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This is really getting into dangerous territory, the stuff Rubio is pushing. Nobody here is old enough to remember McCarthyism, but I was involved in as the son of a man who got tarred with the red paint brush, when an East Texas goat roper who probably didn't wear shoes before he got drafted for the war, accused the University of Houston of hiring a "red" to created their school of electrical engineering. Somehow, someone had given him a copy of the Harlingen TX sheriff's report of my father making a forced landing there in a storm in 1938, and them finding the airplane full of guns and ammunition he was flying to Mexico for shipment to the Spanish Republicans in the Civil War. As the FBI put it, he was a "premature anti-fascist." So in the middle of first grade we left Houston and returned to Denver, and my dad went from head of the school to his old pre-war job at the Bureau of Reclamation. Life changed. And I was told not to tell any friend at school why I was there. It was 10 years before they got a new Chief Engineer who noticed my father had more patents in his name than the entire rest of the laboratory, and created a position for him worthy of his talents. That was an ugly, ugly time, and for these fuckwits to play around with bringing it back is just awful. I have other friends who were the "collateral damage" to those times, and nobody forgets it.

Marco must be terrified of Val Demmings.

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If the business community would listen to Heather's warnings about the fragility of democracy, they could be a force for good, if they choose to be. We who are about to serve as election officers in Virginia today salute you all - wish us luck! I love the smell of voting in the morning (even this early)

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These folks have usurped the term "conservative" to mean whatever authoritarian crap they are peddling. I'm more of a true conservative than any of them, and I'm center-left. (I"m also more aligned with the teachings of Jesus than they are and I'm a non-religious Jew.)

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"It is long past time we stop permitting these people to call themselves 'conservatives.'"

I would say it's long past time we stop letting them call themselves "Americans."

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Marxism! Marxism! Marxism! America's corporate leaders are secret Marxists! Old Karl and his pal Freddy Engels are turning over in their graves and laughing themselves silly.

It's easy to see that Rubio, Goetz, Tucker Carlson, et al do not have a high estimation of the intelligence of the MAGA crowd. Their collective shallow understanding of world history is more myth than fact, and that myth is fed daily by those who know better.

As the Republican Party tries to steer the nation back to the plantation and the company town, it's easy to see why it was illegal in the South to educate slaves and almost impossible for a working white person to get any more than a crude, basic education.

Keep 'em stupid and you can herd 'em in any direction you want.

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Holy sh*t this was a good letter. I have been warning friends & family with my own analysis that Trump Republicans are bad for busines covering some of the same basic arguments. But I haven't seen the the reports from the business community that confirmed this. But of course its true.

The Marco Rubio story blows my mind because Stalin & his Moscow Communists used the word "democratic" as their reason for turning Eastern Europe into only party Russian Communist countries. Their economic plans such as land confiscation from those with foreign heritage and "others", breaking them up into small farms run by the peasants, and then collectivising them and managed by the state effectively broke the economy of Russian Communist controlled countries. Politics of total control, totalitarianism, overrode good economics or business.

American businesses are anything but "Marxist". We have lots of concerns about how some business men & women have put money before country. But not because the wanted a "Marxist" regime. Just shows how far and how deluded Rubio and Republicans have gone to find "enemies" just as the Russian Communists did. Russia has never matched the US in economic power when America has had a fully functioning democracy and government, business and citizens cooperate with and trust each other.

Republicans have and are eroding this trust rapidly and using old Russian Communist tropes to do it.

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Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Off Topic: Yesterday (November 1) is Today (November 2), election day for Virginians and New Jersey-ites. Holding my breath for Virginia.

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It seems to me that if what I read in the NYT, the WaPo, the Atlantic etc. Is true, there is already a ton of verifiable evidence that must surely be available to the government entities that enforce the laws that apply to all of us, even current congresspeople and ex-presidents. Why are the criminals who planned and managed the assault on our Capitol still on the street? Or is the coup d'etat we were perilously close to ongoing? I think I know.

