Today Trump’s followers—including the neo-fascist Proud Boys and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a racist QAnon believer newly elected to the House of Representatives from Georgia-- congregated in Washington, D.C., to claim that Trump won the 2020 election.
Dear Heather, Tonight you gave me a history lesson that makes me feel I've never learned anything about the real history of our country. Thank you! I now have two of your books on order -- "Wounded Knee" and "How the South won the Civil War". It bothered me that to create the working class Lincoln's government put an entire people, the Native Americans, into the slavery of dependency and deprivation exchanging the plantations for reservations. If a Civil War won't work this time and there is no land to give away, what is the solution. My thoughts are three-fold. First, that workers, the creators of the wealth, must become shareholders in that wealth by receiving shares in the business they work for and seats on the Boards. Second, the two-party system and "winner-take-all" partisan politics must be reformed with nonpartisan systems doing redistricting, the aisles removed in Congress, and checks and balances restored so that no one have unilateral or autocratic power. Third, the country needs a Well-Being Index to replace or at least be equal to the GNP where every policy and piece of legislation is measured on its benefits to the well-being of the People.
That's why I like businesses that balance purpose and profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment. These Social Enterprises, B Corps, and Public Benefit Corporations are measured by more than making a profit. They must also report the company's impact on our planet and the programs that care for its people. Being transparent on three levels (profit, planet, and people) creates a yardstick for measuring success.
I've been using duck duck go for years. No data harvesting. Privacy. And I find that I get more meaningful results because not swayed by what everyone else is looking at.
Yes, Elena, there is a long (and growing) list with names you would recognize like Patagonia, Allbirds, and Eileen Fisher plus thousands more. Google: social enterprises, B Corps, or Public Benefit Corporations to learn more. These are the companies with the most success in recruiting and retaining talent in today's competitive market.
I use the free app, “Goods,” to decide where I want to spend my money. It lists corporations and what percentage they donate to the each party. I find it very helpful to know how they spend their money politically.
Also to think about: if there is a company whose product you like, ask them what their corporate policies are. If they aren't acceptible, form a group to lobby them and if necessary, boycott them. Ben & Jerry signed up for "Milk with Dignity" because a coalition of workers and consumers pointed out to them (repeatedly) that they were taking advantage of hard-working people who had little opportunity to stand up for themselves. Now we are looking forward to the same thing with a regional supermarket chain, and it's looking promising. These are changes WE can make.
I love this. When people speak up, they can affect change. Our voice is the most powerful tool in the social justice fight. Little by little, the ripples go out to lap against the rocks, and the stones become sand.
In Georgia, Publix, based in Florida, is good. They have a high approval rating, and their employees are shareholders. I think the salaries are decent, too. That's part of the reason I shop there.
What a great idea! I’ve been stewing about shopping at a regional supermarket chain also. It was my go-to until I checked and found out that 100% of their political contribution goes to the GOP. I rarely shop there now but I really miss going there. It has a real “farmers market“ feeling to it so it hurts even more knowing that the company doesn’t really care about the workers.
I think these businesses that "balance purpose and profit" are a miniscule part of the corporate powers that are driven by oligarch's focused on shareholder profits.
Probably, especially in the US, but there are still thousands, many of them small or regional (I think being part of a community makes a difference. But the fact that they exist at all proves our point.
Cathy, as far as your comment about history, I have a BA and a MA in history and I still learn something every time! The only way to truly get in depth is to concentrate your studies. It would be very difficult to get this much detail in grade school. Of course, it also helps to change the narrative of studying history from that of facts and figures to conveying the lessons learned, etc. I’ve said for years that the planter class is no different than what we call our 1% now. Imagine if teachers were allowed to convey that information... if they understood it themselves! Thank you for your great comment and I hope you continue to enjoy this incredible education by HCR!
I agree. I’m learning everyday here! I teach in Texas and the curriculum is controlled by politicians. If we truly educated people and didn’t let politics interfere that would be a greater support of democracy. We recently were told students have freedom of speech but teachers must keep their political views outside the classroom. I teach Art in elementary school so I don’t have a reason to go there. But the current events teachers at the senior high were not allowed to talk about the current events.
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
-- Margaret Mead
I, too, live in Texas. Taught music at a Catholic school one semester. You were required to teach the 5th graders the Star Spangled Banner. When the 7th grade class next door heard our national anthem, they asked their teacher "That sounds familiar what is it?"
Having politicians in the Texas Legislature micro-manage the Texas curriculum is crazy. So is teaching to the test. I'd say a lot of the reason over 70 million people voted for DT reflects our poor educational system. Defunding education has been a Republican project for decades.
"Our poor educational system" goes back a loooonnnngggg way. In 1950, I was in the last public school class in Denver where the (older) teacher taught phonics. My brother and sister got "word recognition" and became people who didn't like reading because of it. That degenerated down to "whole language" in which kids were supposed to "learn" by sitting next to a "great book" and waiting for osmosis. The result of all "educational reform" for the past 70 years has been what we have today: 72 million people quasi-educated enough to vote for Trump twice.
When I think of the two otherwise-unemployable idiots I know who became well-known "leading educational reformers", the situation explains itself.
As a teacher once said to me: "those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, teach teachers."
TC, almost exact situation for me and my brothers. My mother taught me to read before I started school. Instead of praising her, the teacher criticized her and told her they used "new pedalogical methods now" and she hoped my mother hadn't interfered with my ability to learn. She told my mother to not teach my brothers, so that they could "fully benefit" from the new methods. It was called "See and Say" where I went to school, same thing as your "word recognition. My mother was so upset she cried. My solution was simply to ignore the teacher for the rest of the year and read my way. Saved me. thank you, Mom. The older two of my brothers, like your sibs, struggled with reading. I helped the older and he got it. But the younger had not learned to read by 5th grade. By that time the school district had recognized the mistake was and the school returned to a mixed approach. My brother's teacher understood that my brother needed simply to be allowed to read something he enjoyed to motivate him to work at it and figure it out, so she gave him western comics! And then loaned him a copy of Zane Grey. He plowed through the entire series and spent a lifetime of enjoying reading. My youngest brother (our tag-along) escaped the whole awful mess. I wonder sometimes if that kind of poor experimental pedagogy is one reason so many people of our age seem to have trouble with comprehension and reasoning.
