Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo articulated today what many have been reluctant to say: What is at stake in the Big Lie and all the Republican efforts to keep it in play—the shenanigans in the secret Maricopa County, Arizona, recount; the censuring of Republicans who voted to impeach the former president; the expected removal of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from a leadership role in the party; and so on—is not the past election of 2020, but the upcoming election of 2024.
If Republicans think people aren't going back to work because they're getting too much pay in unemployment (Ali Velshi had the economist for the AFL-CIO on tonight, and he pointed out that even last year when people were getting $600/week more, it had no effect on their desire to go back to work), perhaps the Republicans might consider that most jobs in America today are shit jobs, the way they're managed, the atmosphere promoted in too many companies.
As to the Republican plans for 2024, anyone who thinks that somehow civil war got taken off the table with Biden's election, who doesn't think it's an even bet regardless of the election outcome, that a civil war could break out, probably still believes in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy.
The only thing that's going to derail what they're trying to do is the death of Trump. That's because all the would-be Trumpies just aren't evil enough to do what he does. It took the death of Hitler to put the final nail in the Nazi coffin, because none of the attendant gargoyles were able to be Chief Gargoyle like he could..
(1) Sometimes Heather writes something that sounds the alarm.
(2) Sometimes Heather writes something to remind us that the government is us, so raise our voices to make them heard.
(3) Sometimes Heather writes something that makes us feel like everything is going to be okay.
(1) + (2) = (3)
With tonight's LFAA as another alarm, leave a Reply if you are interested in joining fellow HCR Substackers in making our voices heard in service of democracy.
"Faced with the prospect of voters rejecting their economic policies, Republican leaders are undermining democracy." Those may be the most chilling words in all your letters. They certainly boil down to a terrifying essence of our plight. Who could have imagined that Trump's defeat by a significant margin and the events of Jan. 6 would embolden rather than chasten Republicans? Wait, I'm being naïve again.
It is all overwhelming because the Republicans, under Mitch's power, refuse to budge. They have swept the insurrection under the rug as they did the shootings in Colorado, Sandy Hook, FLA., and everywhere. They want to undermine Liz Cheney so they can plant Stefanik, that nasty woman, in her place. I have seen where they accuse Biden of doing nothing for the immigrant children when they are the ones who caused the chaos in the first place. I believe Majorkis has a competent team in place, one with many women: Nanette Barragan, Sylvia Garcia, Veronica Escobar, and Linda Sanchez. There were over 2000 kids who were detained by Border Patrol three weeks ago. Those women realized Border Patrol didn't know how to take care of children. All of them are now only detained less than 24 hours and those waiting have made phone calls to their relatives in the U.S.. Before, they were denied common decency, clothing, toothbrushes, a bed! Now they are in care facilities until they can be reunited with loved ones. Can you imagine...this weekend is Mother's Day and these mothers nor their children know where they each are?
I have decided that Republicans aren't human. They have been replaced by demons of The Third Reich.
Thank you, HCR. I wish you peace, love, and kindness from your children on Mother's Day. And to every mother, my best to you all.
Thursday, my niece graduated from Georgia State. The event was livestreamed. Pictures of each graduate who RSVPed before the deadline was displayed on the Jumbotron. Let me say if that class is representative slice of the future, the future is colorful. No wonder those old white guys are hanging by their nails trying to hold on to the old ways.
I'm so frustrated and concerned. Shouldn't there be national universal voting standards in these United States of America? How can we say we live in a free democracy when voting for one voter might take minutes while another may stand in line for many hours possibly even being denied supplemental food or water to sustain them during the ordeal. The difference being what state the voter happens to live in. (Or the shade of their skin.) Is that in any way equal access to representation? If the filibuster can't be modified to get HR-1 through the Senate it feels like we're screwed.
Two weeks ago my wife found a lump on my breast that we now know is breast cancer. Rare in men but as with all rare things when you have it you have it. So, I now understand first hand that I don’t want sympathy or even empathy. What I want is for the exterior parts of my life which now includes medical care to be efficient, honest, clear and complete. Which is why I find today’s letter concerning.
