Thank you so much for the back story of why President Kennedy was in Dallas that day. Back then, people who wanted equal rights weren’t “woke”, they were “communists”. The one thing in common is the attacks on those who would advocate for the marginalized.
And yet here we are once again…. Sadly tfg and his cronies have convinced half the country they are the marginalized and that they have been marginalized by the “lefties”. Except this time tfg and company have deliberately created this riff and will not seek to heal anything much less have any desire to do so. The division, the derision is their desire.
The road ahead looks to be a rough one. Likely much more difficult than the one we’ve been on
Sadly George, it isn't even close to 1/2 of the country. 1/3 of the registered voters didn't vote. And then there are the illiterates, about 11% of the population. And those that don't speak English and live in states where they don't offer Spanish or other translated ballots. And others that are disenfranchised for some other reason.
Trump didn't receive one half of those that actually voted and millions of them voted because they believe the lies they read on social media or heard on Fox News or Newsmax.
Roberts and the Supremes knew exactly what the were doing in 2010 when they allowed corporate money to influence elections.
What were the results of the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections been without the hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate money?
The money in politics is killing us. Consider how profitable it is for media that benefit from election spending. Not to mention the benefit that those largest donors get when their team wins. There is an indirect correlation between the amount of money in politics and the level of democracy we experience.
True, the money in politics buys up television systems and print media, using them to spread wedge issues. Abortion is an excellent example. Many Americans don't like abortion but accept it as a woman's choice for whatever the reason. But many don't and for that reason they vote Republican, which in turn is destroying their futures. The national debt is now $37 trillion. By 2034 it could be $60 trillion, meaning virtually that Social Security and Medicare will be gone or else nothing but a skeleton. It's said that 80% of one's medical bills are incurred in the last 20% of one's life. I'm now 84. I would say that the percentage is closer to 95%. The abortion wedge issue, along with gay rights, female rights, immigrants and the like are leading the unsuspecting down the road to certain misery. They will suffer medically, emotionally and financially "when the chickens have come home to roost." By the time they realize that they've been suckered, it'll be too late.
"Many Americans don't like abortion but accept it as a woman's choice for whatever the reason." Unfounded and unproven statement.
"In a Center survey conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion, 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases."
Old age health issues? You don't know that a woman's reproductive health issues are continuous throughout her life as the nature of her gynecological needs change. As more and more physicians specializing in women's reproductive health exit the field and less and less physicians will enter the women's health field it is very likely women of all ages will be denied the health care they need throughout their life.
My most intense use of a gynecologist was not during my reproductive years, not during my three pregnancies, not during my three deliveries. No, it was in my early 60s, when I had a gynecological cancer. I’m in my mid-sixties now, and still getting gynecological care twice a year, which I likely will have forever. I profoundly hope that wasn’t the last 20% of my life, but it sure was expensive.
Men don’t know very much about women’s bodies, and yet have no problem legislating our care. Women’s health care isn’t all about abortion, but abortion policy affects a lot of women’s health care. I fear for the women in southern states, when getting any kind of gynecological care, including oncology, will become increasingly difficult as doctors leave those states. Should we see a national ban, I predict fewer doctors choosing gynecology as a specialty. All women will suffer, whether we’re pro choice or not, whether we live in a blue state or not.
You wrote abortion is a“"Wedge issue"? This is a life and death issue.”
It is both. It is a life and death issue that is used as a wedge issue by Republicans to divide Americans as a way of gaining political power… to among other things control women by restricting their legal options to control their reproductive lives.
YES. Not a wedge issue AT ALL. Women wants sovereignty over their body. FULL STOP.
I’m so tired of having to explain this. No one is telling men what to do with their dicks. (Let’s examine the recent demise of Gaetz due to his insatiable appetite for girls and taking pills to sex all night . . .) What a disgrace. This country is an embarrassment. Perfect timing for another country to take advantage of us.
I sorry but I’m angry. Forgive my ranting. Barbara, I read the same stats that you did. My daughter has had complications in two of her three pregnancies. She was bleeding too much after the birth of her first child. She was given medication they want to ban to ease the bleeding. Her second pregnancy, she had a positive lab test, everything was progressing normally. She and her husband went for the first sonogram and there was no heartbeat. As a matter of fact, there was no baby. The gestational sack was there but the egg never developed. The sack was empty, no baby. The doctor said she would have miscarriage. After two weeks the doctor performed a D&C, because of health concerns. There is a name for this but I can’t spell it. What would happen now? As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t have a uterus, shut up! Furthermore, how could any woman vote for a man who was convicted in civil court of sexual abuse. He has been unfaithful to all three of his wives. And finally, this man was awaiting sentencing in NY convicted of fraud. He is a felon. Elon has said it will be tough times, but he and trump won’t be suffering we will. So, remember you get what you stupidly voted for, God help our beloved country.
As for November 22, 1963, I was just 18. However, I can tell you what I was doing that day. There is never a time that I write that date and don’t think of JFK. I read what Jackie said about changing her clothes, a while ago. I always admired her. I was sitting in front of the tv for the Jack Ruby murder of LHO. In shock, as most of the country was. Interesting, Lady Bird, heard three shots.
And, of course, the centre of this issue is whether one citizen should be able to force their religious views on another, when the decision has no impact on the would-be enforcer or on society at large except according to the most contrived arguments.
Barbara, I have to agree here. Also much research has been done on men for conditions that affect genders differently. I have a female gyn, a good male primary, and a wonderful male orthopedist. One of the things they do best is listen.
I read this somewhere: remember, your congressperson’s mistress will always have access to abortion. Crude. But when you look at his recent nominees . . .
I hear you and agree - but here we are letting wedges separate our own side. With such a large percentage of US citizens favoring women having control over their own bodies, my unwoke opinion is that we keep that the core issue, along with civil rights, and back off a little on some of our more holier than thou issues, like trans athletes for example. Tone down our rhetoric on divisive international policies. Yes, the goalposts are on the move again, but we must start winning again too.
Not to mention that research on women's health is still taking a back seat to research on men's health. And let's not forget, we're talking about white men in large part.
Richard, we are going to suffer unless we are wealthy. Already it is dawning on a few of them that they are not going to do well, Yes, that Obamacare you hate is the actually the ACA which provides your health insurance despite your pre-existing conditions. And those immigrants you hate, they are the ones who do the scut work in the ag business that puts food on your table.
Yeah, I remember when Obamacare was passed & the people who were so against it thought the ACA was great! Makes you wonder.
And exactly who do these folks think picks their fruit & vegetables, works in the slaughter houses or meat packing industry or cleans their houses & waits on them? Doing all those jobs that "Amuricans" wont do!
Somehow, in the next few years Democrats HAVE/MUST do a better job of not only getting their message across BUT understanding and dealing with the people who dont live part of the year in Washington and who dont make almost $200,000 a year - understanding how normal ordinary people survive and live appears to have escaped them.
