Resource below to easily contact all of Congress - Be LOUD. Our kids deserve better 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
“For (Julia Ward) Howe, the Civil War had been traumatic, but that it led to emancipation might justify its terrible bloodshed.”
This age is almost over. Precisely when is to be determined. The only thing I can say for sure is that it will be in this decade, but it could be this year, and it could be next month. It depends on us.
If I appear to be “absolutely” certain, then the appearance is an illusion. Rather than “describing” … talking about the future is merely “predicting” what empirical (directly observable) evidence will be.
Conversely, I am absolutely certain that Lincoln was absolutely certain in 1858 when he said, “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.”
Yes, it is. Which is why the Reds have completely throttled the news media. Marching is fine but without cohesive action nothing will change. It's not that the media lies to us, it is that they simply ignore what is happening.
Christine ... your comment is what I like to call the truth and nothing but the truth to imply that it's missing the middle part. I hope you appreciate my contribution to the middle part:
MAGA got so scared it pooped its little boy pants. I'm proposing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "That Smell" as the theme song for this year's RNC convention.
Translation: every mom knows that even the "terrible twos" don't last forever.
People must think for themselves and not rely on one source. This should be well evident by now. Marching is essential. That is the beginning of cohesion for many. The "they" in "they simply lie to us" is not correct, a broad brush sweeping across the "media" -all kinds of media- which we have to choose from, curate, rely on to understand, and for *corroboration*-- then reaction.
True, the people must/need to think for themselves; but, our school systems have failed to teach critical thinking skills and history that counts/means something. Our Christian churches have been dismal failures. We're now fighting, not the Civil War again (yet,) but rather Reconstruction. I refuse to allow these racists, ignorant and stupid people to win.
No, I'm watching the media you are watching. That is how I know that the general media in this country is as bland as oatmeal. Many millions of people watch very little news at all. Even professional people.
Great song! Start your own ‘Festival’…to counteract those despicable ‘Hatefest’ rallies Trump held between 2021 and the questionable election results of 2024.
I could only watch a few minutes of him ranting and lying and egging on his followers to frightening angry mood. 😬
Thank you Megan for publishing this every day especially now that gerrymandering rigged elections have become espoused and legalized by SCOTUS and written into law over the will of the voters. When the courts can override our vote, what's left??????
Sooner or later SCOTUS will tie itself in just the right sort of knot to ignore the 22nd Amendment.
My message to Americans - sharpen your pitchforks O my brothers - prepare your torches - clean and oil your muskets - prepare your ball - protect your powder and look to your match. We in England, have fought 3 Civil Wars, 4 if you count the Revolutionary War against the American Colonists, we know what we're talking about.
Wow, wow, and double WOW! Thank you for this wonderful opus. Your talents never cease to amaze me. I can only hope that this music is introduced (and yes, I'll take a chance on using this nebulously tenable word, "commercial") in a commercial way so that you are able to further sustain yourself and by extension, also us.
The origin of Mothers’ Day goes back to women organizing an anti-war movement in reaction to the Civil War. The movement changed as its leaders realized that change required political power; women had to have the right to vote.
We are now allied with Israel in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslim civilians in Gaza and Iran to keep two corrupt authoritarian politicians in power.
Here in America, the far right is attacking women’s right to vote with gerrymandering to dilute the impact of the votes of women of color, and for all of us, with onerous voter ID legislation to purge us from the voter rolls over name changes.
Women are in the majority in opposition to Trump’s policy agenda. It is time for us to reassert our political power to oppose the broad Middle East War, and to uphold our voting rights. We must go back to our 150-year-old roots, and become a new generation of anti-war suffragettes.
Especially if you are a mother, write to your members of Congress today and let them know how you feel about the Middle East War and the attacks on your political power.
Georgia, I have just started a history of the Palestinians that Riad on this blog suggested to me. It has made me doubly angry that we are cooperating with Bibi.
It is a horrific story. When I was in graduate school a postdoc in my group was a Palestinian whose family was forced off their land and wound up in the camps. Fifty years ago!
I said it the week after Oct7 and I'll say it again: Hamas and Hezbollah are not the terrorists. Israel's IDF is the terrorist...and our military. Now we are using that same bullsh*t to go after Iran.
Thank you Michele. Rashid Khalidi is now most likely the foremost writer on the Palestinian issue. He occupies what is known as the Edward Said Chair at Columbia University. Edward Said was, in his time, considered the foremost writer on Palestinian rights. He has been succeeded by Dr. Khalidi who is equally as brilliant.
Riad, I am ready to start chapter three. A lot of things have fallen into place for me. I love that the author had family involved in the history. I knew Europeans were involved, but not how much. My husband has Lakota ancestry and one of his relatives is usually acid about the Brits although she did like Charles III's speech. What happened is similar to what happened to Native Americans. I also see now a lot of out of state land buying. In Palestine it was political; now it is just greed. Also I found interesting what was going on with Arab states. Thank you again for suggesting this to me.
Michele, I am always happy to contribute to anyone's knowledge. There is so much to read, and if you're interests take you in that direction, I am happy to suggest other books for you. To hear Rashid Khalidi, one can always bring him up on You Tube. Always best wishes to you and yours.
Our country is being manipulated by the whole "Zionist" regime: in Israel and in the USA. If Trump decides to do anything they don't approve, he will hear from them and TACO. War and more war: legal mass killings.
Thirteen posts before you, Georgia, were the first to spell Mothers' Day as Heather gently reminded us it should be. All I can offer to this HCR congregation is just as gently to say to you, and to us all, at 7:45 EST, Awomen . . .
My calendar says May 10th is Mother’s Day. Anyway, I will honor Kitty Katz who gave birth to a litter a few months ago after she told me she wanted in before the extreme cold came. Lol. Mothers of all species should be celebrated no? ( I’m an inter-species supporter of life.) Now her offspring Billy races throughout the house causing as much mayhem as he can. I found three lifeless newborn fledglings that fell from a nest today and I will place each one at the root of each flower I planted this morning.
Good on you for taking care of Kitty Katz and her offspring, however rambunctious. And my condolences on the fledglings; I've been there, and it hurts, but a lot of them don't survive. Maybe the parents will know how to do it better next year.
A puzzle, wrapped in a riddle, hanging from a conundrum, ending in the totality of a paradox. 😂 I thought I would give a try, but I don't know, there may well be a better definition.
Later I am meeting a mom friend for afternoon coffee at a cafe. My daughter is away at Uni in another city, so we will talk later today. We talk a lot thanks to the Signal call, so that will not be so unusual. That is the best when mother's day is another day of being connected.
I am a member of Indivisible Abroad. I lead a group in a city in Northern Germany. Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining it and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Thank you, Megan. As I am from Massachusetts I am faced with the challenge that my Congressional representatives are “with me” ideologically, so contacting them seems redundant and fruitless. How can you, me, all of us, influence the Reps from Red states. Or, how can we influence the liberal citizens of those states to have persuade their representatives to stop the demise of democracy and civil rights?
I live in a very blue state as well. I wanted to reach out beyond my reps because I felt like they already aligned with my moral compass. I still make a quick contact with them, but it's people in red states that need a good wake up call.
My first round of emails from the contact me links had a lot bounce back saying I wasn't a constituent so it either didn't get sent or basically wouldn't be read. So I changed the way I sent messages. I use one of their own in state addresses (listed on my spreadsheet to help with this) on the address line because technically it doesn't say "my" address. I also don't want to misrepresent myself any more than that, so in my messages I typically put (at the bottom) that while I'm not a constituent, I am reaching out because (insert name) does represent me on the (insert committee that fits the topic my message is about).
Another thing I do is call after hours. I don't leave my name or address/zip code so my voice doesn't go towards a count, but the more they hear from us, the better.
I also send faxes using faxzero.com (5 free/day). I don't send a lot of letters, but when I do I put the same “while I’m not a constituent” blurb I do in my emails.