These facts that she has laid out today have been as obvious as paint on the wall since well before the election. There is no doubt about what is going on. Are we really still trying to drag out selves out of denial? I haven’t read into the comments today and probably won’t. I just don’t have, what is the word, it is something like desire to swim in the opinions. I’m not looking up my lab work as it appears in my chart either. Is that denial or just the knowledge that it doesn’t matter at the moment? After all the cancer isn’t going to disappear because of a blood test.
I do grant that HCR is a historian and a really good one who helps relate the past to the present but this seldom extrapolates to actions in the future. It is reassuring to me that the treatment protocols for breast cancer are pretty well figured out. We are not speculating about what to do. There are facts to obtain and they will lay out the path. If I follow that path the future falls into known probabilities. I may not have good luck and may experience the short side of the odds but it isn’t obscure or prone to debate.
The future of our country is also pretty clear and really doesn’t need debate either. If the republicans get their way decision making will remain short term and motivated by corporate money men. Politicians will be bought and sold. People will be considered and treated as commodities. Infrastructure will be maintained at just the level to maximize quarterly profits. Jobs will be structured to produce wall street gains in the next quarter. We will see the philanthropic efforts of the very wealthy as efforts to improve the human lot and eventually the world will likely experience another large war as the oligarchs vie for yet more. Eventually, genetic tailoring will come out of crisper research and it will be used to tailor workers for specific tasks. This will be required to get a job. Food, water, oxygen, living space, education, will all become products sold at market rates.
What is standing at this cross roads is not The For The People Act. It is written and it is an agreed upon starting point toward changing the future the Republicans are working towards. This war could have been fought at the state level but our predecessors ignored this war for too long. To fight it state by state now means to confront the local effect of big money and that is a loosing fight.
So, what is standing at this cross roads are two Democratic senators who are making their name by holding hostage the future that the majority of Americans want. And, dare I say it, a president who is still hoping, frankly I’m not sure what. Perhaps he has a deep plan but I can’t imagine why this plan would need to be held close to the vest (yes like a hand playing cards).
Discussing my cancer with my loved ones, my children and friends has made me both impatient and resigned. Freedom in medicine declined on my watch as corporate profiteers took over and my colleagues thought only of the next patient waiting. Freedom in America has become freedom for the rich to become richer while using roads, airports, bridges, power systems, communication platforms that they didn’t invent, pay for or feel any responsibility to maintain. Freedom has become that of corporate executives to live in three month increments and feel confident that if it all goes to pot they will just take their golden parachute and buy a yacht.
Two Democratic Senators and the will of the president. The desire of the majority of Americans is clear.
One wonders why I would post this. It won’t change the facts. People will comment perhaps. Some won’t like what I have said, too simplistic, too harsh, what ever.
Orwell saw the likes of Trump coming. His timing was off by a bit.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this.
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
Here's a question: has anybody approached the FCC to contest the classification of Fox News' license as appropriately classified as "entertainment," given that it broadcasts "news" in a news format 100% of the time? At least subject them to slander and libel suits in the same way other news outlets are.
I agree with most of this letter. I do think, however, that it is naive to think that dt is in it "just for the fight." He is in it to seize power, as the letter does suggest, and if he succeeds, or the R party regains power with him in control of it, we are in serious trouble. dt&co or his ilk in power will mean early and quicker moves toward fascism, they are now familiar with the ropes, and the White Supremacists are "standing down" but standing by.
The voting rights bills are as or more important as anything before Congress -- but Manchin stands in the way, as well as the infrastructure and family leave legislation -- and the minimum wage hike.
But as more imperative as anything is a major campaign to hold on to Congress in 2022 -- starting yesterday.
The most accurate and upsetting of HCR's columns, I wonder if the majority of Democratic Senators and Representatives are aware of the scope of this GOP plan. Certainly McConnel is. Too, I wonder if Joe Manchin will continue to obstruct, delay and dangerously impede the progress of both Biden's initiatives and strategies to achieve them — perhaps until it is too late to remedy his obstruction. I fear Mr. Manchin is unaware of the gravity — and certainly has no grasp of the scope — of the GOPs political strategy; their silent insurrection. They have loaded lies and rationales for those lies into a Trojan Horse of Election Integrity and Patriotism, and drawn it into the vulnerable fortress of our democracy. Its contents, in the form of their activist politicians and media, have already spilled out and polluted our national dialogue. Can Biden stem this incursion; can he draw together the collective Democratic power, including the simplistic, naive (my kindest attribution) Mr. Manchon, to defeat this political insurrection by any political means necessary?