And millions will really regret it when their or their parents' social security payments stop arriving or suddenly become half of what they were. While a new cushy tax break is passed for the top "earners", and inflation resumes.
Of Trump's victory, Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne has said it best:
"Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics:
Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please."
I think and hope that you are correct, Joe. Right now the several tRump-voters that I know are gloatingly happy, and will remain so over the next two years while tRump extracts his revenge. If enough of the government structure remains functionally in place at the mid-terms, there is a chance for massive correction. If not, harder times are coming in the republic IMO.
Older people can make a huge difference now by asking earlier for palliative care and hospice, when they recognize they have a terminal condition. We are going to see huge numbers of deaths, if we lose the ACA, and we lose vaccines. We are going to be like people in the 1850s. We also need to try to get Congress to stop the dark money coming in because of the Citizens United SCOTUS decision. In 2 years, we have a chance to repair the balance in the House!
I agree about the medical needs of older citizens. I had one doctor appointment which led to 3 others. Every doctor found something else. One medication was causing liver function to decrease. So, I went to a liver specialist who wanted an ultrasound. T ultrasound person found something, and I was supposed to go to an urologist, then back to the liver guy. All this from some frigging blood test I had with my shrink!
It disturbs me that every day even after the election I was getting emails asking for money basically to support people who are devoted to making democracy work for all the people. And those who have most of the wealth have most of the impact. In my state Pennsylvania a billionaire who does not even live in our state won an election for the Senate just barely over Bob Casey another boy from Scranton who along with his father ,a past governor of our state, worked for a democracy for all the people.
I stopped answering those appeals for money -daily!!!!- And one reason is I decided I don't know where my money might be going. The other side would not be above pretending to be Democrats and raking in our money. Or some of the criminals out there could take advantage of the situation. No, I decided not to respond to appeals that arrive through the Internet. What is a little bit disturbing though is that pressing "delete and report as junk mail" does not seem to stop anything.
“ news”. Up until Ronnie Reagan news broadcasts were a public service that the media were bound to along with some journalistic standards. Under Reagan that rule was abolished in favor of making the news profitable for the networks ,and standards went out the window. This allowed cable networks to flourish, and todo so outside of FCC regulations. This brought us Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh. “News” is now a commodity to sell and market share is what it all about. Each outlet caters to its “market” and tells them what they want to hear.
One simple rule change could begin to rectify the chasm between fact and conspiracy. And we would see journalists return to doing what they are meant to do.
You wrote “ One huge problem is with the delivery of the
“ news”. Up until Ronnie Reagan news broadcasts were a public service that the media were bound to along with some journalistic standards. Under Reagan that rule was abolished in favor of making the news profitable for the networks ,and standards went out the window. This allowed cable networks to flourish, and todo so outside of FCC regulations.”
Yes and no. You are referring to what was known as the fairness doctrine, which applied to the public airways.
Cable is a different medium and thus not subject to the same regulations. Rush Limbaugh was among the first to realize he could get away with pushing only one side of issues and was thus a key cause if today's poisonously divided body politic.
“The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints.[1]”
That is exactly what she wrote when she put "news" in quotes, and indicated that and actually used the words " Under Reagan that rule was abolished in favor of making the news profitable for the networks ,and standards went out the window. This allowed cable networks to flourish, and todo so outside of FCC regulations."
That's right, and Trump is still eating up the news attention!! Every day every day. Can you imagine how this helps the profit line of all our news media? I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to keep track of what the hell is going on.
Hate to be a Contrarian but this is NOT something "new". Money had controlled politics for my entire lifetime (73). You don't think Kennedy won in 1960 because of his family's money and their moneyed connections? You don't think Nixon won because he was able to curry favor with the right wing moneyed interests against Humphrey who had threatened to use populist power to reduce the money influence in Washington? Reagan? The Bush family? Even Clinton sold his soul to a large number of big Democratic donors.
Money has played a major part in American politics for almost forever. This is nothing new, it's just that nobody even tries to hide it anymore.
What has changed isn't what is happening but simply that there is no longer any shame if you are a Trump or a Musk or, yes, even a Soros.
We can say they "bought" the American middle class as well. What do we think 401K Plans do, and, for that matter, private health insurances, which don't stop increasing yearly deductibles, selling our personal information to their unsolicited "satellite plans" that have flashy selling points, but lack real service? Think about the push for private Medicare associated health providers. I bet our 401K portfolios have increased because our money was being invested in the same companies that have been in the business to undermine public health and Democracy. The complexity and complicity behind "too big to fail" should not be ignored.
But didn’t Harris’s receive more? I thought it was lack of media attention on Biden’s accomplishments and allowing Trump’s disinformation to circulate. Trump received far more attention because he is basically a circus performer., not a serious., educated leader.
Gary, it is all about the money. It is how the wealth of the country is conveyed to the most wealthy. The plantation owners had their slaves. The US wealthy have some 300 million people that are fleeced.
We would expect wealthy persons to seek political influence. But there should be limits and restrictions. Perhaps FCC could require able channels to provide some free time or modest charges to candidates. Perhaps a forum for candidates almost like a debate can be printed in newspapers where candidates can provide their messages (fact checked). In a representative democracy, the voices of less privileged need to heard.
And sadly the "media" makes money when we are fighting and arguing and having sex scandals. No publicity is bad publicity if it sells ads and gains viewers.
It seems fairly clear Gary, that it was NOT that people didn't vote but that their voting was suppressed, firebombed in drop-off ballot boxes and polling stations in specific swing state localities, "challenged" by "voting vigilantes" by the 100's of thousands, almost all of whom were black voters who were alleged to not live at that address anymore, many serving on active duty in the military, with the only way to correct it, often just days before election day, by appearing in person at the polling station. Many were offered provisional ballots which themselves were not counted. It seemed so many did not vote because they were actively and vigorously suppressed with ever more nefarious Jim Crow type laws and intimidation. At least in the swing states this was in NO WAY a free and fair election!
The media told people it was raining when in fact the sun was out. And they kept saying that for years. Then they kept saying there were brown skinned bad people outside. And on and on and on.
And the sad part is that the PEOPLE voted for Ms .Harris -- over 50% -- but the Electoral College -- created by the rich and put into the Constitution in order to get it signed -- elected tr***. that needs to be stated over and over again to everyone so they understand that the People do not control the election.
Sorry this is just wrong. Harris got almost 2 million votes FEWER that Trump so how do you suggest that she win more than 50 percent of the popular vote?
I am sorry we lost, but we lost. Harris didn't win EITHER the electoral college or the majority of the popular vote. It was NO " mandate" as the right wing nuts claim but the election wasn't "stolen" either.
We lost. We need to get over it and stop acting like children who want to pout and start figuring out how to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Thank you, John. Tffg’s fat thumb on the scales of justice, aided by the filthy rich and brainwashed cult to take us back to the 1850’s. The big secret—cheat and lie at every opportunity—is not a secret to most of us. Can the election be recalled for fraud?
