no N gas bills and E bills (only Oct-Apr) are a fraction of what we paid formerly and (as above) very close to $0 when compiled over the year.
It should be noted this house was not in an area of the country that has an over abundance of sunny days throughout the year. It’s in an area of New England which has on average about 200 sunny days each year.
And in winter, when the demand for electricity is higher the days are shorter, their ability to produce enough electricity is impressive. Not to mention they produce no electricity when covered in snow.
George, we have solar on our roof. It does help, but does not provide all the power we use at times. Our house is about 1700 sq ft and there are only two of us. We also have battery storage in the garage (not Tesla) which will power everything but large 220 appliances if there is a power outage. Of course, death star is working against wind and solar power.
“NextEra Energy is known in its home state, Florida, as a political force whose tactics have sometimes put it at odds with regulators, residents, consumer groups and news organizations.
Now, with a proposed takeover of Dominion Energy, it wants to become the nation’s largest utility and power company.”
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2026/05/31/how-an-ambitious-energy-giant-wielded-political-power-in-florida-2/?share=piwwstirtditenb5mlon
😤
NOT a good option anywhere
Small corporations cannot afford the immense capital required to supply electricity. And grrenhosue gases will not choke us all. Even the UN had to revise its recent models.
Now it’s the availability of broad band internet to rural communities that needs to be addressed
I thought Biden did that, or at least started it.
He (we) did. $42 billion. The money was there. But the project didn't really connect that many households or small businesses. Bureaucratic bullshit got in the way. States and the entrenched utilities seemed to down trees in the road to connectivity. It's actually pathetic.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/04/biden-broadband-program-swing-state-frustrations-00175845
You do not need to down trees to get electricity or internet! In our County those cables/power lines are all under ground with few exceptions.
In the middle of nowhere New Mexico we got fiber optic cable.
In ME several communities were connected via fiber optic cable that had only copper or satellite connectivity before.
I'm a fortunate customer of First Electric Cooperative. The co-op embraced the federal rural broadband program as soon as it was available and created a subsidiary, Connect2First. They (we) built out a fiber network and made it available to members area by area. For $99/month, I enjoy symmetrical* gigabit internet service, meaning I can stream content on every device I own in a "smart home" without buffering or lagging.
Before the Biden administration jumpstarted this program, I struggled for mobile phone and internet service in my remote location. The solutions I used were expensive and unreliable. Prospects of ever getting up-to-date services were zilch because the low population density in my area doesn't justify the capital expenditure to build out the infrastructure. Ironically, now that we have connective services, developments of McMansions are cropping up all around me (not that I'm pleased about that).
*Symmetrical service means that uploads are as fast as downloads. Only fiber makes that possible. Copper wire can't handle the load so providers "throttle" uploads to speed up downloads. Both are only a fraction of fiber speed.
The first dam built by TVA is only about 10 miles from here—Norris Dam. The lake it created is beautiful.
My great grandfather raised my grandmother there.
That is, he raised her, my great uncle, and my great aunt on Beaver Creek, tributary to the Clinch river. This in the days well before the Norris Dam, when almost no one had electricity in those mountains and river valleys.
After we moved to East Tennessee in 1950, Norris Lake, with its clear mountain water, became the favorite fishing lake for my father and me. We had our own outboard motor, a 4-cycle, 3-horse Lawson that was perfect for trolling, and we'd rent a boat at Hickory Star dock. Later, as a teen and a post-military young adult, I hunted squirrels, quail and deer on the lake's Central Peninsula and caught trout from the Clinch River immediately below the dam, where c. maybe 1963, another fisherman caught what for a time was the USian record rainbow, a 39-pounder that was mounted by a taxidermist and for a while was displayed at Hickory Star. I also regularly caught trout in the mouth of Clear Creek where it entered the river, about a mile downstream from the dam.
My Marxian father always cited TVA as a perfect example of socialism in action; one of TVA's now-forgotten facts is that the reason Oak Ridge was built nearby is the TVA-area was the only place on the entire planet there was a sufficient (and sufficiently dependable) supply of electricity to refine uranium ore into weapons-grade U235.
I have not been in the Norris Lake area since 1964, but it will always have a special place in my romantic memories. The dense, mostly coniferous forests around the lake were absolutely undeveloped and relatively free of underbrush and poison ivy, with access limited to a few dirt roads, and were thus a favorite trysting-place where teen-age romances, mine included, could "go all the way" atop an army blanket, comfortably and without fear of discovery
Loren, absolve te:)
Well the lake may be beautiful as Atwood Lake and others but many so called man made read white males lakes came from flooding over villages and towns. See Brother Where Art Thou and the flood scene. The problem was with the earlier Industrialization and then modernization by reshaping the landscape problems many surprising were created. The indigenous folks took a different approach as stewards of the land versus owners. The Hebrew Bible ‘s Book of Genesis and other sacred texts and was the command to be stewards or owners? Similar to Gondor and its second rank family who were in charge while the kings had to be hidden in JRR Tolkien ‘s Lord of the Ring series.
TVA has a fascinating history and I never have read an entire account of all of it both good , bad, and indifferent.
Check out what Jane Jacobs has to say about it.
I had no idea she opined on TVA! I knew she was a very fierce opponent of Robert Moses and won some fights.
My daughter would have attended George W. Norris School in Firth, NE if we hadn't moved to ME. John Kennedy wrote about him in Profiles in Courage. Many scholars consider him to be one of the greatest Senators of all time.
Actually, REA was the acronym for Rural Electrification Administration. (I distinctly remember my "there-goes-the-neighborhood" reaction as I watched its workers string the wire when they electrified the AuSable River's South Branch country in 1956. And oh was I correct; the no-electricity/no-telephones/no-indoor-plumbing challenges had kept Mother Nature's destroyers out of the Northern Lower Michigan wilderness until then, but within a decade the legendary trout fishing was gone forever and the whole region had become just another low-income rural suburb.)
This is playing out in Louisiana right now. Ashley Cleaves with Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket today: Want an example of how this works? Alabamians pay some of the highest electric bills in the country. The body that could address that, the Alabama Public Service Commission (APSC), is made up of three Republican members — two of whom are elected statewide — who have done little to bring prices down. Because white voters are a majority in the state, and few will support candidates favored by Black voters, it’s all but impossible for Black Alabamians to elect a candidate who will prioritize the issue.
This year, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would eliminate elections for the APSC entirely. After voter pushback, the state enacted legislation that expanded the number of seats on the commission and moved to a system of electing one member from each of the state’s seven congressional districts — which at least would likely have allowed Black voters to elect two candidates of their choice.
But after Callais, legislators scrapped one of the two majority-Black congressional districts in the state. If their gerrymander is allowed to stay in place, it would reduce Black representation on the state’s only body dedicated to regulating utilities.
If that representation was established based on racial discrimination, eliminating them is consistent with the Constitution.
And still very Republican.
The Republican women I’ve seen in the Senate just vote in lockstep with the rest of their party. Susan “Concerned” Collins doesn’t have an independent thought in her head. She is certainly no Margaret Chase Smith.