Boy, this was a depressing read first thing in the morning. If Marc Elias doesn’t win his lawsuits against the states that have passed voter suppression laws, this country is toast.
HCR's last sentence is also a punchline, "Faced with the prospect of voters rejecting their economic policies, Republican leaders are undermining democracy."
The jobs report is one of those events that the "experts" have massaged way too much. First, they are deciding suddenly that the jobs this month were the old jobs simply being restored and not to be counted as new jobs. Second, as Stephanie Ruhle said on MSNBC, replying to closet Reaganites on Morning Joe that many of the people refusing work went to Amazon and Walmart warehouse starting at $15 or $16 an hour with benefits and are not inclined to return to the restaurant to a $2.13 an hour server job. They are not Reagan's welfare queen lounging at home.
As I have stated before, we are witnessing the take over of Democracy by the few, not the will of the majority. I have absolutely no faith that this Country will remain in its intended form within a very short time. As much as I despise the GQP and everything it currently represents, we are no match for their long game tactics. It's high time for those wearing rose colored glasses to remove them to see what is happening every single day, right before our eyes.
The reality is that Biden is merely a distraction to what is to hit, very hard at our doorsteps. We are not going to like it.
If Republicans think people aren't going back to work because they're getting too much pay in unemployment (Ali Velshi had the economist for the AFL-CIO on tonight, and he pointed out that even last year when people were getting $600/week more, it had no effect on their desire to go back to work), perhaps the Republicans might consider that most jobs in America today are shit jobs, the way they're managed, the atmosphere promoted in too many companies.
As to the Republican plans for 2024, anyone who thinks that somehow civil war got taken off the table with Biden's election, who doesn't think it's an even bet regardless of the election outcome, that a civil war could break out, probably still believes in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy.
The only thing that's going to derail what they're trying to do is the death of Trump. That's because all the would-be Trumpies just aren't evil enough to do what he does. It took the death of Hitler to put the final nail in the Nazi coffin, because none of the attendant gargoyles were able to be Chief Gargoyle like he could..
(1) Sometimes Heather writes something that sounds the alarm.
(2) Sometimes Heather writes something to remind us that the government is us, so raise our voices to make them heard.
(3) Sometimes Heather writes something that makes us feel like everything is going to be okay.
(1) + (2) = (3)
With tonight's LFAA as another alarm, leave a Reply if you are interested in joining fellow HCR Substackers in making our voices heard in service of democracy.
"Faced with the prospect of voters rejecting their economic policies, Republican leaders are undermining democracy." Those may be the most chilling words in all your letters. They certainly boil down to a terrifying essence of our plight. Who could have imagined that Trump's defeat by a significant margin and the events of Jan. 6 would embolden rather than chasten Republicans? Wait, I'm being naïve again.
It is all overwhelming because the Republicans, under Mitch's power, refuse to budge. They have swept the insurrection under the rug as they did the shootings in Colorado, Sandy Hook, FLA., and everywhere. They want to undermine Liz Cheney so they can plant Stefanik, that nasty woman, in her place. I have seen where they accuse Biden of doing nothing for the immigrant children when they are the ones who caused the chaos in the first place. I believe Majorkis has a competent team in place, one with many women: Nanette Barragan, Sylvia Garcia, Veronica Escobar, and Linda Sanchez. There were over 2000 kids who were detained by Border Patrol three weeks ago. Those women realized Border Patrol didn't know how to take care of children. All of them are now only detained less than 24 hours and those waiting have made phone calls to their relatives in the U.S.. Before, they were denied common decency, clothing, toothbrushes, a bed! Now they are in care facilities until they can be reunited with loved ones. Can you imagine...this weekend is Mother's Day and these mothers nor their children know where they each are?
