Three years ago today, President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, more popularly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.
What is the point of required background checks and security clearances if one can simply say, “nope I’m not submitting to that.” and they are permitted to carry on without clearance?? Whose fault is that? What is the point of the ethics paperwork required of incoming presidents if the system so readily crumples and allows an incoming president to receive classified info without the ethics paperwork? A big part of the problem seems to be rules and requirements that are not enforced!!
I think a large part of the problem was that the Founders, while they could in fact imagine a corrupt electorate, never imagined one so corrupt, so stupid, so reckless, as the one we now have - nor did they imagine one so foolish that when a con-man or would-be king made manifest to all his utter lack of moral character, that the electorate would have so little self-respect, self-esteem or basic survival instinct as to embrace him.
I think the founders foresaw someone like Donald Trump, and George Washington clearly saw the dangers of political parties and expressed his misgivings clearly. But they never foresaw the internet, social media, or an entire political party that would turn treasonous as the Republican Party now clearly has.
As for their ability to see what might happen to the electorate, brainwashing wasn't a thing back then. Now, we have 74 million people whose brains have been turned to mush by right-wing media. They are not fixable.
George Washington was the Model for Article I of the Constitution... DJT would never have been considered for any National Political Post by the Founders... They would have Tar'd & Feathered DJT, and driven him out of Town... Shame is a powerful Negative Emotion.... DJT has no Shame... He is his own SuperHero in his Cartoon World...
Do they really forgive anything he does and feel he's a gift from the Divine? That his assassination attempts were thwarted because of his divine connection? That Gabbard, Gaetz, and Hegseth don't need security clearances because he chose them? Sounds like brainwashing to me.
You probably don’t know this Patricia, but almost every president has had recessed appointments. And you may not like them, but I’m not really liking Bidens cabinet either but it’s not my choice. It’s the man who was elected and it’s within the purview of the law for for every president
They are all going to have their hearings and believe it or not everybody in the military gets a security clearance. Oooooooops
Every single cabinet member will have their day in court and if they’re guilty, they won’t be selected. Why don’t You stop being so fatalistic and wait for the results of the process
If I were a Jew living in Israel, our new Ambassador to Israel would make me pretty damn nervous. Actually, if I were Jew living anywhere, I'd be nervous.
Bruce, got it in one. That is why Israel is so important to them. I do wish that at least the rapture would occur and we would see the last of these hypocrites. And they are in for a surprise....maybe a black hole.
It seems to me that people should not be trying to 'bring about' the end times. Wouldn't that basically be playing God? As in, it's OK for God to take someone's life, but you're not supposed to go around killing people yourself. If some people have gotten fed up with waiting for the Second Coming and have decided to 'bring it about', I can't imagine that God (assuming there is one and that the Second Coming is an actual thing) would be happy about that at all!
Many, many Trump voters are saying that they didn't vote for the man, they voted for his policies, like anti-abortion and gun rights and parents' rights over what is taught in schools.
And, yes, I know that they did vote for the man as well as those single issues. They did not know enough to see the broader issue of a healthy democracy.
J L Graham, the "nominally religious" would tell you that it is for the greater good, so sometimes it is permissible to do something that non-believers dislike in order to deliver Christian soldiers to please [Leonard Leo].
J L. The ends justify the means including the importance of Israel in the Second Coming. That's why they love the choice of Huckabee. Furthermore, some friends of ours reported watching a MAGA say, Jesus is wrong.
This from a man who had been a top figure in the Southern Baptists:
"It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — 'turn the other cheek' — [and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?' And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize.' The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.' And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis. "
Both of you, Michelle and JL should read the first preamble to the constitution. Which includes unabated freedom of religion. And the very first amendment to the constitution. I happen not to be religious, but I’m certainly not going to try to bar anyone from thinking differently based on their religious convictions. Unless it’s against the law. Preamble to the constitution. And the first amendment to the constitution the laws that make America great unlike any other nation
There was a letter with diagnoses of narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathic personality disorder with supporting information published over the signatures of 233 mental health professionals. If I had the chance, I would have signed it too. I pegged him almost immediately. The Goldwater Rule isn’t really meaningful with so many public examples of his behavior.
@ Apache. George was no angel. When he died, was probably the richest man in America. Convinced Congress to run a federal post road to his properties in the west. Was vicious to his wife's slaves.
In retrospect the founders wear far from models for behavior, but they did put some of their better angels into the form of government they created. They might easily have established their own autocratic supreme leader (which many revolutions have) but prescribed a far more accountable system, completed with checks and balances and limitations to power. That's the recipe anyway, the living have to bake the cake. Washington was certainly more graceful than Trump when his term was over.
If he had been a Puritan, he would have been whipped or pilloried, had his ears cropped, or at least been forced to wear the scarlet letter A. I understand that there is a move for religion in the schools. I wonder if they would include the real Pilgrims.
I think there have always been forms of brainwashing by those who yearn to dominate. Bread and circuses, lots of pompous theater, and plenty of big lies about how essential the dominators are to the welfare of all, a lie that the Declaration of Independence rebuts. The struggle between those who aim to be masters and those that rage against slavery seems to be one of the most consistent themes of history. You would think we'd have learned to step off that road for good by now.
You got to give credit to the Dems for helping Trump get elected. If Dems spent less time complaining about Trump and more time on promoting the democratic ideals, policy and good economic outcomes. we would have won.
I beg to differ. We didn't showcase Trump's past deeds often or loud enough. And that was the responsibility of the 4th estate. TV networks and major newspapers treated Trump as if he were a serious candidate - instead of the despicable crook and bellicose bully that he is.
Any journalist of any experience and talent who didn't constantly present to the public the long, long, long list of his offenses and business failures was not doing their damn job. Start by EVERY DAY running a story about the more than 19 women who explain how they were sexually assaulted by this monster. Dig deeper into the Russian (NOT A HOAX) connection. Where his money came from, all the trips to Moscow, Helsinki, trusting Putin over our own intelligence agencies and the REPUBLICAN Senate report that confirmed the collusion. Any member of the media who didn't run with this information and put it up for viewing DAILY was a failure.
As for Democratic ideals - they are mine, too. But we lost because the average family is in trouble financially. And we didn't advocate for REAL CHANGE. When people are dissatisfied - angry - with the status quo, we shouldn't be crowing about low unemployment stats and how inflation has come down, blah, blah.
We should be talking about RADICAL change where the rich pay a LOT more in taxes and every family is provided with child care so both parents can WORK. Stop defending Obamacare and scream to the rooftops that EVERY American should have healthcare - a human right.
There is much more. But the bottom line is that the phrase "throw the bums out" was at the core of our problem. Joe Biden has been an excellent president (best in my long life) and I believe Kamala Harris would have been as good - probably better. But for the working folks with multiple jobs just to survive, we needed to be CHANGE AGENTS. More of the same didn't fly, did it?
Now, many here will say we couldn't win if we were so radical as to demand big change. But isn't that rich? Look what the fascists just proposed. A disgusting wannabe dictator and a plan to dismantle our democracy and rip away basic rights for all of us - and, oh wait, decimate the planet by destroying the EPA, crippling education by destroying the Department of Education .... the list is so long, my fingers ache from typing.
They proposed all that nice insanely radical madness and THEY WON!
"They proposed all that nice insanely radical madness, and THEY WON!" It still makes my jaw drop. But Bill, I'm zeroing in on Elon Musk, whose millions contributed, but, most of all, the toxic content of X-itter led so many astray, especially gullible young men who are drawn to the macho hype. IMHO, Musk has violated the terms of his naturalized citizenship and needs deportation.
People surrendered their thinking processes when they decided that they could trust one news source to be true to them and to their values. They didn't seem to see the money in the background.
I think you’re both wrong. Most people vote per emotion not using reason and logic. They will vote for, may i say, pull the level on the platform with they stand with a swing door neath their feet with a rope around their necks and feel good that they ‘socked it to ‘em.’ Most humans in fact, don’t understand what is good for them. And it’s their right to draw the rope tight around their scrawny little necks or I’m afraid, huge fattened necks.
No one cared about Trumps bad deeds lies and criminal behavior. The sooner we realize this and start building ourselves up instead of tearing Trump down, the better off we will be. What main media did not throw up on the screen were the mass misinformation statements floating around. A few sentences or a list.
Sanders emphasized getting excessive money out of politics in his campaign and Democrats ridiculed his position. Yet behind the curtain is big bags of cash on the whole of the scales of justice. They used to call that "corruption". Harris fought the good fight and I so, so hoped that she would prevail, and yet what happened happened, so clearly we need to seriously reexamine our tactics and strategy going forward. Somehow it has seemed to me that Democrats have been playing a defensive game ever since the election of Reagan. Apart form in more obscure venues, I have vet to encounter a comprehensive. vivid vision of the liberal vision VS MAGA, with a compelling presentation of what what it take to get there. We offer a bag of important "issues" but not a vision. MAGAs have a vision, but it's mostly slight of hand.
it’s amazing how you guys are so blind. Trump was a successful president and that’s why he’s back in the White House versus Biden or Kamala. And it had nothing to do with talking more about Donald Trump. It has everything to do with executive orders signed by Biden direction of the country the illegal immigration, the increased crime and of course the Lawfare I would suggest if the people on this blog would realize Trump will do a great job again and you should help to make America great again. The Democratic titanic sunk get over it.
I disagree Sandra. First of all warning about the dangers posed by Trump, now proven true by his cabinet picks, was a duty they properly performed. Secondly, any (admittedly somewhat tepid) attempts by the Democrats to inform the public about the successes of the Biden administration were sabotaged by news media that would rather pick, pick pick, on anything that could be perceived as negative, rather than applaud a success, and, heaven forbid, educate the public. The MSM, not just Fox, worked tirelessly to be sure that the electorate remained unaware.
I certainly agree Ed and have said as much elsewhere. Democrats could have run God and They would have not been good enough for those who would not see.
Sorry but you can’t just make up success that didn’t exist. I did nothing but drive this car off a mountain top into a ditch. Think about it. When was the last time a republican won the popular vote and change the direction of the country and 49 of 50 states
what’s the matter with those cabinet picks? do you think Buttigieg garland Michelle Levine are the best and brightest and fair-minded? Yikes. And by the way, Matt gates is a carbon copy of Merrick Garland only with an R in front of his name not a D.
Hard to say, 2/3 of consumer demand has come from the top third of income earners. Many of the rest have just struggled. Wealth inequality i believe it's called. Apart from the truly brainwashed.
Bill I seem to recall there was a bipartisan Border bill sent to Congress to vote on but Trump call Johnson and was told not to bring the bill up for a vote. Again the Republicans following the orders of a convicted felon. At least Gotti would take his solders out to a fancy dinner when he gave his orders. 😉
In the 1850s a political party, or at least its regional adherents, turned so treasonous that after they lost the 1860 election, they actually seceded from the Union. Let's not pretend it's all or even mostly about the internet and social media.
It's not all about the internet and social media, but the differences between the 1850s and now are so vast that I don't think the comparison is really apt. The situation before the Civil War was entirely regional and based on the fact that the South's economy was entirely based on slavery. Look at today's electoral map and you see red everywhere. The situational is no longer regional, but ideological. Right-wing ideology has been relentlessly pushed since the 1980s when Rush Limbaugh started his talk-radio show and really took off in 1996 when Fox News first went on the air. Since then, right-wing billionaires have made a point of creating a huge right-wing media noise machine and echo chamber that is unlike anything in the 1850s.
HCR's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR will help you make the connections. Jacob Heilbrunn's AMERICA LAST, published earlier this year, is pretty good on the rise of the "intellectual" right from the beginning of the 20th century. Pay serious attention to the economic/oligarch factor from the late 19th century onward. It helps explain why we *still* can't talk about economic justice in this country without being trashed/dismissed as socialists, communists, etc., and why U.S. labor movements tend to be so timid about confronting capitalist excesses. The Reagan administration and much of what's happened since have undermined the advances of the New Deal era -- and the Reagan tax and other economic policies fueled the increase in billionaires and the rise of right-wing media. The billionaires and the right-wing media are, IOW, symptoms of something that's been going on for many decades. White supremacy is at the heart of it.
I wonder if now that these circumstances have come to light, my call for the good generals to temporarily suspend the constitution and order a coup to stop Trump from organizing a treasonous government. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea my brothers and sisters?
Once we had a Senate and House full of farmers who had read Shakespeare and who would have been working on what climate change was doing not only to our food, but also how it was terrorizing us The price of eggs is the symbol of all those scared children who voted for a nasty child who seems only to have read Mein Kampf and surrounded himself with rich criminals. We lost the last farmer in the Senate and we are about to lose the country to a spoiled child, his acolytes, Putin’s bots, and climate change. Time to get organized to support those counting the thousands of uncounted votes, Democratic governors, our immigrant friends and relatives, and learn to grow vegetables every where we can. I for one want to find a recipe for a portobello burger as good as the first one I ate in a strip mall in Richmond, Virginia, years ago.
Unfortunately the Founders forgot the section of term limits for judges, Senators and Representatives. They only put term limits on the President. All the branches of government needed term limits.
I agree that they don't seem fixable. However, as more of his policies are rolled out along with the truth about what it's going to cost people (the tarrifs, for example and changes in health care) we may see a broad swath of shocked awakening. Yesterday I heard (not verified, but seems likely given the levels of ignorance displayed in a large section of the electorate) that some Trump voters were asking if it was too late to change their vote.
Laughed out loud w this idea… can I change my vote .. a few weeks late, but might be a positive educational moment… especially w all the ‘info’ about actual people ( mostly men ) w stories defaming them… YOU WOULD THINK the ELECTORATE might take its job more seriously at least a few months before any election … expand their info sources … but we’re busy getting the kids to bed, the laundry done & bills paid … I’m retired & I found it difficult ti keep up the household pace & chase misinformation & lies about people I knew I would not vote for ! Because Kamila is brilliant, extensively ‘trained’ in government and big business and military effectiveness …. And She is EVEN-Keeled, she keeps her ship-of-state balanced so her crew mates can race around the ship getting their jobs done for ALL of us. AND SHE’s a WOMAN !
I don't believe the Founders ever conceived of a group of politicians, a political party, who would prove to be totally craven, spineless and willing to betray their oath of office. We are now faced with that reality and the only real barrier left is the court system. Gawd help us. It looks to be nearly as corrupt as the Republican Party.
Burr had a number of co-conspirators including General James Wilkinson, commanding General of the United States Army at the time, Wilkinson was known for his attempt to separate Kentucky and Tennessee from the union during the 1780s. Burr persuaded President Thomas Jefferson to appoint Wilkinson to the position of Governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1805. Wilkinson would later send a letter to Jefferson that Wilkinson claimed was evidence of Burr's treason.
Filibusters were private citizens who led unauthorized military expeditions into foreign countries, often in Latin America, to support revolutions or secession. The term is most commonly used to describe US citizens who engaged in these activities in the mid-19th century. https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/the-filibuster-movement/
I learned about filibusters from the silent movie "The Filibusters" for which my husband composed a piano score and performed several times. It was filmed not too far from where we live in Burbank.
The Founders would have been more definitive in their decisions and choices had they had the benefit of the instant true/false information provided by the internet imho.
Wow, is that like the basket of deplorable that went over so well with Hillary Clinton? You folks never learn. How can you absolutely put everybody in one basket? Do you think all your liberal friends vote the same on all issues yikes.
And I love the ranting and raving about how Trump is going to produce a nationwide band on abortion guys need to work on getting rid of being soaked in TDS. I’ll chime in from time to time. Don’t want to read my post no problem. I’m doing it for your own good because when you get to a courtroom someday you’ll realize that there’s two sides of every story.
John Adams tried to jail his opponents. Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Both Adams and Jefferson hired James Callender, the Fox News of the day.
I saw recently a Report that stated that the Electorate for this Election was the most ignorant in Recent History... Over 1/2 of High-School Seniors Read at less then the 6th Grade Level... Math Skills are Atrocious... The Gen-Ys, and Gen-Zs get most of their 'News' from the Right-Wing InfoSphere... DJT, and his 'Mandate' are the result...