Very true--even though Collins claims Senator Smith as inspiration. Margaret Chase Smith would surely be completely disgusted by Susan-the-Ever-Concerned-Weathervane-Collins.
We always used "windsock" to describe our ever vacillating lieutenant.
Jeff Tiedrich occasionally refers to the type as a different kind of sock, but since we're in polite company, I won't quote him. 😜
😉🤣
And that’s a royal mess now with the democratic candidate being exposed for all kinds of crap. We just may be stuck with The Concerned again.
And a serious disappointment!
Add Marsha "Big Hair" Blackburn and Joni Ernst to the Susan Collins list. Although I do not think they are "Concerned".
I daresay that most of the men and women of the current representative of the Republican party have embraced a form of McCarthyism on steroids. With the very worst the person they've embraced for president. Mark the number of times they have fled the Congress in fear of this man. Let's work to cast out any further sickness of this kind now and going forward. At the very least embrace the five principles.
Indeed !
We're tryin', Carol! We can't sustain a state of shock from trump eternally.... Then we need to uncrazy the rest of America.
"I daresay that most of the men and women of the current representative of the Republican party have embraced a form of McCarthyism on steroids"
That statement exemplifies what McCarthyism was and is. Your sense of irony is missing.
Principled Rs of either gender have managed to travel from “uncommon” straight through to “on the verge of extinction” in the blink of an eye. Some hold out hope that one may yet be found in the deep recesses of a cypress swamp, like the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. My sense is that ship probably sailed a long time ago.
The larger dynamic of the past decade only underscores just how important parties really are to maintaining the health of a republic. In 2000, too many sniffed at the idea of Party, choosing someone ‘out of principle’ in key states. They didn’t get ‘principle’ but Dubya as the consolation prize instead. We paid a great price for that kind of self-indulgence back then. So, it has to be blue all the way now, despite the obvious clunkers like John Fetterman.
Someone should read Margaret's words on the floor of the Senate. Preferably one of the recently jilted Republicans.
Reading Heather's letter is a reason to get up in the morning.
In fact, I haven't even gotten out of bed yet when I start to read Heather's letters and many of your brilliant responses - curiosity and voracity for the next new insight.
I'll name names: Susan Collins has disappointed many of us in Maine, hopefully for her last term. The disappointment is on two levels: that she refuses to condemn the obvious scourge of DJT and the harm that he's doing to this country, and that she connives with her "leadership" to cast just enough no votes of no consequence to attempt to bolster her moderate cred. She aspires to be seen as a modern Margaret Chase Smith, yet her only commonalities are that she's a female senator from Maine.
We were closer to Margaret Chase Smith with Sen Olympia Snowe, though she proved smartest by getting out before this current "fecal spectacular" got fully going.
Nice phrase "fecal spectacular" - thanks.
Like Trumps "draining of the swamp" comment and instead he filled it with fecal crania so now it's a cesspool.
For sure Heidi.
My wife and I were waiting for a flight in Portland connecting through DC. It was a Sunday afternoon. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe were waiting for the same flight. During the 30 minutes or so we were there neither one of them acknowledged the other at any time. Too bad the uber conservatives in the ME Republican Party chased Olympia Snowe from running and not Susan Collins.
Maine has elected Susan Collins more than once. Maine likes Susan Collins. They also like Trump.
Certainly not all of us, and fewer and fewer as time goes on.
Maine splits its four electoral votes consistent with the percentages of votes returned in the election. Maine has gone consistently blue for some time, with Trump peeling off a single electoral vote. That can hardly be characterized as 'Maine likes Trump.' Not sure why you'd say that, but it's not accurate.
And certainly it is not Susan Collins
Who is this republican woman who could put country above party
and thwart this dangerous and sleazeball president? Where is today’s Liz Cheney? I doubt any man in congress willing to speak out against der Fuhrer
Although John McCain did so when the chips were down. Anyone ??
Nobody at all. Susan Collins voted the OBBBA out of committee to the floor saying that she did it to open it up for debate. There was no debate of course.
I found out yesterday, the OBBBA gives DonOld $150 million for the 250th celebration which will likely just line his and the oligarchs pockets. They're all sleaze bags.
Thank YOU, John…. Indeed it is…. I heard Bill Joel’s “we didn’t start the fire” on a PBS special of hisconcert…. Check it out!
And "D women"? Omar? Crockett? Pressley? Tlaib? Cortez?
Cortez? Meaning Cortez-Masto in the Senate? Who voted to approve Collins at Veteran Affairs; Burgum at Interior; Rollins at Agriculture; Driscoll at Defense,; and Chavez-DeRemer at Labor? These Cabinet members are some of the worst - and none needed approval by Cortez-Masto to win. The Women in the Senate who said NO were correct. They are the Democracy First/No Rubber Stamp Democrats.
I don't like or dislike based on gender. So "women in the Senate" means little. Do you like Boebert and Green in the House because they are women?
I was referring to Sandy Cortez, rebranded a few. years ago as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As for the rest, reread Smith's Principle 3.
When I was reading this John I thought - what a difference if Kamala Harris spoke this way in her campaign for president.
Mrs Smith said important stuff. All I heard KH talk about was joy and not changing a thing from the Biden admin,
In fairness, Marj, why would any Democratic candidate have wanted to change anything about the Biden administration's trajectory? The economy had turned around from a catastrophic plummet, jobs were steadily added at over 100,000/month, and inflation was gradually coming down from the post-epidemic surge without causing stagflation. Recall that the Biden economy was "the envy of the world." Despite this success, all Donald and Faux Noos brayed about was the price of gas and eggs.
Harris might have taken a different position on the Israel/Gaza issue, but I doubt that would have changed enough minds to put her over the top.
Harris' problem wasn't her Biden association; it was first her being a woman, and second, having excess skin pigmentation.
Your Constitution never guaranteed the social and economic rights of citizens and that means you've always neglected the welfare of society in favour of individual rights. You're paying the price for that now and perhaps you have always been willing to pay that price on the altar of individual freedom and myth of the American Dream.
You want to see a comprehensive set of principles for civilized life? Take a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document inspired by a great man, H.G. Wells whose 'The Rights of Man' was a precursor and carried through by another great woman, Eleanor Roosevelt.
I’ll go a step further. The Declaration of Independence expressed freedom from taxation not freedom of the individual. And freedom was applied to white Anglo men only. So square that hole.
Gently reminding freedom from taxation without representation. Yet the current representation has excluded too many at the top from any taxation at all. AND rapacious codicils that let them live off their wealth and pay nothing at all. Or worst let those in power steal from the taxes real work has produced.
Some days I feel that we will expunge this madness because there are enough residuals in the system, ie, judges, state governments to secure a shift in voting. But knowing what we are up against, in which he will stop at nothing, I’m not so sure. Recent riots in New Jersey at the concentration camp will be used as a reason to invoke the insurrection act. This is his stock in trade. I’m sure he was advised by other strongmen dictators. Can it really happen here? So many go about their daily lives as if nothing has changed. My neighbors up the street are Jahovas witnesses and they explained they don’t vote because it goes against something religious.