I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃
Thank you Heather. I have shared this letter with my adult daughters who are in their mid thirties. They, & perhaps their generation, do not seem to be paying attention. I/we need to change that.
Kathleen, perhaps your adult daughters don’t “seem to be paying attention” because they take the rights that we DO have for granted. After all, they likely don’t remember a time when they didn’t have those rights. My daughter is 48, and I make sure she remembers. And the fact that women’s rights to choose to carry a child or have an abortion have been both lawfully given to us in the 1970’s, and then taken away from us, state by state, very recently is a glaring example of how we are still unequal, and have far to go to ensure our most fundamental rights are reinstated. 🗽
My daughters, in their early 40s, have taken on and accomplished in male dominated fields while managing kids, households, husbands and pets who all get to do as they please. Life for women seems to get heavier not more balanced. Shameful that life has come to this while men still treat life as expendable in war unless it’s their seed. I cannot ask my daughters to pay attention to what I fight for them. I will not burden them further. Maybe one day they will see.
I hope everyone who has a chance goes to see the play Suffs, about the suffragist movement. It is fantastic. We need a resurgence of women in political life. The men are destroying the planet.
My daughter took me to see Suffs in a theater several months ago, and I enjoyed it even more in PBS’ Great Performances the other evening. It’s a great reminder about what it took for women to get the vote. Even then, we couldn’t get our own credit cards or a loan until the early 1970s, and I, and active duty Army nurse, couldn’t claim my husband as my dependent until Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully argued a case before the Supreme Court in 1972. It took a lot of dedicated people to get us here, and yet, there is more we need to do!
Kathleen, I have suggested this book to the forum many times, and I do so again today. EVERY person--male or female--should read Gail Collins' excellent book:
"America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines" by Gail Collins.
This book is FASCINATING! The roles of woman in society were often changed by war, as Heather points out. Women were "allowed" rights only when it benefitted men. I found much of this book so amazing regarding the mores of society--one instance in particular was in the very early years of America, pre-marital sex was not frowned upon as becoming pregnant showed the woman was fertile and could provide the children needed to work the farm!
Also, her book "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of Women from 1960 to the Present" is another must read. If anyone has a young woman who is graduating this spring, this is an excellent gift to give her! I was born in 1956, my eldest sister in 1941. I SAW first hand, what the changes that occurred between when she turned 20 and I did meant to our lives. We truly seem to be of different generations! Our sister who was born in 1943 embraced that change. I recall the kerfuffle she caused in our neighborhood when she BOUGHT a car! On her own! It was unheard of! She truly was an amazing woman, and she ran my brother-in-law's business, and was an early adopter of computers. I gave this book to one of my nieces after my sister died, and after she read it, she said she came to truly understand what a remarkable woman her mother was.
If your daughters read this book, they might find it amazing to discover that woman weren't allowed to wear pants to work--not so long ago. That they weren't allowed to have their own credit cards, either. I strongly suggest this book.
Pants to work! I worked for a very big multinational, when I re-entered the workforce (in Australia) in 1972. I got the job because I was impressive, and when asked what I was going to do when the children got sick, replied that my children were extremely healthy and I was looking for a meaningful job. (N.B. When I'd left Australia ten years earlier, if you got married you were given charming presents and resigned.) There was a nicely-designed "uniform", in the official colors, which was no longer compulsory so I never wore it. About 1973, it was decreed that pants could be worn but only as part of a pants suit, and definitely no jeans. The mini-skirt arrived very quickly after that, and I recall one colleague whose skirt scarcely reached her hips; when she leaned over a desk to pick up an unanswered telephone, all could see her underwear, which consisted solely of nylon panty-hose. What a difference a decade made!
Mother's Day may have been watered down, but the tradition of Mothers as peace advocates has continued.
During the Vietnam war, Mothers for Peace organized huge demonstrations. My late Aunt Naomi was one of the organizers. I recall going to a protest in Central Park with a hundred thousand people when I was 11 years old.
Before that, Women Strike for Peace (WSP) helped create the groundswell of support that enabled President Kennedy to sign the Test Ban Treaty of 1963, along with the Soviet Union and Great Britain. Tens of thousands marching in more than 50 cities across the land. I have a strong memory of holding my mother's hand while hundreds walked, sang and protested in front of the White House (you could do that back then).
Donald, his racist, fascist courts, and conniving Republicans may have women next on their agenda.
Now, it's take voting rights, or voting effectiveness, away from blacks, people of color. It was all in Project 2025.
But so, too, do the Republican racists and fascists aim for restoration of the patriarchy -- so mainly white males hold the positions of power to cover for the oligarchs, the billionaires, the continuation of that Jeffrey-Donald-Ghislaine pedophile class -- and all their international despot pals.
Yes, Happy Mothers' Day -- so long as we keep things in the contexts of the larger menace.
Not to be a downer on Mother's Day Phil, but to your point, the first three people to be fired from the cabinet/advisors were women. Noem, Bondi, DeRemer... No surprise there.
Virginia, from my reading about the Trump family, especially the writing of Mary L. Trump, I have inferred that Donald's mother, Mary Anne, was not a great human being, and a terrible mother.
Right after Donald was born, Mary Anne checked herself into the hospital with no apparent condition or illness (although it could've been unrecognized postpartum depression, to be fair), when they should have been bonding. But even when she was not at one of her frequent hospital visits, she used her children as props to create the impression that she was virtuous and respectable. The day-to-day child-rearing was left to the household staff while Mary Anne and Fred pursued their own interests. Rather than showing any affection for his children, Fred paid them salaries, as if they were employees.
Indications are that Donald only mattered to his mother when she thought he could help his parents break into New York City's high society. Fred financed the mission and Mary Anne nagged him about it. When all was said and done, Donald failed at that mission. I believe that is the core basis for his anger at the world.
I think it's not quite accurate to say that Donald "hates" women. Rather, considering his role models, Fred the employer and grandfather Friedrich the pimp, Donald thinks every human interaction is a transaction and women are good for only one thing. If they are not providing physical pleasure, he has no use for them.
Agreed, Dale Rowett. Your information about Trump’s mother is quite extensive. I knew only that his racism was from his father from films of the two of them caught in the checking of Fred’s apartment buildings with public financing (how many non-whites?) and that his mother was “distant,” but the Jean Carroll case horrified me (after the bus bit). You’re right. He hasn’t learned to love people, only gold.
Virginia, I came back to share another mental image of Mary Anne Trump painted by her niece.
Among the family's holdings was a small chain of laundromats, for which Mary Anne was responsible.
Picture this woman, coiffed in an elaborate bouffant constructed of reddish-gold hair color and lacquer, emerging from chauffeured Cadillac parked in front of a laundromat, wrapped in a full-length mink coat, entering the laundromat to empty quarters from each machine into her handbag.
To me, that image says everything there is to know about Mary Anne Trump.
As an Auntie, I heartily endorse this message. My wife and I have housed all three of our sisters' children for roughly 2 years apiece during their college/post college years.
The SAVE act aka The Save America Act, is in large part designed to disenfranchise women, all women who took their husband's name, so their name doesn't match their birth certificate would be ineligible to vote. The fascist GOP has been aiming to reduce the voter rolls for decades because they know that with higher voter participation in elections, they will always lose.
When Louisiana patitioned the Supreme Court to be able to redistrict after it's decision to end the voting rights of black people, the Court approved it, in earlier cases, which would have ended with maps that would favor black constituents, they ruled it was too close to an upcoming election.
Chief Justice Roberts assertion that he and his fellow corrupt right-wing Justices are not political is the very definition of bullshit.
Katie Phang and Epstein survivor Danielle Bensky visit a new exhibition space in Tribeca where the Epstein files are bound in 3,237 physical volumes.
“Look at the sheer volume. The fact that people are still saying there is nothing to investigate—it’s just insane. To see the person who scheduled me, who is still not behind bars—her name is here.”