Learning to read is learning to think, because writing, to be effective, is organized logically (I say that as someone who pays the bills with writing). If you can't read, you cannot think logically because you didn't get the chance to learn how (it's something "picked up along the way" as one reads). If you can't do "reading comprehension" you can't do any other kind of comprehension. And when you consider how far down the path to functional illiteracy they went with "educational reform" before finally being kicked hard enough to get back to phonics and other basics, it's why things are as they are. And of course "teaching to the test," which is nothing but rote memorization, isn't "learning" because it has no connection to comprehension and understanding. So we've managed to keep making things worse with all our "advances."
Unfortunately 72 million fellow citizens just voted very distinctly against this and a goodly proportion of the other 77 million wouldn't feel comfortable either. McConnell is sitting pretty and he has his courts! When promoting a vision of the future, however desireable, a path must be shown of how to get there for it to attract an increasing number of motivated followers and assure success.
Imagine what the Republicans would call any candidate who advocates, as you suggest, "that workers, the creators of the wealth, must become shareholders in that wealth by receiving shares in the business they work for ..." Clue: It begins with either the letter "C" or the letter "M."
I don't think that's such a foreign (social democrat) idea. As I recall, workers at Dow Chemocal received Dow shares, or got them at a nice discount. It may need to be phrased differently than "owners" but the methodology may already in place for corporate America. Some incentives, a tax break, there we go.
The most appalling thing is that mentalities have hardly seemed to change in over 150 years. We are still seeing those hoarding the wealth manipulating the "mudsills" against their better interests, blinding them with hatred of anyone who might do better, binding them with fear of being "downgraded" and driving them with a myth that replaces history, fact and truth.
Well...! Now they believe that they have sewn up both the Supreme Court and the Senate, thus neutering "à volonté" the Democratic Président and House. They could return the country far into the past through "Government by the Judges" and throw out safeguards for the people built up despite them over the last near century or simply wait, block and watch untill their chance came again to rule totally.
This repetitive, destructive spiral has to stop. Secession is no longer an option for the GOP and is hardly necessary as they esteem that they are succeeding in spreading their control over the whole country and imposing their autocratic rule even without slavery. They have in reality adopted the system which they decried amongst anti-slavery States; Wage slavery. Civil war was tried once and it didn't solve the problem for very long! A country cannot go on for long with a constitutional blockage which prevents the government from promoting and supporting the welfare, rights and obligations of all the people.
I trust that Biden is truly inhabited by the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Ike Eisenhower, and Barack Obama as he is going to need it in order to break this impasse. This cannot be just a transition! He will need to break the log jam either through the justice system by whatever means...treason, corruption or other crimes... or through non-traditional action as "Commander in Chief of the Nation" as did Teddy Roosevelt in order to break the resolve and rigidity of the owners in the Coal Mine deadlock in 1902. Whichever he chooses he must also act strongly through the BULLY PULPIT. He is going to need such a massive groundswell of public opinion, protest and support that McConnell, Koch Inc. and their army of orcs fear for their very existence in the mid-terms. To achieve this he must to lay out a program for everybody; he has to address the root causes of the support on the ground for the Tea Part etc and, to make it happen, he has to invent new, innovative ways of getting things done...which the current constitution does not specifically prohibit. Here his mettle will be tried, his vision tested and his determination proven. Thankfully he has Kamala Harris by his side.
How? How do we "return" this country to a democracy of the People if it ever was a democracy when it is all going backwards. Maybe we need to pour some tea or some members of the tea party into Boston Harbor and insist on "No taxation without representation". Seems the oligarchic Kleptocracy, 1%, have "No taxation for exclusive representation and the legalized corruption of unlimited campaign funding.
To do that Biden has to outflank the GOP but he has to find a way to create a new system to do it...call it what you like...that actually listens to the people and not their money. The only thing he's really got is the force of the people; a revolution from below and not a fictitious one like the rent-a-crowd Boston affaire. Only that will put the Koch/GOP on the run.
We have discussed this before. There are people like George Lakey and Rev. Barbur and many others who are working to train people how to combat this kind of thing without resorting to violence. Guns are not going to solve our problems. "Choose America" and groups like "Moral Monday" can, if we all work together. This is where we can jam the communications system of both the White House and the Congress if we need to. And if it comes to that, if we are still in this mess come spring, jam the streets of Washington DC with many millions of people. I am willing, if it means freedom for my grandchildren and the future of democracy in America. I hope it doesn't come to that, but by golly, our first step is to be loud and clear en masse that this is NOT acceptible. Make noise. Make lots of noise. REal noise, in our towns, in the streets, banging pots from our front porches and balconies. Write real letters, make phone calls to every office in DC.
I'm not sure that Biden's election isn't also owing to corporate money. Both parties are stuck in a campaign money trap that requires that they attend to their donors. Biden was not financed by a "grassroots" financial "wave". If we look at Open Secrets, we find that the Biden team's large supporters were finance, insurance, real estate, communications, electronics, and a big chunk from lawyers and lobbyists. They "listen to money" because we are unable to reform the rules of campaign finance. Until we do, it seems to me, that we are all captured in the confines of monied interests.
Did you read that Koch is now supporting Biden's win? Koch must have somethin' in it. Like Bernie Sanders said, if he is truly sorry for promoting tRunp he can put money in getting away with Citizen United.
I did read suspiciously about Koch. He will never kill Citizens United. It's his ace in the hole. Plus, he has grasped that Trump is a madman. He has no place to go but to Biden, until there's a new Republican for him to back.
One of the biggest obstacles, I think, to campaign finance reform is the media. It makes billions off of elections. Consultants also make millions from media-buys that they receive as a percentage of the buy. Another trap. It is intricately woven.
Kamala is a measure of Biden’s strength of character. He didn’t react petulantly to her debate criticism. He recognizes who elected him. So, I’m a tiny bit hopeful. He surely realizes MM and Senate R’s are against him, and the need to be strongly creative. ❤️🤍💙
Plus, I think McGrath was not a strong counter to McConnell. I believe the DNC killed the "progressive" (Charles Booker) who might have had a chance to beat McConnell had they put their powers behind him. Sometimes the DNC is its own worst (moderate) enemy.
And yet - I remember the "debate" between McConnell & McGrath. How anyone could sit & watch that & vote for him? Watching him stand there & chuckle to himself & not even respond - guess he knew all he had to do was show up & wait for it to be over!
Why Kentuckians supported McConnell and why voters supported trump: It’s about the money—either objective tax savings/financial gain that trump humane values, or the propaganda-fueled subjective perception thereof.
Exactly, Daria. I don’t think most of them care. If they did, they would be speaking up now that Biden’s won. Their silence shows their true colors. I would say “vote them out” but half the country seems to have voted them in, which is a sad, sad commentary on America.
You can't say "listen to the people" and then discount the other half that patently doesn't agree. That's what the GOP is doing and what got us into this mess in the first place. When the both halfs are heard then more will start to "care".