The political parties have become vultures. I’m old, I don’t remember my parents ever having to pay for the privilege of voting or being hounded to death by begging for your $5 to save democracy. How could my modest contribution compare with 100 mil from Miriam Adelson and god knows how much from muskrat. The situation is untenable and a joke when we blather about a free and fair election. Chump “won” a rigged election from start to finish. He finally knew he would when he stopped yammering about Joe dropping out and the campaign switched to racism and sexism. Chump told us of the “secret” and how we would never need to vote again. He went to entertaining, the only thing the carnival barker knows…. And us poor suckers were flim flammed…
Corporations are not people Until a corporation can get life in prison or the death sentence.. No person is ever accountable with Citizens United. The worse America could do is slap a fine on them. Dark money pours in. Corporations own our government. We just think we have a part and now when Musk bluntly bought votes and possibly rigged the election with Starlink and the 60 bomb threats and bullet ballots. May we all live our best day, every day.
Thank you. To be exact, 93 million registered voters didn’t vote in this election, vs. 79 million in the 2020 election. Is the difference (I think both figures are appalling) that the Democratic candidate was a woman of color?
Gary, I wonder how much of the non voting was voter suppression. The vote was down here in Oregon even though it is easy as we vote by mail and the postage is paid. This is truly a loathsome Supreme Court and it could only get worse.
By not voting aren't they expressing an opinion that it doesn't matter, that "they" are all the same? Certainly though many cannot vote, no time working three jobs and caring for children...Why didn't VP Harris mention the minimum wage and think of changing that for the working poor?
VP Harris would have been a fine president. She lost because millions and millions of people are suffering from one paycheck to the next. Her candidacy - as decent and positive as it was - did not speak of change.
So when the guy at the bar or the coffee shop says "all politicians are the same", the others grumble in agreement. When mom has to call in sick because her kid's school is having a holiday (there are so many) and there is no one else to watch him/her...child care, if available, is so expensive as to be a sick joke.
Democrats need to regroup and reframe their platform. I'm all for "social justice". Good, keep it. But we will not regain ground with the average hard working American until we offer some fresh ideas about helping them.
That should include universal health care - start by covering all kids. Provide day care and then pre-school to all kids. There is no economic justice if one parent can't work. Parents who work can pay taxes!
Provide elder care AT HOME. Keep grandma in her home happy and safe - save the Nation billions in nursing home costs (elder warehousing provided for PROFIT). Harris did mention this...
Defend public schools and demand more level funding. Fight vigorously against vouchers that suck money away from universal education.
And aggressively tax the ultra rich to pay for all this and more. Lift the cap on Social Security taxes - everyone should pay the same percentage! Maybe people like Zuckerberg and Musk should pay even higher rates!
Want a campaign ad? Select Google Images. Search for Mark Zuckerberg Yacht(s). See him being towed on his new motorized surfboard. Try to control your hurl factor as the details and costs of his floating hobby are described.
Democrats can claim the moral high ground, if they have the chutzpah to do it. "The rich are too rich and the poor are getting poorer." Yell it from the mountain tops!
Democrats need to become CHANGE AGENTS if they want those eligible voters who don't vote. We need to become "populists"!
"Tax the rich, feed and house the working poor." Economic Justice!
It shouldn't be hard in the richest nation to have ever existed.
Absolutely agree. But Hillary won the popular vote and we voted in a black man with little experience - twice. I think those factors are real. So was Gaza or Israel - based on one's point of view.
But perhaps all of that could have been overcome with a vision of greater change. MAGA is as radical as possible - we need a radical counter balance that shakes the status quo.
My sadness about losing her leadership...I have no words. I had never been so hopeful for a presidential candidate. Still stunned that someone so qualified, so positive, so damn smart (!) could lose to such a monster. Astounding.
What you say is needed is exactly what Kamala was running on.
I have no time for the guy standing next to his $70,000 pickup saying he is voting for Trump because of “the economy”; ours is the strongest in the world. People do need help, listen to her speeches.
A large portion of our nation has been lobotomized by Fox News for 30
plus years. Add in the richest man in the world who controls social
media, add the Russians and other nefarious group: voila Trump.
I agree with what you say here. Unfortunately the dems have gone all in for corporate donations and have thrown the working poor under the bus. I was very excited by VP Harris and believed she would win. Yes she didn't get on the change bandwagon, even though people want that and it is desperately needed. There are complicated and myriad reasons she lost. Wide spread voter suppression in the toss up states was huge esp Georgia, Arizona, PA, and Nevada, beyond the confederacy. I guess the desire of slave owners to spread their cancer to the west won after all...
Careful who you're calling "illiterates". Would they be the people who didn't go to college, like my husband, who reads more news sources than most college-educated people (including the professors, doctors, lawyers, and scientists in our neighborhood), or the people who voted for Trump because they are Conservative or Orthodox Jews and he "put the US embassy in Jerusalem"? Or the people who are so concerned with nuclear war with the current president that they'd rather take a chance on an actor/egotist? Or the people so upset by watching dead children wrapped in plastic sheeting in Gaza that they could no longer vote for a pro-Israel candidate? Or the people stuck in poverty with whom I spoke when canvassing for Bernie who had given up on both parties and couldn't stomach voting for either one? Yes, you are correct about the AIPAC money defeating Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, because they proclaimed the need for a ceasefire in the Middle East. As a number of experts have said, we are at the end of the American Empire, and this current administration and the next one are perfect signs of this.
Yes, I'm angry, but also worried about the futures of many, many people, all around this world.
When Trump starts building hotels and apartments in Gaza, with the PM’s blessings, perhaps those short sighted people worried about the children should have realized
no candidate is perfect. But one was supremely qualified and not a rapist, felon, lier.
The money is now IN the white house not influencing, but directing policy.. they have transcended the boundary that was once, no matter how transparent, there..
Sadly Gary, elaborating on the numbers is beside the point. The non-engagers and low-information voters aren't going to be our salvation in the face of the Trumpian goose-steppers arrayed against American values. This will be fought by a collective minority of Americans.
Well, let’s not forget that the country fired the Dems for cause. For three years the Administration ignored the complaints of high prices while bragging that eleven-teen Nobel economists said the economy was great. And border mismanagement.
I agree Dems have a messaging problem and a message problem. We also have an ‘out of touch’ problem that we can and must solve.
It’s hard to believe they now control all three branches of government. They won this election by exploiting lies, fear, and hatred—and they’ve openly vowed to seek revenge. Their newly appointed Attorney General has expressed intentions to prosecute prosecutors, among others they despise. More than half the country didn’t vote for this group of unqualified, angry gang whose focus seems to be on destruction rather than fixing. They show no interest in solving real problems but instead seem intent on dismantling our institutions, targeting vulnerable groups like immigrants, and undoing our liberal democracy.