That's not an accident. The people who have been orchestrating this calamity for decades started with the tax revolts of the 60s and 70s to defund public schools and dumb down the general population. They're still at it because it's working.
I agree... The 1st thing that Reagan did as Governor of CA was declare War on the University of California... Now Elon Musk is declaring War on the MSM... He is now the Self-Styled 'Truth Minister'.... DJT's Minions are now calling Journalists to remind them that DJT Remembers, and is Vengeful...
Putin is a master of spycraft and espionage. He has training by both the KGB and the Stasi. Unfortunately his formula may just bring the planet to its knees and there is no stable place anymore for him to stash his wealth. Trump is a patsy, and Xi is in charge of Trump. Here is Snyder's article on the hierarchy here. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/the-submission-chain?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Buffett did not think that was positive. He said it in the context of the inequity of his secretary paying a higher percentage of her income in taxes than does he, a billionaire. He thinks the wealthy, including himself, should be taxed at a higher rate. “"I'm very much in sympathy with the fact that Senator Sanders believes that a lot of people are getting left behind and through no fault of their own," Buffett said in a CNBC interview in February.
What is so stupid about Buffett thinking there is a ‘winning’ involved at all, because his whole enterprise is based on the work of the other class that he is apparently fighting. We can automate more and more jobs, as is happening, even art, and yet, the working folks keep it all going.
Exactly. When are we going to beat them at their own game. They have the Russian bots and people posting quick, easy to read misinformation. Unless we change our message and the way we deliver it, nothing will change. Not one dem attacked the misinformation directly.
Actually Texas pioneered the practice of providing school districts with a list of acceptable publishers!!! Thus publishers who wanted to get approval rewrote textbooks to meet the draconian demands of the Texas curriculum Gestapo!
Many formerly independent publishers are now owned by Pearson educational conglomerate which also owns standardized tests!!
Again we see the refusal to enforce anti monopoly regulations has abetted control to the greed mongers!
Tragic but true. In NC, under the bogus banner of ‘school choice’ vouchers were declared legal because the money was spent on public citizens! Get it! Boss Berger and side kicks Tillis the Moore deliberately consigned public education to mediocrity by underfunding public schools.
Good evening Heather - it is disturbing that so many voters did not understand the responsibility of being informed and researching the issues at hand before voting. After WWII people forgot the sacrifices that were made to preserve our freedoms. I doubt they’ve ever read any American history and just assumed they were simply privileged for living in America and took it too much for granted. It was a tipping point for many wrongs that had not been addressed in a very long time. Your in-depth reporting of the facts is a tremendous effort. You truly are an American treasure for your noble efforts to keep the Rule of Law in our hearts and minds to stand up for what we believe in
I don’t think this helps. We, the “intelligentsia” have not been paying anywhere near enough attention to the economic pain of working class people, who are the majority.
I still think that disinformation and misogyny were equally important factors particularly with the strong turnout of the young male "low-propensity voters"--they went for Trump's toxic hypermasculinity brand in a big way.
And the future of their economic pain is forecasted to be far worse under Trump’s administration. He will not deliver any relief-unlike the Harris campaign proposals for greater taxes for the wealthy to fund child care, $25k first time house down payments, & Medicare/Medicaid expansions, to name a few. The very programs that WOULD help the working & senior classes.
AOC vilified by magas and shunned by some Dems as too extreme because she focused on the plight of the less fortunate in her district!!!
Don’t include me in your ‘we’! Hate and fear mongering provide msm and the maga propaganda outlets with the bully megaphone! Just look at the 6:30 evening news, 98% tragedy and 1% feel good snippet!
Susan, you make a good point. Jon Stewart just did an excellent discussion of this on his podcast with his apt and very able guest, Sarah Smarsh. It reorganized my & my husband’s thinking: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UC-VkbEpac4
It could be, but the stats you cite are closer to historical norms as i recollect them, and math has always had the top line in being "difficult". One thing though that Heather recently cited was that those with high school or less more significantly voted for Trump than post secondary voted for Harris. What goes along with this is that those without post secondary generally earn less, and the more educated make more. Lots of ironies here, eh, Apache, considering how much the billionaire class, and the likes of Elon Musk, put their financial weight on MAGA. We can thank the Supreme Court for that, I believe.
“When the people can be left uncertain by the regular manufacture of crisis, their emotions and actions can be managed and directed.” Solkov, former political technology advisor to Putin.
DJT has Simple Language for Simple Emotions... He uses the same simple words over & over again... If you track DJT, he is a Simpleton with lots of Money that has always been given to him, and no Ethics... He is a Black Hole for Attention that has a Good Grasp of looking good on TV... The 1980s, the Age-Of-Reagon was his Golden Era... This appeals to the Entertainment soaked 53%... One fix could be to institute National Service requirements after High School... The COVID Shutdowns did not help things... Now everyone is hunkered down in their Fox-Holes with very little Mixing... We are Retrograding as a Society...
I teach 8th grade in a Los Angeles public school, and virtually none of my students pay attention to current events. That's one reason I'm trying to transfer to a high school. I do, however, grade them on a series of video-lessons by an outfit called Crash Course on "Navigating Digital Information", which I recommend to all. The course was put together in collaboration with the Digital Inquiry Group, which used to be the Stanford History Education Group.
Joel—thank you for your work. I use Crash Course (the Green brothers!🤩) for my teens as they homeschool. We probably pay too much attention to current events. Soooo much to learn from them—sigh. Good luck with your move to high school!
Thanks for your kind words and good wishes. I'm having trouble moving up, probably because of my age (72). Principals most likely think I will retire in a year or two, when actually I have no plans to retire for at least the next four years. I need to teach what is happening.
Steve, maybe, as offending as it is and given the success they had by voting against and then taking credit for everything democrats passed, and just maybe at least a little bit and for a short time, we should act as Republicans do.
After all as you said, our electorate is stupid, corrupt and foolish...sorry, it was just an idea.
YES, YES YES!!! The republicans have proven that ethical, honest and honorable people in politics do finish last!!! I really want the Dems in power to be forcefull and do what they can with judicial appointments etc., while they can PLEASE
WOW, I can hardly believe it! Forget about trying to be politically correct and in essence - polite and not offensive - but pollsters and those historians, pundits and the like who rank the performances of our presidents need to add a category measuring the sense [coomon sense] - or lack thereof - of the electorate at the time they voted in favor of particular candidate or president. How stupid, ignorant to the point illiterate was the voting public, the electorate, at the time of a presidential election? I might = just barely might - be able to give a few people a pass in the 2016 general election - but not 2024! But then the big question in 2024, has and must be directed at the approximately 10 million Americans who in 2020 voted for the Biden/Harris ticket - failed to not even bother to exercise their civic duty, responsibility, etc., in the 2024 presidential election? We know that a significant percentage of those who voted for the trump/Vance ticket - aside from those being stupid, ignorant and/or to the point illiterate are some that are just racist, haters and some are just misogynistic.
How does one ignore 34 felony convictions, the sexual assault convictions, the other federal and state charges awaiting or just beginning court actions, twice impeached and so much more. The “big lie” wasn’t nor isn’t that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden and Harris, but that of the Make America Great Again slogan … we’ve never elected nor had criminal felon serve in the role and position of POTUS…trump’s actions and shenanigans dwarf those of “tricky dick” and his plumbers!
Elections are truly about us - the country’s registered voters - not so much about the candidates!!!
Jim, in the two elections you mention (2016 and 2024) there is one commonality that has, until now, NEVER EXISTED: Qualified women* running for President on a major party ticket. In both of those elections, the same man, completely unqualified by experience, education, knowledge, conduct and morality won.
I do not disagree with you, that the election is more about the voters than the candidates. And yet:
I will have to make sometime later this weekend to read the comments of Anna Gifty. However, if I got a quick understanding of her theme, I can easily understand. In my first job our of college, I had a respected local (county level) government official warn me that I would be expected “to leap tall buildings in a single bound” and “to run faster than a speeding locomotive”…something those that I would be working with could not “easily” do - unless they wore a cape and fly like that mild, mannered news reporter!
Give the electorate a break. They are busy with more important things: the latest pop music, being entertained by professional sports, this week’s fashion, drinking and partying, watching cat videos…
I think that the founders didn’t imagine half the population sitting on couches in October watching NFL football games interrupted by incessant “they/them” ads for Trump.
Who cares about bridges, let’s keep all those they/them people out.
Terry, remember 2016? Rick Perry was put in charge of one of the departments that he’d said needed to go (in his presidential debate statement) and Betsy DeVos was put in charge of the public schools when she was working to working to privatize public education.
Granted. But not a presidency in a hyper-modernized society with hyper-powers that can obliterate life on the planet in half an hour. The Constitution is not holy writ. Our ossified system which no longer allows for change is killing us - last I checked, adaptability was a survival instinct. The forces against adaptation are too powerful now to stop, I am afeared. This is no way to run a species.
They knew the divine right of kings blather but not the system at our gates (oops, inside our gates) today. It’s a reality that fiction couldn’t imagine…
We baby boomers helped to create this electorate. We and many of our offspring are so emotionally and intellectually lazy and incurious that we have made it easy for these thugs to take over our democracy. Yet back in grade school these pathetic, mean spirited,lazy thugs would be ostracized until they changed.
The Founders didn't foresee the rise of economic power that came with the Industrial Revolution either, though the Southern oligarchy (to which some of them more or less belonged) must have given them a clue. Not to forget that the Founders didn't trust "the people" either, not at all.
You are right on my friend. Never did they imagine that an electorate that just freed itself from authoritarian rule would vote for authoritarian rule.
I’ve always found this annoying too. How come a guy like Trump can get elected president and go from having access to no classified information to having access to EVERYTHING - just because he was elected? Why is that OK? I think all congressional and presidential candidates should be subject to a background check and the results of that background check be made available to the public. PRIOR to any votes being cast.
Trump is as unqualified for the position of US president as are his cabinet pics. It would be harder for any of these clowns to get a job at McDonalds.
Rick Wilson was on The Bulwark podcast with Tim Miller. Rick said several things about Gaetz. 1) Gaetz is smart, but he is very vain and attention seeking. 2) His family is wealthy. 3)His conduct while in the FL was vile and predatory. 4) He has a string of DUI’s. 5) He is sociopathic. His family’s affluence has allowed him to escape consequences of his reprehensible actions. Wealth is corrupting. Look how Trump turned out.
Immediately upon nomination. And be subject to a lot of public disclosure, business interests, etc. It seems to me that if one aspires to fill one of our most critical positions, you need to be prepared to sacrifice a lot of privacy and private opportunity. Human lives and the future of our society is at stake.
A candidacy is really a very important job interview, but we treat it more like a wrestling match.
This seems to be an essential part of Trump's strategy, to dodge the usual protocols, which these fine folks can't pass, so the Foxes can do their work on the "henhouse"...
Yeah, like poisoning the watch dogs and replacing them with Con-Federalist Society approved gate keepers that allow the foxes in (and keep the chickens from escaping).
Mosquitos are “annoying.” This gaping ethical hole is horrifying. Scale it up, Mr. Burke, I don’t think you are grasping the depth of the pit we are in.
But did he get elected? This is a long read and while Republicans are the party of conspiracy theories and other magical thinking, it can be verified with recounts in the swing states.
Thank you for this link. The author is very knowledgable, & I find his argument that Elon Musk's lottery was part of an effort to create " ghost ballots" very persuasive.
My sister lives in PA and they are recounting the Senate race there. Maybe they will getting an inkling of fraud in the PA presidential race when they're counting the Senate race.
He never put forward his tax returns and here we are again….how many years later? Jared couldn’t get a security clearance so TFG just waived it and carried on. Mrs. Elonia Musk is acting like he is the f-ing president already and the spineless GOP thinks all is well. Heaven help us…we are in a boatload of trouble.
Good question, do presidential candidates get background checks? Did trump get a background check back in 2015? If he failed, who gets told? What are the consequences?
The thing about that is…..he doesnt need to have a background check because it’s been out in the open for so long now….and it didn’t matter to sooo many
But all of his nominees and the enablers in the courts and congress do need background checks (in place of just his words of faith in them /intimidation of them).
lays out how we are at a moment before catastrophe. "This is no longer a post-electoral moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment."
So, Trump is working for Putin and Xi to totally destroy the US. It is pretty obvious how he intends to destroy it in Project 2025, which I read as a book club with my group from Democrats Abroad. While we did not finish it, we have read 20 of the 30 chapters, and that includes the DOD and Intelligence Community Chapters. It is in those where one can see that he is absolutely going to destroy our national security, allowing it to be taken on by predators. Tulsi will be mailing our intel to Putin, unless the people in the Intelligence Community already destroy it, which may be what Trump wants as well. That is true of DOD. too. What he is planned for both departments is humiliation and shame. Don't care that there is a culture of liking Trump created by watching the same toxic manosphere influencers that the civilian male population is watching, but still I would like to hope that there is a sense of self preservation.
Yes, and NJ.com has written up Prof. Snyder’s post here:
Yes, and NJ.com has written up Prof. Snyder’s post here:
“Is Trump trying to kill us? Authoritarian expert says yes. Here’s how
Published: Nov. 15, 2024 Donald Trump's goal is to decapitate the democracy, Timothy Snyder says, and if he succeeds, many likely will die. There are five key areas that authoritarians want to control when they attempt to decapitate a democratic state, authoritarian expert and author Timothy Snyder writes: health, law, administration, defense and intelligence. And in each of these arenas, the goal is to consolidate power, create chaos — and yes, even death. Authoritarians with power over these”
It's always the same. When Nazis accuse others something, in reality it's a confession about what they are themselves planning to do. "Enemies within", "the deep state", "elite child sex trafficking", "they want to take your freedoms away", "they are after you", you name it: every right-wing trope of the last years that the MAGA Nazis spun on the Biden government, were plans they are now going to enact themselves.
His selections are the commencement of Project 2o25. All these fools are figureheads, when the red phone on their desks rings it’s the boss with instructions.
And what is the point of the Supreme Court if a President (whom they have already declared immune from legal consequences) can just refuse to abide by their judgment? Checkmate to checks and balances!
They are all trumpite-nazi-magas on a high of their slight majority win, but are now fully in control of our government and we no longer have a democracy. We must embrace that fact, understand how this happened and get politically active against it. Even one in my own family says this is a 'good cleansing' of government. It's not good and it's going to get awful. The preppers are now right. Dig in and get ready because it's going to be a slow tidal wave of a sh** storm. I'm no longer confused, I'm really MAD and we must mobilize and help our Democratic elected officials on all levels. Passivity is now our enemy.
For those of us who have complied with this verifiable check in order to SERVE in our government in many kinds of capacities, to grant any clearance to the clearly never able to pass these basic checks, it is a smash in the face. There are people I know who daily get up and go to perform the duties of their day to day work which keep our government functioning, having been verified as reliable as workers and with certain certified expertise. They and I are enraged. They also thought the same in the first Trump administration when he handed out clearances as if they were percent off coupons. In the same vein the way he stole clcassified documents and has felt NO jail time for their theft when others met required jail sentences for years. Yet these same people who are cleaered go to work apolitically as they are required.
When BIG minds -- like those of Drs Cox Richardson, Lee, and Snyder as well as Counsellor Vance -- argue that Trump walks like a fascist duck, quakes like a fascist duck, fakes like a fascist duck, and smells like a fascist duck, then one had best duck the fascist f*ck.
EDIT: impolite as it is, I will no longer refer to Trump as "President Trump". My disrespect shown to that office is small next to Trump's.
".....permitted to carry on without clearance".....absolutely no rule of law required ......only complete subservience to the man...Donald Trump who is failing mentally.
Donald Trump is aware of his personal mental condition. This is why, I believe he is relying on Musk more and more. Musk is like a little boy in a candy shop. I am sure he never realized it would be so easy to be given so much power!!!!
Meanwhile criminals are being allowed power and position to govern our country as well as more and more access to secrets that have protected us. Who is brave enough, in positions of power to protect us? Who is left that has not "sold their souls" for fleeting power?