And perhaps the most sickening irony of this coverup is a woman, Pam Bondi, has done everything possible to block this. How could ANY woman vote for this president before this mess came to light, or support him knowing he's behind the coverup?
Steve, it's important to remember that the core of Donald's base are evangelicals*. Even MAGA folks who are not churchgoers or consider themselves irreligious have without doubt been influenced by friends and family who are devout evangelicals. Perhaps the widest plank in the evangelical platform is the subservience of women to men. In evangelical culture, men are free to do as they please and women are to either accept or follow the will of the men, up to and including abuse. In a weird twist of logic, evangelical men claim to "put women on a pedestal," thereby sparing them the burden of making their own decisions. These notions are endorsed throughout the Bible, from the myth of Eve seducing Adam to disobey God to Paul's pronouncement that "women should keep silent."
*Evangelical is my shorthand term to describe both Protestants and Catholics who read the Bible literally, believing it is the sole authority and inerrant guidebook for daily living.
Historically, an evangelical was someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ. Plain and simple. The media (of which I'm a member) has applied "evangelical" with too broad a brush and attached to it all sorts of political and social customs and biases. The term is now applied out of convenience, laziness, even, to brand Christians of all denominations as ... whatever they want. It's so ill defined that the term has lots its original meaning. As a Christian, I evangelize for Jesus, but I'm not like "evangelicals" who support Trump or faux-conservative values or, God forbid, Christian nationalism. (What a joke that is. Jesus would never have had any part of that.)
Steve, "historically," many words used to mean something very different from what they mean in contemporary culture. Naughty used to mean penniless, not bad. Awful used to mean amazing instead of horrible. The meanings of certain words change over time. Focusing on semantics rather than the subject at hand is just a distraction.
I'll grant you that in my shorthand label, I omitted an important characteristic of evangelicals, that of proselytizers. This is likely because American Catholics don't proselytize much, except in the case of potential marriages.
Even your definition of evangelize is tainted by religion. The actual definition is "to spread good news." When Steve Jobs was still CEO of Apple, he created a culture of product users who were encouraged to share their positive experiences with Apple products and help new users learn how to use the products. These folks were officially called "Apple Evangelists."
You can evangelize for Jesus and not be an evangelical. Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans evangelize for Jesus, but they are not evangelicals.
Having grown up in the household of an evangelical pastor, I know whereof I speak. I do not apply the term too broadly. The definition of evangelicalism has not been lost or diluted. I would assert that if anything, the meaning has been clarified and specified over time. Evangelicalism is far more than just a set of religious beliefs with emphasis on proselytizing. It is an entire culture that includes social customs, biases and political positions. The term is understood and applied to a specific subset of Christian believers, NOT all denominations, as you claim.
Despite my disagreement with most of your claims, I can agree that Yeshua would be flipping tables, were he to witness what now passes for religion in his name.
A few decades ago I fortuitously took, as on of my last classes before graduating, a course, The Bible As Literature. The professor, a woman and a Catholic, was excellent. She taught some of the history of the authors of what is now known as the Bible from an ecumenical view not a religious view. Best class!
In that class I learned what I had internally believed for years: EVERY belief system has its own views which are really just some dudes’ opinions. Neither wrong nor right, just different. But invariably espoused by male leaders of the times and influenced by politics and personal opinions.
Am I a Believer, a non-Believer, or still learning? Yes. I attend a church, but tend to question that what is being said is the ‘truth.’ Any political view can be espoused to be based on the ‘ teachings’ in the Bible. One just has to look hard enough to find the appropriate verses. But the book, to me, is still a collection of a rather extensive game of Telephone writ over thousands of years by fallible humans. Example: there has been a recent discovery of a, to date, complete version of the hallowed Lord’s Prayer. What else has not yet been discovered?
Yes to everything you wrote, Jan! No doubt, you've heard about the recent (2017?) discovery at Oxford University's storage facility of a whole chunk of the biblical canon that King James instructed his translators to delete, presumably because it didn't support his beliefs.
Once I came to the same conclusion as you about the origins of the Bible, I went back further, applying study and critical thought. How is it possible that all the other deities created by the Greeks, Romans, Norse, Arabs and countless other ancient cultures are all mythical imaginings of ancient men, but the Judeo-Christian deity is the "real McCoy?" Answer: It's not possible.
Is there a "something" we haven't yet discovered? Probably. Is it a divine personage? Not likely.
Scientists have recently discovered that we living persons emit an infinitely low level of light indiscernible to the human eye. Something less than an aura. When we die, that light disappears. Where does it go?
It would be useful to find a study from a reputable political science journal that points out the core base of Trump or the core base of the Democratic Party. For Trump, is it blue collar workers? For Dems, is it voters with college and post-graduate degrees? Would evangelicals agree that their widest plank is subservience of women to men, or would they say it is belief in God?
They would say, I suspect, that it's god's intention that women are subservient. In the Baptist church where I grew up, women are no longer allowed in the pulpit, even if they're not preaching. I haven't been there since my mother's funeral in 1985, and I left evangelical Chistianity long ago, but it continues to grow and of course oppose women's control over their own bodies.
Well, I don't have any good polling on evangelicals and I'm not asking anyone here to research it. There are passages in the Bible about subservience, but that alone doesn't tell me how evangelicals feel. I can tell you anecdotally in the Presbyterian church that I went to this morning, the pastor said that when he thinks of the phrase "God the Father", he often thinks God may be more like a Mother. That is, always there for us, looking out for us, nurturing. The other co-pastor is a woman and does an excellent job in the pulpit and out. I'm sorry women were not allowed in the pulpit in that Baptist church. It sounds like they were allowed at one time and then it reversed? Wrong direction!
We have Presbyterians in our family, too, including a woman minister, but that denomination is more structured, and the theology is more progressive. If you meet a female Baptist minister, she's probably American Baptist rather than Southern Baptist or independent.
I'm editing this to acknowledge that I know very little about predominantly Black Baptist churches and their treatment of women.
Robert, I'm not sure whether the first part of your comment is an assignment or an observation. Assuming it is the former, I don't do other people's homework. Many reputable studies have been done. My statement was based on reading many of those studies which all point to the same trends.
Your rhetorical questions that follow seem to hint of sarcasm. Perhaps I am misreading.
Belief in a deity is an assumption by all religions that has no specific application to living. It is tantamount to declaring that the atmosphere contains oxygen. A belief in God (or the presence of oxygen) is not what animates different Western religious groups or cultures to think and behave differently from each other.
Having grown up in evangelicalism, I can affirm that subservience of women is common to all conservative religious groups. After that come other doctrines that distinguish one sect from another.
Thanks HCR, and cheers to all mothers including Mother Earth.
In celebration of our beautiful planet, I'd like to link David Attenborough (who is turning 100-years old this year) as a person who has cared for and documented life with our Mother Earth.
“Cherish the natural world, because you’re a part of it and you depend on it.”
— Sir David Attenborough
Happy 100th Sir
###
Here is some beautiful timelapse video I found on Bluesky from PJ @knotweed-ireland.bsky.social - Sunset over West Field tonight, Co. Galway, Ireland.
My mother called out for her long dead mother and father when she was dying. I suspect that underneath my acquired skills and experiences a child somehow remains, and may somehow figure in the best and the worst traits of our character. Just a thought.
The WWI recounting of the “Christmas at the Front” when both sides ceased their fighting on Christmas Day (first year of the war), also revealed that a young Lieutenant forbade HIS troops from participating in the ‘party’, which had men sharing pictures of their families, offering food and drink, and singing carols together…that Lieutenant was none other than Adolf Hitler.
Hmmmmm…..