Welp Harvey.., I'd say we've got us a whole room full of 'swingers' here. I do believe they will 'screw' themselves 'in the end'...., get an equivalent of AIDS and suffer. For they are some sick mf's to be sure. The red-blanket covering our nation is ill-woven and will self-destruct.
The voters did not know who or what they were voting for. This is an extremely important point. The voters did not know what Harris stood for. The voters do not know what the Biden Administration had done for them. People erroneously voted against their own interests.
There is a massive net of factual disinformation in the United States.
The information systems in our Country were overtaken by right wing/Russian entities decades ago. The legacy media (NBC etc.) were overtaken by oligarchs such as Bezos of the Washington Post.
The double edge sword of rabid disinformation and voter suppression won this election for trump. But barely. We are looking at a margin of 1.5% victory.
Some of them want that, with all their hearts. White Christian nationalism, with the white, Christian, cisgendered, heteronormative male in charge of everyone else.
Jimmy Carter’s grandson talked to many Trump voters and the majority said they avoided the campaign altogether. They didn’t go to his rallies. They didn’t watch the debate. They were not exposed to Kamala’s message at all. They believed the lies told them online and on Joe Rogan. And the corporate media told them over and over and over that the economy was bad and despite their own experience they believed the propaganda and voted accordingly. That was “doing their research”—confirming their pre-existing bias.
The fact is that for many especially at or below the poverty line the economy IS bad. If you are still in the middle class or slightly above you probably don't see it. If you own your home you probably don't see it. If you have two cars, maybe even a Tesla, you certainly don't see it.
But if you rent in a lower income neighborhood, if you buy groceries every week, if you only have one car that is 12 years old, if you take home less than $3000 a month then to you this economy sucks. And nothing Biden or Harris or Tom Walz said was going to change that.
Biden solved a lot of problems, many of which were caused by Trump. But face it, we are 5+ years and one pandemic past that time and the only person those people still mired in working class poverty are going to blame is the guy in charge “right now”.
And when that guy got on TV and couldn't even answer questions coherently (and it matters not at all WHY that was, a head cold or senility) he was toast. Moreover I think even Jesus would have had a hard time getting elected President if he had been Biden's VP at that point. Let alone a black Indian woman married to a Jew?
In politics appearances really DO matter, but more important appearances of the first impression matter the most. After Biden's screw up, not only was he done but the whole party was in jeopardy.
In fact what is amazing is that despite all that, Harris STILL came very close (just 200,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the other direction and she would have won the election). And we lost just four seats in the Senate and maybe 2 or 3 seats in the House when a 20% swing to the GOP might have happened.
So now we have to buckle up for 4 years of Trump insanity and yes inanity. The one good thing is that, much like Trump and his minions in 2017, most of these people have no clue what they are doing or how it works and they are very likely to at least start with a lot of screw ups that will result in court cases and other challenges that will delay what they can accomplish if anything.
And 2026 midterms are just 2 years away. With Trump focused on trying to deport 10 million illegal immigrants, he will have his hands full. Hopefully by 2026, with typical GOP voters sitting on their hands as mostly happened in 2018 and 2022, and with lots of GOP Senate seats up for grabs, Democrat could take back both the House and Senate and put some serious brakes on the damage Trump will try to do.
Or the worst could happen and we will find ourselves in the midst of a brewing second Civil War.
I don't know how it will turn out but it isn't going to be pretty no matter what.
Jade. My after-the-election attitude, knee-jerk as it is, is to stop caring about people who can't or won't care about themselves. I've always voted altruistically. What's good for the country always ends up being good for me.
But the attitude of people who voted Trump in can be expressed in a 5-word political philosophy: "I got mine, fuck you!" So if they are happy with what they have, and eventually find that their vote ends up eroding their security and place in this country, I just can't find it in my heart to care for them anymore.
Now, I mentioned that was somewhat knee-jerky of me. In reality, 70 years of caring can't be turned off like a light switch. I suspect I will soften. I always do...
John, I tend to agree with you. I have a friend (a fellow who used to work for a neighboring agency who was one of the first cops that killed someone during my time in law enforcement--it was a true "me or him" situation, 100% justified) who shortly left law enforcement (before the days of understanding how traumatic killing someone is). We became Facebook friends 10 years ago or so; we'd always been friends because our birthdates are almost identical, I'm about a year older than he is. He was always what I would have termed a "conservative Christian". He is now dying of some unspecified heart and lung ailment and is currently in the hospital. He proudly posted a photo of his left hand (with a hospital ID band and an IV showing) and made the announcement that it had helped him vote for tfg in hopes to hold Biden and Harris "accountable" for the condition the country was in.
That's incredibly sad. How cult-like of a dying man, who's probably taking advantage in his last days of the advances created by left-thinking people. The right couldn't give a rat's ass about him.
They are deeply indoctrinated. There’s no “choice” when their mind has become infested with disinformation. It becomes their world view. Deprogramming is complex and next to impossible. This is what we have now; right wing media dominance whose goal is to indoctrinate and create division. This is America.
I agree with you. We are all adults. Yes, one is mentally deficient after years of right wing kool aid,but we are all adults who know right from wrong. Anyone
who listens to 3 minutes of T talking and still supports him is seriously
in moral decay. They enjoy the entertainment and the cruelty or they are so
greedy they chose to ignore it. Both types are vile people. How many million?
You have to get your head out of targeted news; when all you listen to is the garbage pouring in from Faux, OAN, etc. AND BELIEVE EVERY WORD OF IT, of course you're going to vote the way you're told to. When the millions of people watching NFL football see ads that target trans people without knowing a single trans person, they're going to vote the way the ads tell them to.
One of the most enjoyable evenings of my life was when my wife's hairdresser turned 40 and we celebrated his birthday (28 of us) at a drag show in Jacksonville, FL. I have no clue who, if any of them were trans, gay or whatever, but it was a great time. Our 17 year old daughter came with us and she had just as much fun.
My daughter dated a guy for a couple of months as he had just left the army and was preparing to transition. He was extremely conflicted by his own feelings as well as the judgment of others. We all felt so bad for him.
Jade, so am I. To what extent I’m angry, I shall discover with time. But I can tell you that I’m in no state of mind to join Braver Angels, where people talk - meet - listen to one another on the other side.
That's exactly how I feel. I am not proud of the fact that the other day I actually told one of them what I think! But I feel better I have to say that. And now I know I won't have to worry about this person trying to cozy up to me. But I have to admit that part of me thinks that it's not a very good strategy for our country or for me personally.
I agree with many of your comments about disinformation, but I do believe that many people knew full well what they were voting for when they marked Trump on the ballot. It’s been 61 years since I remember hearing the awful news about Kennedy’s death. And I also remember the shocking coverage of the open, rampant, and mean-spirited racism at the time. It’s ironic or maybe predictable that Trump and his ilk now again call for “states” to handle various issues. We’ve heard it before. Anyone who thinks that Trump was elected for his views on the economy is naive.