What have we heard about the care and education of our children? What have we heard about the care of our disabled, our elderly who need us to care for them. What have we heard about lifting up everyone for the well being of our nation....of our goal to continue to work for freedom for all? We are failing daily as a nation! ....and by the way WE ARE ALL MIGRANTS!!!
The true residents of this nation were the Indians.....and we called them "savages"....look in the mirror!!!
We have always supported the value of freedom. How can we NOT support Ukraine? Have you not heard what Putin wants!!!! During his leadership of Russia, he wants all the countries ie properties that were once a part of the old boundaries of The Soviet Union. He is making a mockery of our nation! Koch brothers, you have been a tool for Putin to gain power. You, I believe are envious of his power. You are going to discover how little he cares for you.
We are watching our country implode! Trump himself envies Putin. Trump seeks his approval while Putin laughs...even mocking Trump by displaying nude pictures of Trump's wife with his fellow conspirators.
TRUMP DID NOTHING TO DEFEND HIS WIFE. HE WILL DO NOTHING TO DEFEND OUR NATION AND THE FREEDOMS FOR WHICH WE HAVE SACRIFICED OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO DEFEND. HE WILL DO NOTHING TO SECURE UKRAINE'S BORDERS!!!
We stand by and watch as he and his lackies assign the most important jobs ....those jobs which should be assigned to those who in the past who have been willing to die to protect our country and its citizenry to "parasites."
Joe Walsh wrote about Tulsi: " Because she’s too compromised by Russia. Yet Trump picked her to run the whole thing.” Head of National Security? Is there anyone who gets HCR's letters who doesn't believe that Putin has compromised photos of Trump in hotel rooms and has been and continues to blackmail Trump? It was Putin who picked Gabbard to be head of National Security. Trump is Putin's puppet. The stupidity and cupidity of the American public can now be compared to 1930's Germany. A disaster awaits us.
This kind of stuff needs to be communicated to the masses at a very basic 3rd grade level. Those that read HCR thankfully don’t need to have this logic explained, but you have to convince enough low info voters and those not tuned in to the day to day of what is happening, why its bad and dangerous. Appeal to common sense. So many things I’ve read seem to indicate that many people just didn’t know enough (as ludicrous as that may sound). If you ask 10 random people if the head of the CIA should pass a basic FBI background check all would say yes. Then tell them that the future president wants his nominees to bypass that step. This messaging needs to be out there now by people who have access to eyeballs.
What is the point of the Constitution saying no one can hold office if they have given aid (and standing down when you are appointed to defend is aid) and comfort (texts and video appearance) to insurrectionists if the SCOTUS forces states to put someone who has on the ballot, they win the electoral college, and we just habit-march into an inauguration anyway? Who are the officials in this administration, still in power for a couple of weeks, who are supposed to say "wait a minute - no" to this? The big insight of the MAGA crowd is that there apparently is no one to arrest their forward motion if they just choose to ignore the law and all standards. We can bet they'll be enforcing theirs when they can claim to be the leadership in the military and to be our supreme "civil" leaders.
Thanks for giving us hope Professor. We need it now more than ever. I really, truly appreciate all of your dedication and hard work to preserve our democracy.
Cindy L, you need to remove the word “practically” because it ads a sense of humor and even an opening to the belief that it’s not so…
Assaulting women becomes a prerequisite when you’ve been accused of the same. The nation’s highest law enforcement officer, the AG is a rapist. A rapist. Our commander in chief is a rapist. On the campaign trail, they called Trump an “adjudicated rapist.” I have another word for that: a rapist.
Here is my anger again and my 20/20 hindsight. Harris and rhetoric Dems never made headlines. That is why we lost.
If Harris herself had said “are you going to support the woman or the rapist?” That attack would have been true and it would have made headlines. And everyone who watches Fox would have said… “what does she mean by that?” Because it is something they’ve never heard because Fox shields MAGA from all truth and all the Truth about Trump is bad. They know nothing about him because the words “opportunity economy” do not make banner headlines. “Trump is a Rapist. Trump will appoint a Rapist to lead our nation’s police.” The police, Trump brags, endorsed him. So the police chose the rapist over the women.
It would be nice if these headline had happened. They could still happen if every News Paper and Dem didn’t feel that polite behavior Trumped the scary, ugly Truth.
Sure. Not everyone he picks is a rapist. But he intentionally chose a rapist for the person who makes decisions about what crimes will be pursued. Trump saved a rapist from facing justice. He owns Gaetz now. There is no law Trump can’t break. That is by design.
A bunch of rapacious, retrograde reprobates. I don't believe any of them will grow a spine to stand against TrumTrump. Exhausting though it may be, we have to start now to organize, push back, and hold lawmakers' feet to the fire demanding that they comply with the Constitution.
I'm not certain that many Senators will be willing to give up one of their most important prerogatives, the ability to advise and consent to presidential appointments. At least some of them know that they are one of three co-equal parts of the government, not subservient to the executive or the judiciary. They understand that if they cede power to the President in this case, that is power that .will be lost to them.
We can write LTEs or letters directly to them asking how they vetted those nominated? Ask openly why they vote as they do and then share any responses widely.
Congress gives up power all of the time. Just one example, is giving the President the power to raise tariffs, which I think is a big mistake! The Constitution gives Congress the power to raise taxes. And it doesn't specify that one branch can give away power to another!
Loyalty and honesty are only mutually exclusive when proving loyalty is judged by the willingness to do something dishonest, dangerous, or disrespectful. I fear that that is the governing principle for Trump and his administration. When a House member says that if Trump tells them to jump, that's what they have to do, no questions asked, that puts loyalty above even common sense.
Power is almost never ceded, it is taken. By drawing his cabinet picks from the island of misfit toys, Trump is sending a "burn it all down" message. Trump (his handlers, really, as Trump is also from the island) intends to take the power of the congressional branch for himself, weather the Senators like it or not. Most of them will choose to keep figurehead jobs, rather than have no jobs at all. Relying on John Thune to save us is magical thinking, and shows just how desperate we all are. At this moment in history, democracy is going to be preserved from the bottom up, not the top down. Join that library board, run for the school board or local office. Turn up to support those who will be inevitably scapegoated by Donvict and his cronies.
Great question, as a previous commenter wrote the lack of uneducated who voted for Trump there needs to be an educational road map for me and others who would benefit “A how to help democracy 101” from the bottom up. I’m a bit lost in how I can help (I certainly have used my wallet) and I have enough fire deep in my heart to try and do my part.
Only if Trump‘s policies directly impact THEM somehow. Trump voters couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about anyone besides themselves, their family, or their friends.
Trump is an autocrat. Americans elected someone who will change our country fundamentally for decades, if not forever. Trump and his cronies do not care about background checks and I will be shocked if the R’s in the senate grow a pair and fight back against all of the corrupt and incompetent appointments to lead our nation’s institutions. Remember what Steve Brannon said about any Senator not toeing the line will come in 3rd in the primaries. I’m feeling pretty dark right now, but I’m even skeptical about future elections. People seem to forget about Jan 6. Trump won’t leave and will be carried out of the WH feet first. But before, he will appoint his successor.
I did not have "trust in Republican Senators to do the right thing" on my bingo card, but I hope and pray that enough of them will stand up to tRumpF. This. Is. Exhausting.
“It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind.”
I am not holding my breath on this one. In the meantime, there is a bridge in Arizona that I would be happy to sell you.
I think that it's more an understanding of the loss of power if they give in to recess appointments now than any thoughts about their Constitutional duties.
Let us be in frequent touch with people we elected to Congress to support them, no matter what party, in honoring the Constitution and the rest of us because they are our representatives, and if nothing else we have a short 2 years before looking at some of them again to get their posts back or be replaced.
And when u live in a state with all MAGAs in congress? They will do exactly what the cult demands & thumb their nose @ your letters. There has to be another way in. I dont see any way the cult will change until it starts hurting. How do you impact the disinformation????
There can be impacts at different levels of action. For instance Pete Buttigieg going on Fox News. Most especially people showing up locally everywhere at open meetings with well organized resistance. The R's have been doing this for decades and it has worked. Local letters to the editor. Work with groups likehttp://indivisible.org. Hold local informational meetings not necessarily connected to a particular vote opportunity, although that's useful too. Use ordinary everyday language to explain even more complex stuff like how the government works. The Dems have often made the mistake of using elite and university language and facts facts facts which hardly anybody takes in if they're not already oriented that way. By all means explain the difference between cause and effect, as in ‘This vote means …’ and describe the probable effect. Definitely stay away from the abstract.
The best example of people missing the boat on this is the tariff promise by Trump who himself doesn't even know how they work. Actually don't believe anything he says, ever. He just makes things up out of his desire to get his way no matter what. And he appears to have dementia. He got his college degree by his father paying for it and has never had to think critically. He acts only out of complete selfishness; he literally doesn't know any other way to be.
So people electing him blindly have really missed out on understanding the basic effect of believing a clown and a huckster and a false image of what they think they want to be in the world. In a democracy where we promise ourselves happiness by the pursuit of it, way too many people believe that happiness is money. Even Trump isn't nearly as rich as he claims and that is why he has Musk at his side to supply all the money for getting him elected. Now Musk will be in charge of suggesting/forcing drastic cuts everywhere to basic services. I can just say here that Fox News spoils people's future well-being by covering up meaning.
It's better to get your information from sources that are reliable and thoughtful, not hair raising, not pumping out opinions-as-facts. Such as Wikipedia.org for history and more depth on all kinds of subjects. Such as articles in The Atlantic; the BBC & Frontline(TV); Meidas Touch, Stacy Abrams, David Brooks (YouTube); much more. In other words independent sources which you probably know about, and can share in conversation with neighbors as casually as possible because many people are threatened by change and new information. The politics of division has done some awful and nasty work on us all. The whole either/or model of life has damaged people's perception of fuller reality. I go with the and-and version, adding, not subtracting.
You've probably discovered these sources, also from being here on Substack; many of us have become citizen-writers. I use my FB place for discussions as well as humor and recipes; anybody who's trying to mess things up there gets blocked without my necessarily telling them because I demand civility of myself and others. You don't have to be an 89-year-old grandmother to do that. Hope this helps you. Hang in there, okay? When things get really messed up at some point they affect all of us, and it helps greatly to know the causes and how to fix them.
I think she was well aware of the unlikeliness of this possibility. She ends the letter this way to emphasize the irony that avoiding all this really shouldn’t be that hard, or maybe just maybe to get some of these R senators to see some light.
Expecting Senate Republicans to do the right thing and put country above Trump, the resurrection of Sauron who can threaten their very existence, has proven to be a pipe dream, pun intended.
Thank you President Joe and Dr Jill Biden for doing things the right way, with a cabinet and advisors as diverse as our country to bring us out of the Pandemic, build infrastructure, get us out of Afghanistan, taming inflation, investing in domestic industry. These are things this next administration could never accomplish. The next four years are going to be chaotic, divisive, and disastrous for every sector public and private. Hopefully a few Senators can find their manhood to stand up for what is right and decent.
Thune was at least better than Scott. Congressman won’t be able to take the proposed wholesale 2 trillion cuts back to their districts. At least historically, cuts that deep will cause so much pain they will be defeated in 2026. They won’t have Trump on their ballots to draw participation enough to win. Democrats need to marshal resources to districts with the most cuts.
" . . . enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to support and defend the Constitution"?
Heather concludes with this possibility -- as if Republicans haven't united for nearly a decade in applauding, celebrating, riding the coattails of the convicted criminal's steady criminality?
Even the Clarence court says yes, that one person's egregious, repeat criminality (plus buffoonery, two adjudications for rape, using the White House as a profit stream for himself, steadily spewing lies and vulgarity) all magically lift him above the Constitution, beyond the reach of law, in particular contemptuous of the Constitution's 14th amendment, section three.
We've seen nothing but the regularly-MAGA-sycophant Republicans regularly kissing the orange ass.
Heather really detects a change? That the spineless may actually have spines?
That the U.S. isn't run by Putin, Xi, Orban, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Erdogan, Sisi, Modi, Assad, the Iranian mullahs, Kim, and all the U.S.'s dark money billionaires and owners of hate media?
Enough of the "spineless" voted for Thune to be the Speaker despite Trump's (or should I say Musk's) preference. I'll say it again--I think that they will be motivated, at least as the issue of recess appointments goes, not to relinquish the limited power that they have. Power is almost as irresistible as money...
I and many other folks are watching Thune carefully, giving him the micro inspection. Thune's spoken words (more like a ferret's syntax) mean different things to different audiences.
I agree with Betsy --- if Thune gives into recess appointments or worse creates a pseudo "recess' by keeping the Senate "out of session" such a move would literally destroy Thune's majority leader's perch before 1/20/25.
Nobody voted for Thune to be “Speaker”, he’s a senator not a house member. Misinformed comments whether they are aligned with most of us or not are still misinformed.
A few of us make mistakes like that a few times, I know what was meant. Compare the similar error rate for Trump (massive), and more typical people. Few never make such a mistake.
Yup. I actually knew that, but, unfortunately, mistakes like that are increasingly common at my age. It's another example of early Alzheimer's rather than "misinformed," as Dick put it.
The Leonard Leo court (ie the Charles Koch et al court.)
"That the U.S. isn't run by Putin, Xi, Orban, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Erdogan, Sisi, Modi, Assad, the Iranian mullahs, Kim, and all the U.S.'s dark money billionaires and owners of hate media?"
And Leonard Leo controls several members of the leadership in the Catholic Church.
Does anyone believe the Catholic church has purged all of the priests that are pedophiles from their ranks? They do what they've always done. They move them to another parish as punishment so they can continue to abuse children.
There are around 65 million Catholics in the US and most of them are just as fearful of the church as Republicans are of the Trump machine.
Yes, the GOP will control the House and Senate. But with small majorities, not a mandate. If Democrats unite then they can mitigate GOP rule and forestall GOP harm. Looking right at you Maine CD2 Rep. Jared Golden.
It doesn't matter if it is a mandate or not, unfortunately. Unless there are GOP congress critters who will buck the party line, which is now MAGA, Trump gets what he wants. The GOP does *not* have a history of bucking the party.
Secretary Bellows called the Golden race last night. It never should have been this close with the Republicans putting up a kid with a high school diploma and is unmarried as far as I can tell. He may be divorced with kids. Who the heck even knows. It would have been embarrassing if he had won and turned out to be another George Santos.
Phil, what do you think of this substack article on the election results? It is long and it is detailed and while I am skeptical it is amazingly well written and with actual facts instead of the BS that Trump and his MAGAts throw around.
Trump got away with sidling away from and denying the key active support he got from Putin and Putin's tech people in 2016.
He's a criminal, Trump -- legally, jury convicted criminal. Plus legally a fraud for his shyster university. A rapist, again jury adjudicated. A tax and other finance fraud legally found con man. A despicably vulgar human being.
Trouble is, he can hide behind lots of -- billions upon billions of dollars -- dark money. Citizens United dark money. Putin and all the other corrupt oligarchs' dark money.
Dems might have made those facts sting, but the results were merely human, and U.S. elites since the Powell memo have learned in all the schools to disregard the human. That dehumanization of schools was the necessary first plan of the Powell memo -- upon which then the predators could offshore the tens of millions of jobs, import and distribute the blinding, numbing, murderous opioids, invest in the billionaire social media hate networks, and further ally with the dark money dictators, oligarchs, and other mass murderers worldwide.
Greg Palast has similar such evidence. Enter search words for his documentary video on that by his name and the words vigilante and hit man.
Dems are by and large wusses, dehumanized, no match for the massive criminality arrayed against not just them, but us, all whom the schools and elites have abandoned.
Bingo. It’s about emotion. Three to seven word sentences with no more than two syllable words. Memes are better than detailed policies. Feelings over facts. (Roy Cohn-ism)
Looking at all their appointments in the aggregate, NONE of those named have the ability or experience, much less the background knowledge needed to perform the duties of the positions. I suspect that's intentional. Their authority will be superficial. Their role is strictly to be a puppet figurehead.
Behind each of them, keeping out of sight, there will be someone running the show and making the decisions that matter. Their background or associations won't be examined by US security or our legislature - and never will be. It will be no different at the presidential level, considering that Donald is 78 and in failing health (both mentally and physically), and isn't in any shape to seriously take on the duties of the presidency. Donald's vice president JD is no better; all he offers is youth and a willingness to obey orders. He's no leader.