Then we will have to claim that those rioting at Delaney are really merely "tourists", subject to the same privilege of being pardoned and paid as the J6 rioters. Sauce for the gander is also sauce for the goose.
Not correct. Freedom was applied to all but slaves, and that was rectified in the 1860s -- by white men.
Not correct either, Jo Jo. But neither was I fully correct. The white individual was freed from the bondage of paying tribute to George III. And in the 1860s, after Lincoln made the historic mistake taking the border state leader of Andrew Johnson as his VP and later becoming president, reversed much of the reasons for fighting to free the enslaved. It’s a dricken mess from beginning to end. And George Washington was no saint either who spent much time trying to have returned on of his female enslaved who ran away.
[rides into the conversation on my favorite hobby horse] Russell, the American colonies were established by Protestants, some Catholics and a handful of sympathetic non-deists. A leading reason for Europeans leaving their homes and coming to America in the 17th and 18th Centuries was freedom from the unholy marriages of religion and government. Although community cooperation was necessary for survival, at the core of virtually all colonists' beliefs was "personal salvation from eternal damnation through the redemption of Jesus Christ." One had to personally embrace the dogma to be "saved." If one's sibling or neighbor didn't embrace the dogma, they were damned. This, I believe, is the origin of American individualism. "Cowboy culture" in the next century would reinforce the notion of "rugged individualism."
It would not be until the 20th Century that Christianity would split into two belief systems. Mainline denominations introduced the idea of a "faith community," and began to emphasize service to others as equally important to embracing salvation. Conservative Christians, influenced by John Calvin, remained preoccupied with a "personal relationship with Jesus," and believed it was up to them to evangelize all the "hell-bound heathens" who didn't "accept Jesus as their personal savior." They called themselves "evangelicals."
It is no wonder that we U.S. citizens have so much trouble living in community.
Dale-Thanks for reminding us about a part of our nation’s origin story that greatly influenced the roots of our society.
If we add to this history the ways religion has been framed and manipulated to justify genocide, race based slavery and misogyny, it’s easy to see the weeds that have grown around a nation struggling to be “united” and democratic.
I learned from gardening that if weeds are not pulled up by the root, they grow and reappear every year choking out “good” seeds that could produce the nutrients (common good, health, kindness etc) we need to survive and thrive as a nation.
Our history has much to teach us if we are honest about our roots.
I’m less interested in debating your main point than I am curious about the rhetorical distance in the phrasing.
Why “your Constitution” and “you’re paying the price” rather than “our Constitution” or “the price we are paying”? The wording comes across less as civic self-critique and more as standing outside the society being criticized and pronouncing judgment on it.
If you’re not American, that framing makes sense and adds useful context. But if you are American, the language feels oddly detached from shared responsibility and ends up sounding more condescending than persuasive, at least to me.
Copied for preservation. Thanks.
Let us not forget that Sen. Margaret Chase Smith's "Five Principles" are an elaboration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms": freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Audio of accompanying speech is here -- https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrthefourfreedoms.htm with text here -- https://d1lexza0zk46za.cloudfront.net/history/am-docs/roosevelt-four-freedoms.pdf
"Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere."
Go that right Lynell. Sometimes you must take legal action to protect those rights in courts of law
On 5/29/26 a Class Action was filed in the U.S. District Court in Western District of Texas, El Paso Division against the inhumane conditions at "Camp East Montana". See, Federal Case No. 3:26-cv-01515.
The Class Action was filed by GERALD ANGYE, et al & on behalf of ALL others similarly situated against Todd Lyons, ICE, DHS, the brand new Department Chief, Markwayne Mullins & Pete Hegseth.
I expect a Temporary Restraint Order (TRO) to be filed shortly. Such motions require substantial supporting ADMISSIBLE evidence & SUPPORTING DECLARATIONS UNDER OATH to demonstrate "irreparable harm" at the Prison.
No "detention centers".
Well said!
Norman Rockwell did illustrations of them and interesting to look at them. Very classic Americana but he evolved as a human being and artist and some of his last paintings were humdinger as with his work on Ruby Bridges and the Field Marshalls and his The Golden Rule painting. I had hoped somehow certain folks would be able to evolve like Mr Rockwell so very tragic for us all. We need adepts like in L Frank Baum’s Oma of Oz who save the day.
Yes thank you for these!
That was a speech that could be useful to our current leadership and legislators everywhere. It could be played via their ear buds, all night long, every single night, until such time they espouse these ideals and secure legislation and constitutional consensus to enact worldwide! What if we could have a world without conflict devolution into war?
Can you imagine all the charming statements involving “blood” You Know Who would tweet about her today?
The 20th-century Rethuglicans (that is, the party of NOT-Lincoln) have always been long on self-dealing rhetoric and very short on gumption, bottom (a British term), and courage. They have consistently kicked people of conscience out of the party, e.g. John Lindsay. Smith these days would be an Independent because she would not be tolerated in the current party. And she would not be a simpering wimp like the execrable Susan Collins.
Well said, Linda!!
Thank You, Maryann.
MaryPat, please see my revised comment at the beginning of the thread. My sincere apologies. Maryanne
Those aren't the five principles. I managed to find the correct five principles at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/margaretchasesmithconscience.html. Funny how the Wikipedia page doesn't have them nor does the Margaret Chase Smith library link at Wikipedia. Here are the five principles, according to the AmericanRhetoric site. They are mostly criticisms of the Democratic party back then. They don't really add to the arguments but I just wanted the correct 5 principles on record here.
1. We are Republicans. But we are Americans first. It is as Americans that we express our concern with the growing confusion that threatens the security and stability of our country. Democrats and Republicans alike have contributed to that confusion.
2. The Democratic administration has initially created the confusion by its lack of effective leadership, by its contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances, by its complacency to the threat of communism here at home, by its oversensitiveness to rightful criticism, by its petty bitterness against its critics.
3. Certain elements of the Republican Party have materially added to this confusion in the hopes of riding the Republican party to victory through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance. There are enough mistakes of the Democrats for Republicans to criticize constructively without resorting to political smears.
4. To this extent, Democrats and Republicans alike have unwittingly, but undeniably, played directly into the Communist design of “confuse, divide and conquer.”
5. It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques -- techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.
Dennis, thank you. Please see my original comment at the top of the thread.
When thinking about the political
parties before the 1960s, it’s helpful to remember that the Democrats were greatly influenced by the southern “Dixiecrats” who were part of the D coalition.
I hope there are still members of the Republican party who believe in the old values and who would take pride in Trump calling them RINOs. I believe that Trump with his megalomania is beyond dispute Republican in name only.
Donald Trump was a registered Democrat for more than eight years, officially changing his party affiliation to Democratic in August 2001. He did not switch back to the Republican Party until September 2009
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=was+trump+a+democrat+before+he+ran+for+president%3F&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Not unusual. Proves nothing. Switching can be for good reasons, though opportunism is, admittedly, the usual explanation for much of what Trump does.
America’s Other Forever War
The official "War on Drugs" in the United States began on June 17, 1971, when President Richard Nixon delivered a special message to Congress declaring drug abuse to be "America's public enemy number one" and a national emergency.