I do not believe people understand core economics. They also do not understand how tariffs work or that starving "entitlement" programs will result in their Grandmother losing her SS Disability check. They don't know that Obama Care is indeed the ACA.
That said. The motivator for their acquired ignorance is racism. I remain astounded at the level of hatred in these people. You can even see it in some of the MAGA commenters in this forum. Hateful talk, name calling, lies and ignorance is their communication mode.
I am writing about this topic in my Substack this morning. Check in later today in my Substack called Trilogy. You can just click on the work "Trilogy" beside my name. I apologize everyone for mentioning by Substack site. I am responding to Aslo's interest in the topic. I do not have paid subscribers.
George T, my thoughts exactly. I was at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone when this happened. I didn't want to believe it when one of the African students told me that JFK had been shot. It was dinner time there. We were supposed to go to a concert at the American Embassy and went although it was cancelled. One tone deaf Brit complained. I remember it like it was yesterday. And yes, here we are once again.
George T -- and others who have contributed to this steam -- Heather Cox Richardson's story has **nothing** to do with abortion or Trump or __anything else__ other than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I was visiting New York City for Thanksgiving weekend and was having lunch at a French restaurant with my mother and sister -- the first time we'd ever been in a restaurant together! Our waiter came to our table in extreme tears to tell us what had just happened. When he started the story, the President had been shot. In the middle of his story, he updated it! I will never ever ever forget those moments! I was radicalized on the spot, having been a Barry Goldwater fan at the moment (can't believe that now, of course). I was 28 years old.
I remember well. I was sitting in a Catholic school 4th grade class when a nun knocked on our classroom door and a nun announced the JFK had been shot. We were asked to stand and pray. I recall a lonely walk home from school that New England day. Then rushing upstairs into my parents bedroom with my sister watching Walter Cronkite announce to the world as he looked up at the clock. We cried. My mother tried to say something amusing to diminish our cry’s but that didn’t help.
I kinda view 1963 the year my innocence died. Along with Kennedy, the Beatles became the new music. The Buddy Holly period ended. The doo wop music sank into memory. My golden era of pop music was from about 1958 to 1963. Today as a part time songwriter, I’m at times drawn to those silly little love songs from that era as a sweet remembrance of my brief days of innocence.
I was serving in the U.S. Army on Okinawa when early in the morning on Nov. 23 a soldier knocked on my door, opened it and shouted that the president had been assassinated. I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands and wondered, "Did LBJ have anything to do with it?"[I was born and reared in Texas, enlisting in the Army in El Paso in May, 1960.] I soon dismissed that thought. But for LBJ, there probably would be neither a 1965 Voting Rights Act nor Medicare.
LBJ was a very complicated man. Yes he championed civil rights on one hand, but he was a long time racist embedded in the southern democrat white supremacy. Much has been written about the thought that giving blacks the right to vote would make them loyal to the party who got that through, not so much to make them equal. And LBJ hated both John and Bobby Kennedy. So the same questions remain about who was actually behind the assination.
Yes, the songs. Applause for music makers and dancers! A loss of innocence for me too and a drive to heal arose. Sadly, I gave speeches when I was alone in my bedroom because I wasn't recognized or empowered to lead or organize or be heard. I envy people whose families cried together or who unraveled the mental manipulations of polarized thinking (like calling anti-segregationists communists or wokes). It's a blur along with Robert Kennedy's and MLK's death. The Jan. 6th US Capitol attack and Project 2025 are like socio-political Earthquakes to me.
I was in Freshman year of Catholic high school in Latin class. It was announced over the intercom. Yes. Something did die when John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, MLK, Malcom X were shot. The Viet Name war raged. A bloody time juxtaposed with the hippies calling for flowers and free love.
There were different types of hippies. There were the hardcore hippies who dropped out for real and were heavily into drugs. Then there were the college students who wore the pretty hippie clothes and dabbled in pot and acid maybe. Then there were the really politically serious hippies like Abbie Hoffman. Then.....
I never really thought about whether I classified as one although looking back I can see where people might have thought I was.
Hum… I was a young one a baby hippie if you will. Still in grade school. By 1968, I totally dispised the Abbie Hoffmans and their ignorant politics and always thought there would be an ugly backlash to Chicago 1968. Guess what happened? One of my early predictions.
Their "ignorant politics" set the stage for an awful lot of the societal change we see today. I invite you to look at LBJ's Greatest Generation results Kennedy's astounding work in the American Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act, advances in Women's Rights. Educational Reforms, the end of the Viet Nam war.
Activism pays off. The voices of the times heralded change still felt decades later. These guys never hated Democracy.
The ugliest people I know today are dressed in suits, carrying their briefcases in one hand and a nazi flag in another. And they hate our Democracy
I was 19 when the 1968 Chicago Convention sprang onto our TV screens and into our living rooms. Richard Daly was not going to have protestors in "his town." He acted like a bully. I supported the right to protest then and I support that right now.
Yeah Bill, those "45's" capture it: So Fine.. so fine.. my baby's so doggone fine.. lyrics by the Fiestas in 1959. There have been a bunch of "so fine' titles but, I believe The Fiestas did the first DooWop 45. Meantime, se're definitely in one fine mess.
Here is a fun story. I’m from Hartford, CT. In nearby New Britain, there was a local doo wop group called The Crystal Tones. They produced a song titled “Debra Lee.” Really fantastic song you can still find it on YouTube. So the group leader pitched the song to the Ed Sullivan Management for a performance on the show. Sullivan said yes. The group leader asked how much they would receive for performing and Sullivan responded that they don’t pay performers. The group leader said no pay no go. They didn’t perform and after a few years, disappeared from the music scene. For one blessed moment they could have gone national. Talk about making a career mistake.
A data scientist, Stephen Spoonamore, strongly suspects a hack took place during the 2024 election. He speaks of tremendous numbers of “bullet votes” for Trump, occurring in just the swing states. A bullet vote is where there is only one selection in one race out of the entire ballot. For example in Arizona and Nevada, 5% and 7% of the ballots were people who only voted for Trump. He explains how easily it could occur particularly with the ability of Starlink, headed by Elon Musk. He also explains that a hand recount would clear this up. Mr. Spoonamore is imploring Kamala Harris to request a HAND RECOUNT as only she can do. He states that a hand recount will determine the correct number of votes for the 2024 presidential election
As I understand it, voting systems are not online and if this is true, then how is it corrupted? Further, Mr Spoonamore states that Hamas was victimized by pager explosions and they were not. It was Hezbollah not Hamas which is a glaring mistake.
Exactly so, Mary. I had no recollection of the connection between James Meredith's registration at the University of Mississippi and the Kennedy assassination either. However, If you are of a certain age, you remember 11/22/63 as if it were yesterday.