All of which suggests to me that under the coming Trimp Regime, the US will be run by a host of unidentified and un-elected people working for ... WHO?? And to accomplish WHAT?? Perhaps that would be a good question for the Senate to address before quieting down and letting the MAGAt's take over.
Let's not overlook the fact that this has been the case many many times, if not always. Very influential figures behind the Pres, whom we barely know of. Numerous invisible influences. Nothing new in this.
T has done a poor job of keeping these people hidden or nameless. He can't help wanting a big show of outrageous behavior that we reflexively get all worked up about, day after day after day.
Whats more obvious than his fire hose of "unprecedented" decisions and pronouncements? Its working, why stop now?
I'm waiting for someone smarter than me to come up with a strategy to make this firehose tactic less effective. Really. Nobody has yet. Screaming louder about each outrage hasn't worked. Pleading with the media to stop hasn't worked.
Exactly. I remember hearing that in the 60's the news division of a network wasn't expected to make a profit. It was considered to be a public service. Now they have to be profitable and profit has become greed and greed has become lies. Trump wasn't entirely wrong when he yelled Fake News. But as they say on the playground, it takes one to know one.
Ultimately loyalty comes down to predictability and follows orders quietly. Therefore, qualifications and experience are neither essential nor desired.
"It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind."
Possible. But all the evidence so far is of Republican officials falling all over each other to fall in line.
It takes a village of Eichmann's to manage the logistics of fascist rule. And there is no shortage of Republican volunteers.
I agree with most of the comments that the Republicans will continue to go along with Trump out of fear. Any Republican who had a spine, has either left or is dead! Sorry Heather I don’t see the possibility at all.
I can’t help but recall an excerpt from Liz Cheney’s book about the insurrection where she states that a good number of the Republican senators would not have voted to convict had they not feared for their safety. Remember that a fundamental dynamic of the Orange Blob’s personality is running his operations like a mob boss.
Right…. I got twisted up there. Shouldn’t post late at night without proofing myself better. They would have voted to convict, but they feared for their safety.
If votes are secret, how do they determine the demographics of who voted for who and what? If they use after-election polls, why would those be any more accurate than pre-election polls?
I’m very worried about these nominees and appointees. The bar is so low, given the record of the person soon-to-be-at-the-helm…just makes me think they will find a way to push many or most of these through. But, your last sentence gives me some hope back, Heather. Thank you, as always. xo
With Bannon at one elbow and Musk at the other, these are not really Trump appointees, and by what constitutional right are Bannon and Musk there at all? Trump, or probably Bannon, is thumbing his nose at the whole framework. In accordance with 2025. In 2016, when the White House was just an "Apprentice" set to him, his easy come/easy go appointments were ridiculous. Now that his hand is being, shall we say, guided, they are a clear and present danger. How can it be stopped? I hope Mitch McConnell is feeling sick as he watches.
"I hope Mitch McConnell is feeling sick as he watches."
Arguably, McConnell has done more harm to the institutions of democracy than Trump has. McConnell bent all precedent, even his own, to deny Obama and then Biden Supreme Court appointments. McConnell orchestrated the Republican refusal to find Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial - a conviction would've barred Trump from running again.
I know that, as he has said it before. That is his whole purpose, here and in Europe. He was not satisfied with only burning down our country; he wanted worldwide fame. He is an evil SOB. I have several more names for him, but you can fill in the blanks. He is a loathsome person, and the whole MAGA group as well. They are traitors, good for nothing, and being thrown in a pit for the remainder of their sick, poisonous lives is too good for them. I would like to see some group, very large, overrun every last one of them, round them up, and haul them off to a large compound where justice can be meted out. They want to do that to immigrants so they will understand it, at least. You could say that immigrants are here illegally, and I say that being a traitor has not been considered the highlight of being a good citizen, and in the past, there was a specific way of dealing with traitors.
We can't fight this sickness by being timid and friendly and saying, "Aw shucks, we will do it the usual way." No, it is time to fight fire with fire. And I am not worried about some new civil war breaking out over it as I would like to see these self-appointed, all-important, and powerful militias go up against the US military. Some will think I've lost the plot and gone off the deep end, but look what we are standing around waiting for, like we have zero choice but to go along. We either do things, think outside the box, or run headfirst off the cliff. I think it's a matter of how much anyone will do to save our country and its democracy. I know I am talking about a constitutional crisis. Still, I've already become aware that it's only a matter of time after the menace is back in office when the constitutional crises will be upon us. Yes, I am pretty over reading and listening to these pontificators talking about how so many in this country have decided democracy does not work anymore and are willing to try autocracy. I will never accept that. Go bold, do whatever it takes to save our country. It is startling that I have arrived at this point, as I have always been very peace-oriented. It has something to do with the reaction of some when they are backed into a corner. You fight or curl up and wait to get hit or worse. At least I feel better venting. I am confident I will calm down and try on the other hat after some sleep. I was going to say, please don't send the guys with the straight jacket, but am I the crazy one here?
"We can't fight this sickness by being timid and friendly and saying, "Aw shucks, we will do it the usual way." No, it is time to fight fire with fire."
Agree very much. The Democrats seem to be doing an awful lot of standing around right now in front of microphones. Where are Garland and Biden and Jeffries? Where are the Democratic Senators and Representatives? Aren't there ANY laws, Constitutional guardrails or procedures that can be invoked?
Where is everybody? Somebody DO something!
President Biden has immunity granted by SCOTUS. Can't he take some drastic action?
The craziness of it all can get to any of us, and what we come up with, what we propose, what courage we have to summon, is a perfectly sane way to begin dealing, however we have to.
Burn it, then buy up what is left at fire sale prices. I suspect it is about money. If it is about “freedom” in his mind, then that is freedom for himself and buddies to control everyone else.
What are you saying? Do you realize what is being said is the destruction of the Government of the United States of America? The Democracy will no longer exist on the face of this planet. The Country will be in the hands of the Fascists of trump's Government.
No you are not. Authoritarians use whatever tools are available inside and across any boundaries geographic or otherwise, have to be stopped by people becoming more educated however that can happen. Sixth grade reading level? Well let's work with it.
Barbara Mullen, I must be careful to address who I am replying to. I am not suggesting we burn it. Bannon, Musk, Thiel, etc., are the ones who want to burn it.
You are not exaggerating at all, about a win for Putin and dictators and oligarchs.
Yes, Bannon is an anarchist. I remember that his bid for a huge, I think Vatican owned property was refused in Italy. They saw the threat he posed and still poses here.
It looks like a belief system around ideas more than just 'feeling'. The ideas around superiority and the mission that goes with them as he sees it, and also many others see it. We call them 'isms'.
Craig, Substack has some glitches lately. When reading on my phone last night, some comments just were incomplete, and earlier in the day (on my laptop) I kept getting told that I had to subscribe (which I have for 4 years now) in order to "like" something.
I suspect the increased volume of traffic is at fault.
I don't feel rational at all today. The tech bros in with trump have immense power right now. Anything can happen to these systems we trust so much. My good stuff keeps going to spam right now. The best I can do today is to cook and take some long walks to try and regain some balance.
Maybe these are the distraction, just waiting for Putin’s picks. Or they could start the destruction process for him. The hatred for “others” has given enemies a path through our defenses…
I’ve actually been wondering about this distraction — is there something going on behind the chaos because that’s why he likes the chaos. Is it the Musk thing — that he’s meeting with governments as if he is our spokesmodel?
I suspect that the Professor's use of "antics" was very intentional. In its archaic form, it meant "grotesque or bizarre", which is an entirely appropriate descriptor.
The Republican Senators now in office are as likely to have the moral backbone to stop Trump from fulfilling his traitorous unconstitutional desires than they are to find him guilty in an impeachment trial.
The country and its citizens are only in the way of Republican Senators and Republican Congressmen from gaining as much of the money and power left in the food crumbs that Trump leaves on the floor after eating his hamburgers and fries.
What we are seeing is a great battle between the space taken up by excess capital, corporate capitalism,
and the existing permissions of democracy, in which the socially sick greedies have found all the loopholes or created them. The worship of money is the new god in all kinds of disguises.Money-as-religion.
What is the point of required background checks and security clearances if one can simply say, “nope I’m not submitting to that.” and they are permitted to carry on without clearance?? Whose fault is that? What is the point of the ethics paperwork required of incoming presidents if the system so readily crumples and allows an incoming president to receive classified info without the ethics paperwork? A big part of the problem seems to be rules and requirements that are not enforced!!
I think a large part of the problem was that the Founders, while they could in fact imagine a corrupt electorate, never imagined one so corrupt, so stupid, so reckless, as the one we now have - nor did they imagine one so foolish that when a con-man or would-be king made manifest to all his utter lack of moral character, that the electorate would have so little self-respect, self-esteem or basic survival instinct as to embrace him.
I think the founders foresaw someone like Donald Trump, and George Washington clearly saw the dangers of political parties and expressed his misgivings clearly. But they never foresaw the internet, social media, or an entire political party that would turn treasonous as the Republican Party now clearly has.
As for their ability to see what might happen to the electorate, brainwashing wasn't a thing back then. Now, we have 74 million people whose brains have been turned to mush by right-wing media. They are not fixable.
George Washington was the Model for Article I of the Constitution... DJT would never have been considered for any National Political Post by the Founders... They would have Tar'd & Feathered DJT, and driven him out of Town... Shame is a powerful Negative Emotion.... DJT has no Shame... He is his own SuperHero in his Cartoon World...
No shame, no conscience. A sociopath. Weird how many, including so many who are nominally religious, find that condition appealing.
Do they really forgive anything he does and feel he's a gift from the Divine? That his assassination attempts were thwarted because of his divine connection? That Gabbard, Gaetz, and Hegseth don't need security clearances because he chose them? Sounds like brainwashing to me.
The Groper-in-Chief's racial bigots and gender bigots were just asking to be brainwashed.
My cohort of MAGAts believe exactly what you've written here. And they're retired cops.
…smells like fear to me
You probably don’t know this Patricia, but almost every president has had recessed appointments. And you may not like them, but I’m not really liking Bidens cabinet either but it’s not my choice. It’s the man who was elected and it’s within the purview of the law for for every president
They are all going to have their hearings and believe it or not everybody in the military gets a security clearance. Oooooooops
Every single cabinet member will have their day in court and if they’re guilty, they won’t be selected. Why don’t You stop being so fatalistic and wait for the results of the process
The CHINO's believe that Turd is the guy anointed to usher in the end times. They are going to be raptured, that's all they care about.
I wish they'd all head upwards asap and leave the rest of us alone.
If I were a Jew living in Israel, our new Ambassador to Israel would make me pretty damn nervous. Actually, if I were Jew living anywhere, I'd be nervous.
Wish their wish would come true, today
Bruce, got it in one. That is why Israel is so important to them. I do wish that at least the rapture would occur and we would see the last of these hypocrites. And they are in for a surprise....maybe a black hole.
It seems to me that people should not be trying to 'bring about' the end times. Wouldn't that basically be playing God? As in, it's OK for God to take someone's life, but you're not supposed to go around killing people yourself. If some people have gotten fed up with waiting for the Second Coming and have decided to 'bring it about', I can't imagine that God (assuming there is one and that the Second Coming is an actual thing) would be happy about that at all!
Many, many Trump voters are saying that they didn't vote for the man, they voted for his policies, like anti-abortion and gun rights and parents' rights over what is taught in schools.
And, yes, I know that they did vote for the man as well as those single issues. They did not know enough to see the broader issue of a healthy democracy.
They knew not what they were doing....
I know... I am flabbergasted that a supposedly religious man like Mike Johnson could be OK with Matt Gaetz in any position of power.
Mike Johnson is more OK with POWER.
Little Johnson is a person loudly praying in the Temple and a total wacko hypocrite.
J L Graham, the "nominally religious" would tell you that it is for the greater good, so sometimes it is permissible to do something that non-believers dislike in order to deliver Christian soldiers to please [Leonard Leo].
Like burning witches. Genocidal wars. What Jesus was all about, right? Gott mit uns (or else).
J L. The ends justify the means including the importance of Israel in the Second Coming. That's why they love the choice of Huckabee. Furthermore, some friends of ours reported watching a MAGA say, Jesus is wrong.
This from a man who had been a top figure in the Southern Baptists:
"It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — 'turn the other cheek' — [and] to have someone come up after to say, 'Where did you get those liberal talking points?' And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize.' The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.' And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis. "
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity
Both of you, Michelle and JL should read the first preamble to the constitution. Which includes unabated freedom of religion. And the very first amendment to the constitution. I happen not to be religious, but I’m certainly not going to try to bar anyone from thinking differently based on their religious convictions. Unless it’s against the law. Preamble to the constitution. And the first amendment to the constitution the laws that make America great unlike any other nation
There was a letter with diagnoses of narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathic personality disorder with supporting information published over the signatures of 233 mental health professionals. If I had the chance, I would have signed it too. I pegged him almost immediately. The Goldwater Rule isn’t really meaningful with so many public examples of his behavior.
It's not weird J L, did you hear of Rupert Murdock?
Apache - he’s just a felon on the run.
Tragically his cartoon world will now infect the entire planet! No more leader of the so called free world!
@ Apache. George was no angel. When he died, was probably the richest man in America. Convinced Congress to run a federal post road to his properties in the west. Was vicious to his wife's slaves.
Also see my comments about Aaron Burr.
In retrospect the founders wear far from models for behavior, but they did put some of their better angels into the form of government they created. They might easily have established their own autocratic supreme leader (which many revolutions have) but prescribed a far more accountable system, completed with checks and balances and limitations to power. That's the recipe anyway, the living have to bake the cake. Washington was certainly more graceful than Trump when his term was over.
Try Nathaniel Philbrick's book about George.
If he had been a Puritan, he would have been whipped or pilloried, had his ears cropped, or at least been forced to wear the scarlet letter A. I understand that there is a move for religion in the schools. I wonder if they would include the real Pilgrims.
I think there have always been forms of brainwashing by those who yearn to dominate. Bread and circuses, lots of pompous theater, and plenty of big lies about how essential the dominators are to the welfare of all, a lie that the Declaration of Independence rebuts. The struggle between those who aim to be masters and those that rage against slavery seems to be one of the most consistent themes of history. You would think we'd have learned to step off that road for good by now.
You got to give credit to the Dems for helping Trump get elected. If Dems spent less time complaining about Trump and more time on promoting the democratic ideals, policy and good economic outcomes. we would have won.
I beg to differ. We didn't showcase Trump's past deeds often or loud enough. And that was the responsibility of the 4th estate. TV networks and major newspapers treated Trump as if he were a serious candidate - instead of the despicable crook and bellicose bully that he is.
Any journalist of any experience and talent who didn't constantly present to the public the long, long, long list of his offenses and business failures was not doing their damn job. Start by EVERY DAY running a story about the more than 19 women who explain how they were sexually assaulted by this monster. Dig deeper into the Russian (NOT A HOAX) connection. Where his money came from, all the trips to Moscow, Helsinki, trusting Putin over our own intelligence agencies and the REPUBLICAN Senate report that confirmed the collusion. Any member of the media who didn't run with this information and put it up for viewing DAILY was a failure.
As for Democratic ideals - they are mine, too. But we lost because the average family is in trouble financially. And we didn't advocate for REAL CHANGE. When people are dissatisfied - angry - with the status quo, we shouldn't be crowing about low unemployment stats and how inflation has come down, blah, blah.
We should be talking about RADICAL change where the rich pay a LOT more in taxes and every family is provided with child care so both parents can WORK. Stop defending Obamacare and scream to the rooftops that EVERY American should have healthcare - a human right.
There is much more. But the bottom line is that the phrase "throw the bums out" was at the core of our problem. Joe Biden has been an excellent president (best in my long life) and I believe Kamala Harris would have been as good - probably better. But for the working folks with multiple jobs just to survive, we needed to be CHANGE AGENTS. More of the same didn't fly, did it?