Apparently, Trump’s first wife claimed that he kept a copy of “Mein Kampf” on the bedside table! What! No Bible? 🙄
It is a tragedy to realize that over 160 years later, there is a large contingent of people in this country that would like to roll the wheels of progress backwards when it comes to women and their places in the world.
some of those MAGA "pastors" referring to women basically as breeders and housekeepers is horrifying -- and to get really petty about it they are all ugly as fuck and probably don't have a woman in their lives to begin with.
So noted. There's one (wish I could remember who) that I saw a photo of and my mind immediately went to "well, there's and example of inbreeding; that guy will never get a date without force*"
The waves of the sea washing over the beaches in eternal vigilance. Never letting the tracks in the sand become too many. Refreshing as Constant Spring. Piling the dead wood ever farther from the shore. Powerful crescendos in rising wind. Gentle in the breeze. Alive with life skittering hiding reflecting the cries of the gulls. My own mother a fisherwoman’s ashes awash on a bed of roses braving the bar of the Columbia out to sea washing again gently on the beaches I’m walking. Hi mom. Love you.
Peace is a painful and far off goal for those who see clearly how far our society has regressed in just one year of this presidency, laser focused on underserved power, grifting wealth, deadly racism, distain-filled misogyny, and a lust for attention. Reeking of carnage, indeed….
GJ Loft, many do know this as well, but few have such a powerful pulpit from which to speak out for peace. The Pope does and he has begun to use it to speak against war. Thank heavens.
Bothsiderism is an evil when there is a clear moral contrast. Life presents any number of difficult decisions, yet some of them demand a triage. Actual medical triage is one of them, and yet there may be circumstances where no realistic alternative exists. Not voting for Biden or Harris because of Biden's uncritical support of Netanyahu was not a wise choice. Newspapers sanewashing Trump was and is an irresponsible when not a perfidious choice. Nader's failure to endorse Gore after making his point saddled America with a disastrous presidency which made Nader a pariah to most of those who who might have otherwise have listened to him. Obama's desire to dismiss past perfidy and "move on" was in my view a great mistake. When we fail to learn from our successes or errors (history) we remain fully vulnerable to naive repetition. Or worse.
And the universal trend toward disorder (entropy) means the luck without wisdom is most likely to be bad. Ignorance is NOT strength.
My wife is a chemical engineer and often mentions Newton's 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
One of her college room mates traveled to Washington, DC for a convention of Chemical Engineering students. One of the speakers was a Republican US Senator. He was telling them something that turned out to be physically impossible. One of the students replied, "that is impossible because it violates Newton's 2nd law of thermodynamics."
To which the Senator replied, "When then we must repeal it."
I believe in my heart that all the "old women" who inhabit my substack, and Heather's, and all the others that promote opposition to the Fascist enemy - the "old women" who when they were "young women" on the forefront of all the struggles of the past 60 years to make america America we stood together - and still do - are going to save things now.
PBS is showing Suffs on Great Performances. I'd wanted to see in in NY last year, and then I missed it again in Boston, but now here it is for me to enjoy at home. : ) Give yourself a Mothers' Day treat and enjoy the show!
Yes, it had a short run on Broadway, but PBS (which is still standing, praise be) showed the whole thing the other night. It's still astounding that we've never passed the Equal Rights Amendment, and we need to fix that when we can.
Once again we are at an inflection point to see if the life affirming role of women can save the day and redirect our energies to productive rather than destructive pursuits. I will not live to witness the answer. It appears the challenge is massive, indeed.
It gives me hope that so many of the thoughtful voices we hear today, including Heather's, are from women. Perhaps the current attack on America's soul by Americans will provide the incentive to finally begin listening to more humane and sensible voices of higher pitch and lower volume than those who have dominated history. I wish us well. I do hope that, when we reach a point at which our governance structures are rebuilt from the wreckage we are witnessing in real time, women will have managed to establish themselves in key positions to guide reconstruction. Yet again.
I applaud all of them in advance. Stay the course. As a group, men seem to be masters of slow learning. Starting over in America to rebuild what we have just destroyed may finally be the incentive we needed to listen to our Mothers. I regret that I will never know. But my grandchildren may.
I'll remind them tomorrow to listen up. And step up.
As a mom, please speak up for our kids!
Resource below to easily contact all of Congress - Be LOUD. Our kids deserve better 💔🤍💙
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Goodtrouble) to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly.
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Comments/reactions help keep this bumped ✊
Happy Mother’s Day, Megan and Heather! We moms must stamp out the toxic masculinity and rapist pedophiles of maga. I wrote a song for Heather, our national treasure: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/heather-cox-richardson-song-letters
Thank you!
Also - Beautiful song. Keep writing. Your words are powerful 💜
“For (Julia Ward) Howe, the Civil War had been traumatic, but that it led to emancipation might justify its terrible bloodshed.”
This age is almost over. Precisely when is to be determined. The only thing I can say for sure is that it will be in this decade, but it could be this year, and it could be next month. It depends on us.
If I appear to be “absolutely” certain, then the appearance is an illusion. Rather than “describing” … talking about the future is merely “predicting” what empirical (directly observable) evidence will be.
Conversely, I am absolutely certain that Lincoln was absolutely certain in 1858 when he said, “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions.”
Happy mothers’ days!
'public sentiment is everything'
Yes, it is. Which is why the Reds have completely throttled the news media. Marching is fine but without cohesive action nothing will change. It's not that the media lies to us, it is that they simply ignore what is happening.
Christine ... your comment is what I like to call the truth and nothing but the truth to imply that it's missing the middle part. I hope you appreciate my contribution to the middle part:
MAGA got so scared it pooped its little boy pants. I'm proposing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "That Smell" as the theme song for this year's RNC convention.
Translation: every mom knows that even the "terrible twos" don't last forever.
James, my first smile of the morning. Thank you. Great idea for the song for the convention.
People must think for themselves and not rely on one source. This should be well evident by now. Marching is essential. That is the beginning of cohesion for many. The "they" in "they simply lie to us" is not correct, a broad brush sweeping across the "media" -all kinds of media- which we have to choose from, curate, rely on to understand, and for *corroboration*-- then reaction.
True, the people must/need to think for themselves; but, our school systems have failed to teach critical thinking skills and history that counts/means something. Our Christian churches have been dismal failures. We're now fighting, not the Civil War again (yet,) but rather Reconstruction. I refuse to allow these racists, ignorant and stupid people to win.
What 'they simply lie to us' are you referring to? Reread my post. I didn't say anything like that.
You're watching the wrong media. The media I watch doesn't ignore what is happening.
No, I'm watching the media you are watching. That is how I know that the general media in this country is as bland as oatmeal. Many millions of people watch very little news at all. Even professional people.
Great song! Start your own ‘Festival’…to counteract those despicable ‘Hatefest’ rallies Trump held between 2021 and the questionable election results of 2024.
I could only watch a few minutes of him ranting and lying and egging on his followers to frightening angry mood. 😬
WOODSTOCK! 🎼🎸🎻🐦⬛
jh 🪕
🎶 By the time we got to Woodstock we were a half a million strong 🎶 .........
By the time we got Mothers' Day '26 women were multi-millions strongest.
For Joni. Heather & all Mothers.
Thanks, Bryan.
Thank you Megan for publishing this every day especially now that gerrymandering rigged elections have become espoused and legalized by SCOTUS and written into law over the will of the voters. When the courts can override our vote, what's left??????
Sooner or later SCOTUS will tie itself in just the right sort of knot to ignore the 22nd Amendment.
My message to Americans - sharpen your pitchforks O my brothers - prepare your torches - clean and oil your muskets - prepare your ball - protect your powder and look to your match. We in England, have fought 3 Civil Wars, 4 if you count the Revolutionary War against the American Colonists, we know what we're talking about.
Love the lyrics, the song, the catching tune, and the voice!! ‘
….a historian with piercing sight…’
wow!fantastic tribute to Professor Heather Cox Richardson !! An anthem!
May I repost your wonderful song on FB?