During the 1960 election campaign, those who supported Nixon opposed Kennedy because he was Catholic. They claimed he would be taking orders from the Pope. Then he was a "communist." In any case, he was the "other" and therefore suspect because he attended a Catholic church and supported civil rights.
November 22, 1963 was my 17th birthday, and I remember hearing about the Kennedy assassination sitting in my 12th grade Journalism class. Being good journalism students, we asked where that information had come from. Someone said they had heard it on WPGC, then the teen rock station, so we thought we needed a more reliable source. Then we heard people screaming in the hall. Everyone stayed glued to the tv for days afterwards.
Five years later, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King lost their lives as well. Whatever the personal motives of the men who pulled the triggers, Kennedy and King's deaths were about opposition to the attempt of America's leaders to live up to that central ideal of our founders that all men are created equal.
Sixty-one years later, that battle is clearly not over as too many people not even born in the 1960's supported a presidential candidate who has made a career of leveraging bigotry to attain power. Clearly, the battle for equality of all people has to be fought all over again, but we did it before, and we can do it again. And we will.
I too was a senior in a Jesuit high school in Beaverton OR. For some reason we knew the president was going to be in Dallas that day, probably the news. They announced over the intercom that he had been shot and asked all of us to pray for him which we did, a while later they announced that he was dead and we were sent home to be with our families. I remember it like it was yesterday, the following summer we moved to Atlanta which was like a foreign country and from there I had a front row seat to the civil rights struggles. I really believed that we were going to finally begin to realize the promise of our constitution earlier this month, but some of our fellow citizens chose a darker path, and now we are faced with the unthinkable. 🙏
Thanks for writing Dick. We were living in Prince George's County, just outside DC through most of the 1960's and early 1970's, so I was very aware of the work King and other leaders did to further equality. Kamala Harris wanted to lead us forward, not allow us to go back to a time before the civil rights legislation of the 1960's was passed. Since then, so many people have worked so hard to further rights for women, gays, and other marginalized people. We cannot let Trump and his enablers destroy that progress. It's up to all of us to hold fast to our values and to pick up the work of those brave, strong people who believed they could make our country the best it could be. I will never forget seeing Norman Rockwell's portrait of Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by federal marshals. She was six. I don't have the energy I did back in 2016 when we fought against Trump before, but I'll use what I've got. I think the challenge is even greater this time, but we have to be equal to it. As they say in the military, failure is not an option.
Don’t forget George Wallace, who was pro-segregation, carried 5 southern states in the 1968 Election. Not so very long ago. Obviously the sentiments are still alive.
The sentiments are very much alive and that is why we are now faced with the felon elect. I am flabbergasted at the bigotry that is alive and well in this country. It is what elected the felon along with all the lazy ass non voters! As an Army brat, I grew up surrounded with diversity. I will always be thankful for that. Perhaps I am naive because of it, but nonetheless I am thankful.
Linda: thousands of miles away, in Ankara, Turkey, I remember hearing the news on the radio and something inside me sank. Thinking of the US as a beacon of justice & freedom took a huge hit. Having made it my home, I can’t believe what we are going through now. But racism and misogyny are deep, deep in the country. Sadly. Ready to fight!
Thank you for writing Janan. So many people around the world have seen us as exactly that beacon of justice and freedom that you saw. We owe you and everyone else that has believed in us the hard work we will now have to do to live up to your faith in us. I'm afraid you are right: racism and misogyny are indeed deeply embedded in our culture. I think those are major reasons Kamala Harris lost the election: she's a black woman. Those characteristics may have cost her the election, but she's strong and wise. We must now join hands and work together toward the future she wants us all to have. She said she was conceding the election, but not the fight. You're willing to fight; so am I. I think millions of other people will join us. After Kennedy's assassination, we made tremendous progress toward equality. We can do it again.
I guess that the true meaning or intent and interpretation of those words and “wokeness” depends upon one’s perspective and their skin color or racial identity?!?!
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines "woke" as: "Aware of & actively attentive to important facts and issues, especially of racial and social injustice."
That seems to me to be a very positive trait - not a negative one.
I’m going to copy paste this in to comment sections EVERYWHERE. This big push for people to just get along — honestly, electing this joke of a human is unforgivable. AFTER the fact they are trying to make it about the economy. It will never not be about a cult.
They did not ask for everyone getting along under Biden. Just one more way to gain power over people. It's really insidious to think people are commanding us to like what they are doing to our Country.
Check into any local print shops you have, or check into Zazzle, VistaPrint, or DesignAShirt. I've also had shirts made using TeeSpring (which has a new name but I don't have the icon on my laptop). Be advised their shirts run a bit small. Decent quality, though.
Thank you KMD; I and most of the people with whom I am and have been acquainted, agreed with your sentiments and that definition…and if I might add, the one that also relates to the time my or our sleep ends - although there are some who are walking around among us - but who remain asleep…they ain’t “woke” even though they may have awoken from their physical sleep!
As I was saying, there is no single true meaning. Yours I consider to be a very Pollyanna-ish take on the word. Here’s another, which is, sadly, I think more widely used these days.
“By 2019, the term was being used sarcastically as a pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries targeting various leftist and progressive movements. It has been used to disparage actions as superficial or insincere.[4] Subsequently, terms such as woke-washing and woke capitalism emerged to criticize organizations who advertise their commitment to social justice for financial gain, also referred to as "performative activism".
Term capture is a very old and widely used technique in science as well as politics.
It is where a traditionally neutral or especially positive term is co-opted and given a new negative connotation.
Note especially the last sentence below.
“ AI Overview
The term “woke” has a long history in Black culture and can be traced back to the early 20th century:
1923
Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey wrote "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!" in a collection of philosophical ideas, calling for Black citizens to become more politically and socially conscious.
1938
Blues singer Lead Belly included the phrase “stay woke” in the lyrics of his song “Scottsboro Boys”, a protest song about the 1931 Alabama case where nine Black teenagers were accused of raping two white women.
1962
Novelist William Melvin Kelley wrote the New York Times article “If You're Woke You Dig It,” which is considered the first citation of the word “woke”.
2008
Erykah Badu's song “Master Teacher” popularized the phrase again with the refrain “I stay woke”.
2014
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement popularized the term during the Ferguson protests to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans.
The term “woke” has come to describe being politically aware and vigilant, especially to racial prejudice and other forms of social injustice. However, some Republicans have co-opted the term as a pejorative to signify identity-based social justice issues”
No, just what Christopher Rufo assigned to it. Made it a weaponized four-letter word. He is as good at using words as weapons as Frank Luntz was in W’s day.
Sorry, I don’t remember where I read that. I think it was about the time that Youngkin won Governor of VA. Rufo was bragging about how he had tipped the scale.
I agree, partially. While it means nothing less, it does have other meanings to other people.