Now, many here will say we couldn't win if we were so radical as to demand big change. But isn't that rich? Look what the fascists just proposed. A disgusting wannabe dictator and a plan to dismantle our democracy and rip away basic rights for all of us - and, oh wait, decimate the planet by destroying the EPA, crippling education by destroying the Department of Education .... the list is so long, my fingers ache from typing.
They proposed all that nice insanely radical madness and THEY WON!
"They proposed all that nice insanely radical madness, and THEY WON!" It still makes my jaw drop. But Bill, I'm zeroing in on Elon Musk, whose millions contributed, but, most of all, the toxic content of X-itter led so many astray, especially gullible young men who are drawn to the macho hype. IMHO, Musk has violated the terms of his naturalized citizenship and needs deportation.
There is another factor here that needs to be noted:
https://open.substack.com/pub/aaronrupar/p/anna-gifty-kamala-harris-glass-cliff?r=3hlhv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
The one thing that the Harris/Walz team could not overcome was Harris's gender.
People surrendered their thinking processes when they decided that they could trust one news source to be true to them and to their values. They didn't seem to see the money in the background.
I think you’re both wrong. Most people vote per emotion not using reason and logic. They will vote for, may i say, pull the level on the platform with they stand with a swing door neath their feet with a rope around their necks and feel good that they ‘socked it to ‘em.’ Most humans in fact, don’t understand what is good for them. And it’s their right to draw the rope tight around their scrawny little necks or I’m afraid, huge fattened necks.
Bill Alstrom,
Unfortunately, Trump has become a "role model"....
Don't ask me why....I have NO clue!!!!
They tried, with precious little help
No one cared about Trumps bad deeds lies and criminal behavior. The sooner we realize this and start building ourselves up instead of tearing Trump down, the better off we will be. What main media did not throw up on the screen were the mass misinformation statements floating around. A few sentences or a list.
Sounds all correct above. Painfully correct.
Sanders emphasized getting excessive money out of politics in his campaign and Democrats ridiculed his position. Yet behind the curtain is big bags of cash on the whole of the scales of justice. They used to call that "corruption". Harris fought the good fight and I so, so hoped that she would prevail, and yet what happened happened, so clearly we need to seriously reexamine our tactics and strategy going forward. Somehow it has seemed to me that Democrats have been playing a defensive game ever since the election of Reagan. Apart form in more obscure venues, I have vet to encounter a comprehensive. vivid vision of the liberal vision VS MAGA, with a compelling presentation of what what it take to get there. We offer a bag of important "issues" but not a vision. MAGAs have a vision, but it's mostly slight of hand.
it’s amazing how you guys are so blind. Trump was a successful president and that’s why he’s back in the White House versus Biden or Kamala. And it had nothing to do with talking more about Donald Trump. It has everything to do with executive orders signed by Biden direction of the country the illegal immigration, the increased crime and of course the Lawfare I would suggest if the people on this blog would realize Trump will do a great job again and you should help to make America great again. The Democratic titanic sunk get over it.
I disagree Sandra. First of all warning about the dangers posed by Trump, now proven true by his cabinet picks, was a duty they properly performed. Secondly, any (admittedly somewhat tepid) attempts by the Democrats to inform the public about the successes of the Biden administration were sabotaged by news media that would rather pick, pick pick, on anything that could be perceived as negative, rather than applaud a success, and, heaven forbid, educate the public. The MSM, not just Fox, worked tirelessly to be sure that the electorate remained unaware.
Exactly!
I certainly agree Ed and have said as much elsewhere. Democrats could have run God and They would have not been good enough for those who would not see.
Sorry but you can’t just make up success that didn’t exist. I did nothing but drive this car off a mountain top into a ditch. Think about it. When was the last time a republican won the popular vote and change the direction of the country and 49 of 50 states
what’s the matter with those cabinet picks? do you think Buttigieg garland Michelle Levine are the best and brightest and fair-minded? Yikes. And by the way, Matt gates is a carbon copy of Merrick Garland only with an R in front of his name not a D.
Hard to say, 2/3 of consumer demand has come from the top third of income earners. Many of the rest have just struggled. Wealth inequality i believe it's called. Apart from the truly brainwashed.
Sorry Sandra, RACISM still infects the dna of our culture!
This is the common view of people who watched only legacy news or right wing news.
The media is clearly complicit in the election of Trump.
See Dr. Richardson' exploration of this in an earlier Letter. See also Brian Tyler Cohen's podcast on this issue.
One person said it something like this:
Americans (the voter) have been pickled in rage and disinformation by the media.
Nope. He (Biden) was asleep at the wheel on the border for 3 years.
Bill I seem to recall there was a bipartisan Border bill sent to Congress to vote on but Trump call Johnson and was told not to bring the bill up for a vote. Again the Republicans following the orders of a convicted felon. At least Gotti would take his solders out to a fancy dinner when he gave his orders. 😉
Still waiting for YOUR solution to the immigration situation whose roots are embedded in world poverty! Post it Bill!
Maybe he was trying to save our hides. Damn, his magic wand wasn’t long enough…
Exactly what are today’s Democratic ideals? Because today if John F Kennedy were still alive, he would be a Republican.
And started preaching as soon as tfg announced he was running again.
What exactly are the Dems ideals today? Because if you’re old enough to remember John Kennedy, he would’ve been a Republican today.
Guess not! Propaganda and state coercion have large roles to play in this world. Christianity comes readily to mind for me as well.
J L. It is a constant theme of history, all places and all times. This is why I am cynical about humankind and revolutions which turn out to be not.
In the 1850s a political party, or at least its regional adherents, turned so treasonous that after they lost the 1860 election, they actually seceded from the Union. Let's not pretend it's all or even mostly about the internet and social media.
It's not all about the internet and social media, but the differences between the 1850s and now are so vast that I don't think the comparison is really apt. The situation before the Civil War was entirely regional and based on the fact that the South's economy was entirely based on slavery. Look at today's electoral map and you see red everywhere. The situational is no longer regional, but ideological. Right-wing ideology has been relentlessly pushed since the 1980s when Rush Limbaugh started his talk-radio show and really took off in 1996 when Fox News first went on the air. Since then, right-wing billionaires have made a point of creating a huge right-wing media noise machine and echo chamber that is unlike anything in the 1850s.
HCR's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR will help you make the connections. Jacob Heilbrunn's AMERICA LAST, published earlier this year, is pretty good on the rise of the "intellectual" right from the beginning of the 20th century. Pay serious attention to the economic/oligarch factor from the late 19th century onward. It helps explain why we *still* can't talk about economic justice in this country without being trashed/dismissed as socialists, communists, etc., and why U.S. labor movements tend to be so timid about confronting capitalist excesses. The Reagan administration and much of what's happened since have undermined the advances of the New Deal era -- and the Reagan tax and other economic policies fueled the increase in billionaires and the rise of right-wing media. The billionaires and the right-wing media are, IOW, symptoms of something that's been going on for many decades. White supremacy is at the heart of it.
I own it, I've read it, I refer to it frequently, and it doesn't apply to our difference of opinion. I stand by my posts.
I wonder if now that these circumstances have come to light, my call for the good generals to temporarily suspend the constitution and order a coup to stop Trump from organizing a treasonous government. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea my brothers and sisters?
I am waiting...
Once we had a Senate and House full of farmers who had read Shakespeare and who would have been working on what climate change was doing not only to our food, but also how it was terrorizing us The price of eggs is the symbol of all those scared children who voted for a nasty child who seems only to have read Mein Kampf and surrounded himself with rich criminals. We lost the last farmer in the Senate and we are about to lose the country to a spoiled child, his acolytes, Putin’s bots, and climate change. Time to get organized to support those counting the thousands of uncounted votes, Democratic governors, our immigrant friends and relatives, and learn to grow vegetables every where we can. I for one want to find a recipe for a portobello burger as good as the first one I ate in a strip mall in Richmond, Virginia, years ago.
Unfortunately the Founders forgot the section of term limits for judges, Senators and Representatives. They only put term limits on the President. All the branches of government needed term limits.
The founders didn't set term limits (other than the minimum age to start a term), George Washington just set an informal precedent for President.
I agree that they don't seem fixable. However, as more of his policies are rolled out along with the truth about what it's going to cost people (the tarrifs, for example and changes in health care) we may see a broad swath of shocked awakening. Yesterday I heard (not verified, but seems likely given the levels of ignorance displayed in a large section of the electorate) that some Trump voters were asking if it was too late to change their vote.
Laughed out loud w this idea… can I change my vote .. a few weeks late, but might be a positive educational moment… especially w all the ‘info’ about actual people ( mostly men ) w stories defaming them… YOU WOULD THINK the ELECTORATE might take its job more seriously at least a few months before any election … expand their info sources … but we’re busy getting the kids to bed, the laundry done & bills paid … I’m retired & I found it difficult ti keep up the household pace & chase misinformation & lies about people I knew I would not vote for ! Because Kamila is brilliant, extensively ‘trained’ in government and big business and military effectiveness …. And She is EVEN-Keeled, she keeps her ship-of-state balanced so her crew mates can race around the ship getting their jobs done for ALL of us. AND SHE’s a WOMAN !
I don't believe the Founders ever conceived of a group of politicians, a political party, who would prove to be totally craven, spineless and willing to betray their oath of office. We are now faced with that reality and the only real barrier left is the court system. Gawd help us. It looks to be nearly as corrupt as the Republican Party.
On another site, I have been discussing the antics of Aaron Burr, almmost our third president and our third vice president, who killed Hamilton in a duel and who conspired to steal the western part of this country. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/duel-burr-conspiracy/#:~:text=Nearly%20200%20years%20later%2C%20the,Alexander%20Hamilton%20in%20a%20duel
Burr had a number of co-conspirators including General James Wilkinson, commanding General of the United States Army at the time, Wilkinson was known for his attempt to separate Kentucky and Tennessee from the union during the 1780s. Burr persuaded President Thomas Jefferson to appoint Wilkinson to the position of Governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1805. Wilkinson would later send a letter to Jefferson that Wilkinson claimed was evidence of Burr's treason.
Filibusters were private citizens who led unauthorized military expeditions into foreign countries, often in Latin America, to support revolutions or secession. The term is most commonly used to describe US citizens who engaged in these activities in the mid-19th century. https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/the-filibuster-movement/
I learned about filibusters from the silent movie "The Filibusters" for which my husband composed a piano score and performed several times. It was filmed not too far from where we live in Burbank.
Ike fixed a bunch back in the day, but like Anthrax spores, some just lie in wait.
The Founders would have been more definitive in their decisions and choices had they had the benefit of the instant true/false information provided by the internet imho.
No, they are not Joel, but the brains of those 10 millions or so that voted democrat in past elections and didn't show up this time are fixable .
That is an excellent and necessary point, and finding out how to reach them should be Job One for the Democrats starting yesterday.
👍😉
Wow, is that like the basket of deplorable that went over so well with Hillary Clinton? You folks never learn. How can you absolutely put everybody in one basket? Do you think all your liberal friends vote the same on all issues yikes.
And I love the ranting and raving about how Trump is going to produce a nationwide band on abortion guys need to work on getting rid of being soaked in TDS. I’ll chime in from time to time. Don’t want to read my post no problem. I’m doing it for your own good because when you get to a courtroom someday you’ll realize that there’s two sides of every story.
The Founders never imagined Fox News.
Who could?
John Adams tried to jail his opponents. Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Both Adams and Jefferson hired James Callender, the Fox News of the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Callender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
I watched them spin our world, and impress not just the idiots but greedy ideologues as well.
Agency for Propaganda of the Faith.
I saw recently a Report that stated that the Electorate for this Election was the most ignorant in Recent History... Over 1/2 of High-School Seniors Read at less then the 6th Grade Level... Math Skills are Atrocious... The Gen-Ys, and Gen-Zs get most of their 'News' from the Right-Wing InfoSphere... DJT, and his 'Mandate' are the result...
That's not an accident. The people who have been orchestrating this calamity for decades started with the tax revolts of the 60s and 70s to defund public schools and dumb down the general population. They're still at it because it's working.
I agree... The 1st thing that Reagan did as Governor of CA was declare War on the University of California... Now Elon Musk is declaring War on the MSM... He is now the Self-Styled 'Truth Minister'.... DJT's Minions are now calling Journalists to remind them that DJT Remembers, and is Vengeful...
Putin is a master of spycraft and espionage. He has training by both the KGB and the Stasi. Unfortunately his formula may just bring the planet to its knees and there is no stable place anymore for him to stash his wealth. Trump is a patsy, and Xi is in charge of Trump. Here is Snyder's article on the hierarchy here. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/the-submission-chain?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks for the link! Anything that historian Timothy Snyder writes is well worth reading.
Linda, once again you’ve found and shared valuable information. Thank you.
Communism! Communism! Communism! Whaled the amoral orange creature! Now the government will be Putin’s best friend!
Linda, thanks for yet another amazing link. I bookmarked that article to read, but never got to it.
Looks like class warfare from the top down.
Agree!
“There’s a class war alright, and we are winning.”- Warren Buffett
Buffett did not think that was positive. He said it in the context of the inequity of his secretary paying a higher percentage of her income in taxes than does he, a billionaire. He thinks the wealthy, including himself, should be taxed at a higher rate. “"I'm very much in sympathy with the fact that Senator Sanders believes that a lot of people are getting left behind and through no fault of their own," Buffett said in a CNBC interview in February.
What is so stupid about Buffett thinking there is a ‘winning’ involved at all, because his whole enterprise is based on the work of the other class that he is apparently fighting. We can automate more and more jobs, as is happening, even art, and yet, the working folks keep it all going.
At least for now.
Exactly. When are we going to beat them at their own game. They have the Russian bots and people posting quick, easy to read misinformation. Unless we change our message and the way we deliver it, nothing will change. Not one dem attacked the misinformation directly.
And the fact that all textbook publishers moved to Texas was part of the strategy https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/revisionaries/
Interesting, i found New York is the headquarters for most of the "big five" textbook publishers. By "moved to" you mean set up branches?
Cathy, I’d guess that it’s because Texas determines the textbooks for the nation. Only California has more students and they are less picky.
https://www.tpr.org/show/texas-matters/2020-02-14/texas-matters-the-great-texas-textbook-war?_amp=true
Actually Texas pioneered the practice of providing school districts with a list of acceptable publishers!!! Thus publishers who wanted to get approval rewrote textbooks to meet the draconian demands of the Texas curriculum Gestapo!
Many formerly independent publishers are now owned by Pearson educational conglomerate which also owns standardized tests!!
Again we see the refusal to enforce anti monopoly regulations has abetted control to the greed mongers!
No, it's not texas. The most recent info I could find is this (and it's NJ in the US)
https://www.peeref.com/e-collections/top-10-largest-academic-publishers-in-2022
Tragic but true. In NC, under the bogus banner of ‘school choice’ vouchers were declared legal because the money was spent on public citizens! Get it! Boss Berger and side kicks Tillis the Moore deliberately consigned public education to mediocrity by underfunding public schools.
Good evening Heather - it is disturbing that so many voters did not understand the responsibility of being informed and researching the issues at hand before voting. After WWII people forgot the sacrifices that were made to preserve our freedoms. I doubt they’ve ever read any American history and just assumed they were simply privileged for living in America and took it too much for granted. It was a tipping point for many wrongs that had not been addressed in a very long time. Your in-depth reporting of the facts is a tremendous effort. You truly are an American treasure for your noble efforts to keep the Rule of Law in our hearts and minds to stand up for what we believe in
🇺🇸🗽🕯️🥁❤️🕊️
I don’t think this helps. We, the “intelligentsia” have not been paying anywhere near enough attention to the economic pain of working class people, who are the majority.
I still think that disinformation and misogyny were equally important factors particularly with the strong turnout of the young male "low-propensity voters"--they went for Trump's toxic hypermasculinity brand in a big way.
I agree
And the future of their economic pain is forecasted to be far worse under Trump’s administration. He will not deliver any relief-unlike the Harris campaign proposals for greater taxes for the wealthy to fund child care, $25k first time house down payments, & Medicare/Medicaid expansions, to name a few. The very programs that WOULD help the working & senior classes.