It really depends on which numbers you use and how you contextualize them. A lot of people are looking at "approval ratings", which do not indicate much of anything you can depend on. The fact is that Biden/Harris won the election, both in popular votes (by a large margin) and in electoral votes by an even larger one. Presidential races are rarely won with large differences in percentages. Trump is riding on the idea if he can get enough people to question those margins, he can somehow magically make his loss go away. He's got advertising mixed up with process. And listen to how many of the folks here have bought into it? We started this discussion looking at the positive side of things, and here we are back where we started. Negative, helpless, afraid. We don't need to be those things. We need to stand up and speak out in a positive way to let Trump know he ain't gonna win. He'd getting closer to accepting it now. Maybe McConnell had a point that the man is grieving and just needs time to accept his loss. Let's let him, and help him along the way by letting it be known we are taking back democracy.
Thanks Heather. I find McConnell's quote to be the new normal for the GOP. If it differed from that, Trump would be removed by now. I don't know if I am the only one that feels the level of disgust for the GOP far out shadows the elation I have for those that stood up and voted. I truly despise the party for what it now stands for. Its the Lincoln Party no more. I know that in 60 odd days President Biden will diffuse them to the point he can. We must remember that although Trump will be gone , his Twitterfest will continue and the true monsters of the Republican Party remain to steamroll over us.
That statement from McConnell is his "Let them eat cake" moment, IMO. I wish it could come back to haunt him, but I fear things are too far gone and there is too much power finagled into his grimy little hands. We are going to pay a price for this, BIG time. I wish I could be optimistic about the GA Senate race, but the law of averages here isn't very encouraging. Though it has been such a pleasure to wake up the past couple of mornings in a "blue" state, Georgia has disappointed me way too many times through the years. McConnell to me represents everything evil in the Republican party because he, and he alone, has been the chief agent for Republicans to actually put their policies into actual practice. That is what constitutes the greatest threats to this republic and its democracy. McConnell would have been right at home in the 1850s in a white suit, black string tie, munching on a fried chicken leg, on the front porch of "My Old Kentucky Home", singing how "'tis summer and darkies are gay"...I don't think I'm at all exaggerating. The man is poison.
Bruce, when I see the name Mitch McConnell, I equate it with that old phrase, "the root of all evil". How easily the words "Mitch McConnell" and "money" be interchanged. It drips with irony.
Georgia has CHEATED in so many ways through the years. Here's hoping (and donating $$$ to) the Stacey Abrams civil liberties army fighting for all of us there. I am reading "Let Them Eat Tweets" (Hacker & Pierson): like HCR's work. so illuminating!
I don't demise anyone. Life is too short. However, after reading, where McConnell answered "You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.", it takes every fiber of my being not to wish him a slow and cruel death.
Thank you, Linda, for making it unnecessary for me to post today! You summed up my disgust. How to keep it from turning to hatred? I hate Trump, Barr and the evil MM. I’m beginning to hate all those Cowering Republicans behind him. Members of my family are Trumpeters. What do I do about them? No olive branches available. My cold civil war deepens. ❤️🤍💙
Deborah, I honestly find it difficult to temper my absolute despise for the GOP. I have several friends who are Republicans and we know politics are not part of our conversations. However I do find that even everyday life is hard to muster up a general conversation. How do you discuss this runaway situation with COVID-19 without mentioning the elephant in the room? I feel we are boxed in as long as the "us against them" culture exists. Please know my hand is always extended if you need it Deborah.
Family members are among the 71 million trump voters about whom we are asking, What to do? What did we miss during the past 4 years? We won’t figure out how to solve the problem if we cut them off, stay in our bubble, and don’t listen so as to understand the problem. Without talking to a brick wall, at least keeping a line of communication open plants seeds to reality as antidote to the propaganda in their bubble.
See Stuart Attewell’s reply to daria’s comment 4 hours before yours. I think it applies here (and hope he doesn’t mind my linkage):
“You can't say ‘listen to the people’ and then discount the other half that patently doesn't agree. That's what the GOP is doing and what got us into this mess in the first place. When the both halfs are heard then more will start to ‘care’.”
"And yet, most Republican lawmakers are not willing to challenge Trump in public."
That, is what is endangering our national security and undermining our democracy.
Trump can do none of this by himself.
In 1964 ultra-conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater published a book, and coined a phrase, titled "None Dare Call It Treason", about people who did not stand with his very strict and limited view of the function of government. He lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson. If Goldwter were alive today he would be appalled at the Republican Party and would not hesitate to call their current actions, or lack thereof, "Treason!"
I will do it for him. The Republican Party in America in 2020 is collectively guilty of treason.
"President-Elect Joe Biden’s overwhelming victory, they say, was fake ..."
What's truly fake is their false assumptions, their skewed ideological bent, their bigotry, their whiteness, and their so-called nationalism. Oh, and their most fake facet is that "golden/orange calf" -- the object of their adoration --
whose leadership skills are non-existent, whose loyalty to this country is zilch, and whose compassion for them, his loyal followers, borders on apathy.
What's fake is their vision of an "America that will attain greatness again" under the irrational tutelage of an unstable, pompous, fascist, and self-absorbed exterminator whose time is, most definitely, up.
Thank you, HCR for a timely history lesson. Yours is the history I never learned in school. Or, in any other way except observing and early rejecting my PA family’s ignorant, racist, fearful behaviors-starting in the 50’s. I divorced my family and moved away when I was 14. From a lifetime of observing them and trying in vain to reason with them, I can only say that Fox News has made it impossible for truth to prevail with them. They only care about themselves and the stock market. In South Africa, of all places, I sat at a lunch table with a professional man from Atlanta who stated his One Percenter support for Trump. My old Trumpeter Neighbors are permanently angry. It’s only the young generations in my family who voted BidenHarris. Frankly, the young are my basic hope for the future. Change has to come from the bottom 99%. Commitment to political activism and support 365 days/year is my retirement mantra. My iPhone and Mac and Zoom are my new tools. Sad beyond words about the runaway virus train. Evil beyond words about McConnell. GEORGIA ON MY MIND. ❤️🤍💙
My question (or is it a comment?) today is: How are the likes of Alex Jones allowed to remain as is without prosecution? His words, rhetoric, actions - they are all so inflammatory and full of lies. How can a person operating in this capacity get by with “freedom of speech”? Again, if he were in a theater and yelled FIRE then he would be arrested. My heart breaks while my head fills with anger to see those two thousand people marching in DC with signs that list who they will go after first. Literally signs with the groups of people who will be sought out. What an insecure bunch of rats.