Wow, wow, and double WOW! Thank you for this wonderful opus. Your talents never cease to amaze me. I can only hope that this music is introduced (and yes, I'll take a chance on using this nebulously tenable word, "commercial") in a commercial way so that you are able to further sustain yourself and by extension, also us.
Bravo!
Wonderful 🫶
The origin of Mothers’ Day goes back to women organizing an anti-war movement in reaction to the Civil War. The movement changed as its leaders realized that change required political power; women had to have the right to vote.
We are now allied with Israel in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslim civilians in Gaza and Iran to keep two corrupt authoritarian politicians in power.
Here in America, the far right is attacking women’s right to vote with gerrymandering to dilute the impact of the votes of women of color, and for all of us, with onerous voter ID legislation to purge us from the voter rolls over name changes.
Women are in the majority in opposition to Trump’s policy agenda. It is time for us to reassert our political power to oppose the broad Middle East War, and to uphold our voting rights. We must go back to our 150-year-old roots, and become a new generation of anti-war suffragettes.
Especially if you are a mother, write to your members of Congress today and let them know how you feel about the Middle East War and the attacks on your political power.
I, a man, would donate to any such cause driven by women who care so much for the world.
I'm with you, brother.
M.A.m.k.D. (Mother's Against mad king Donald. ) Need a catchy name and get out and MARCH!!
Georgia, I have just started a history of the Palestinians that Riad on this blog suggested to me. It has made me doubly angry that we are cooperating with Bibi.
It is a horrific story. When I was in graduate school a postdoc in my group was a Palestinian whose family was forced off their land and wound up in the camps. Fifty years ago!
I said it the week after Oct7 and I'll say it again: Hamas and Hezbollah are not the terrorists. Israel's IDF is the terrorist...and our military. Now we are using that same bullsh*t to go after Iran.
It is absolutely heartbreaking.
Thank you Michele. Rashid Khalidi is now most likely the foremost writer on the Palestinian issue. He occupies what is known as the Edward Said Chair at Columbia University. Edward Said was, in his time, considered the foremost writer on Palestinian rights. He has been succeeded by Dr. Khalidi who is equally as brilliant.
Riad, I am ready to start chapter three. A lot of things have fallen into place for me. I love that the author had family involved in the history. I knew Europeans were involved, but not how much. My husband has Lakota ancestry and one of his relatives is usually acid about the Brits although she did like Charles III's speech. What happened is similar to what happened to Native Americans. I also see now a lot of out of state land buying. In Palestine it was political; now it is just greed. Also I found interesting what was going on with Arab states. Thank you again for suggesting this to me.
Michele, I am always happy to contribute to anyone's knowledge. There is so much to read, and if you're interests take you in that direction, I am happy to suggest other books for you. To hear Rashid Khalidi, one can always bring him up on You Tube. Always best wishes to you and yours.
Once I finish, I will ask for more suggestions. I had a round with a person who is not Jewish about the inhabitants of Palestine before modern Israel.
Our country is being manipulated by the whole "Zionist" regime: in Israel and in the USA. If Trump decides to do anything they don't approve, he will hear from them and TACO. War and more war: legal mass killings.
Is that "The Iron cage?" He has another one.
Thirteen posts before you, Georgia, were the first to spell Mothers' Day as Heather gently reminded us it should be. All I can offer to this HCR congregation is just as gently to say to you, and to us all, at 7:45 EST, Awomen . . .
Happy Mother’s Day, Megan! I appreciate your voice every night.
My calendar says May 10th is Mother’s Day. Anyway, I will honor Kitty Katz who gave birth to a litter a few months ago after she told me she wanted in before the extreme cold came. Lol. Mothers of all species should be celebrated no? ( I’m an inter-species supporter of life.) Now her offspring Billy races throughout the house causing as much mayhem as he can. I found three lifeless newborn fledglings that fell from a nest today and I will place each one at the root of each flower I planted this morning.
Thank you for reminding us that we all have the ability to nurture. : )
Good on you for taking care of Kitty Katz and her offspring, however rambunctious. And my condolences on the fledglings; I've been there, and it hurts, but a lot of them don't survive. Maybe the parents will know how to do it better next year.
🪺🐦⬛😢
… 🌱🪴🌳
🕊️
Happy Mothers' Day to your dear Kitty Katz.
a rare post pf yours that I read and like...
we all do, Laura. Happy Mother's Day to them all the Mothers!
Explain the term, "Republican woman."
Daniel. LOL.
A puzzle, wrapped in a riddle, hanging from a conundrum, ending in the totality of a paradox. 😂 I thought I would give a try, but I don't know, there may well be a better definition.
💜 thank you so much!
🙏
Happy Mother's Day, Megan! I hope you enjoy yours. Thank you for staying on top of this.
I am going to go to an art exhibit today with a friend to see the work of Anys Reimann, a Black German artist from Düsseldorf.
https://weserburg.de/en/ausstellung/anys-reimann-mirrorball/
Later I am meeting a mom friend for afternoon coffee at a cafe. My daughter is away at Uni in another city, so we will talk later today. We talk a lot thanks to the Signal call, so that will not be so unusual. That is the best when mother's day is another day of being connected.
I am a member of Indivisible Abroad. I lead a group in a city in Northern Germany. Indivisible Abroad and Indivisible are some of the organizations supporting Free Speech for People's campaign to impeach Trump and his cabinet. Would you please read my piece explaining it and help us get 2 million signatures by signing the petition in it? https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/indivisible-abroad-supports-the-impeach?r=f0qfn
Just signed! Very thorough explanation. Thank you, Linda.
Thank you Carol. ❤️
Done.
Thank you Margaret. ❤️
Thank you, Heather.
"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."
A. Lincoln
Thank you, Megan. May you be blessed with a very happy Mother’s Day, and a most fruitful and prolonged outcome of your motherhood. 🫶✌️🖖
Thank you 🩷
commenting for reach/boost.
Happy Mother's Day, Megan.
Thanks, as always, for this post.
As an Auntie, I heartily endorse this message.
Happy Mother’s Day! Thank you for all your hard work..
Thank you!
Onward!
Thank you for your persistence! 😻
Thank you, Megan. As I am from Massachusetts I am faced with the challenge that my Congressional representatives are “with me” ideologically, so contacting them seems redundant and fruitless. How can you, me, all of us, influence the Reps from Red states. Or, how can we influence the liberal citizens of those states to have persuade their representatives to stop the demise of democracy and civil rights?
I live in a very blue state as well. I wanted to reach out beyond my reps because I felt like they already aligned with my moral compass. I still make a quick contact with them, but it's people in red states that need a good wake up call.
My first round of emails from the contact me links had a lot bounce back saying I wasn't a constituent so it either didn't get sent or basically wouldn't be read. So I changed the way I sent messages. I use one of their own in state addresses (listed on my spreadsheet to help with this) on the address line because technically it doesn't say "my" address. I also don't want to misrepresent myself any more than that, so in my messages I typically put (at the bottom) that while I'm not a constituent, I am reaching out because (insert name) does represent me on the (insert committee that fits the topic my message is about).
Another thing I do is call after hours. I don't leave my name or address/zip code so my voice doesn't go towards a count, but the more they hear from us, the better.
I also send faxes using faxzero.com (5 free/day). I don't send a lot of letters, but when I do I put the same “while I’m not a constituent” blurb I do in my emails.
I don’t think we’ll see many big waves (like a major MAGA Congress member changing their opinions), however I think we can cause little ripples. I’m thinking staff members who hear the same thing over and over via voicemail, phone calls, letter after letter, email after email - maybe they’ll be a little more receptive each time they hear from us. Maybe they’ll talk more about our talking points to friends and family, maybeeee they’ll vote differently. As a collective, our volume matters. And, at the end of the day, if we just annoy and overwhelm some staffers working for people hurting the average American, I’m ok with that too 🙃
Thank you Heather. I have shared this letter with my adult daughters who are in their mid thirties. They, & perhaps their generation, do not seem to be paying attention. I/we need to change that.