For example, and as I wrote above…” “By 2019, the term [woke] was being used sarcastically as a pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries targeting various leftist and progressive movements. It has been used to disparage actions as superficial or insincere.[4] Subsequently, terms such as woke-washing and woke capitalism emerged to criticize organizations who advertise their commitment to social justice for financial gain, also referred to as "performative activism".
It does help to look back and realize this country has been through rough times and survived and good has come of it. I was too young to know how devastating Kennedy’s death was to the nation but in my little part of the world, our community held a memorial service in the local grange hall. I’ll never forget the Boy Scouts marching in with the flag and how somber everyone was in the room. It impacted my 13 year old self and drove commitment to look for ways to serve others down into my soul. I never knew one black person but I had compassion for them and as it turns out, I now have a lovely black granddaughter.
and it hasn't quite "gone away", has it, Mary? As Johnson ensured the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Democratic Party was in the process of splitting up, the southern wing migrating into the Republican Party.
It wasn’t the Democratic Party per se, it was the Southern Democratic electorate, which had been solidly against the Republican Party since the South lost the Civil War and Lincoln freed the slaves.
With the passage in the mid 1960s of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, those who had voted for Democrats switched to being Republican.
Memory is fickle but after a century of the South being solidly Democratic there was a dramatic shift to Republicans coincident with the Civil Rights legislation of Kennedy and then carried over the goal line by LBJ.
The segregationist views of the people did not have a sea change, just the Party which supported those views.
““I [Bill Moyers, LBJ’s aide] said, ‘Quite a day, Mr President.’ As he reached a sheaf of the wire copy he tilted his head slightly back and held the copy up close to him so that he could read it, and said: ‘Well, I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime – and mine.’”
That Party line shift was cemented in place shortly thereafter by Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy.
“In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3] As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party. The strategy also helped to push the Republican Party much more to the right relative to the 1950s.[4]”
Speaking of Barry Goldwater, I’m reminded of a pair of campaign buttons….
One said, referring to Goldwater, “In your heart you know he’s right, far right”, and another also with a picture of Goldwater, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”
As an 18 year old teen who ran the Kennedy for President office with a friend in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles, I recall the sadness of that day and the weeks following. Much sadness and joy since. So, as for Trump, hopefully this will pass too.
Including the citizens of Ukraine. President Kennedy would have pushed back on Russian aggression to prevent Crimea or 2022; otherwise, he would have smoked the Red Army.
Recent statements covering the collective ass of president Biden's policy-makers -- that Ukraine has not mobilized sufficiently -- is not woke but broke.
This quotation is eerily similar to that of Mamie Till of Chicago less than 10 years earlier. Her son Emmit was brutally murdered while visiting relatives in Mississippi, for whistling at a white woman. She demanded an open casket at his funeral so all the world could see “what they did to him”.
Like Carolyn above me, I also thought of Mamie Till like you did. This country tries to paper over its internecine violence and project sunny perfection instead. It's the courageous, in these two cases strong women Jackie Kennedy and Mamie Till, who cast the cultivated appearances and demanded customs of propriety aside, to hold a mirror up to America's face.
Unfortunately, America so frequently forgets what we've looked like. We tell ourselves we're perfect, we always were and lie to ourselves with sanitized retellings of our past. It's tragic that our nation almost seems to demand it be reminded of its capacity for cruelty by deaths like Till's, Kennedy's and riots like January 6th.
Many thanks to Heather Cox Richardson for this poignant account of JFK's assassination.
I was in my ninth grade French class when the news arrived and an announcement made....and my father, who worked for the New York Central Railroad, received the news via Morse code in his offfice. He kept that piece of paper forever.......
This brought the ‘60s back to me like a gut punch. I DO NOT want to go back to those times.
Do Elon Musk, Nick Fuentes, Laura Loomer, Pete Hegseth and the rest of trump’s idiot enablers have any idea what those times were like? No. They didn’t live through it. In the ‘60s I was a white middle class teen in the Midwest and was scared most of the time that the U.S. would be destroyed in another civil war. I don’t like being that scared again. Some days it seems like everything we worked for the in ‘70s was for nothing.
Jackie was in a class of her own. I was 13 you when Jack died. She was very young maybe 30 coming into the White House. Jackie was probably the most admired woman in our lifetimes.
I was 12 years old and remember being in my school hallway when I heard the news. It was when I got home and saw my mother sobbing that the full enormity of the moment hit me. I’ll never forget that day, but thank you Dr. Richardson, for giving us this eyewitness account, especially of the courage of poor, dear Jackie.
I was in 6th grade at the time and never knew until reading this just now about the civil rights events leading up to the assassination. Whenever anyone mentions Kennedy’s assassination, they always seem to be focused on everything else so thank you for writing this. I learned something new today about events that happened in my lifetime.
Oswald was shot and it is hard to figure how he fit into it all. That has been grist for conspiracy theories, Hate speech seems to encourage violent people to act out their impulses, as we've been seeing recently. And for what?
I was a senior in High School on that day sitting in the large Assembly when the principal announced JFK had been assassinated. We were all told to go home for the rest of the day.
There's been a lot on this Jeanne. In a way I'm almost surprised, the issues had been stark in the news already. Mind you I was an 18 year old albeit in a neighbouring country. and through my life a bit of a history buff. I see others share your experience. Well, I here that history (of any kind) is not a top hit in the education system. I was lucky, i had a few motivating teachers along the way.
Thank you for that statement Frank. I was not 'lucky' in California as the state spent substantial sums to build elementary, junior high, high school & a university campuses to educate the daughters & sons of the Greatest Generation.
When I arrived at UCLA I was a very green Freshman. In the first weeks on campus I was confounded by then Governor Reagan's attack not only the California educational "system" but, the faculty, teaching assistants & the students enrolled.
One of the first Reagan's targets was CLARK KERR who I spotted walking to a on-campus Regents Meeting where he would be under intense fire. I had the opportunity to shake his hand as he walked along. I was struck by the look of determination on his face not against his personal adversaries but,of the human value of learning.
Naively, I thought the Age of Reason was won & over. I was wrong.
It's not nut country. The mindset of the Confederacy, of one person as superior to another due to skin color and chance of birth, is a cancer. And because the patient refused to have the cancer removed it behaved like any other cancer. It metastasized, spread throughout the body politic, and now stands to kill the patient.
As to how it "now stands to kill the patient," we're talking the U.S., a till-now 248-year-old republic, and ever-aspiring democracy.
Poisons have festered in the black soul of this country since Puritans lynched witches -- same black soul as in the Clarence court justices who license states to kill women's freedoms, same justices who rule a most vulgar convicted criminal above the law.
This country, America, has had the greatest music, the greatest novels, greatest films, greatest memoirs, histories, and other arts (mural, photography, poem, stage plays, more) -- but all that got evicted from the schools so that the commercial classes could more lethally roam as predators, so that the standardized testing behemoths could more totally push their dehumanizing conceits, further too that the social media billionaires can more thoroughly profit by their algorithms for hate.