"McConnell answered: “You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.” One would hope that that simple statement would have made good ol' Joe think twice about the possibility of 'working across the aisle' with this man. I'm all for trying to find common ground, but when your counterpart makes clear he will be happy to cut you off at the knees rather than compromise, you are a fool if you hand him a sword.
Biden, too, is speaking to the Republican base. They are not the monolith many think. We have to make it possible for them to see that there is an alternative. And we have to know Joe will do things the right way. The Republicans may never respond in a rational way, but that will hurt them. We are acting as if we are already defeated. We need to recognize we have won, and then to demand that they do too.
This is the most on target summary of “how we got here” that I have ever seen! I had no idea that we have literally been there before, naively thinking that this is the first time we have seen this behavior this shameless. Wow.
I’ll try again after my comment appeared twice... that we have been here before is the most important lesson I’ve learned from listening to and reading HCR. That we never learn is my own observation.
It does feel as if, as a country, we have "labor pains" over and over and keep giving birth to "Rosemary's Baby" ( perhaps this is too harsh and creepy!)
Thank you for the history, Heather! When you mentioned the idea of a military coup, I was heartened to have seen a video of Gen. Milley's speech on Nov. 12th. He spoke emphatically of the oath of all in the military to the Constitution, "not to a King, Queen, Dictator or an individual, party or religion". I love that he said that the Constitution is the "moral North Star". It should be a reminder to all those enablers that they all took that same oath to protect the people of this country, not just to line their own pockets. Also someone said "Power is the Perception of Power". I had not heard that before, and it makes enormous sense as trump is beginning to lose his power
Gen. Milley is a "homeboy" from the town where I live, Winchester, Massachusetts. He's long been regarded as an upstanding, honorable protector of the nation here. I can say with some certainty that when he took that ridiculous walk, in uniform, no less, to reach the Episcopal church for El Pendejo's "photo opp with inverted Bible held aloft," many, many people here were both disbelieving he'd willingly allow the military to be politicized that way, much less himself.
He's since publicly expressed tremendous regret for his decision and actions. Somehow, though, once tarnished, the brass never seems to shine as lustrous again.
We knew the GOP was crooked. They confirmed it in the way they handled the impeachment. We still believed they were decent human beings. Now they are behaving like assasins. Promoting violence in the common folks by not acknowledging Biden/Harris win and delaying help for the pandemic
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! For all the bluster that took place yesterday in D.C., my only take-away is that 5+ million more Americans quietly and steadfastly voted for the Democrat candidate, Joe Biden, leaving the Republican incumbent short of a victory. Further, this deponent sayeth not.
Yesterday in Washington DC, Trumpism’s most rabid cheerleader Alex Jones said, “It’s 1776 time! 1776, 1776, 1776 ... death to the new world order, death to tyranny... The pedophile globalists and their attempted election steal and the Clinton blackmail rings have only summoned the sleeping giant that is America and you! and you! you are the tip of the spear!”
This election is Trump’s Reichstag fire – a calamity of his own creation, the great lie he is using to solidify his most ardent followers into his personal Sturmabteilung. Although I hope many who voted for him will eventually see the terrible mistake they made and can be pulled back from the edge on which they now stand, the hard core will not. We are deep in it now.
Wow. Between Jones's neofascist rant and Bannon's declaration that Democrats should be beheaded (which got him banned permanently from Twitter) we really are deep into a coup attempt territory. Hoping that the military indeed will not go along.
McConnell's comment doesn't surprise me at all. That's been his way of being for as long as I can remember. He doesn't give a damn about anything other than his own agenda. He certainly doesn't care about the people who elect him as witnessed by the poor ratings KY gets in things like education, income, etc. He is a disgrace to the human race, and I've said before, there's a special place reserved for him in hell. Like us all, we need to do EVERYTHING in our power to get Ossoff and Warnock elected. I came across a great website yesterday, https://newgeorgiaproject.org/. I gives multiple organizations focusing on GA voters to which you can donate. I couldn't give as much as I would like, but know that it all helps. Giving/writing/texting/calling. Do it!
I received the dreaded text from our school nurse Friday that one of my students tested positive for Covid 19. I keep my distance and wear a medical grade mask. I believe I’m fine. The affluent population think it can’t happen to them and insist that if teachers aren’t f2f then we shouldn’t get paid. Virtual isn’t best, we all agree! But safety and health should be the priority. A first grader asked me why is everybody talking about being healthy, why do we want to be healthy? I was shocked! And at a very busy intersection a group of people wave enormous trump flags and shake cowbells everyday at rush hour. What the parents don’t see is I’ve never worked harder, been so exhausted, and been this anxious and traumatized! I definitely see a great need for a more extensive history education in our country! Thanks Heather! I share your posts everyday!
Dear Heather, Tonight you gave me a history lesson that makes me feel I've never learned anything about the real history of our country. Thank you! I now have two of your books on order -- "Wounded Knee" and "How the South won the Civil War". It bothered me that to create the working class Lincoln's government put an entire people, the Native Americans, into the slavery of dependency and deprivation exchanging the plantations for reservations. If a Civil War won't work this time and there is no land to give away, what is the solution. My thoughts are three-fold. First, that workers, the creators of the wealth, must become shareholders in that wealth by receiving shares in the business they work for and seats on the Boards. Second, the two-party system and "winner-take-all" partisan politics must be reformed with nonpartisan systems doing redistricting, the aisles removed in Congress, and checks and balances restored so that no one have unilateral or autocratic power. Third, the country needs a Well-Being Index to replace or at least be equal to the GNP where every policy and piece of legislation is measured on its benefits to the well-being of the People.
And, let's not forget, the well being of the planet itself
That's why I like businesses that balance purpose and profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment. These Social Enterprises, B Corps, and Public Benefit Corporations are measured by more than making a profit. They must also report the company's impact on our planet and the programs that care for its people. Being transparent on three levels (profit, planet, and people) creates a yardstick for measuring success.
I'm doing just that...but, would you consider not using google as the verb...since google has it own share of tomfoolery? I've stopped using them as my search engine in favor of the more enlightened duck duck go. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/dec/12/duckduckgo-google-search-engine-privacy)
I've been using duck duck go for years. No data harvesting. Privacy. And I find that I get more meaningful results because not swayed by what everyone else is looking at.
Good point. I've allowed Google to become an interchangeable name like Kleenex.
I also use duck duck go
Is there a list of these businesses?