51 years later we’re worse off than when when we started.
We could instead spend money to prevent systemic problems in the future. Problems like poverty, education, health security, food insecurity and drug addiction, lack of opportunity all could be drastically reduced with a little effort.
BUT republicans call that socialism. They would rather breed criminals and run on “tough on crime”!
The original 1950 speech document only shows four principles. What is the source for the 1947 five principles, please? Thank you.
Pam, please see my comment at the beginning of the thread. My sincere apologies.
looks like we are 0 for 5 with the current administration.
Thank you very much for including this list in the comments section!
Thank you. Excellent. What Republicans agree with these principles today?
Read Principle 3.
So are these five correct?
I so agree!
Four long years later she was right. We can begin to end the abuse and corruption if enough of us vote in November.
I wish I could believe that the voting system will not be corrupted. Having so many CRIMINALS I, FROM THE SO CALLED PRESIDENT, TO HIS MINIONS, it is hard to keep the hope and the faith.
I share your concern Veronica. We need a turnout that is too big to rig. Like what they had in Hungary. 🤞
The Fascist Republicans in ME, tried to add an anti-trans in sports initiative to the November ballot. After months of trying to get enough signatures to get on the ballot, they turned in the signed petitions. The Maine Secretary of State's office checked the signatures and found that 40%, were from out-of-state. And so it failed to make the ballot.
I have no doubt that the mid-term elections in ME will be fair unless Trump illegally sends his ICE goons into the polling places.
As a reminder, check your voting status at least 90 days before the midterms to make sure you are still registered to vote.
Too many of us are already enslaved by our devices.
It's hard to do but possible. Working in Information Technology makes it tougher but I turn off my cell phone for overnight and at least six hours a day to concentrate on reading and walking and all the other life tasks we have.
You are in the vast minority.
Wish we had an opposition organization like in Hungary, instead of the hand wringers we have begging for my $15 to solve their/our problems
They will certainly do their utmost to corrupt, to intimidate, to deter — particularly in places where they believe a little finagling will do the trick for them. Which is why our goal must never waver from ‘too big to rig.’ They fear this immensely. Perhaps that will help you keep hope and faith alive.
And no illegality committed by Trump and/or his flunkies should go uncommented and/or uncalled-out by Americans and our mass media.
Republican dirty tricks are on display in the NJ07 Democratic primary. NJ07 is currently represented by the still-missing-in-action Republican Thomas Kean, Jr., who has not been seen publicly since March 3. There are 4 Dems vying for the nomination. Rebecca Bennett, Tina Shah, Mike Roth, and Brian Varela in order of polling. The primary is tomorrow, June 2.
Shah, in an apparent last-ditch effort to derail Bennett's momentum, put out attack ads last week claiming Bennett was a registered Republican when she lived in Texas in 2016, that she refused to disclose if she voted for Trump back then, and that she took donations from ICE contractor Palantir employees. She handed a gift to the Republicans for November.
Separately, a new super PAC called Real Change PAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anti‑Bennett ads and mailers in a false flag operation, framing her as insufficiently progressive and promoting Shah and Brian Varela as alternatives.
Local NJ news coverage describes Real Change PAC as a “murky” outside group with GOP-linked fingerprints that is not required to disclose donors until after the primary. There is no public evidence of formal coordination between it and Shah’s campaign as of the latest reporting.
Available reporting says Bennett accepted “a pair of donations” from Palantir employees totaling “thousands” of dollars, but the exact dollar amount has not been publicly specified.
A detailed write‑up on the NJ‑07 race explains that Tina Shah’s attack ad claims Bennett took “thousands from ICE contractors to fund her campaign,” and that this wording refers specifically to contributions from two Palantir employees.
That same report characterizes the contributions as “a pair of donations” from those employees but does not list exact figures or itemize them by FEC line item.
Public filings and campaign statements indicate that Rebecca Bennett has not self‑funded her NJ‑07 congressional campaign; all of her money has come from contributions and committees, not personal loans or candidate contributions.
Bennett’s campaign says that she raised more than 700k in Q1 2026 “with no self‑funding and no corporate PAC money,” and says she has raised over $2.65 million in total without self‑funding. Her campaign emphasizes that it is “powered by over 13,000 individual donors,” with the vast majority of contributions under 100 dollars, reinforcing the message that she is not putting her own money into the race.
The FEC candidate overview for Bennett’s 2025–2026 cycle shows 0 dollars in “candidate contributions” and 0 dollars in “loans made by candidate,” which is where self‑funding would appear. Her total receipts (about $2.94 million) are almost entirely contributions (mostly individual) plus some other committee contributions and transfers, again consistent with a non‑self‑funded campaign.
Bennett is the only one of the 4 major Democratic contenders whose war chest is not boosted by personal money.
Judd Legum of Popular Information uncovered other GOP PACs masquerading as left-wing, including "Lead Left PAC," running operations in Texas and Nebraska supporting fringe Democratic candidates or smearing leading Democratic candidates with allegations that they are secret Trump supporters.
https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-it-looks-like-the
https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/shah-goes-negative-on-bennett-escalating-nj-7-campaign/
https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/murky-pac-meddling-in-nj-7-to-hurt-bennett/
https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/new-bennett-ad-pushes-back-on-maga-attacks/
https://popular.info/p/a-gop-dirty-tricks-operation-exposed
Proof of the absolute necessity to take money out of political campaigns. If ever there was. I surely can't vote in NJ. You're faced with a quandary there.
I think the self-funding or in some cases loaning money to your own campaign so you are a creditor to yourself—I don’t know if that means you get preferential payment as a creditor over a vendor. But it basically means that you have to have $1 million to burn to run in just the primary—
We need shorter campaign seasons, and to prohibit self-funding. Give whoever gets enough signatures to file get a fixed amount of money and then limit the amount of money an individual person can donate to a specific campaign.
I see. Free TV ads for all? Me? I want back the free ice cream Fridays we had in college.
Speaking of election tricks, Georgia, have you heard about the bizarro situation in the Alaska senate race? I searched for a straight publication article to link, but I love me some Catherine Rampell. She and Will Summers, both of The Bulwark, did the best job of explaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sigMKLZV2o8
I did see it! I think it is a Republican trick to discredit Peltola by using the name of a former Dem consultant as the “link” to Peltola.
This is pure Roger Stone ratf*cking.
I agree, Georgia. It's too much of a rookie move for the Peltola campaign to have tried such a stunt. But it's a perfect play-dirty-think-never Republican trick.
My guess is that the Orange Goblin King will declare a National Emergency, have the elections cancelled and then send in the military to deal with the “domestic terrorists”, formerly known as protesters. The Extreme Court will be 6:3 in favour of that.
I do hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid Donny-boy will go to ANY lengths to stay in power.
Not for the first, or the last time to be said, but that worst-case scenario isn’t likely, though the Bloviating Mango will threaten it every other Tuesday.