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"Yet Sonnenfeld has no doubt that having stepped up for democracy at a crucial time, the CEOs would do it again. “The GOP has created these wedge issues to divide society, and the business community is saying, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not us, those are not our interests,’” he says. “That doesn’t mean they’re going to rush off and support Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party. But they’re trying to break free and find their own way.”

The TIME* article cited by Heather in today's Letter is interesting. Unfortunately I don't see a surge of CEOs speaking out against the rising tide of authoritarianism. Despite all the occasional outburts for "equity and equality" where are the CEOs now?

CEOs are "trying to break free and find their own way"? I doubt it.

*Please find link in Heather's Notes

In re Marco Rubio's pathetic diatribe about Marxist Corporations: Please find Marco Rubio's past and present corporate donors at Open Secrets. I wonder, which of his corporate donors will he have the cojones to openly label Marxist? (Make sure you select, "Campaign Committee & Leadership PAC Combined" then choose "Top 100" contributors from the drop down menu.)

https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/marco-rubio/contributors?cid=N00030612&cycle=2022&type=C

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Business leaders had grown weary of trump. His wild statements and erratic behavior on the international stage and at home were causing gyrations in the markets. The folks on Wall Street were becoming more and more unable to make any kind of long term prediction with any surety.

And now this.

Hey business moguls. You oligarchs over there. You created a monster.

Stop sending massive amounts of money to the very people who are hurting you.

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Republicans = delusional. Republican leaders = traitors. America is in trouble.

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I spent a year in Turkey in 2014 and can add: when an autocrat, like Erdogan, becomes deeply entrenched, it's not just businessmen--it's ANYONE who stands out/has obvious leadership talent/excels/shows promise and doesn't also pledge utter fealty to The Man (or, based on what they do, they can simply be an enemy). Such people are harassed, intimidated, threatened, and yes, in some cases jailed, until they cease whatever career or goal they are on.

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'Why were lawmakers on a phone call with J6 organizers?' Because both bloody minded GOP lawmakers and bloody minded J6 organizers were hell bent on preventing the peaceful transfer of power. While the elected officials were weaponizing government procedure within the chambers of Congress, their cosplay camo compatriots were sacking the Capitol, seat and symbol of government.

Through the metamorphoses of decades of Republican right wing religious extremist rhetoric, in paving the way for a second coming of Trump, these insurrectionists see themselves as John the Baptist, George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and Rambo - all rolled into one and all triumphant.

Although Republican antidemocratic strategies and authoritarian tactics are unsustainable, many are still hedging their bets that they will both carry off their insurrection and be spared the consequences - raptured by their god, safe in their big money privilege.

Why not? For decades Republicans have been unconcernedly undermining the institutions of government, to dine off the crumbs of shoveling government benefits and our 99% tax dollars into the private nosebags and corporate troughs of their 1% patrons. But overthrowing government may be a step too far. Like Wiley Coyote, Republicans may be running out of cliff. If we don't stop them, then so may we all.

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At what point does calling someone a Marxist mean absolutely nothing? Right about here:

"He accused Wall Street of “devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to advance corporate propaganda” that promotes Marxist tactics."

Can we NOW say the GOP's ridiculous rhetoric has finally, at long last, jumped the shark?

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Despite the insanity(?!) quoted by Rubio and Gaetz in today's Letter, I must say I winced with a tiny bit of grim amusement in this passage using the word "trump" (and that as a word will forever be a mental splinter):

"“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has jailed over 100,000 business people on *trumped-up* charges of tax evasion, financial irregularities, etc. Anyone with a profitable enterprise becomes a target, regardless of their political sentiments."

I hope that more of corporate America will see that it's not in their best interests to financially support the GOP.

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This song brightened our spirits during World War II:

You’ve got to accent the positive

Eliminate the negative

Latch on to the affirmative

And don’t mess with Mister in Between

You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum

Bring gloom down to the minimum

Have faith or Pandemonium

Liable to walk upon the scene

I’m BIDEN my time

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