Yes, Elena, there is a long (and growing) list with names you would recognize like Patagonia, Allbirds, and Eileen Fisher plus thousands more. Google: social enterprises, B Corps, or Public Benefit Corporations to learn more. These are the companies with the most success in recruiting and retaining talent in today's competitive market.
I use the free app, “Goods,” to decide where I want to spend my money. It lists corporations and what percentage they donate to the each party. I find it very helpful to know how they spend their money politically.
Also to think about: if there is a company whose product you like, ask them what their corporate policies are. If they aren't acceptible, form a group to lobby them and if necessary, boycott them. Ben & Jerry signed up for "Milk with Dignity" because a coalition of workers and consumers pointed out to them (repeatedly) that they were taking advantage of hard-working people who had little opportunity to stand up for themselves. Now we are looking forward to the same thing with a regional supermarket chain, and it's looking promising. These are changes WE can make.
I love this. When people speak up, they can affect change. Our voice is the most powerful tool in the social justice fight. Little by little, the ripples go out to lap against the rocks, and the stones become sand.
In Georgia, Publix, based in Florida, is good. They have a high approval rating, and their employees are shareholders. I think the salaries are decent, too. That's part of the reason I shop there.
What a great idea! I’ve been stewing about shopping at a regional supermarket chain also. It was my go-to until I checked and found out that 100% of their political contribution goes to the GOP. I rarely shop there now but I really miss going there. It has a real “farmers market“ feeling to it so it hurts even more knowing that the company doesn’t really care about the workers.
One more reason to love my Allbirds and Eileen Fisher!!!
Nancy, don't forget Ben & Jerry's!
WOW!
I think these businesses that "balance purpose and profit" are a miniscule part of the corporate powers that are driven by oligarch's focused on shareholder profits.
Probably, especially in the US, but there are still thousands, many of them small or regional (I think being part of a community makes a difference. But the fact that they exist at all proves our point.
Yes, Lynn, without the well-being of the planet, all the rest won't matter. How short-sighted of the greedy and powerful.
I like that edit. And, check out the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals if you're not already familiar with them.
"The United States stand last among the G20 nations to attain these Sustainable Development Goals and 36th worldwide.[153]"
Sigh, NOT making America great.
Thanks for the reference.
The itony is the corporations that have signed up for them are finding them very profitable as well.
Evolution results in new efficiencies.
Will do! Ty
Cathy, as far as your comment about history, I have a BA and a MA in history and I still learn something every time! The only way to truly get in depth is to concentrate your studies. It would be very difficult to get this much detail in grade school. Of course, it also helps to change the narrative of studying history from that of facts and figures to conveying the lessons learned, etc. I’ve said for years that the planter class is no different than what we call our 1% now. Imagine if teachers were allowed to convey that information... if they understood it themselves! Thank you for your great comment and I hope you continue to enjoy this incredible education by HCR!
I agree. I’m learning everyday here! I teach in Texas and the curriculum is controlled by politicians. If we truly educated people and didn’t let politics interfere that would be a greater support of democracy. We recently were told students have freedom of speech but teachers must keep their political views outside the classroom. I teach Art in elementary school so I don’t have a reason to go there. But the current events teachers at the senior high were not allowed to talk about the current events.
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
-- Margaret Mead
I, too, live in Texas. Taught music at a Catholic school one semester. You were required to teach the 5th graders the Star Spangled Banner. When the 7th grade class next door heard our national anthem, they asked their teacher "That sounds familiar what is it?"
Having politicians in the Texas Legislature micro-manage the Texas curriculum is crazy. So is teaching to the test. I'd say a lot of the reason over 70 million people voted for DT reflects our poor educational system. Defunding education has been a Republican project for decades.
"Our poor educational system" goes back a loooonnnngggg way. In 1950, I was in the last public school class in Denver where the (older) teacher taught phonics. My brother and sister got "word recognition" and became people who didn't like reading because of it. That degenerated down to "whole language" in which kids were supposed to "learn" by sitting next to a "great book" and waiting for osmosis. The result of all "educational reform" for the past 70 years has been what we have today: 72 million people quasi-educated enough to vote for Trump twice.
When I think of the two otherwise-unemployable idiots I know who became well-known "leading educational reformers", the situation explains itself.
As a teacher once said to me: "those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, teach teachers."
TC, almost exact situation for me and my brothers. My mother taught me to read before I started school. Instead of praising her, the teacher criticized her and told her they used "new pedalogical methods now" and she hoped my mother hadn't interfered with my ability to learn. She told my mother to not teach my brothers, so that they could "fully benefit" from the new methods. It was called "See and Say" where I went to school, same thing as your "word recognition. My mother was so upset she cried. My solution was simply to ignore the teacher for the rest of the year and read my way. Saved me. thank you, Mom. The older two of my brothers, like your sibs, struggled with reading. I helped the older and he got it. But the younger had not learned to read by 5th grade. By that time the school district had recognized the mistake was and the school returned to a mixed approach. My brother's teacher understood that my brother needed simply to be allowed to read something he enjoyed to motivate him to work at it and figure it out, so she gave him western comics! And then loaned him a copy of Zane Grey. He plowed through the entire series and spent a lifetime of enjoying reading. My youngest brother (our tag-along) escaped the whole awful mess. I wonder sometimes if that kind of poor experimental pedagogy is one reason so many people of our age seem to have trouble with comprehension and reasoning.
Learning to read is learning to think, because writing, to be effective, is organized logically (I say that as someone who pays the bills with writing). If you can't read, you cannot think logically because you didn't get the chance to learn how (it's something "picked up along the way" as one reads). If you can't do "reading comprehension" you can't do any other kind of comprehension. And when you consider how far down the path to functional illiteracy they went with "educational reform" before finally being kicked hard enough to get back to phonics and other basics, it's why things are as they are. And of course "teaching to the test," which is nothing but rote memorization, isn't "learning" because it has no connection to comprehension and understanding. So we've managed to keep making things worse with all our "advances."
And TX politicians then control the nation’s texts.
Unfortunately 72 million fellow citizens just voted very distinctly against this and a goodly proportion of the other 77 million wouldn't feel comfortable either. McConnell is sitting pretty and he has his courts! When promoting a vision of the future, however desireable, a path must be shown of how to get there for it to attract an increasing number of motivated followers and assure success.
Cathy, our democratic government needs people like you!
Lynell. Thank you so much for your kind and humbling words.
Lynell is right. Your action points are a call to act. ❤️🤍💙
Yes!!
Excellent ideas! I agree wholeheartedly!
This is wonderful. How can I copy this for inspiration and goal-setting? ❤️🤍
Imagine what the Republicans would call any candidate who advocates, as you suggest, "that workers, the creators of the wealth, must become shareholders in that wealth by receiving shares in the business they work for ..." Clue: It begins with either the letter "C" or the letter "M."