I have decided that Republicans aren't human. They have been replaced by demons of The Third Reich.
Thank you, HCR. I wish you peace, love, and kindness from your children on Mother's Day. And to every mother, my best to you all.
Thursday, my niece graduated from Georgia State. The event was livestreamed. Pictures of each graduate who RSVPed before the deadline was displayed on the Jumbotron. Let me say if that class is representative slice of the future, the future is colorful. No wonder those old white guys are hanging by their nails trying to hold on to the old ways.
I'm so frustrated and concerned. Shouldn't there be national universal voting standards in these United States of America? How can we say we live in a free democracy when voting for one voter might take minutes while another may stand in line for many hours possibly even being denied supplemental food or water to sustain them during the ordeal. The difference being what state the voter happens to live in. (Or the shade of their skin.) Is that in any way equal access to representation? If the filibuster can't be modified to get HR-1 through the Senate it feels like we're screwed.
I am reminded of the Malvina Reynolds song - sung by Joanne Baez
It Isn’t Nice
– by Malvina Reynolds
It isn’t nice to block the doorway,
It isn’t nice to go to jail,
There are nicer ways to do it,
But the nice ways always fail.
It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
It isn’t nice to carry banners
Or to sit in on the floor,
Or to shout our cry of Freedom
At the hotel and the store.
It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
We have tried negotiations
And the three-man picket line,1
Mr. Charlie2 didn’t see us
And he might as well be blind.
Now our new ways aren’t nice
When we deal with men of ice,
But if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
How about those years of lynchings
And the shot in Evers’ back?
Did you say it wasn’t proper,
Did you stand upon the track?
You were quiet just like mice,
Now you say we aren’t nice,
And if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
It isn’t nice to block the doorway,
It isn’t nice to go to jail,
There are nicer ways to do it
But the nice ways always fail.
It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice,
But thanks for your advice,
Cause if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.
Two weeks ago my wife found a lump on my breast that we now know is breast cancer. Rare in men but as with all rare things when you have it you have it. So, I now understand first hand that I don’t want sympathy or even empathy. What I want is for the exterior parts of my life which now includes medical care to be efficient, honest, clear and complete. Which is why I find today’s letter concerning.
These facts that she has laid out today have been as obvious as paint on the wall since well before the election. There is no doubt about what is going on. Are we really still trying to drag out selves out of denial? I haven’t read into the comments today and probably won’t. I just don’t have, what is the word, it is something like desire to swim in the opinions. I’m not looking up my lab work as it appears in my chart either. Is that denial or just the knowledge that it doesn’t matter at the moment? After all the cancer isn’t going to disappear because of a blood test.
I do grant that HCR is a historian and a really good one who helps relate the past to the present but this seldom extrapolates to actions in the future. It is reassuring to me that the treatment protocols for breast cancer are pretty well figured out. We are not speculating about what to do. There are facts to obtain and they will lay out the path. If I follow that path the future falls into known probabilities. I may not have good luck and may experience the short side of the odds but it isn’t obscure or prone to debate.
The future of our country is also pretty clear and really doesn’t need debate either. If the republicans get their way decision making will remain short term and motivated by corporate money men. Politicians will be bought and sold. People will be considered and treated as commodities. Infrastructure will be maintained at just the level to maximize quarterly profits. Jobs will be structured to produce wall street gains in the next quarter. We will see the philanthropic efforts of the very wealthy as efforts to improve the human lot and eventually the world will likely experience another large war as the oligarchs vie for yet more. Eventually, genetic tailoring will come out of crisper research and it will be used to tailor workers for specific tasks. This will be required to get a job. Food, water, oxygen, living space, education, will all become products sold at market rates.
What is standing at this cross roads is not The For The People Act. It is written and it is an agreed upon starting point toward changing the future the Republicans are working towards. This war could have been fought at the state level but our predecessors ignored this war for too long. To fight it state by state now means to confront the local effect of big money and that is a loosing fight.