Far more likely is the easy stuff around the margins that’s already happening — gerrymandering, changes in Post Office rules, challenging married women with absurd technicalities, suddenly disappearing precincts in Fulton County, ICE showing up at polling stations and the like. All serious stuff but much of it in real legal jeopardy (they are losing lots of these battles in Court) and not trustworthy at all during a Blue Wave.
Sometimes I think many on this Newsletter take a kind of perverse pleasure by obsessing about the worst what-ifs imaginable to frighten themselves or others to death or despair. I can’t think of anything less useful. ‘Steady at the helm’ remains the byword of the day.
Oh, you do have to stay steady at the helm; no way you can just "lay down and roll over". But you shouldn't underestimate the sheer malice and astronomic corruption that flows from Donny Jay Junior, a toddler dictator who only wants to stay in the White House so he can stay out of jail...
I don’t think any of us is under the assumption that these people — to mishmash Anne Frank — are basically good at heart.
Your fear betrays you. Remember what was said about fear. Mr Roosevelt brought us a great speech about fear itself at the height of the Great Depression. Embrace the strengths of the past and make them relevant again.
We share the same fear.
Our hope is that he perishes soon.
In that case, I would soon be arrested for pooping on or at his mausoleum as I have promised. And I’ll need to hire cat sitters to feed my cats while my attorney negotiates my bail.
you will be spared arrest by the impossibility of singling you out among the dense crowd doing the same thing.
lol. Right on. The first annual POOP FESTIVAL complete with rock and hip hop,band singing about pooping on his Shiny Hiney. I think there is a song in there somewhere. If a car passes Mar-a-Lago at night and casually rolls down a window and lets drop a bit of turd, hum…
Staying in power means only one thing to Donnie……..
Not facing a third impeachment and a likely conviction this time. The people around him and our Corporate Overlords are the ones who want him to remain in power because he is so utterly corruptible and stupid that they have a free hand in sucking up all the wealth of this country into their private coffers.
Yeah... He is SO good for them that Peter Thiel has moved to Argentina because he's fearing societal collapse in America. Wait - wasn't this EXACTLY what you wanted, Darth Thiel?? Weren't you the one shouting that democracy was obsolete??
If any of these "financial geniuses" could think through their actions to any sort of logical conclusion, perhaps they would not be doing the stupid things that they seem to do daily. They are like 3 yr olds who want something, and they want it NOW! and damn any consequences.
He will, he tells the truth once in a blue moon and his very existence depends on it. He has put out the word and the cult has heard
And the nation of gilead will be born. Horrors!
Yet, we MUST do that hard thing! We must keep the faith, do the work of getting out every eligible voter, and then closely watch the polls for any funny business. Hope springs eternal!
I'm reminded of a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that hangs on my frig:
"Do the thing you think you cannot do."
Exactly the task at hand. For strengthening resolve see the substack from Robert Hubbell who daily posts pictures from across the country of people openly protesting as we are guaranteed the right to do. Take heart from the people who refused to participate for a birthday party of the president. AND take action for voter turnout. Action relieves fear every time.
it is..
Indeed. Especially since the properly accursed Sen. Joseph McCarthy is worshiped by the ChristoNazis as a Trumpstein saint.
It was corrupted at least as far back as the 50s. Read how Kennedy won Chicago. Read how John won his first primary.
A- Politics has always been corrupt it depends on the times and the people involved. Read The Last Hurrah by Edwin OConner to get a Birds Eye view of certain sides of old Boston politics. My parents were not at all Kennedy fans. So your comment doesn’t surprise me. And I will still say despite the games he and his brother were involved and more his father and his compromised connections ( their speeches and or their speech writers were just amazing ) they not only visited Dorothy Day they both were invited to stay for a meal. Dorothy never would have asked them unless she felt they had chutzph. I know this because my late husband also met and had dinner with Dorothy and he said she did not suffer fools gladly. Please tell me how many politicians have sat and served at a Catholic Worker or other free community meal? Not all for sure. They also visited West Va and saw the epic poverty as the only non West Virginia senator to do so was Senator Elizabeth Warren going up into Kermit West Va. named after Kermit Roosevelt. Another book to read about politics is All The Kings Men or the film with Broderick Crawford and Mercedes Cambridge . We all carry some sort and size of stain in our hands. Which goes back to this time the Christian Bible and Jesus ‘s statement with the men ready to throw stones- He who has not sinned…. And they all walked away. Snark is not becoming. Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snarks might also be a good read.
I read Last Hurrah and Kings Men. They evidence some acts but don't provide material to extrapolate. I lived in Boston for a decade. It's a mess, but not always because of corruption, more because of stupidity and tribalism.
Please show me where in each book they evidence acts and explain your use of extrapolate and what specific detailed materials are you referencing?
"We can begin to end the abuse and corruption if enough of us vote in November."
Only if all of us Vote Blue No Matter Who.
The Trump administration abuse and corruption has been one more step in an intentionally systemic attack on government itself by Republicans.
Abetted by those nominally in opposition who put person over party and treat voting as an individual exercise in personal expression - instead of a joint exercise in taking power.
Voting party is the path to power. As right wing Republican voters have demonstrated.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
It’s hard for an idealist to really grasp this necessity. I know; in my youth (about a century ago) I was just such an idealist. In fact, if the situation were less dire I might still be tempted to vote for a principled, socialist-Democrat. Not recently though. There really were, way back, reasonably decent Republicans, like MCS or Ike. Not any more, as Clousseau said.
This is no time for idealistic thought that a principled person remains in the Republicans. Maybe an independent but more likely a Democrat. When John McCain died I was convinced there were no more decent Republicans.
Too many people voted for Nader so we should have learned from that
November we will get our powers!
I'm sure that I've posted abut this before, but when I was about eight years old, my sister and I took piano lessons from a friend of my mother's. So did the children of all of the friends in their group. Any one of them could have taught beginning piano equally well, maybe even better than Edith, but they all hired her to teach their children because her husband had committed suicide after being targeted by McCarthy. They supported her and her children in a way that allowed her to keep her dignity and provide for her family. How many similar stories could people tell today, about lives being lost through "Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear" while friends supported their families as best they could? We need to be reminded every so often of the courage and compassion of leaders like Margaret Chase Smith, but frequently, we don't hear about the courage and compassion of individuals and groups who sustain our society.
Great reminder about unsung heroes.
In a word, Minnesotans!
I wonder Betsy how much it affected you, a prolific and clarifying poster,the fact that the teacher's husband had died by suicide due political pressure rather than by any other reason even lf at that time,being so young, you didn't know the difference. Just wandering...
It's very personal and you don't have to answer Betsy. 🤗
I'm happy to try to answer, but I can't really say to what extent this death, and this coming together of a group of friends affected me. I'd say rather that many of the circumstances of my upbringing worked together to shape me. Most, maybe all, of my father's good friends were educators in the NYC public schools. Many of them, "the boys," whom my father played first pinochle, and then bridge with, knew each other when they were orphans at a Jewish home, so their experiences were undoubtedly part of my collective growing up. I've written about my father, an elementary school principal who knew the names of all of the Black and Latino kids in his school and taught them the same poems he taught my sister and me. And who, when he retired, became a docent at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, leading tours of school children around the gardens. I don't think I've written about my mother. She went back to grad school when I was in college, got all As, and went on to become a librarian in a local tech high school, turning kids who had never opened a book into readers. She also organized, with others, a group that demanded that the city fund an ice skating rink in Prospect Park. So lots of concern for others and for learning in the environment in which I grew up. I guess one specific thing that I learned from the Army-McCarthy hearings that we watched on the small black and white tv in my parents bedroom was to refuse to sign a loyalty oath to any group or cause or person.