For sure. That’s what’s so sad about this
Well, at least one thing that’s sad
You just might have put a finger on things, Susan! I posted a similar response to Apache in an earlier post today
AOC vilified by magas and shunned by some Dems as too extreme because she focused on the plight of the less fortunate in her district!!!
Don’t include me in your ‘we’! Hate and fear mongering provide msm and the maga propaganda outlets with the bully megaphone! Just look at the 6:30 evening news, 98% tragedy and 1% feel good snippet!
Susan, you make a good point. Jon Stewart just did an excellent discussion of this on his podcast with his apt and very able guest, Sarah Smarsh. It reorganized my & my husband’s thinking: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UC-VkbEpac4
#PublicHealthHaiku
Systematic ploy /
Education watered-down /
Standards ever lower.
Tested in Wisconsin /
Undermine education /
Learning less and less.
Libraries lose books /
Education weaponized /
History erased.
It could be, but the stats you cite are closer to historical norms as i recollect them, and math has always had the top line in being "difficult". One thing though that Heather recently cited was that those with high school or less more significantly voted for Trump than post secondary voted for Harris. What goes along with this is that those without post secondary generally earn less, and the more educated make more. Lots of ironies here, eh, Apache, considering how much the billionaire class, and the likes of Elon Musk, put their financial weight on MAGA. We can thank the Supreme Court for that, I believe.
53% of all Americans read at or below a 6th grade level. Once we understand that fact, everything else begins to make sense.
Exactly--and Trump used the simple vocabulary that they could follow.
Simple language with a goal. Illicit fear.
“When the people can be left uncertain by the regular manufacture of crisis, their emotions and actions can be managed and directed.” Solkov, former political technology advisor to Putin.
DJT has Simple Language for Simple Emotions... He uses the same simple words over & over again... If you track DJT, he is a Simpleton with lots of Money that has always been given to him, and no Ethics... He is a Black Hole for Attention that has a Good Grasp of looking good on TV... The 1980s, the Age-Of-Reagon was his Golden Era... This appeals to the Entertainment soaked 53%... One fix could be to institute National Service requirements after High School... The COVID Shutdowns did not help things... Now everyone is hunkered down in their Fox-Holes with very little Mixing... We are Retrograding as a Society...
Hi, Apache -
I teach 8th grade in a Los Angeles public school, and virtually none of my students pay attention to current events. That's one reason I'm trying to transfer to a high school. I do, however, grade them on a series of video-lessons by an outfit called Crash Course on "Navigating Digital Information", which I recommend to all. The course was put together in collaboration with the Digital Inquiry Group, which used to be the Stanford History Education Group.
Joel—thank you for your work. I use Crash Course (the Green brothers!🤩) for my teens as they homeschool. We probably pay too much attention to current events. Soooo much to learn from them—sigh. Good luck with your move to high school!
Thanks for your kind words and good wishes. I'm having trouble moving up, probably because of my age (72). Principals most likely think I will retire in a year or two, when actually I have no plans to retire for at least the next four years. I need to teach what is happening.
Good for you for sticking around the next four years. We really, really need you.
Apache: if you have a source for that data on electorate would be interesting to see.
Steve, maybe, as offending as it is and given the success they had by voting against and then taking credit for everything democrats passed, and just maybe at least a little bit and for a short time, we should act as Republicans do.
After all as you said, our electorate is stupid, corrupt and foolish...sorry, it was just an idea.
This is a good idea, if they ever pass a bill that Democrats want to steal credit for.
lol, Mike
Good point Mike
Exactly, Mike.
YES, YES YES!!! The republicans have proven that ethical, honest and honorable people in politics do finish last!!! I really want the Dems in power to be forcefull and do what they can with judicial appointments etc., while they can PLEASE
No more "when they go low, we go high" !!!
WOW, I can hardly believe it! Forget about trying to be politically correct and in essence - polite and not offensive - but pollsters and those historians, pundits and the like who rank the performances of our presidents need to add a category measuring the sense [coomon sense] - or lack thereof - of the electorate at the time they voted in favor of particular candidate or president. How stupid, ignorant to the point illiterate was the voting public, the electorate, at the time of a presidential election? I might = just barely might - be able to give a few people a pass in the 2016 general election - but not 2024! But then the big question in 2024, has and must be directed at the approximately 10 million Americans who in 2020 voted for the Biden/Harris ticket - failed to not even bother to exercise their civic duty, responsibility, etc., in the 2024 presidential election? We know that a significant percentage of those who voted for the trump/Vance ticket - aside from those being stupid, ignorant and/or to the point illiterate are some that are just racist, haters and some are just misogynistic.
How does one ignore 34 felony convictions, the sexual assault convictions, the other federal and state charges awaiting or just beginning court actions, twice impeached and so much more. The “big lie” wasn’t nor isn’t that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden and Harris, but that of the Make America Great Again slogan … we’ve never elected nor had criminal felon serve in the role and position of POTUS…trump’s actions and shenanigans dwarf those of “tricky dick” and his plumbers!
Elections are truly about us - the country’s registered voters - not so much about the candidates!!!
Jim, in the two elections you mention (2016 and 2024) there is one commonality that has, until now, NEVER EXISTED: Qualified women* running for President on a major party ticket. In both of those elections, the same man, completely unqualified by experience, education, knowledge, conduct and morality won.
I do not disagree with you, that the election is more about the voters than the candidates. And yet:
https://open.substack.com/pub/aaronrupar/p/anna-gifty-kamala-harris-glass-cliff?r=3hlhv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
I will have to make sometime later this weekend to read the comments of Anna Gifty. However, if I got a quick understanding of her theme, I can easily understand. In my first job our of college, I had a respected local (county level) government official warn me that I would be expected “to leap tall buildings in a single bound” and “to run faster than a speeding locomotive”…something those that I would be working with could not “easily” do - unless they wore a cape and fly like that mild, mannered news reporter!
Jim, if you think of it, those "tricky dick" and his plumbers were good days compared to the situation nowadays...
🫣
Ricardo, you’ll not get an argument from me on that statement!
👍
Give the electorate a break. They are busy with more important things: the latest pop music, being entertained by professional sports, this week’s fashion, drinking and partying, watching cat videos…
I think that the founders didn’t imagine half the population sitting on couches in October watching NFL football games interrupted by incessant “they/them” ads for Trump.
Who cares about bridges, let’s keep all those they/them people out.
They actually want to blow the whole thing up…
Terry, remember 2016? Rick Perry was put in charge of one of the departments that he’d said needed to go (in his presidential debate statement) and Betsy DeVos was put in charge of the public schools when she was working to working to privatize public education.
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/rick-perrys-debate-lapse-oops-cant-remember-department-of-energy
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna76307&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiZ8rT25eCJAxWS7skDHbJ5CvEQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw32UkyfEAPEA2lnRug2Ydkr
Hamilton did imagine a corrupt president and oligarchy. He voiced his concern in The Federalist Papers.
Granted. But not a presidency in a hyper-modernized society with hyper-powers that can obliterate life on the planet in half an hour. The Constitution is not holy writ. Our ossified system which no longer allows for change is killing us - last I checked, adaptability was a survival instinct. The forces against adaptation are too powerful now to stop, I am afeared. This is no way to run a species.
I agree, but it also happened in Germany in the 1930's.
They knew the divine right of kings blather but not the system at our gates (oops, inside our gates) today. It’s a reality that fiction couldn’t imagine…
We baby boomers helped to create this electorate. We and many of our offspring are so emotionally and intellectually lazy and incurious that we have made it easy for these thugs to take over our democracy. Yet back in grade school these pathetic, mean spirited,lazy thugs would be ostracized until they changed.
The Founders didn't foresee the rise of economic power that came with the Industrial Revolution either, though the Southern oligarchy (to which some of them more or less belonged) must have given them a clue. Not to forget that the Founders didn't trust "the people" either, not at all.
This is not our first challenge with con men and Hitler trying to step into our life. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1143078657/rachel-maddow-uncovers-a-wwii-era-plot-against-america-in-ultra
Personally I would like to see less complaining and more solutions
Steve, if that's part of the problem, and it is, it's time to find a correction based on the reality of the current situation.
You are right on my friend. Never did they imagine that an electorate that just freed itself from authoritarian rule would vote for authoritarian rule.
I’ve always found this annoying too. How come a guy like Trump can get elected president and go from having access to no classified information to having access to EVERYTHING - just because he was elected? Why is that OK? I think all congressional and presidential candidates should be subject to a background check and the results of that background check be made available to the public. PRIOR to any votes being cast.
Trump is as unqualified for the position of US president as are his cabinet pics. It would be harder for any of these clowns to get a job at McDonalds.
McDonald’s does not hire convicted felons.
Rick Wilson was on The Bulwark podcast with Tim Miller. Rick said several things about Gaetz. 1) Gaetz is smart, but he is very vain and attention seeking. 2) His family is wealthy. 3)His conduct while in the FL was vile and predatory. 4) He has a string of DUI’s. 5) He is sociopathic. His family’s affluence has allowed him to escape consequences of his reprehensible actions. Wealth is corrupting. Look how Trump turned out.
Not a real one.
Immediately upon nomination. And be subject to a lot of public disclosure, business interests, etc. It seems to me that if one aspires to fill one of our most critical positions, you need to be prepared to sacrifice a lot of privacy and private opportunity. Human lives and the future of our society is at stake.
A candidacy is really a very important job interview, but we treat it more like a wrestling match.
This seems to be an essential part of Trump's strategy, to dodge the usual protocols, which these fine folks can't pass, so the Foxes can do their work on the "henhouse"...
Yeah, like poisoning the watch dogs and replacing them with Con-Federalist Society approved gate keepers that allow the foxes in (and keep the chickens from escaping).
Or worse yet as a popularity contest — with whom would you like to sit down and share a beer.
I'd rather look at as who would you want to be trapped on a leaky boat with, that needs to be repaired and improved if all of you want to survive.
That would be what should count. Unfortunately many don’t think that far ahead. They think the boat’s just fine. They just aren’t getting their share.
Even in wrestling, the interest is in entertainment value not good governance.
Mosquitos are “annoying.” This gaping ethical hole is horrifying. Scale it up, Mr. Burke, I don’t think you are grasping the depth of the pit we are in.
So sorry you missed my point Mr. Ian.
Too bad you buried the lede. Mr. perfect
But did he get elected? This is a long read and while Republicans are the party of conspiracy theories and other magical thinking, it can be verified with recounts in the swing states.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/151721941?r=2ia0yv&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
Thank you for this link. The author is very knowledgable, & I find his argument that Elon Musk's lottery was part of an effort to create " ghost ballots" very persuasive.
But will there ever be an investigation?
When pigs fly....
Is there ANY movement to demand recounts? Or is thus a lost cause?
My sister lives in PA and they are recounting the Senate race there. Maybe they will getting an inkling of fraud in the PA presidential race when they're counting the Senate race.
He never put forward his tax returns and here we are again….how many years later? Jared couldn’t get a security clearance so TFG just waived it and carried on. Mrs. Elonia Musk is acting like he is the f-ing president already and the spineless GOP thinks all is well. Heaven help us…we are in a boatload of trouble.
Yes, not a word about Trump's returns from 2021 - 2023.
That would eliminate probably a third of the house and half the senate
Good question, do presidential candidates get background checks? Did trump get a background check back in 2015? If he failed, who gets told? What are the consequences?
There are no consequences for the felon.
Tad late but should have been basic to qualification. Such was not known in founders time. Parties are too chicken to do it.
The thing about that is…..he doesnt need to have a background check because it’s been out in the open for so long now….and it didn’t matter to sooo many
But all of his nominees and the enablers in the courts and congress do need background checks (in place of just his words of faith in them /intimidation of them).
I agree.
Exactly. Prof. Timothy Snyder, in his piece called Decapitation Strike,
https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/decapitation-strike?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
lays out how we are at a moment before catastrophe. "This is no longer a post-electoral moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment."
So, Trump is working for Putin and Xi to totally destroy the US. It is pretty obvious how he intends to destroy it in Project 2025, which I read as a book club with my group from Democrats Abroad. While we did not finish it, we have read 20 of the 30 chapters, and that includes the DOD and Intelligence Community Chapters. It is in those where one can see that he is absolutely going to destroy our national security, allowing it to be taken on by predators. Tulsi will be mailing our intel to Putin, unless the people in the Intelligence Community already destroy it, which may be what Trump wants as well. That is true of DOD. too. What he is planned for both departments is humiliation and shame. Don't care that there is a culture of liking Trump created by watching the same toxic manosphere influencers that the civilian male population is watching, but still I would like to hope that there is a sense of self preservation.
If DJT is Putin's Puppet, and these things happen, then this is a Strategic Master Stroke on Putin's Part....
Saw that one coming from miles away…
From across the planet
Yes, and NJ.com has written up Prof. Snyder’s post here:
Yes, and NJ.com has written up Prof. Snyder’s post here:
“Is Trump trying to kill us? Authoritarian expert says yes. Here’s how
Published: Nov. 15, 2024 Donald Trump's goal is to decapitate the democracy, Timothy Snyder says, and if he succeeds, many likely will die. There are five key areas that authoritarians want to control when they attempt to decapitate a democratic state, authoritarian expert and author Timothy Snyder writes: health, law, administration, defense and intelligence. And in each of these arenas, the goal is to consolidate power, create chaos — and yes, even death. Authoritarians with power over these”
Read in NJ.com: https://apple.news/AFiHJhM8pS5eU4wTDl0liUQ
Thank you Linda. So Project 2025 shows that the real "internal enemies" are working for the external enemies.
It's always the same. When Nazis accuse others something, in reality it's a confession about what they are themselves planning to do. "Enemies within", "the deep state", "elite child sex trafficking", "they want to take your freedoms away", "they are after you", you name it: every right-wing trope of the last years that the MAGA Nazis spun on the Biden government, were plans they are now going to enact themselves.
That’s what Trojan horses do.
JD, yes. And when Trump says that he wants to get rid of internal enemies he is projecting because that's exactly what he wants to install.
He is our internal enemy, and has plenty of company
His selections are the commencement of Project 2o25. All these fools are figureheads, when the red phone on their desks rings it’s the boss with instructions.
It's tough to enforce background checks when tffg himself couldn't pass one.
“Non-Rapist need not apply”
And what is the point of the Supreme Court if a President (whom they have already declared immune from legal consequences) can just refuse to abide by their judgment? Checkmate to checks and balances!
No one has the ovaries to stand up to the felon rapist from Mitch McConnell on down.
Lord, do we need ovaries. The balls were deflated long ago.
It seems Black women have no fear of mango Mussolini
So surprised that any black woman would see him as a positive
Do they? I know white women are brainwashed.
You said they have no fear of MM, apparently white women don’t either. I know as many female MAGAts as male.
Superb observation, Terry. And obviously not the balls either! Eunuchs!
There is literally no one who will enforce them
The Honor System left the building with Elvis
It allows the cabinet members to get really really rich from taking bribes from our enemies while exploiting the citizenry.
They are all trumpite-nazi-magas on a high of their slight majority win, but are now fully in control of our government and we no longer have a democracy. We must embrace that fact, understand how this happened and get politically active against it. Even one in my own family says this is a 'good cleansing' of government. It's not good and it's going to get awful. The preppers are now right. Dig in and get ready because it's going to be a slow tidal wave of a sh** storm. I'm no longer confused, I'm really MAD and we must mobilize and help our Democratic elected officials on all levels. Passivity is now our enemy.
For those of us who have complied with this verifiable check in order to SERVE in our government in many kinds of capacities, to grant any clearance to the clearly never able to pass these basic checks, it is a smash in the face. There are people I know who daily get up and go to perform the duties of their day to day work which keep our government functioning, having been verified as reliable as workers and with certain certified expertise. They and I are enraged. They also thought the same in the first Trump administration when he handed out clearances as if they were percent off coupons. In the same vein the way he stole clcassified documents and has felt NO jail time for their theft when others met required jail sentences for years. Yet these same people who are cleaered go to work apolitically as they are required.