So, what is standing at this cross roads are two Democratic senators who are making their name by holding hostage the future that the majority of Americans want. And, dare I say it, a president who is still hoping, frankly I’m not sure what. Perhaps he has a deep plan but I can’t imagine why this plan would need to be held close to the vest (yes like a hand playing cards).
Discussing my cancer with my loved ones, my children and friends has made me both impatient and resigned. Freedom in medicine declined on my watch as corporate profiteers took over and my colleagues thought only of the next patient waiting. Freedom in America has become freedom for the rich to become richer while using roads, airports, bridges, power systems, communication platforms that they didn’t invent, pay for or feel any responsibility to maintain. Freedom has become that of corporate executives to live in three month increments and feel confident that if it all goes to pot they will just take their golden parachute and buy a yacht.
Two Democratic Senators and the will of the president. The desire of the majority of Americans is clear.
One wonders why I would post this. It won’t change the facts. People will comment perhaps. Some won’t like what I have said, too simplistic, too harsh, what ever.
Orwell saw the likes of Trump coming. His timing was off by a bit.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this.
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984
An American political party is “undermining democracy”, that should hit u hard, right in the chest, so hard that you have to sit down.
Here's a question: has anybody approached the FCC to contest the classification of Fox News' license as appropriately classified as "entertainment," given that it broadcasts "news" in a news format 100% of the time? At least subject them to slander and libel suits in the same way other news outlets are.
I agree with most of this letter. I do think, however, that it is naive to think that dt is in it "just for the fight." He is in it to seize power, as the letter does suggest, and if he succeeds, or the R party regains power with him in control of it, we are in serious trouble. dt&co or his ilk in power will mean early and quicker moves toward fascism, they are now familiar with the ropes, and the White Supremacists are "standing down" but standing by.
The voting rights bills are as or more important as anything before Congress -- but Manchin stands in the way, as well as the infrastructure and family leave legislation -- and the minimum wage hike.
But as more imperative as anything is a major campaign to hold on to Congress in 2022 -- starting yesterday.
Russell Meyerjust now
The most accurate and upsetting of HCR's columns, I wonder if the majority of Democratic Senators and Representatives are aware of the scope of this GOP plan. Certainly McConnel is. Too, I wonder if Joe Manchin will continue to obstruct, delay and dangerously impede the progress of both Biden's initiatives and strategies to achieve them — perhaps until it is too late to remedy his obstruction. I fear Mr. Manchin is unaware of the gravity — and certainly has no grasp of the scope — of the GOPs political strategy; their silent insurrection. They have loaded lies and rationales for those lies into a Trojan Horse of Election Integrity and Patriotism, and drawn it into the vulnerable fortress of our democracy. Its contents, in the form of their activist politicians and media, have already spilled out and polluted our national dialogue. Can Biden stem this incursion; can he draw together the collective Democratic power, including the simplistic, naive (my kindest attribution) Mr. Manchon, to defeat this political insurrection by any political means necessary?
Boy, this was a depressing read first thing in the morning. If Marc Elias doesn’t win his lawsuits against the states that have passed voter suppression laws, this country is toast.
HCR's last sentence is also a punchline, "Faced with the prospect of voters rejecting their economic policies, Republican leaders are undermining democracy."
The jobs report is one of those events that the "experts" have massaged way too much. First, they are deciding suddenly that the jobs this month were the old jobs simply being restored and not to be counted as new jobs. Second, as Stephanie Ruhle said on MSNBC, replying to closet Reaganites on Morning Joe that many of the people refusing work went to Amazon and Walmart warehouse starting at $15 or $16 an hour with benefits and are not inclined to return to the restaurant to a $2.13 an hour server job. They are not Reagan's welfare queen lounging at home.
Thank you Heather.
As I have stated before, we are witnessing the take over of Democracy by the few, not the will of the majority. I have absolutely no faith that this Country will remain in its intended form within a very short time. As much as I despise the GQP and everything it currently represents, we are no match for their long game tactics. It's high time for those wearing rose colored glasses to remove them to see what is happening every single day, right before our eyes.
The reality is that Biden is merely a distraction to what is to hit, very hard at our doorsteps. We are not going to like it.
Be safe, be well.
A very frightening and disheartening time in our country.