This is probably more than you expected, but that's what happens when people start to reflect on their past.
Have you done your part yet to save science by entering your comment at OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule
[https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance] ?
Wonderful and sometimes sad story Betsy. Thank You For Posting.
Suddenly,this site no longer allows me to like any posts. Is anyone else having this problem? Or it just my phone trying to ruin my day AGAIN?
anyway, Betsy Smith, I agree with what you wrote. We must help those who are targeted by this government and its attacks on citizens.
Another wonderful story well told. Read it, Americans, and feel the warmth of pride.
The Biggest Swindle in American History
Background:
Trump sued the federal government for $10 billion to compensate him for his alleged pain and suffering resulting from an IRS contractor’s disclosure of Trump’s tax returns, which revealed how rich he really is and how much in taxes he actually paid. Now that Trump is President, he and his Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, who reports directly to Trump, have agreed between themselves on a resolution of Trump’s law suit.
I should add that Blanche previously served as Trump’s personal defense attorney in a criminal case in New York in which Trump was ultimately convicted of multiple felonies. I should also add that Blanche, as Deputy Attorney General, was placed in charge of overseeing what should and should not be disclosed from the Epstein files to Congress and the American people. There has been considerable conjecture that Blanche has erred on the side of non-disclosures, especially as they relate to his boss.
It was recently announced that Trump and Blanche decided upon a resolution of Trump’s law suit. Blanche has agreed to Trump’s proposal to divert over $1.7 billion in taxpayer money into a fund, to be overseen by Trump himself, to distribute compensation to alleged victims whom Trump would determine were mistreated by the Biden administration. Trump has made it clear that examples of such compensation from the taxpayers’ money would include those rioters who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6 at Trump’s urging and those who called for Pence’s hanging and who left dead bodies in their wake as they smashed through the Capitol windows and walls. No doubt Trump’s discretionary disbursements may also be viewed as a vehicle to buy the votes of those who claim to have been mistreated by anyone in the Biden administration or even any Democrat at the time, given that Biden was the head of the party. Trump would undoubtedly view the disbursement of such taxpayer money as “good will” gestures to console them for their alleged mistreatment.
Trump also induced his subordinate to legally bind the IRS into agreeing not to review any of Trump’s prior tax filings, which would thereby confer on Trump total immunity for under-reporting income, fraudulent tax filings etc. Why any responsible public servant would agree to such immunity boggles the mind, until one realizes that it is Trump’s lackey who is signing off on Trump’s demand.
COMMON SENSE:
While much of the tidal wave of objections by Americans in all walks of life and across the entire political spectrum has centered upon the huge amount of this “settlement” and the outrageous reasons for which the taxpayers’ money is to be disbursed by Donald Trump at his discretion, less emphasis has been focused on the outrageousness of the blatant conflict of interest in Trump suing himself and deciding himself what he himself should receive from the taxpayers.
What is so amazing here is how brazen Trump and his flunky have been in slapping this preposterous “settlement” together between themselves of $1.7 billion dollars of taxpayer money for Trump to dispose of as he pleases and expects the American people to actually buy this total rip-off.
We can only imagine the amount of time and money that will be expended in legal research, briefs, oral arguments and in collateral litigations consumed by this scam, which Trump may seek to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, where he hopes that his loyalist Justices will rubber stamp his plundering of the U.S. Treasury.
If this scam is in any way upheld, it would provide a precedent that would embolden any Governor of any state, any Mayor of any city, and any CEO of any company to conspire with his or her chief legal officer to have the chief executive sue the entity and then unilaterally “settle” his or her own the claim by plundering the treasury or other financial assets of the entity.
This is such a blatant abuse of power by both Trump and Blanche that it qualifies for all time as being a textbook example of a conflict of interest that “shocks the conscience of the court” and is patently against the public interest.
It’s time that the courts unite in wiping that smirk off of Trump’s face that he successfully pulled off this scam on the American people.
Hello LD.... Mary Trump had a Good Posting in her Substack about how DJT has actually been a repeated Business Failure that has always Grifted his way out of personal Bankruptcy... DJT has 6-Business Bankruptcies demonstrating DJT's Stable Genius Skills... An example of his actual Negotiating Skills are the current Iran Negotiations...
Thank you for such a clear assessment of yet another crime by Trump and his lackeys. It is time for all members of the government to decide what they want history to remember them for, long after they are gone. Truth and patriotism have shown that, sooner than later, they will shine through. Let the sooner be NOW.
Thanks Veronica.
Half the supreme court are more or kess identical to Todd Blanche.
Agreed, though I would say that 6 of the 9 are Trump's ardent admirers.
I remember when Senator Margaret Chase Smith boldly spoke out against scum bum Joseph McCarthy in his early months of McCarthyism. She took a political risk when Republicans leaders were supporting McCarthyism as a possible way to get back in the White House.
One of Senator Smith’s colleagues, Senator Tydings, was defeated for re-election because of his bold attack against McCarthy. (When you drive down to Washington you will cross over the Tydings Bridge, a late recognition of his integrity).
In sharp contrast, Maine Senator Susan Collins has ‘straddled’ rather than emulate Senator Smith. For example, during the Kavanaugh Senate hearing, there was a major controversial over a woman who clearly attacked Kavanaugh’s personal behavior (which Kavanaugh vigorously denied).
It was agreed that the FBI would immediately investigate. This was a sham investigation in which none of the principal witnesses were interviewed. After a few days Senator Collins publicly stated that the FBI investigation was thorough and complete. Thus Kavanaugh became a Supreme Court justice.
I fervently hope that Maine voters realize that Collins lacks Senator Smith’s unflagging integrity.
Susan Collins has missed her Margaret Chase Smith moment many times. She hasn't even held a town hall anywhere in Maine for over 20 years. You can Goggle that fact!
I keep hoping that myself, Keith. Seems like this is the 3rd election cycle I've been hoping that.
I hope, too, that Mainers realize that Collins is spineless.
Ed What’s more disgusting than a spineless lobster? Kavanaugh Collins!
I remember the the day that Joe McCarthy's evil spell came crashing down. I was still a little kid and the intrigues of politics were still well beyond me, but my mother who was had been listening to the table radio broadcasting the hearing said "This is a very important day", and I took her at her word. Much later I filled in the gaps. Some people prosper by means of mutuality, win for me, win for you and win for society. Others with extortion. That's was predatory McCarthy's gimmick, and that's what Trump learned, likely for his dad, and surely from Roy Cohn and his involvement with the mob. Lies and extortion is his core MO, from his Orwellian "Department of Justice", he and his cohort conspire to bully everyone else in pursuit of absolute power. It's a game as old as dirt, but has not every salient moral thinker, every moral-centered novel or movie, condemned that choice? It's a wonderful Life? Lord of the Rings? Find the classic "bad guys" in this picture.