Remember Jared Kushner??? Nothing new-rules don’t apply to trump-or so he believes. And sadly for all of us, it’s proven to be true.
Release the report of Haz-Matt Gaetz now. Accountability requires it. Dr Timothy Snyder's take complements the research by Dr Bandy Lee et al. https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike
When BIG minds -- like those of Drs Cox Richardson, Lee, and Snyder as well as Counsellor Vance -- argue that Trump walks like a fascist duck, quakes like a fascist duck, fakes like a fascist duck, and smells like a fascist duck, then one had best duck the fascist f*ck.
EDIT: impolite as it is, I will no longer refer to Trump as "President Trump". My disrespect shown to that office is small next to Trump's.
I refuse to say or write his name hence felon / rapist. I will never forget!
Can not say that l fault your logic there, Terry, 🤝🤬😥🤢🙏
May May,
".....permitted to carry on without clearance".....absolutely no rule of law required ......only complete subservience to the man...Donald Trump who is failing mentally.
Donald Trump is aware of his personal mental condition. This is why, I believe he is relying on Musk more and more. Musk is like a little boy in a candy shop. I am sure he never realized it would be so easy to be given so much power!!!!
Meanwhile criminals are being allowed power and position to govern our country as well as more and more access to secrets that have protected us. Who is brave enough, in positions of power to protect us? Who is left that has not "sold their souls" for fleeting power?
What have we heard about the care and education of our children? What have we heard about the care of our disabled, our elderly who need us to care for them. What have we heard about lifting up everyone for the well being of our nation....of our goal to continue to work for freedom for all? We are failing daily as a nation! ....and by the way WE ARE ALL MIGRANTS!!!
The true residents of this nation were the Indians.....and we called them "savages"....look in the mirror!!!
We have always supported the value of freedom. How can we NOT support Ukraine? Have you not heard what Putin wants!!!! During his leadership of Russia, he wants all the countries ie properties that were once a part of the old boundaries of The Soviet Union. He is making a mockery of our nation! Koch brothers, you have been a tool for Putin to gain power. You, I believe are envious of his power. You are going to discover how little he cares for you.
We are watching our country implode! Trump himself envies Putin. Trump seeks his approval while Putin laughs...even mocking Trump by displaying nude pictures of Trump's wife with his fellow conspirators.
TRUMP DID NOTHING TO DEFEND HIS WIFE. HE WILL DO NOTHING TO DEFEND OUR NATION AND THE FREEDOMS FOR WHICH WE HAVE SACRIFICED OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO DEFEND. HE WILL DO NOTHING TO SECURE UKRAINE'S BORDERS!!!
We stand by and watch as he and his lackies assign the most important jobs ....those jobs which should be assigned to those who in the past who have been willing to die to protect our country and its citizenry to "parasites."
Joe Walsh wrote about Tulsi: " Because she’s too compromised by Russia. Yet Trump picked her to run the whole thing.” Head of National Security? Is there anyone who gets HCR's letters who doesn't believe that Putin has compromised photos of Trump in hotel rooms and has been and continues to blackmail Trump? It was Putin who picked Gabbard to be head of National Security. Trump is Putin's puppet. The stupidity and cupidity of the American public can now be compared to 1930's Germany. A disaster awaits us.
This kind of stuff needs to be communicated to the masses at a very basic 3rd grade level. Those that read HCR thankfully don’t need to have this logic explained, but you have to convince enough low info voters and those not tuned in to the day to day of what is happening, why its bad and dangerous. Appeal to common sense. So many things I’ve read seem to indicate that many people just didn’t know enough (as ludicrous as that may sound). If you ask 10 random people if the head of the CIA should pass a basic FBI background check all would say yes. Then tell them that the future president wants his nominees to bypass that step. This messaging needs to be out there now by people who have access to eyeballs.
What is the point of the Constitution saying no one can hold office if they have given aid (and standing down when you are appointed to defend is aid) and comfort (texts and video appearance) to insurrectionists if the SCOTUS forces states to put someone who has on the ballot, they win the electoral college, and we just habit-march into an inauguration anyway? Who are the officials in this administration, still in power for a couple of weeks, who are supposed to say "wait a minute - no" to this? The big insight of the MAGA crowd is that there apparently is no one to arrest their forward motion if they just choose to ignore the law and all standards. We can bet they'll be enforcing theirs when they can claim to be the leadership in the military and to be our supreme "civil" leaders.
Thanks for giving us hope Professor. We need it now more than ever. I really, truly appreciate all of your dedication and hard work to preserve our democracy.
Attacking and assaulting women is practically a requirement for that crowd.
And girls.
Cindy L, you need to remove the word “practically” because it ads a sense of humor and even an opening to the belief that it’s not so…
Assaulting women becomes a prerequisite when you’ve been accused of the same. The nation’s highest law enforcement officer, the AG is a rapist. A rapist. Our commander in chief is a rapist. On the campaign trail, they called Trump an “adjudicated rapist.” I have another word for that: a rapist.
Here is my anger again and my 20/20 hindsight. Harris and rhetoric Dems never made headlines. That is why we lost.
If Harris herself had said “are you going to support the woman or the rapist?” That attack would have been true and it would have made headlines. And everyone who watches Fox would have said… “what does she mean by that?” Because it is something they’ve never heard because Fox shields MAGA from all truth and all the Truth about Trump is bad. They know nothing about him because the words “opportunity economy” do not make banner headlines. “Trump is a Rapist. Trump will appoint a Rapist to lead our nation’s police.” The police, Trump brags, endorsed him. So the police chose the rapist over the women.
It would be nice if these headline had happened. They could still happen if every News Paper and Dem didn’t feel that polite behavior Trumped the scary, ugly Truth.
Trump is is rapist.
Gaetz is a rapist.
No one has accused Noem or Stefanik of rape.
Sure. Not everyone he picks is a rapist. But he intentionally chose a rapist for the person who makes decisions about what crimes will be pursued. Trump saved a rapist from facing justice. He owns Gaetz now. There is no law Trump can’t break. That is by design.
You cite yet another example of the Harris campaign and Democrats in general being incapable of effective messaging.
A bunch of rapacious, retrograde reprobates. I don't believe any of them will grow a spine to stand against TrumTrump. Exhausting though it may be, we have to start now to organize, push back, and hold lawmakers' feet to the fire demanding that they comply with the Constitution.
I'm not certain that many Senators will be willing to give up one of their most important prerogatives, the ability to advise and consent to presidential appointments. At least some of them know that they are one of three co-equal parts of the government, not subservient to the executive or the judiciary. They understand that if they cede power to the President in this case, that is power that .will be lost to them.
We can write LTEs or letters directly to them asking how they vetted those nominated? Ask openly why they vote as they do and then share any responses widely.
Congress gives up power all of the time. Just one example, is giving the President the power to raise tariffs, which I think is a big mistake! The Constitution gives Congress the power to raise taxes. And it doesn't specify that one branch can give away power to another!
We are in the early stages of fascism: The legislative branch cedes power to the executive.
Is “some of them” enough?
I don't know, but we'll see if peer pressure can win over presidential pressure.
I think it is more about character. Loyalty and honesty are not mutually exclusive. Being honest is often the best way to express loyalty.
Loyalty and honesty are only mutually exclusive when proving loyalty is judged by the willingness to do something dishonest, dangerous, or disrespectful. I fear that that is the governing principle for Trump and his administration. When a House member says that if Trump tells them to jump, that's what they have to do, no questions asked, that puts loyalty above even common sense.
Power is almost never ceded, it is taken. By drawing his cabinet picks from the island of misfit toys, Trump is sending a "burn it all down" message. Trump (his handlers, really, as Trump is also from the island) intends to take the power of the congressional branch for himself, weather the Senators like it or not. Most of them will choose to keep figurehead jobs, rather than have no jobs at all. Relying on John Thune to save us is magical thinking, and shows just how desperate we all are. At this moment in history, democracy is going to be preserved from the bottom up, not the top down. Join that library board, run for the school board or local office. Turn up to support those who will be inevitably scapegoated by Donvict and his cronies.
How ?
Great question, as a previous commenter wrote the lack of uneducated who voted for Trump there needs to be an educational road map for me and others who would benefit “A how to help democracy 101” from the bottom up. I’m a bit lost in how I can help (I certainly have used my wallet) and I have enough fire deep in my heart to try and do my part.
Problem is, we won't be able to do that until the 2026 mid-term elections.
have to start NOW, or there won't be 2026 elections!
I am hoping that the shit will hit the fan in the next 2 years & people may, just may start, only start waking up
Only if Trump‘s policies directly impact THEM somehow. Trump voters couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about anyone besides themselves, their family, or their friends.
They won’t do it willingly, their collective conscience is long gone
Trump is an autocrat. Americans elected someone who will change our country fundamentally for decades, if not forever. Trump and his cronies do not care about background checks and I will be shocked if the R’s in the senate grow a pair and fight back against all of the corrupt and incompetent appointments to lead our nation’s institutions. Remember what Steve Brannon said about any Senator not toeing the line will come in 3rd in the primaries. I’m feeling pretty dark right now, but I’m even skeptical about future elections. People seem to forget about Jan 6. Trump won’t leave and will be carried out of the WH feet first. But before, he will appoint his successor.
I did not have "trust in Republican Senators to do the right thing" on my bingo card, but I hope and pray that enough of them will stand up to tRumpF. This. Is. Exhausting.
“It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind.”
I am not holding my breath on this one. In the meantime, there is a bridge in Arizona that I would be happy to sell you.
I think that it's more an understanding of the loss of power if they give in to recess appointments now than any thoughts about their Constitutional duties.
You are correct. Power and money are two assets that every politician values.
Let us be in frequent touch with people we elected to Congress to support them, no matter what party, in honoring the Constitution and the rest of us because they are our representatives, and if nothing else we have a short 2 years before looking at some of them again to get their posts back or be replaced.
And when u live in a state with all MAGAs in congress? They will do exactly what the cult demands & thumb their nose @ your letters. There has to be another way in. I dont see any way the cult will change until it starts hurting. How do you impact the disinformation????
RB 11.16.24 replyMagaland survival
There can be impacts at different levels of action. For instance Pete Buttigieg going on Fox News. Most especially people showing up locally everywhere at open meetings with well organized resistance. The R's have been doing this for decades and it has worked. Local letters to the editor. Work with groups likehttp://indivisible.org. Hold local informational meetings not necessarily connected to a particular vote opportunity, although that's useful too. Use ordinary everyday language to explain even more complex stuff like how the government works. The Dems have often made the mistake of using elite and university language and facts facts facts which hardly anybody takes in if they're not already oriented that way. By all means explain the difference between cause and effect, as in ‘This vote means …’ and describe the probable effect. Definitely stay away from the abstract.
The best example of people missing the boat on this is the tariff promise by Trump who himself doesn't even know how they work. Actually don't believe anything he says, ever. He just makes things up out of his desire to get his way no matter what. And he appears to have dementia. He got his college degree by his father paying for it and has never had to think critically. He acts only out of complete selfishness; he literally doesn't know any other way to be.
So people electing him blindly have really missed out on understanding the basic effect of believing a clown and a huckster and a false image of what they think they want to be in the world. In a democracy where we promise ourselves happiness by the pursuit of it, way too many people believe that happiness is money. Even Trump isn't nearly as rich as he claims and that is why he has Musk at his side to supply all the money for getting him elected. Now Musk will be in charge of suggesting/forcing drastic cuts everywhere to basic services. I can just say here that Fox News spoils people's future well-being by covering up meaning.
It's better to get your information from sources that are reliable and thoughtful, not hair raising, not pumping out opinions-as-facts. Such as Wikipedia.org for history and more depth on all kinds of subjects. Such as articles in The Atlantic; the BBC & Frontline(TV); Meidas Touch, Stacy Abrams, David Brooks (YouTube); much more. In other words independent sources which you probably know about, and can share in conversation with neighbors as casually as possible because many people are threatened by change and new information. The politics of division has done some awful and nasty work on us all. The whole either/or model of life has damaged people's perception of fuller reality. I go with the and-and version, adding, not subtracting.
You've probably discovered these sources, also from being here on Substack; many of us have become citizen-writers. I use my FB place for discussions as well as humor and recipes; anybody who's trying to mess things up there gets blocked without my necessarily telling them because I demand civility of myself and others. You don't have to be an 89-year-old grandmother to do that. Hope this helps you. Hang in there, okay? When things get really messed up at some point they affect all of us, and it helps greatly to know the causes and how to fix them.
I suggest you move to a blue state, like my wife and I did. It’s just too frustrating otherwise.
Find someone to support in 2026. It may be a long shot, but it's something...
I think the founders knew that Senators would want to hold on to their power, so gave them Advise and Consent as a check on presidential power.
The Constitution does not assume that everyone has good motives.
Do you support that Trump will use his for-sale Bible in the swearing -in event?
Or perhaps use Project2025.
Are there any John McCains left?
Absolutely not.
Only Democrats and maybe Murkowski.
What is the point of the oath? Clearly, there are no consequences for violating it (Trump and Jan. 6).
I was going to quote that as well, and recommend that Heather finish her Letter before she hits her bong.
I think she was well aware of the unlikeliness of this possibility. She ends the letter this way to emphasize the irony that avoiding all this really shouldn’t be that hard, or maybe just maybe to get some of these R senators to see some light.
Can you explain?
Expecting Senate Republicans to do the right thing and put country above Trump, the resurrection of Sauron who can threaten their very existence, has proven to be a pipe dream, pun intended.
Thank you President Joe and Dr Jill Biden for doing things the right way, with a cabinet and advisors as diverse as our country to bring us out of the Pandemic, build infrastructure, get us out of Afghanistan, taming inflation, investing in domestic industry. These are things this next administration could never accomplish. The next four years are going to be chaotic, divisive, and disastrous for every sector public and private. Hopefully a few Senators can find their manhood to stand up for what is right and decent.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
Thune was at least better than Scott. Congressman won’t be able to take the proposed wholesale 2 trillion cuts back to their districts. At least historically, cuts that deep will cause so much pain they will be defeated in 2026. They won’t have Trump on their ballots to draw participation enough to win. Democrats need to marshal resources to districts with the most cuts.
"Thune was at least better than Scott. "
In roughly the same way that ONE colonoscopy is better than TWO colonoscopies.
ROTFLMAO. In these dark times laughter is the only useful medicine. Sigh...
" . . . enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to support and defend the Constitution"?
Heather concludes with this possibility -- as if Republicans haven't united for nearly a decade in applauding, celebrating, riding the coattails of the convicted criminal's steady criminality?
Even the Clarence court says yes, that one person's egregious, repeat criminality (plus buffoonery, two adjudications for rape, using the White House as a profit stream for himself, steadily spewing lies and vulgarity) all magically lift him above the Constitution, beyond the reach of law, in particular contemptuous of the Constitution's 14th amendment, section three.
We've seen nothing but the regularly-MAGA-sycophant Republicans regularly kissing the orange ass.
Heather really detects a change? That the spineless may actually have spines?
That the U.S. isn't run by Putin, Xi, Orban, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Erdogan, Sisi, Modi, Assad, the Iranian mullahs, Kim, and all the U.S.'s dark money billionaires and owners of hate media?
Enough of the "spineless" voted for Thune to be the Speaker despite Trump's (or should I say Musk's) preference. I'll say it again--I think that they will be motivated, at least as the issue of recess appointments goes, not to relinquish the limited power that they have. Power is almost as irresistible as money...
Thune voted for Trump's position over 95% of the time 2017-19.
88% of the time 2019-21.
Not as though he's some alternative to the orange felon and MAGA, Betsy.
I and many other folks are watching Thune carefully, giving him the micro inspection. Thune's spoken words (more like a ferret's syntax) mean different things to different audiences.
I agree with Betsy --- if Thune gives into recess appointments or worse creates a pseudo "recess' by keeping the Senate "out of session" such a move would literally destroy Thune's majority leader's perch before 1/20/25.
Hi Bryan--just wondering if you spotted our new troll on the forum yet?
LOL
You may be right, but at this point, I'll give him a chance--there's not much else we can do.