Kathleen, perhaps your adult daughters don’t “seem to be paying attention” because they take the rights that we DO have for granted. After all, they likely don’t remember a time when they didn’t have those rights. My daughter is 48, and I make sure she remembers. And the fact that women’s rights to choose to carry a child or have an abortion have been both lawfully given to us in the 1970’s, and then taken away from us, state by state, very recently is a glaring example of how we are still unequal, and have far to go to ensure our most fundamental rights are reinstated. 🗽
And I will be sharing with my three daughters, all of whom have daughters of their own.
My daughters, in their early 40s, have taken on and accomplished in male dominated fields while managing kids, households, husbands and pets who all get to do as they please. Life for women seems to get heavier not more balanced. Shameful that life has come to this while men still treat life as expendable in war unless it’s their seed. I cannot ask my daughters to pay attention to what I fight for them. I will not burden them further. Maybe one day they will see.
Debbie, maybe one day we all will see the need for each of us to………..!
Meanwhile, thanks Heather for reminding us that Google is not the source of truth. Each of us is our own source.
Thanks, Heather, for all you do!
Happy Mothers’ Day to all!
I hope everyone who has a chance goes to see the play Suffs, about the suffragist movement. It is fantastic. We need a resurgence of women in political life. The men are destroying the planet.
My daughter took me to see Suffs in a theater several months ago, and I enjoyed it even more in PBS’ Great Performances the other evening. It’s a great reminder about what it took for women to get the vote. Even then, we couldn’t get our own credit cards or a loan until the early 1970s, and I, and active duty Army nurse, couldn’t claim my husband as my dependent until Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully argued a case before the Supreme Court in 1972. It took a lot of dedicated people to get us here, and yet, there is more we need to do!
Yeah, seems like all those women who fought so hard should be household names, but of course those stories are largely buried.
Suffs was WONDERFUL and I love this rendition of the final song Keep Marching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWhAuyAiohc
Thank you for sharing, Martha! Inspiring and lovely song. 🎼
Well, Happy Mother's Day to you Kathleen, it's very important to appreciate mother's while they are still with us.
Kathleen, I have suggested this book to the forum many times, and I do so again today. EVERY person--male or female--should read Gail Collins' excellent book:
"America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines" by Gail Collins.
This book is FASCINATING! The roles of woman in society were often changed by war, as Heather points out. Women were "allowed" rights only when it benefitted men. I found much of this book so amazing regarding the mores of society--one instance in particular was in the very early years of America, pre-marital sex was not frowned upon as becoming pregnant showed the woman was fertile and could provide the children needed to work the farm!
Also, her book "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of Women from 1960 to the Present" is another must read. If anyone has a young woman who is graduating this spring, this is an excellent gift to give her! I was born in 1956, my eldest sister in 1941. I SAW first hand, what the changes that occurred between when she turned 20 and I did meant to our lives. We truly seem to be of different generations! Our sister who was born in 1943 embraced that change. I recall the kerfuffle she caused in our neighborhood when she BOUGHT a car! On her own! It was unheard of! She truly was an amazing woman, and she ran my brother-in-law's business, and was an early adopter of computers. I gave this book to one of my nieces after my sister died, and after she read it, she said she came to truly understand what a remarkable woman her mother was.
If your daughters read this book, they might find it amazing to discover that woman weren't allowed to wear pants to work--not so long ago. That they weren't allowed to have their own credit cards, either. I strongly suggest this book.
Pants to work! I worked for a very big multinational, when I re-entered the workforce (in Australia) in 1972. I got the job because I was impressive, and when asked what I was going to do when the children got sick, replied that my children were extremely healthy and I was looking for a meaningful job. (N.B. When I'd left Australia ten years earlier, if you got married you were given charming presents and resigned.) There was a nicely-designed "uniform", in the official colors, which was no longer compulsory so I never wore it. About 1973, it was decreed that pants could be worn but only as part of a pants suit, and definitely no jeans. The mini-skirt arrived very quickly after that, and I recall one colleague whose skirt scarcely reached her hips; when she leaned over a desk to pick up an unanswered telephone, all could see her underwear, which consisted solely of nylon panty-hose. What a difference a decade made!
Mother's Day may have been watered down, but the tradition of Mothers as peace advocates has continued.
During the Vietnam war, Mothers for Peace organized huge demonstrations. My late Aunt Naomi was one of the organizers. I recall going to a protest in Central Park with a hundred thousand people when I was 11 years old.
Before that, Women Strike for Peace (WSP) helped create the groundswell of support that enabled President Kennedy to sign the Test Ban Treaty of 1963, along with the Soviet Union and Great Britain. Tens of thousands marching in more than 50 cities across the land. I have a strong memory of holding my mother's hand while hundreds walked, sang and protested in front of the White House (you could do that back then).
Wow, I'd love to hear that story Annabel! Could you share more with us ?
Also, Happy Mother's Day to all!
I think the organization was called Another Mother for Peace.
Correct. It also sold merch like bumper stickers that said "Another Family for Peace."
Thank you Annabel.
This white, 86 year-old male says, "AMEN!!" May the Goddess bless you, Heather.
This 94 year old woman agrees!
Donald, his racist, fascist courts, and conniving Republicans may have women next on their agenda.
Now, it's take voting rights, or voting effectiveness, away from blacks, people of color. It was all in Project 2025.
But so, too, do the Republican racists and fascists aim for restoration of the patriarchy -- so mainly white males hold the positions of power to cover for the oligarchs, the billionaires, the continuation of that Jeffrey-Donald-Ghislaine pedophile class -- and all their international despot pals.
Yes, Happy Mothers' Day -- so long as we keep things in the contexts of the larger menace.
Not to be a downer on Mother's Day Phil, but to your point, the first three people to be fired from the cabinet/advisors were women. Noem, Bondi, DeRemer... No surprise there.
Unfortunately they are toxic women and not advocates for peace and justice
Trump’s problems with both parents are reflected in how he treats everyone. His racism (father), hatred of women.
Virginia, from my reading about the Trump family, especially the writing of Mary L. Trump, I have inferred that Donald's mother, Mary Anne, was not a great human being, and a terrible mother.
Right after Donald was born, Mary Anne checked herself into the hospital with no apparent condition or illness (although it could've been unrecognized postpartum depression, to be fair), when they should have been bonding. But even when she was not at one of her frequent hospital visits, she used her children as props to create the impression that she was virtuous and respectable. The day-to-day child-rearing was left to the household staff while Mary Anne and Fred pursued their own interests. Rather than showing any affection for his children, Fred paid them salaries, as if they were employees.
Indications are that Donald only mattered to his mother when she thought he could help his parents break into New York City's high society. Fred financed the mission and Mary Anne nagged him about it. When all was said and done, Donald failed at that mission. I believe that is the core basis for his anger at the world.
I think it's not quite accurate to say that Donald "hates" women. Rather, considering his role models, Fred the employer and grandfather Friedrich the pimp, Donald thinks every human interaction is a transaction and women are good for only one thing. If they are not providing physical pleasure, he has no use for them.
Agreed, Dale Rowett. Your information about Trump’s mother is quite extensive. I knew only that his racism was from his father from films of the two of them caught in the checking of Fred’s apartment buildings with public financing (how many non-whites?) and that his mother was “distant,” but the Jean Carroll case horrified me (after the bus bit). You’re right. He hasn’t learned to love people, only gold.
Virginia, I came back to share another mental image of Mary Anne Trump painted by her niece.
Among the family's holdings was a small chain of laundromats, for which Mary Anne was responsible.
Picture this woman, coiffed in an elaborate bouffant constructed of reddish-gold hair color and lacquer, emerging from chauffeured Cadillac parked in front of a laundromat, wrapped in a full-length mink coat, entering the laundromat to empty quarters from each machine into her handbag.
To me, that image says everything there is to know about Mary Anne Trump.