JL I personally experienced the McCarthy nightmare. Edward R. Murrow was also a family friend (I last saw him in October, 1960).
The Murrow broadcast on McCarthy has gained mythical importance. In fact, it was one of a number of increasing attacks on McCarthy.
The unquestioned dagger were the Army Senate hearings conducted by Joseph Welch, a distinguished Boston lawyer. McCarthy was counseled by Roy Cohn, who later slithered over to a young Donald Trump.
Welch had invited Fred Fisher, a bright young lawyer, to join him in Washington. Fred told him that, back in the 1940s he had joined a legal organization that later was on the Attorney General’s ‘commie’ list. Welch excused Fred and spoke about this with McCarthy, who promised not to raise these at the Senate hearings.
Later, when things were going badly for ‘Tail Gunner Joe’ (he received a medal without being in combat), McCarthy started to raise Fred Fisher in a most negative manner.
This is when Welch responded: “Sir, have you no sense of decency.” This was a dramatic TV turning point. It concluded with the press giving Welch a hearty ovation. (Soon thereafter McCarthy was censured by the Senate and later died of alcoholism.)
[[I knew Fred from a Ford Foundation week end for students who had run a successful international student trip. His experience in starting the National Student Association was exemplary. My major contribution to the week end was to bring two cases of beer to a dry Putney.]
After Stalin’s death two of us founded American Students for International Understanding at Yale. President Griswold supported us. (Harvard’s President Conant would have nixed us.] How our proposed trip to the Soviet Union ended up in the Middle East is a separate story.
A stirring history reminder by Heather today.
We need it.
As Heather often recalls, some parts of our history just keep popping up in different eras. So back then, the senator from Maine was perfectly well aware of the threats of "Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear."
Do we sufficiently guard against their reappearance now? I don't mean are we aware that some of that might recur in some forms. I mean they've taken over the national government. In the intervening years since that fine senator from Maine, we allowed some most ugly things to take root in some of our most vital institutions. Elites from corporate interests, banking, testing, and lobbying (with tons of $$$) for many foreign governments forgot some of the key things schools in turn forgot to teach.
We've got some basics in our republic to attend to. And only about five months for enough public officials to speak to real dangers abroad the land now, to hone clear English at the real fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear all riding the techies' algorithms and Donald's unabated further criminality.
Do not forget: Trump's mentor Roy Cohn was McCarthy's chief counsel. !!!
https://allthatsinteresting.com/roy-cohn
Yes, Nancy -- a major through line here.
Amazing how history can be so fraught with so many factors, complications, dormancies.
... and bad men.
Yes, but funny, too, Nancy, how the bad men mainly replicate types of men.
That is, they hew to character formulae. Zealous for power, they avail themselves of the repetitions which cardboard and other cut-out types model.
For fuller individuals don't we need to go to artists who've some mastery over access to personal complications, combinations, contradictions, and fearlessness at serendipity?
It seems to me that T's Stephen Miller is a reincarnation of McCarthy's Roy Cohn -eminences grises, the pair of them. Grise and grisly.
VERY important to remember!
The Cohns also took an impressionable young man, barely out of high school, and groomed him to be a bigoted, heretical, and completely misguided mouthpiece for their political agenda, That young man’s name was Charlie Kirk. I blame Trump and the Cohns for how Kirk turned out - and for his death. The Cohns will answer for that, if not here on Earth, then on Judgment Day.
Were she still with us, Sen Smith could have given that 1947 speech today and have it equally pertinent to the condition of our country. More’s the pity.
That speech, James -- June 1, 1950.
And yes, so pertinent and needing delivery today, with just slight revisions, new variations according to varied locales.
Thanks for the correction, Phil. Old guys like me should never write off the tops of their increasingly befuddled heads.
Hello Phil... Elon Musk purchased the USG for about $220 Million in Campaign Contributions to DJT in 2024... Elon's DOGE Boys & Girls vacuumed Terabytes of our Personal Data in early 2025... Now DJT wants to determine who votes... Peter Thiel is now living in Argentina because he fears Societal Collapse in the USA....
Yes, Apache -- and the key U.S. scientific agency to deal with Ebola also axed by Musk.
Peter Thiel, Elon Musk will Weaponize our Stolen Data...
Let's hope Argentina keeps him. I don't know if we have an extradition agreement with them. I'm not so sure about societal collapse, but Thiel and the tech bros are probably going to be facing some hard questions after Jan 27. That's probably his main concern at the moment.
Hello James... The Societal Collapse has already started in Slow-Motion... Political Siloing is just One Aspect...
And let’s go back to criticizing and chastising white supremisists, bigots, Fascists and thugs! Since when were their beliefs acceptable in American society. They are FRINGE and will always be fringe; they need to be moved off the main stage once more and banished to the basement!
Well stated.
Shiver’s me timbers
Another HCR American history lesson that shines as much light on the present as the past.
I note that it was a woman who first stood up publicly to sound the alarm about McCarthyism. I further note that one of the pillars of Christian Nationalism is the dis-empowerment of women.
Therefore, we must make our daughters and sisters strong to keep our democracy.
She was an upstander -even when the majority of her party ran for cover...sound familiar? Then and now, there are the upstanders like Smith and there are the cowards, sycophants and miscreants.
where are the upstander Republicans now? Massie?
Adam Kinzinger, although no longer in office.
I would not honor Massie with that title (at least yet) but he is worth watching to see if he has a sufficient backbone. Honestly I do not know any, which is part of the point I am making. The Republican Party is toast - you are either Maga (at best a miscreant) or you are out. We need to stop referring to the party as Republican, it is in the waste can, just like the Whig Party.
ICYMI: (1) Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland wrote an oped in the NYT 5/22/26 on the details of Trump’s $1.776 billion “Slush Fund” and what can be done about it. He is a constitutional lawyer who led the first Trump impeachment trial. “NYTimes.com: There’s a Way to Stop Trump’s I.R.S. Slush Fund”. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/opinion/trump-congress-blanche-treasury.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mlA.mKVF.Af6DmygYbrY5&smid=em-share
(2) The NYT Editorial Board was so upset by Trump’s pervasive corruption of the U.S. government that they wrote an oped on it (5/20/26):
“NYTimes.com: There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This”. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/opinion/trump-doj-slush-fund-criminals-corruption.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mlA.rGTT.3bKSDAM5j_d7&smid=em-share
(3) NYU School of Law Professor Melissa Murray, author of a recent book “The U.S. Constitution”, was interviewed by legal experts Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz of LegalAF The Court of History on 5/31/26: “Supreme Court Justice Roberts and the monster he created”. https://michaelpopok.substack.com/p/justice-roberts-runs-scared-from?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios They feel John Roberts is a Dr. Frankenstein who created the monstrous and unconstitutional Trump presidency. They discuss the fallacy of “originalism”, the history of the Reconstruction Amendments, how Roberts replaced the Constitution with a neo-Confederate vision by wrecking the 14th and 15th Civil War Amendments, etc.. A very informative discussion. Their opinions are supported by a recent (5/22/26) survey of Federal judges by Bright Line Watch and UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project: 94% of legal experts (Federal Judges) say Trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law. https://brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-the-rule-of-law-in-trumps-second-term/ Lots of data.