I don't think that's such a foreign (social democrat) idea. As I recall, workers at Dow Chemocal received Dow shares, or got them at a nice discount. It may need to be phrased differently than "owners" but the methodology may already in place for corporate America. Some incentives, a tax break, there we go.
The most appalling thing is that mentalities have hardly seemed to change in over 150 years. We are still seeing those hoarding the wealth manipulating the "mudsills" against their better interests, blinding them with hatred of anyone who might do better, binding them with fear of being "downgraded" and driving them with a myth that replaces history, fact and truth.
Well...! Now they believe that they have sewn up both the Supreme Court and the Senate, thus neutering "à volonté" the Democratic Président and House. They could return the country far into the past through "Government by the Judges" and throw out safeguards for the people built up despite them over the last near century or simply wait, block and watch untill their chance came again to rule totally.
This repetitive, destructive spiral has to stop. Secession is no longer an option for the GOP and is hardly necessary as they esteem that they are succeeding in spreading their control over the whole country and imposing their autocratic rule even without slavery. They have in reality adopted the system which they decried amongst anti-slavery States; Wage slavery. Civil war was tried once and it didn't solve the problem for very long! A country cannot go on for long with a constitutional blockage which prevents the government from promoting and supporting the welfare, rights and obligations of all the people.
I trust that Biden is truly inhabited by the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Ike Eisenhower, and Barack Obama as he is going to need it in order to break this impasse. This cannot be just a transition! He will need to break the log jam either through the justice system by whatever means...treason, corruption or other crimes... or through non-traditional action as "Commander in Chief of the Nation" as did Teddy Roosevelt in order to break the resolve and rigidity of the owners in the Coal Mine deadlock in 1902. Whichever he chooses he must also act strongly through the BULLY PULPIT. He is going to need such a massive groundswell of public opinion, protest and support that McConnell, Koch Inc. and their army of orcs fear for their very existence in the mid-terms. To achieve this he must to lay out a program for everybody; he has to address the root causes of the support on the ground for the Tea Part etc and, to make it happen, he has to invent new, innovative ways of getting things done...which the current constitution does not specifically prohibit. Here his mettle will be tried, his vision tested and his determination proven. Thankfully he has Kamala Harris by his side.
How? How do we "return" this country to a democracy of the People if it ever was a democracy when it is all going backwards. Maybe we need to pour some tea or some members of the tea party into Boston Harbor and insist on "No taxation without representation". Seems the oligarchic Kleptocracy, 1%, have "No taxation for exclusive representation and the legalized corruption of unlimited campaign funding.
To do that Biden has to outflank the GOP but he has to find a way to create a new system to do it...call it what you like...that actually listens to the people and not their money. The only thing he's really got is the force of the people; a revolution from below and not a fictitious one like the rent-a-crowd Boston affaire. Only that will put the Koch/GOP on the run.
The hardest person to negotiate with is someone who won't negotiate at all. A lesson the Republicans have learned well and McConnell practices daily.
You can't deal with bad faith other than going around it to render it useless.
That brings us back to the time-tested practice of negotiating via the barrel of a gun
They are better armed and probably more determined.
I'll concede the first point, but the long war for freedom is righteous.
We have discussed this before. There are people like George Lakey and Rev. Barbur and many others who are working to train people how to combat this kind of thing without resorting to violence. Guns are not going to solve our problems. "Choose America" and groups like "Moral Monday" can, if we all work together. This is where we can jam the communications system of both the White House and the Congress if we need to. And if it comes to that, if we are still in this mess come spring, jam the streets of Washington DC with many millions of people. I am willing, if it means freedom for my grandchildren and the future of democracy in America. I hope it doesn't come to that, but by golly, our first step is to be loud and clear en masse that this is NOT acceptible. Make noise. Make lots of noise. REal noise, in our towns, in the streets, banging pots from our front porches and balconies. Write real letters, make phone calls to every office in DC.
I'm not sure that Biden's election isn't also owing to corporate money. Both parties are stuck in a campaign money trap that requires that they attend to their donors. Biden was not financed by a "grassroots" financial "wave". If we look at Open Secrets, we find that the Biden team's large supporters were finance, insurance, real estate, communications, electronics, and a big chunk from lawyers and lobbyists. They "listen to money" because we are unable to reform the rules of campaign finance. Until we do, it seems to me, that we are all captured in the confines of monied interests.
Did you read that Koch is now supporting Biden's win? Koch must have somethin' in it. Like Bernie Sanders said, if he is truly sorry for promoting tRunp he can put money in getting away with Citizen United.
I did read suspiciously about Koch. He will never kill Citizens United. It's his ace in the hole. Plus, he has grasped that Trump is a madman. He has no place to go but to Biden, until there's a new Republican for him to back.
One of the biggest obstacles, I think, to campaign finance reform is the media. It makes billions off of elections. Consultants also make millions from media-buys that they receive as a percentage of the buy. Another trap. It is intricately woven.
“ finance, insurance, real estate, communications” all crave stability, which has been in short supply lo these past 4 years —
I don't disagree. But it still leaves governing in the hands of the democratic elites rather than the republican elites. So it goes.
Kamala is a measure of Biden’s strength of character. He didn’t react petulantly to her debate criticism. He recognizes who elected him. So, I’m a tiny bit hopeful. He surely realizes MM and Senate R’s are against him, and the need to be strongly creative. ❤️🤍💙
Hopefully she's as strong as he for she might have to take his place and do it all for him..and for us!
Hopefully she’ll learn how to successfully negotiate from Biden. He’s the master of negotiation.
"You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.”- Mitch McConnell
And this is just one of the Republicans who don't care who retained their office.
That statement stood out for me too. That is quintessential McConnell. Why oh why did Kentuckians return this man to office?
Because he is a white male with an "R" after his name?
Plus, I think McGrath was not a strong counter to McConnell. I believe the DNC killed the "progressive" (Charles Booker) who might have had a chance to beat McConnell had they put their powers behind him. Sometimes the DNC is its own worst (moderate) enemy.
And yet - I remember the "debate" between McConnell & McGrath. How anyone could sit & watch that & vote for him? Watching him stand there & chuckle to himself & not even respond - guess he knew all he had to do was show up & wait for it to be over!
Why Kentuckians supported McConnell and why voters supported trump: It’s about the money—either objective tax savings/financial gain that trump humane values, or the propaganda-fueled subjective perception thereof.
https://twitter.com/ellie_kona/status/1327317138860720128?s=21
Because he brings money into the state.