Virginia, your last sentence is profound ... and correct.
As are all the men not fired or terminated. Men scare him. So do women, so he intimidates them.
Happy Mother’s Day, Heather! We moms must stamp out the toxic masculinity and rapist pedophiles of maga. I wrote a song for Heather, our national treasure: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/heather-cox-richardson-song-letters
We females, not just moms.
And us guys can sometimes help...
This Auntie endorses your message.
As an Auntie, I heartily endorse this message. My wife and I have housed all three of our sisters' children for roughly 2 years apiece during their college/post college years.
It takes a village Ally. The kids were lucky to have you and your wife's support.
We’re lucky to have had the opportunity. After all, who will smuggle the booze into the nursing home for me?
😉
fantastic song! Great tribute to the most remarkable Professor!
Oh Mrs Epstein, why your boy turn out so bad?
The SAVE act aka The Save America Act, is in large part designed to disenfranchise women, all women who took their husband's name, so their name doesn't match their birth certificate would be ineligible to vote. The fascist GOP has been aiming to reduce the voter rolls for decades because they know that with higher voter participation in elections, they will always lose.
When Louisiana patitioned the Supreme Court to be able to redistrict after it's decision to end the voting rights of black people, the Court approved it, in earlier cases, which would have ended with maps that would favor black constituents, they ruled it was too close to an upcoming election.
Chief Justice Roberts assertion that he and his fellow corrupt right-wing Justices are not political is the very definition of bullshit.
BELIEVE THE VICTIMS!
SO MANY WERE ONLY CHILDREN!!
RELEASE ALL THE trump-epstein Files NOW!!
Starting with the trumps!!
meidastouch
Katie Phang and Epstein survivor Danielle Bensky visit a new exhibition space in Tribeca where the Epstein files are bound in 3,237 physical volumes.
“Look at the sheer volume. The fact that people are still saying there is nothing to investigate—it’s just insane. To see the person who scheduled me, who is still not behind bars—her name is here.”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYDNnXPnS6N/
📣
And perhaps the most sickening irony of this coverup is a woman, Pam Bondi, has done everything possible to block this. How could ANY woman vote for this president before this mess came to light, or support him knowing he's behind the coverup?
Steve, it's important to remember that the core of Donald's base are evangelicals*. Even MAGA folks who are not churchgoers or consider themselves irreligious have without doubt been influenced by friends and family who are devout evangelicals. Perhaps the widest plank in the evangelical platform is the subservience of women to men. In evangelical culture, men are free to do as they please and women are to either accept or follow the will of the men, up to and including abuse. In a weird twist of logic, evangelical men claim to "put women on a pedestal," thereby sparing them the burden of making their own decisions. These notions are endorsed throughout the Bible, from the myth of Eve seducing Adam to disobey God to Paul's pronouncement that "women should keep silent."
*Evangelical is my shorthand term to describe both Protestants and Catholics who read the Bible literally, believing it is the sole authority and inerrant guidebook for daily living.
Historically, an evangelical was someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ. Plain and simple. The media (of which I'm a member) has applied "evangelical" with too broad a brush and attached to it all sorts of political and social customs and biases. The term is now applied out of convenience, laziness, even, to brand Christians of all denominations as ... whatever they want. It's so ill defined that the term has lots its original meaning. As a Christian, I evangelize for Jesus, but I'm not like "evangelicals" who support Trump or faux-conservative values or, God forbid, Christian nationalism. (What a joke that is. Jesus would never have had any part of that.)
Steve, "historically," many words used to mean something very different from what they mean in contemporary culture. Naughty used to mean penniless, not bad. Awful used to mean amazing instead of horrible. The meanings of certain words change over time. Focusing on semantics rather than the subject at hand is just a distraction.
I'll grant you that in my shorthand label, I omitted an important characteristic of evangelicals, that of proselytizers. This is likely because American Catholics don't proselytize much, except in the case of potential marriages.
Even your definition of evangelize is tainted by religion. The actual definition is "to spread good news." When Steve Jobs was still CEO of Apple, he created a culture of product users who were encouraged to share their positive experiences with Apple products and help new users learn how to use the products. These folks were officially called "Apple Evangelists."
You can evangelize for Jesus and not be an evangelical. Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans evangelize for Jesus, but they are not evangelicals.
Having grown up in the household of an evangelical pastor, I know whereof I speak. I do not apply the term too broadly. The definition of evangelicalism has not been lost or diluted. I would assert that if anything, the meaning has been clarified and specified over time. Evangelicalism is far more than just a set of religious beliefs with emphasis on proselytizing. It is an entire culture that includes social customs, biases and political positions. The term is understood and applied to a specific subset of Christian believers, NOT all denominations, as you claim.
Despite my disagreement with most of your claims, I can agree that Yeshua would be flipping tables, were he to witness what now passes for religion in his name.
A few decades ago I fortuitously took, as on of my last classes before graduating, a course, The Bible As Literature. The professor, a woman and a Catholic, was excellent. She taught some of the history of the authors of what is now known as the Bible from an ecumenical view not a religious view. Best class!
In that class I learned what I had internally believed for years: EVERY belief system has its own views which are really just some dudes’ opinions. Neither wrong nor right, just different. But invariably espoused by male leaders of the times and influenced by politics and personal opinions.
Am I a Believer, a non-Believer, or still learning? Yes. I attend a church, but tend to question that what is being said is the ‘truth.’ Any political view can be espoused to be based on the ‘ teachings’ in the Bible. One just has to look hard enough to find the appropriate verses. But the book, to me, is still a collection of a rather extensive game of Telephone writ over thousands of years by fallible humans. Example: there has been a recent discovery of a, to date, complete version of the hallowed Lord’s Prayer. What else has not yet been discovered?
Yes to everything you wrote, Jan! No doubt, you've heard about the recent (2017?) discovery at Oxford University's storage facility of a whole chunk of the biblical canon that King James instructed his translators to delete, presumably because it didn't support his beliefs.
Once I came to the same conclusion as you about the origins of the Bible, I went back further, applying study and critical thought. How is it possible that all the other deities created by the Greeks, Romans, Norse, Arabs and countless other ancient cultures are all mythical imaginings of ancient men, but the Judeo-Christian deity is the "real McCoy?" Answer: It's not possible.
Is there a "something" we haven't yet discovered? Probably. Is it a divine personage? Not likely.
Scientists have recently discovered that we living persons emit an infinitely low level of light indiscernible to the human eye. Something less than an aura. When we die, that light disappears. Where does it go?
It would be useful to find a study from a reputable political science journal that points out the core base of Trump or the core base of the Democratic Party. For Trump, is it blue collar workers? For Dems, is it voters with college and post-graduate degrees? Would evangelicals agree that their widest plank is subservience of women to men, or would they say it is belief in God?
They would say, I suspect, that it's god's intention that women are subservient. In the Baptist church where I grew up, women are no longer allowed in the pulpit, even if they're not preaching. I haven't been there since my mother's funeral in 1985, and I left evangelical Chistianity long ago, but it continues to grow and of course oppose women's control over their own bodies.
Well, I don't have any good polling on evangelicals and I'm not asking anyone here to research it. There are passages in the Bible about subservience, but that alone doesn't tell me how evangelicals feel. I can tell you anecdotally in the Presbyterian church that I went to this morning, the pastor said that when he thinks of the phrase "God the Father", he often thinks God may be more like a Mother. That is, always there for us, looking out for us, nurturing. The other co-pastor is a woman and does an excellent job in the pulpit and out. I'm sorry women were not allowed in the pulpit in that Baptist church. It sounds like they were allowed at one time and then it reversed? Wrong direction!
We have Presbyterians in our family, too, including a woman minister, but that denomination is more structured, and the theology is more progressive. If you meet a female Baptist minister, she's probably American Baptist rather than Southern Baptist or independent.