Nobody voted for Thune to be “Speaker”, he’s a senator not a house member. Misinformed comments whether they are aligned with most of us or not are still misinformed.
Beat me to it, Dick.
Senate Majority Leader, not Speaker of the House.
A few of us make mistakes like that a few times, I know what was meant. Compare the similar error rate for Trump (massive), and more typical people. Few never make such a mistake.
Yup. I actually knew that, but, unfortunately, mistakes like that are increasingly common at my age. It's another example of early Alzheimer's rather than "misinformed," as Dick put it.
Oops...that's what comes of my trying to find something nice to say about Thune.
"the Clarence court" ?
The Leonard Leo court (ie the Charles Koch et al court.)
"That the U.S. isn't run by Putin, Xi, Orban, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin Salman, Erdogan, Sisi, Modi, Assad, the Iranian mullahs, Kim, and all the U.S.'s dark money billionaires and owners of hate media?"
Please don't equate the U.S. with the GOP.
Correct! Leo controls the purse strings for dark money.
And Leonard Leo controls several members of the leadership in the Catholic Church.
Does anyone believe the Catholic church has purged all of the priests that are pedophiles from their ranks? They do what they've always done. They move them to another parish as punishment so they can continue to abuse children.
There are around 65 million Catholics in the US and most of them are just as fearful of the church as Republicans are of the Trump machine.
I'm going with Roy Cohn court.
Of the coming tri-partite U.S. government, lin, what's not controlled by the GOP?
(And all the international criminality that also meshes with that of MAGA-Trump-GOP.)
Yes, the GOP will control the House and Senate. But with small majorities, not a mandate. If Democrats unite then they can mitigate GOP rule and forestall GOP harm. Looking right at you Maine CD2 Rep. Jared Golden.
It doesn't matter if it is a mandate or not, unfortunately. Unless there are GOP congress critters who will buck the party line, which is now MAGA, Trump gets what he wants. The GOP does *not* have a history of bucking the party.
And the Dems do not have a history of acting with any urgency. Look at Jan 6
Because they are cowards.
As you say, lin, "if" -- the biggest word in the English language.
Secretary Bellows called the Golden race last night. It never should have been this close with the Republicans putting up a kid with a high school diploma and is unmarried as far as I can tell. He may be divorced with kids. Who the heck even knows. It would have been embarrassing if he had won and turned out to be another George Santos.
Phil, what do you think of this substack article on the election results? It is long and it is detailed and while I am skeptical it is amazingly well written and with actual facts instead of the BS that Trump and his MAGAts throw around.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/151721941?r=2ia0yv&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
Correct spot-on he is, Gary.
Trump got away with sidling away from and denying the key active support he got from Putin and Putin's tech people in 2016.
He's a criminal, Trump -- legally, jury convicted criminal. Plus legally a fraud for his shyster university. A rapist, again jury adjudicated. A tax and other finance fraud legally found con man. A despicably vulgar human being.
Trouble is, he can hide behind lots of -- billions upon billions of dollars -- dark money. Citizens United dark money. Putin and all the other corrupt oligarchs' dark money.
Dems might have made those facts sting, but the results were merely human, and U.S. elites since the Powell memo have learned in all the schools to disregard the human. That dehumanization of schools was the necessary first plan of the Powell memo -- upon which then the predators could offshore the tens of millions of jobs, import and distribute the blinding, numbing, murderous opioids, invest in the billionaire social media hate networks, and further ally with the dark money dictators, oligarchs, and other mass murderers worldwide.
Greg Palast has similar such evidence. Enter search words for his documentary video on that by his name and the words vigilante and hit man.
Dems are by and large wusses, dehumanized, no match for the massive criminality arrayed against not just them, but us, all whom the schools and elites have abandoned.
But the BS Trump throws around people listen to because it is in short burst. Most of the people in this world are not scholars.
Bingo. It’s about emotion. Three to seven word sentences with no more than two syllable words. Memes are better than detailed policies. Feelings over facts. (Roy Cohn-ism)
Gary, that article is <difficulty accessing proper adjective here> a good one. Scary as all get out.
OK, I'll bring up the elephant in the room.
Looking at all their appointments in the aggregate, NONE of those named have the ability or experience, much less the background knowledge needed to perform the duties of the positions. I suspect that's intentional. Their authority will be superficial. Their role is strictly to be a puppet figurehead.
Behind each of them, keeping out of sight, there will be someone running the show and making the decisions that matter. Their background or associations won't be examined by US security or our legislature - and never will be. It will be no different at the presidential level, considering that Donald is 78 and in failing health (both mentally and physically), and isn't in any shape to seriously take on the duties of the presidency. Donald's vice president JD is no better; all he offers is youth and a willingness to obey orders. He's no leader.
All of which suggests to me that under the coming Trimp Regime, the US will be run by a host of unidentified and un-elected people working for ... WHO?? And to accomplish WHAT?? Perhaps that would be a good question for the Senate to address before quieting down and letting the MAGAt's take over.
It is intentional Gary. Really intentional.
I recommend Timothy Snyder's Substack called Decapitation
He lays it all out quite well.
Yes. What I said in brief form, Snyder explains in full.
It's worth promulgating. See: https://snyder.substack.com/p/decapitation-strike
Thank you Gary. What's clear is the projection. Trump is the leader of the "internal enemies", even if he's just a figurehead.
Oligarchs
That has been obvious from the first “nominee.” Putin is ready and more than willing, with a cadre of oligarchs
Bingo Gary! Example: Dick Cheney. Even if Trimp is a typo, I still like it. Trimp the wimp chimp.
Let's not overlook the fact that this has been the case many many times, if not always. Very influential figures behind the Pres, whom we barely know of. Numerous invisible influences. Nothing new in this.
T has done a poor job of keeping these people hidden or nameless. He can't help wanting a big show of outrageous behavior that we reflexively get all worked up about, day after day after day.
Whats more obvious than his fire hose of "unprecedented" decisions and pronouncements? Its working, why stop now?
I'm waiting for someone smarter than me to come up with a strategy to make this firehose tactic less effective. Really. Nobody has yet. Screaming louder about each outrage hasn't worked. Pleading with the media to stop hasn't worked.
Susan,
Exactly. I remember hearing that in the 60's the news division of a network wasn't expected to make a profit. It was considered to be a public service. Now they have to be profitable and profit has become greed and greed has become lies. Trump wasn't entirely wrong when he yelled Fake News. But as they say on the playground, it takes one to know one.
Ultimately loyalty comes down to predictability and follows orders quietly. Therefore, qualifications and experience are neither essential nor desired.
The who is set out clearly in Heather Cox Richardson, Democracy Awakening
"It is also possible that, aside from political calculations, enough Senate Republicans take seriously their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” as well as the Senate’s role in the constitutional system of checks and balances that they will judge Trump’s antics with that in mind."
Possible. But all the evidence so far is of Republican officials falling all over each other to fall in line.
It takes a village of Eichmann's to manage the logistics of fascist rule. And there is no shortage of Republican volunteers.
No shortage indeed.
“This is no longer a post-election moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment”
-Timothy Snyder
https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/decapitation-strike?r=6x8sj&utm_medium=ios
I agree with most of the comments that the Republicans will continue to go along with Trump out of fear. Any Republican who had a spine, has either left or is dead! Sorry Heather I don’t see the possibility at all.
I can’t help but recall an excerpt from Liz Cheney’s book about the insurrection where she states that a good number of the Republican senators would not have voted to convict had they not feared for their safety. Remember that a fundamental dynamic of the Orange Blob’s personality is running his operations like a mob boss.
Did she? Or did she say that a number of R Senators WOULD have voted to convict had they NOT feared violence against them.
This reads quite to opposite.
Right…. I got twisted up there. Shouldn’t post late at night without proofing myself better. They would have voted to convict, but they feared for their safety.
When the first “objector” falls out of a high rise window, the message will be more personal. No Navalnys here
You’ve got a typo here. Delete a right NOT
I hate to say I agree w: you Eva but sadly I do.
The Senate will give up its constitutional co-equal status & its “ advice & consent” function .
And that will be the voluntary walk into authoritarian rule.
It will be freely given . As it usually is.
"Republicans will continue to go along with Trump out of fear."
They go along because they believe in Trump's agenda.
Stick it to the libs
Can’t believe we are in a Deja Vu moment with 2016 only worse. History repeats itself. Thanks Heather
If votes are secret, how do they determine the demographics of who voted for who and what? If they use after-election polls, why would those be any more accurate than pre-election polls?
I have that same question. How do they determine the demographics of who voted and for what. Is it exit polls? That doesn't seem very accurate.
Voter registration data.
in my state, we don't declare a party in our voter registration. No one knows how I voted, just that I did vote
Same in WA state. No demographic associated with my voter registration except address.
I believe basic demographics are given in order to determine these statistics.
Then how would that be any more accurate than any other poll?
There is no demographic associated with voter registration other than address.
I’m very worried about these nominees and appointees. The bar is so low, given the record of the person soon-to-be-at-the-helm…just makes me think they will find a way to push many or most of these through. But, your last sentence gives me some hope back, Heather. Thank you, as always. xo
With Bannon at one elbow and Musk at the other, these are not really Trump appointees, and by what constitutional right are Bannon and Musk there at all? Trump, or probably Bannon, is thumbing his nose at the whole framework. In accordance with 2025. In 2016, when the White House was just an "Apprentice" set to him, his easy come/easy go appointments were ridiculous. Now that his hand is being, shall we say, guided, they are a clear and present danger. How can it be stopped? I hope Mitch McConnell is feeling sick as he watches.
"I hope Mitch McConnell is feeling sick as he watches."
Arguably, McConnell has done more harm to the institutions of democracy than Trump has. McConnell bent all precedent, even his own, to deny Obama and then Biden Supreme Court appointments. McConnell orchestrated the Republican refusal to find Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial - a conviction would've barred Trump from running again.
Yes. I'm suffused with anger and bitterness.
Same for me. I also carry a deep sadness for all of this.
I've written to Susan Collins on several occasions urging her to support her constituents and not Moscow Mitch.
She never responds.
I think Bannon's an anarchist, who is wildly excited to burn the Whole house down.
I know that, as he has said it before. That is his whole purpose, here and in Europe. He was not satisfied with only burning down our country; he wanted worldwide fame. He is an evil SOB. I have several more names for him, but you can fill in the blanks. He is a loathsome person, and the whole MAGA group as well. They are traitors, good for nothing, and being thrown in a pit for the remainder of their sick, poisonous lives is too good for them. I would like to see some group, very large, overrun every last one of them, round them up, and haul them off to a large compound where justice can be meted out. They want to do that to immigrants so they will understand it, at least. You could say that immigrants are here illegally, and I say that being a traitor has not been considered the highlight of being a good citizen, and in the past, there was a specific way of dealing with traitors.
We can't fight this sickness by being timid and friendly and saying, "Aw shucks, we will do it the usual way." No, it is time to fight fire with fire. And I am not worried about some new civil war breaking out over it as I would like to see these self-appointed, all-important, and powerful militias go up against the US military. Some will think I've lost the plot and gone off the deep end, but look what we are standing around waiting for, like we have zero choice but to go along. We either do things, think outside the box, or run headfirst off the cliff. I think it's a matter of how much anyone will do to save our country and its democracy. I know I am talking about a constitutional crisis. Still, I've already become aware that it's only a matter of time after the menace is back in office when the constitutional crises will be upon us. Yes, I am pretty over reading and listening to these pontificators talking about how so many in this country have decided democracy does not work anymore and are willing to try autocracy. I will never accept that. Go bold, do whatever it takes to save our country. It is startling that I have arrived at this point, as I have always been very peace-oriented. It has something to do with the reaction of some when they are backed into a corner. You fight or curl up and wait to get hit or worse. At least I feel better venting. I am confident I will calm down and try on the other hat after some sleep. I was going to say, please don't send the guys with the straight jacket, but am I the crazy one here?
No, clear-eyed and determined. The Burn it down crowd is in charge, unless Putin has other plans.
"We can't fight this sickness by being timid and friendly and saying, "Aw shucks, we will do it the usual way." No, it is time to fight fire with fire."
Agree very much. The Democrats seem to be doing an awful lot of standing around right now in front of microphones. Where are Garland and Biden and Jeffries? Where are the Democratic Senators and Representatives? Aren't there ANY laws, Constitutional guardrails or procedures that can be invoked?
Where is everybody? Somebody DO something!
President Biden has immunity granted by SCOTUS. Can't he take some drastic action?
The craziness of it all can get to any of us, and what we come up with, what we propose, what courage we have to summon, is a perfectly sane way to begin dealing, however we have to.
Burn it, then buy up what is left at fire sale prices. I suspect it is about money. If it is about “freedom” in his mind, then that is freedom for himself and buddies to control everyone else.
What are you saying? Do you realize what is being said is the destruction of the Government of the United States of America? The Democracy will no longer exist on the face of this planet. The Country will be in the hands of the Fascists of trump's Government.
Putin will have conquered America.
I am not exaggerating here at all.
No you are not. Authoritarians use whatever tools are available inside and across any boundaries geographic or otherwise, have to be stopped by people becoming more educated however that can happen. Sixth grade reading level? Well let's work with it.
Barbara Mullen, I must be careful to address who I am replying to. I am not suggesting we burn it. Bannon, Musk, Thiel, etc., are the ones who want to burn it.
You are not exaggerating at all, about a win for Putin and dictators and oligarchs.
Ok. Now I understand your comment. To be sure you are addressing me you can click on my Substack link by my name and glance at what I write.
No Republican could write that stuff :))
Yes, Bannon is an anarchist. I remember that his bid for a huge, I think Vatican owned property was refused in Italy. They saw the threat he posed and still poses here.
Mitch McConnell does not have an ounce of "feeling".
Oh, he does. It informed his dogged opposition to the black man in the White House.
It looks like a belief system around ideas more than just 'feeling'. The ideas around superiority and the mission that goes with them as he sees it, and also many others see it. We call them 'isms'.
Agreed. My Like doesn’t work.
Craig, Substack has some glitches lately. When reading on my phone last night, some comments just were incomplete, and earlier in the day (on my laptop) I kept getting told that I had to subscribe (which I have for 4 years now) in order to "like" something.
I suspect the increased volume of traffic is at fault.
Or...
I don't feel rational at all today. The tech bros in with trump have immense power right now. Anything can happen to these systems we trust so much. My good stuff keeps going to spam right now. The best I can do today is to cook and take some long walks to try and regain some balance.
Given the circumstances, it's not surprising that your Like doesn't work. :)
I just hope Mitch McConnell feels sick. I wish that upon him for the remainder of his days.
Mitch has no conscience, zip
Read Timothy Snyder:
Decapitation Strike
Read Joyce Vance:
The Democracy Index
It is important from hear on out to see the bigger picture of what is happening. We are seeing the first wave of an effort to dismantle Government.
Is Gaetz maybe a straw man? They'll reject him but after a lot of exhausting theater around him, they'll slide the rest through?
Maybe these are the distraction, just waiting for Putin’s picks. Or they could start the destruction process for him. The hatred for “others” has given enemies a path through our defenses…
I’ve actually been wondering about this distraction — is there something going on behind the chaos because that’s why he likes the chaos. Is it the Musk thing — that he’s meeting with governments as if he is our spokesmodel?
Chaos distracts, you can bet your bootie that there are machinations galore behind the scenes.
I wondered that, too.
I didn’t care for the last sentence. In my world, Trump and the word “antics” don’t go together.
I suspect that the Professor's use of "antics" was very intentional. In its archaic form, it meant "grotesque or bizarre", which is an entirely appropriate descriptor.
The Republican Senators now in office are as likely to have the moral backbone to stop Trump from fulfilling his traitorous unconstitutional desires than they are to find him guilty in an impeachment trial.
The country and its citizens are only in the way of Republican Senators and Republican Congressmen from gaining as much of the money and power left in the food crumbs that Trump leaves on the floor after eating his hamburgers and fries.
What we are seeing is a great battle between the space taken up by excess capital, corporate capitalism,
and the existing permissions of democracy, in which the socially sick greedies have found all the loopholes or created them. The worship of money is the new god in all kinds of disguises.Money-as-religion.