Exactly, Daria. I don’t think most of them care. If they did, they would be speaking up now that Biden’s won. Their silence shows their true colors. I would say “vote them out” but half the country seems to have voted them in, which is a sad, sad commentary on America.
You can't say "listen to the people" and then discount the other half that patently doesn't agree. That's what the GOP is doing and what got us into this mess in the first place. When the both halfs are heard then more will start to "care".
Yes. Exactly.
I am not discounting anyone.
It really depends on which numbers you use and how you contextualize them. A lot of people are looking at "approval ratings", which do not indicate much of anything you can depend on. The fact is that Biden/Harris won the election, both in popular votes (by a large margin) and in electoral votes by an even larger one. Presidential races are rarely won with large differences in percentages. Trump is riding on the idea if he can get enough people to question those margins, he can somehow magically make his loss go away. He's got advertising mixed up with process. And listen to how many of the folks here have bought into it? We started this discussion looking at the positive side of things, and here we are back where we started. Negative, helpless, afraid. We don't need to be those things. We need to stand up and speak out in a positive way to let Trump know he ain't gonna win. He'd getting closer to accepting it now. Maybe McConnell had a point that the man is grieving and just needs time to accept his loss. Let's let him, and help him along the way by letting it be known we are taking back democracy.
Thanks Heather. I find McConnell's quote to be the new normal for the GOP. If it differed from that, Trump would be removed by now. I don't know if I am the only one that feels the level of disgust for the GOP far out shadows the elation I have for those that stood up and voted. I truly despise the party for what it now stands for. Its the Lincoln Party no more. I know that in 60 odd days President Biden will diffuse them to the point he can. We must remember that although Trump will be gone , his Twitterfest will continue and the true monsters of the Republican Party remain to steamroll over us.
Please be safe, be well.
That statement from McConnell is his "Let them eat cake" moment, IMO. I wish it could come back to haunt him, but I fear things are too far gone and there is too much power finagled into his grimy little hands. We are going to pay a price for this, BIG time. I wish I could be optimistic about the GA Senate race, but the law of averages here isn't very encouraging. Though it has been such a pleasure to wake up the past couple of mornings in a "blue" state, Georgia has disappointed me way too many times through the years. McConnell to me represents everything evil in the Republican party because he, and he alone, has been the chief agent for Republicans to actually put their policies into actual practice. That is what constitutes the greatest threats to this republic and its democracy. McConnell would have been right at home in the 1850s in a white suit, black string tie, munching on a fried chicken leg, on the front porch of "My Old Kentucky Home", singing how "'tis summer and darkies are gay"...I don't think I'm at all exaggerating. The man is poison.
Bruce, when I see the name Mitch McConnell, I equate it with that old phrase, "the root of all evil". How easily the words "Mitch McConnell" and "money" be interchanged. It drips with irony.
Totally agree. ❤️🤍💙
Georgia has CHEATED in so many ways through the years. Here's hoping (and donating $$$ to) the Stacey Abrams civil liberties army fighting for all of us there. I am reading "Let Them Eat Tweets" (Hacker & Pierson): like HCR's work. so illuminating!
Maybe Melania can bequeath her famous "I really don't care, do you?" to Senator McConnell.
I don't demise anyone. Life is too short. However, after reading, where McConnell answered "You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.", it takes every fiber of my being not to wish him a slow and cruel death.
LOL - swell idea, Cathy.
That's her famous jacket, of course.
Cathy, absolutely!
Thank you, Linda, for making it unnecessary for me to post today! You summed up my disgust. How to keep it from turning to hatred? I hate Trump, Barr and the evil MM. I’m beginning to hate all those Cowering Republicans behind him. Members of my family are Trumpeters. What do I do about them? No olive branches available. My cold civil war deepens. ❤️🤍💙
Deborah, I honestly find it difficult to temper my absolute despise for the GOP. I have several friends who are Republicans and we know politics are not part of our conversations. However I do find that even everyday life is hard to muster up a general conversation. How do you discuss this runaway situation with COVID-19 without mentioning the elephant in the room? I feel we are boxed in as long as the "us against them" culture exists. Please know my hand is always extended if you need it Deborah.
Family members are among the 71 million trump voters about whom we are asking, What to do? What did we miss during the past 4 years? We won’t figure out how to solve the problem if we cut them off, stay in our bubble, and don’t listen so as to understand the problem. Without talking to a brick wall, at least keeping a line of communication open plants seeds to reality as antidote to the propaganda in their bubble.
See Stuart Attewell’s reply to daria’s comment 4 hours before yours. I think it applies here (and hope he doesn’t mind my linkage):
“You can't say ‘listen to the people’ and then discount the other half that patently doesn't agree. That's what the GOP is doing and what got us into this mess in the first place. When the both halfs are heard then more will start to ‘care’.”
https://twitter.com/ellie_kona/status/1327317138860720128?s=21
Family: the gift that keeps on *living.* Fortunately, I have outlived the dumb clucks I shared DNA with.
"And yet, most Republican lawmakers are not willing to challenge Trump in public."
That, is what is endangering our national security and undermining our democracy.
Trump can do none of this by himself.
In 1964 ultra-conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater published a book, and coined a phrase, titled "None Dare Call It Treason", about people who did not stand with his very strict and limited view of the function of government. He lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson. If Goldwter were alive today he would be appalled at the Republican Party and would not hesitate to call their current actions, or lack thereof, "Treason!"
I will do it for him. The Republican Party in America in 2020 is collectively guilty of treason.
"President-Elect Joe Biden’s overwhelming victory, they say, was fake ..."
What's truly fake is their false assumptions, their skewed ideological bent, their bigotry, their whiteness, and their so-called nationalism. Oh, and their most fake facet is that "golden/orange calf" -- the object of their adoration --
whose leadership skills are non-existent, whose loyalty to this country is zilch, and whose compassion for them, his loyal followers, borders on apathy.
What's fake is their vision of an "America that will attain greatness again" under the irrational tutelage of an unstable, pompous, fascist, and self-absorbed exterminator whose time is, most definitely, up.