I'm editing this to acknowledge that I know very little about predominantly Black Baptist churches and their treatment of women.
Robert, I'm not sure whether the first part of your comment is an assignment or an observation. Assuming it is the former, I don't do other people's homework. Many reputable studies have been done. My statement was based on reading many of those studies which all point to the same trends.
Your rhetorical questions that follow seem to hint of sarcasm. Perhaps I am misreading.
Belief in a deity is an assumption by all religions that has no specific application to living. It is tantamount to declaring that the atmosphere contains oxygen. A belief in God (or the presence of oxygen) is not what animates different Western religious groups or cultures to think and behave differently from each other.
Having grown up in evangelicalism, I can affirm that subservience of women is common to all conservative religious groups. After that come other doctrines that distinguish one sect from another.
brainwashing of patriarchy
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/ghislaine-maxwell-prison-inmates-epstein-b2973183.html
This is a great piece of research and writing. Thank you.
And empathy and love. We come here each day to learn and to share your wisdom. Thanks to all of you as well as the good Professor.
Heather, you are a national treasure.
Women are still fighting for the rights that should be theirs at birth. Just like men.
The MAGAts are pushing for “Trad Wives,” wives who are subservient to their husbands, fathers & brothers. & who do not vote.
The greasy hypocrisy of the reactionary movement is appalling. Anti-human, sexist, racist & just plain nasty.
The work of Juliet Howe & the first wave feminists continues, fighting for the same goals against the same patriarchy.
We will win.
Women’s Rights are Human Rights
Our cause is just.
Our anger is righteous
We Shall Overcome
Resist
Avance la Lucha
Thanks HCR, and cheers to all mothers including Mother Earth.
In celebration of our beautiful planet, I'd like to link David Attenborough (who is turning 100-years old this year) as a person who has cared for and documented life with our Mother Earth.
“Cherish the natural world, because you’re a part of it and you depend on it.”
— Sir David Attenborough
Happy 100th Sir
###
Here is some beautiful timelapse video I found on Bluesky from PJ @knotweed-ireland.bsky.social - Sunset over West Field tonight, Co. Galway, Ireland.
https://bsky.app/profile/knotweed-ireland.bsky.social/post/3mlchmao4xc2p
Thank you. Earth may harbor hazards, but it is a beautiful and endlessly intriguing wonderland. Hooray for those who encourage us to notice.
Of course, not every woman is a mother.
There are those today who would turn back time and only have men vote.
As close as we came to having a female president, now is certainly not the time to do that.
I recall my father, a WWII combat veteran and POW, mentioning seeing dying German soldiers call out for their mothers in their final words.
My mother called out for her long dead mother and father when she was dying. I suspect that underneath my acquired skills and experiences a child somehow remains, and may somehow figure in the best and the worst traits of our character. Just a thought.
The WWI recounting of the “Christmas at the Front” when both sides ceased their fighting on Christmas Day (first year of the war), also revealed that a young Lieutenant forbade HIS troops from participating in the ‘party’, which had men sharing pictures of their families, offering food and drink, and singing carols together…that Lieutenant was none other than Adolf Hitler.
Hmmmmm…..
Apparently, Trump’s first wife claimed that he kept a copy of “Mein Kampf” on the bedside table! What! No Bible? 🙄
Thank you for reminding us of that. It’s become so obviously true. There is no love in this husk.
It is a tragedy to realize that over 160 years later, there is a large contingent of people in this country that would like to roll the wheels of progress backwards when it comes to women and their places in the world.
some of those MAGA "pastors" referring to women basically as breeders and housekeepers is horrifying -- and to get really petty about it they are all ugly as fuck and probably don't have a woman in their lives to begin with.
So noted. There's one (wish I could remember who) that I saw a photo of and my mind immediately went to "well, there's and example of inbreeding; that guy will never get a date without force*"
*Edited for profanity and vulgarity removal.
The waves of the sea washing over the beaches in eternal vigilance. Never letting the tracks in the sand become too many. Refreshing as Constant Spring. Piling the dead wood ever farther from the shore. Powerful crescendos in rising wind. Gentle in the breeze. Alive with life skittering hiding reflecting the cries of the gulls. My own mother a fisherwoman’s ashes awash on a bed of roses braving the bar of the Columbia out to sea washing again gently on the beaches I’m walking. Hi mom. Love you.
Peace is a painful and far off goal for those who see clearly how far our society has regressed in just one year of this presidency, laser focused on underserved power, grifting wealth, deadly racism, distain-filled misogyny, and a lust for attention. Reeking of carnage, indeed….
But the quest for peace still lives. Somehow it's been an eternal struggle.
And no one knows that better than Pope Leo.
GJ Loft, many do know this as well, but few have such a powerful pulpit from which to speak out for peace. The Pope does and he has begun to use it to speak against war. Thank heavens.
What a good thing that is. If Pope Leo had been Pope in 2024, would he have endorsed Kamela? If he had, would she be President?
Bothsiderism is an evil when there is a clear moral contrast. Life presents any number of difficult decisions, yet some of them demand a triage. Actual medical triage is one of them, and yet there may be circumstances where no realistic alternative exists. Not voting for Biden or Harris because of Biden's uncritical support of Netanyahu was not a wise choice. Newspapers sanewashing Trump was and is an irresponsible when not a perfidious choice. Nader's failure to endorse Gore after making his point saddled America with a disastrous presidency which made Nader a pariah to most of those who who might have otherwise have listened to him. Obama's desire to dismiss past perfidy and "move on" was in my view a great mistake. When we fail to learn from our successes or errors (history) we remain fully vulnerable to naive repetition. Or worse.
And the universal trend toward disorder (entropy) means the luck without wisdom is most likely to be bad. Ignorance is NOT strength.
My wife is a chemical engineer and often mentions Newton's 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
One of her college room mates traveled to Washington, DC for a convention of Chemical Engineering students. One of the speakers was a Republican US Senator. He was telling them something that turned out to be physically impossible. One of the students replied, "that is impossible because it violates Newton's 2nd law of thermodynamics."
To which the Senator replied, "When then we must repeal it."
"The harder I practice, the luckier I get"
is often credited to golfer Gary Player and other pro golfers, but versions were in circulation before 1900. In any case, it makes sense.
I believe in my heart that all the "old women" who inhabit my substack, and Heather's, and all the others that promote opposition to the Fascist enemy - the "old women" who when they were "young women" on the forefront of all the struggles of the past 60 years to make america America we stood together - and still do - are going to save things now.
Thanks, TC.
May it be so! I do know that there are a lot of old women like me when I show up.
PBS is showing Suffs on Great Performances. I'd wanted to see in in NY last year, and then I missed it again in Boston, but now here it is for me to enjoy at home. : ) Give yourself a Mothers' Day treat and enjoy the show!
Thanks for the tip. Sounds like a great way to end concert day!
Yes, it had a short run on Broadway, but PBS (which is still standing, praise be) showed the whole thing the other night. It's still astounding that we've never passed the Equal Rights Amendment, and we need to fix that when we can.
Once again we are at an inflection point to see if the life affirming role of women can save the day and redirect our energies to productive rather than destructive pursuits. I will not live to witness the answer. It appears the challenge is massive, indeed.
It gives me hope that so many of the thoughtful voices we hear today, including Heather's, are from women. Perhaps the current attack on America's soul by Americans will provide the incentive to finally begin listening to more humane and sensible voices of higher pitch and lower volume than those who have dominated history. I wish us well. I do hope that, when we reach a point at which our governance structures are rebuilt from the wreckage we are witnessing in real time, women will have managed to establish themselves in key positions to guide reconstruction. Yet again.
I applaud all of them in advance. Stay the course. As a group, men seem to be masters of slow learning. Starting over in America to rebuild what we have just destroyed may finally be the incentive we needed to listen to our Mothers. I regret that I will never know. But my grandchildren may.
I'll remind them tomorrow to listen up. And step up.