Thanks for these links!!
Judge John Roberts is the Brown Cowbird of the Supreme Court. Through disingenuousness and dishonesty he arrived at where he is now. He must be impeached and removed.
There is an interesting idea proposed on substack and elsewhere that we need a 4th branch of government to isolate various agencies from Executive overreach. It’s an interesting concept.
I see the problem differently. Perhaps because I don’t see how expanding bureaucracy will solve a fundamental problem. It is this, people simply not doing their jobs. The committees that appointed Roberts, Alito, and Thomas, etc. listened to bent testimony from the nominees and ignored countervailing evidence.
Today, in both Houses of Congress we have committees stonewalling speech, discussion, debate and dissent from the minority. This has reached such a pitch that the House has for a great part of the year been out of session. There is a self-disqualifying Speaker running amok. We have a Senate locked in a rictus of fear and greed. These people are either unwilling or unable to perform their jobs.
In the Judiciary at all levels, we see decisions that are not decisions at all but are grey naps of irresolution. These are the vague slaps on the wrist that we, the US public, have become accustomed to seeing when the wealthy and powerful are brought to trial. These are not people doing their jobs.
Remember in the first days and weeks of the current Administration whole Federal Agencies were dissolved, dismantled and dismissed either by an invented extra-governmental parasite, DOGE, through OMB’s Russell Vought, or personally by Drumpf. Oversite departments and individuals were summarily fired by Drumpf.
We get heavily massaged financial reports on the state of the economy. We no longer have access to what our trillion dollar Defense Department has undertaken. It is not accountable.
We, the citizens and voters have been reduced to pawns, no worse. We have become the bystanders in this government’s parade of lies, grift, theft and murder.
This is not a story of people doing their jobs, much less their duty.
Many good points here, Bill Pierce, but your broadband criticism of the Judiciary is not correct. There are many, many very good decisions by judges, state and federal, trial courts and appeals courts. For example: Albrego Garcia won, finally. Substacks by Meidas's Filipkowski, the two AKs: Adam Klasfeld and Adam Kinzinger, Jessica Craven's Sunday Good News roundup, and of course HCR as well, can keep you informed about them.
Sure, I agree with you. Several good decisions. Some earnest Judges. Difficult to make any bite. Abrego Garcia may or may not be a national hero. He’s emblematic as my hero. No! Nothing is won. The thoroughly corrupt Administration is not nearly done with him yet. He, his family, his close friends must persist in fear.
Fear runs rampant. Judges are careful. Their decisions are short term, temporary, long in time to comply, or indefinite, and leave room for reversal … yes no choice there in a land blind to justice. In a great many cases, Judges see too little choice. They know the road the Administration will take in an attempt to codify the nonsense of unitary power in one individual. Cast a little shadow docket on it
This is a clown show. There is no “theory” behind unitary power, only a bold, highly financed lie. Are we now to learn and adopt this double-speak? The use of language here is important.
Fascism has long enjoyed the game of turning words and meaning upside down. This should not be unfamiliar territory for anyone who’s been to grammar school. It’s a playground amusement.
The too long Civil Rights movement, the human rights movement, suffered many generations on a parallel path. Are we to walk backwards over the same ground yet again?
I guess the answer is supposed to be yes. Until we’re all bled dry upon that phony hill with a shining city atop.
Don’t pretend you imagine I’m misinformed. You shouldn’t be disgracing yourself that way. But, hey, “free” country. It’s entirely your choice.
Slandering members of the opposition party has a long history in America. (Watch "Mr Smith Goes to Washington," the 1939 motion picture starring Jimmy Stewart to see such slander portrayed in one of the greatest political dramas ever filmed.) Calling people "Communists" worked in the 1950s. Will calling James Talarico "transgender" work in 2026? I pray to God that it does NOT!!!
I am not big on praying. But I will join you wholeheartedly on your prayer. I hope that the Universe hears us and evil is deaf.
Thank you for giving credit to one of my heroes, Senator Margaret Chase Smith! We could use Republicans Senators like her now. Susan Collins looks even worse in comparison.
An adversarial two party system relies on both parties having the ultimate good of the nation at heart, when both parties first concerns are the nations wellbeing, then we benefit from multiple points of view in searching for solutions to our many problems. What we have today is one of the parties only interested in keeping power for it’s own sake, not because they can do more good for the nation as a whole, but because of the perks that come with elected office. Removing affordable healthcare from millions, and closing rural hospitals are just two examples of what the repugnantkins in congress have done recently.
She was on the right side of history.
"...I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.”
How naive this sounds in 2026! Sorry, Sen. Smith, but your party has been hoodwinked and hijacked by a faction that IS absolutely and totally desperate for victory. They will burn through any law and standard and principle to ensure that they remain in power.
Oh, and I have been reading WAY TOO many comments on FB and elsewhere defending Tailgunner Joe. "He was right, you know." (Truth to tell, ONE comment defending McCarthy is one too many.)
Trying to not oversimplify, but Joe McCarthy was a power-hungry bully. It took a while for reason to surface and lead to his downfall. Meanwhile, lives were ruined. “Those who ignore (or forget) history are doomed to repeat it.”
No argument from me, Linda. And I don't think you're oversimplifying at all. McCarthy was absolutely a bully and a thug.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Bradbury once. He said he remembering telling everyone he knew at the time that one person was all it would take to bring down McCarthy. "I was wrong," Bradbury admitted. "It took two: Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Welch."
I’m frustrated with how long it takes politicians to stand up and do what is right for the country and not for their pocketbook and their career.
As we've learned, it's happened before. The cavalry is not coming; It's up to us.
In this situation, we the people are the cavalry. Let’s go!
Time and again I've offered. Say when and where; We'll meet on the mall in DC or nearby in the Virginia or Maryland suburbs, then march on the capital. I'll even take the lead, absorb of fall first to whatever opposes our right to demonstrate. But I won't do it alone; Someone must have my back, or conversely walk over my corpse to continue till principle prevails.
Well, it seems to me obvious that they hesitated because they know they will be cruelly punished by the predident and other republican leaders if they speak out boldly. It’s slmost like being willing to sacrifice your life!
I’m worried about the 204 Venezuelan fishermen who have been murdered by Pete Hesgarth without evidence of wrongdoing. Does he think he is playing a video game, shooting to kill his imagined enemies? I think he is insane. Sorry for being off topic. These murders have been weighing on my consciousness. Not to mention Renee Good, Alex Pretti and the hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people who have died in the ICE facilities this year.
And been starved, denied medical treatment, kept from family.
The U.S.A. has become home to much of the worst mass cruelty in the world -- organized, subject to the rule of dark money and techie titans thriving on hate.
Phil , I agree with you so much.
You and me both, Kendra.