Thank you, HCR for a timely history lesson. Yours is the history I never learned in school. Or, in any other way except observing and early rejecting my PA family’s ignorant, racist, fearful behaviors-starting in the 50’s. I divorced my family and moved away when I was 14. From a lifetime of observing them and trying in vain to reason with them, I can only say that Fox News has made it impossible for truth to prevail with them. They only care about themselves and the stock market. In South Africa, of all places, I sat at a lunch table with a professional man from Atlanta who stated his One Percenter support for Trump. My old Trumpeter Neighbors are permanently angry. It’s only the young generations in my family who voted BidenHarris. Frankly, the young are my basic hope for the future. Change has to come from the bottom 99%. Commitment to political activism and support 365 days/year is my retirement mantra. My iPhone and Mac and Zoom are my new tools. Sad beyond words about the runaway virus train. Evil beyond words about McConnell. GEORGIA ON MY MIND. ❤️🤍💙
My question (or is it a comment?) today is: How are the likes of Alex Jones allowed to remain as is without prosecution? His words, rhetoric, actions - they are all so inflammatory and full of lies. How can a person operating in this capacity get by with “freedom of speech”? Again, if he were in a theater and yelled FIRE then he would be arrested. My heart breaks while my head fills with anger to see those two thousand people marching in DC with signs that list who they will go after first. Literally signs with the groups of people who will be sought out. What an insecure bunch of rats.
We need the Fairness Doctrine in place
"McConnell answered: “You must be under the mistaken impression that I care.” One would hope that that simple statement would have made good ol' Joe think twice about the possibility of 'working across the aisle' with this man. I'm all for trying to find common ground, but when your counterpart makes clear he will be happy to cut you off at the knees rather than compromise, you are a fool if you hand him a sword.
He knows McConnell's evil depths.
Biden, too, is speaking to the Republican base. They are not the monolith many think. We have to make it possible for them to see that there is an alternative. And we have to know Joe will do things the right way. The Republicans may never respond in a rational way, but that will hurt them. We are acting as if we are already defeated. We need to recognize we have won, and then to demand that they do too.
This is the most on target summary of “how we got here” that I have ever seen! I had no idea that we have literally been there before, naively thinking that this is the first time we have seen this behavior this shameless. Wow.
I’ll try again after my comment appeared twice... that we have been here before is the most important lesson I’ve learned from listening to and reading HCR. That we never learn is my own observation.
Mine too. And no, we don't seem to learn, we have very short memories.
It does feel as if, as a country, we have "labor pains" over and over and keep giving birth to "Rosemary's Baby" ( perhaps this is too harsh and creepy!)
Not harsh and creepy enough for our latest iteration.
Hahahaha
Thank you for the history, Heather! When you mentioned the idea of a military coup, I was heartened to have seen a video of Gen. Milley's speech on Nov. 12th. He spoke emphatically of the oath of all in the military to the Constitution, "not to a King, Queen, Dictator or an individual, party or religion". I love that he said that the Constitution is the "moral North Star". It should be a reminder to all those enablers that they all took that same oath to protect the people of this country, not just to line their own pockets. Also someone said "Power is the Perception of Power". I had not heard that before, and it makes enormous sense as trump is beginning to lose his power
Gen. Milley is a "homeboy" from the town where I live, Winchester, Massachusetts. He's long been regarded as an upstanding, honorable protector of the nation here. I can say with some certainty that when he took that ridiculous walk, in uniform, no less, to reach the Episcopal church for El Pendejo's "photo opp with inverted Bible held aloft," many, many people here were both disbelieving he'd willingly allow the military to be politicized that way, much less himself.
He's since publicly expressed tremendous regret for his decision and actions. Somehow, though, once tarnished, the brass never seems to shine as lustrous again.
Sally, you brought all that together beautifully. Now I have tears in my eyes. Thank you!
We knew the GOP was crooked. They confirmed it in the way they handled the impeachment. We still believed they were decent human beings. Now they are behaving like assasins. Promoting violence in the common folks by not acknowledging Biden/Harris win and delaying help for the pandemic
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! For all the bluster that took place yesterday in D.C., my only take-away is that 5+ million more Americans quietly and steadfastly voted for the Democrat candidate, Joe Biden, leaving the Republican incumbent short of a victory. Further, this deponent sayeth not.
and only a few thousand came out for the beasts drive-by yesterday....he's come up little short!
And just to make sure Donald felt loved, Kayleigh McE tweeted that "over a Million" people showed up. Sheesh. These people will lie about anything!
It hardly even made the newspapers nevermind the front page!
Right?
Kayleigh is probably aiming for a parachute to Fox - or maybe Alex Jones. The twit!
K-pop flooded #MillionMAGAMarch with pancake pictures!
https://www.insider.com/photos-k-pop-fans-million-maga-march-twitter-pancake-pictures-2020-11
Good morning, Lynell!
Yesterday in Washington DC, Trumpism’s most rabid cheerleader Alex Jones said, “It’s 1776 time! 1776, 1776, 1776 ... death to the new world order, death to tyranny... The pedophile globalists and their attempted election steal and the Clinton blackmail rings have only summoned the sleeping giant that is America and you! and you! you are the tip of the spear!”
This election is Trump’s Reichstag fire – a calamity of his own creation, the great lie he is using to solidify his most ardent followers into his personal Sturmabteilung. Although I hope many who voted for him will eventually see the terrible mistake they made and can be pulled back from the edge on which they now stand, the hard core will not. We are deep in it now.
Wow. Between Jones's neofascist rant and Bannon's declaration that Democrats should be beheaded (which got him banned permanently from Twitter) we really are deep into a coup attempt territory. Hoping that the military indeed will not go along.
And we sure don't need to add to the pile. Good grief.
McConnell's comment doesn't surprise me at all. That's been his way of being for as long as I can remember. He doesn't give a damn about anything other than his own agenda. He certainly doesn't care about the people who elect him as witnessed by the poor ratings KY gets in things like education, income, etc. He is a disgrace to the human race, and I've said before, there's a special place reserved for him in hell. Like us all, we need to do EVERYTHING in our power to get Ossoff and Warnock elected. I came across a great website yesterday, https://newgeorgiaproject.org/. I gives multiple organizations focusing on GA voters to which you can donate. I couldn't give as much as I would like, but know that it all helps. Giving/writing/texting/calling. Do it!
This is another of Stacey Abrams’s creations.
I received the dreaded text from our school nurse Friday that one of my students tested positive for Covid 19. I keep my distance and wear a medical grade mask. I believe I’m fine. The affluent population think it can’t happen to them and insist that if teachers aren’t f2f then we shouldn’t get paid. Virtual isn’t best, we all agree! But safety and health should be the priority. A first grader asked me why is everybody talking about being healthy, why do we want to be healthy? I was shocked! And at a very busy intersection a group of people wave enormous trump flags and shake cowbells everyday at rush hour. What the parents don’t see is I’ve never worked harder, been so exhausted, and been this anxious and traumatized! I definitely see a great need for a more extensive history education in our country! Thanks Heather! I share your posts everyday!