Should such a country die, as black logic perhaps portends?
Trouble is, having elected that convicted criminal, we've no longer the luxury of inquiring as to but one country's imminent death. Its alliances with other democracies may be doomed. Its progress in stemming climate change worldwide may be doomed.
Its connivance with all the world's worst, and all their killings and hatreds may be assured.
"Fuck the patriarchy." Emma Watson (and myriad others).
Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana all want to force their public school teachers to teach from the Bible, while the churches preach, "Hate thy neighbor."
Many of the Bible myths and lessons are slowly disappearing from our cultural literacy as are other lessons we learn from mythology, fables and other world religions.
So much of what we hear and read everyday requires basic knowledge of literature and various religions.
Phil, as you and others here have said, bring back the humanities.
There are about 4000 religions on the planet. That should be the title of any course taught about the subject. And yes, the "myths of the Bible" should be explained for what they became. Cherry picked stories twisted to justify hateful bigoted behavior.
Then find the common core of most faiths that includes loving thy neighbor and sheltering the stranger. Piety not property. Kindness vs brutality.
And for sure, include Pastafarianism. The basic dogma is that there will be no dogma. Ridicule the absurd but not each other. And you have to be nice. No one ever died in the name of the FSM. That's what I call "humanity".
The founders were deists, but they would be horrified by the use of "religion" as a weapon against "the others". Many had suffered from that oppression in the old world and didn't want to repeat those atrocities again.
And keep up with the sciences, Gary. eg Evolution in biology, the long reach of time in geology, the so long reach into the heavens by astronomy, the huge value in following empirical processes even with the truth "hurts".
It goes back before the Puritans lynched witches, who were not witches at all, but that's another story. It goes back to the genocide of slaughtering 19 million Indigenous peoples...that is really what this country is founded on: genocide, slavery and insatiable greed.
You might as well say "all of Europe", imperialism became a de facto mantra thanks to technological advances in an age where empire building was the general way of doing things. Remember too, the Justinian plague and Black Death wiped out huge European populations as diseases to which Europeans had no resistance spread along the Silk Road before anyone even know of the "Americas" (except of course the inhabitants!)
But supposedly this country was built on anti imperialism...or is that just another lie...and we know small pox was an early example of biological warfare against the indigenous people of the 'merikkkas
Terry, indeed, just one example. USA was self-admittedly a nation of aggrandizement across the continent, displacing all the indigenous with what amounted to near-genocidal measures, "ethnic cleansing" is a modest term for what happened. Protecting American economic interests in Latin America including maintaining control of the Panama Canal, projecting its power across the Pacific. Philippines for example, blocking Japanese economic/military expansion into mainland Asia, since then having the world's outsized by far "two ocean" navy. Global military dominance is implicitly writ large into the motto of the Air force “Aim High … Fly-Fight-Win” . Not for nothing US maintains a world straddling set of bases to support any military projection it might want to deploy. It's been known as the "Pax Americana" but as you well know it's a bit more "complicated" than that.... US is the bastion of international capitalism.
I do not think democracy will be so easy to kill. As you said, we have a 248 year old tradition of it in this country - imperfect as it may be. Democracy will not die, it will be relegated to school boards, town meetings, local offices, and in a few places, state governments. It will be saved from the bottom up, not the top down.
Steve, I'd like to think so. That is what we are doing here in Las Cruces NM. We are attending local meetings. Giving spport to our local elected officials. Biden was right about that: from the bottom up and the middle out. Hopefully, hopefully there will be something left to work with in 2 or 4 years.
This is hardly the first time the Dems lost a presidential election. The big worry being can the project 2025 visions be thwarted and/or reversed if and when Dems claw back some political capital. They are not exactly "down and out"... by a stretch.
Of course, Phil, those on the right assert that one cannot have all that multilayered excellence without the profit motive. History, in so far as I am aware does not refute that assertion (I wish it did). However, it does show that cultures have prospered when the wealthy have plowed much of their wealth back into society in ways not designed to increase their holdings. In contrast, many, perhaps most, these day invest mainly in tilting the table to their pockets through politics. A principled society could properly balance these tendencies; however the rich invest to resist it.
We were just the last to realize to realize that cancer. It's worldwide and our own arrogance led us to believe it wouldn't/couldn't happen in the U.S.
Racial inequality hardly just belonged (s) to the Confederacy, they happened to have a vested economic interest which at the time had grown to become a huge source of wealth. Of course mass plantation slavery generated swaths of wealth in Europe and elsewhere.
Steve: Have you seen the movie Origin? It is based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste. Exactly what you say about people wanting to feel superior to others based on birth circumstances. Perhaps it’s not even race because Jews are white but there is that discrimination as well. I think Wilkerson is 100% on the money.
I hope you are right, but I’m confident that, whatever happens politically, the 75 million white supremacists who voted for Trump are not going to have a change of heart. Their ilk has been at it for 400 years in this part of the world.
They are, by nature, cowards. They listen to the straw man's song and dance, they are aware their own inadequacies and they are afraid. So they hide behind the grifter, the malignant clown, the imposter. But left on their own? They are weak and without a moral compass. I don't believe there are 75 million of them. Some are already realizing they were duped. The rest? They are the underbelly of every society.
They should volunteer at the local food banks. This was a major eye-opener for my white-privileged self. It was the first time in my life that I met and got to know illegals, Muslims, and poor black and white folks. They changed me for the better. They did not have much, but they had the sweetest spirit. All my fears about them vanished. We all want the same thing in life. I'll fight for justice for them for the remainder of my days.
People need to travel. You get a much better understanding of how people live, think, and others needs . People become what they live around. Some will turn racist living around racist people. When you live around woke people, you become color blind. Notice they never have these problems on Star Trek. Lol
I'm not sure how to eliminate racism but there has to be a way to convince people that racism is less important than taking care of their own economic interests, and that those interests can best be addressed without oppressing anyone else.
Unfortunately, There will always be people who need to put others down to make themselves feel superior. Probably starts with siblings that bully younger siblings and get away with it.
I too support that it cannot be long and among us already feel a resurgence of belief, and actions to take us on a better path. Like many who are remembering, I was in high school history class when our teacher was called out then returned to tell us. It was the first time I witnessed a grown man crying. I love that Heather has recounted this traumatic event from the perspective of the women because I fear we women have the most to lose if we don't overcome tfg and company now.
One thing that I see: DT and his team are neophytes with too much hubris to see that fact. Never in the history of the world has a bunch of hacks been able to effectively run anything, let alone an enterprise as large and complex as the US government. They will not be able to deliver on their economic promises especially, since they have no real sense of how economies actually work. 2% inflation seems to have killed the Harris/Walz ticket, what will 10% inflation do to Donvict & company? Not to mention the presence of massive concentration camps in many boarder states.
Rex but not one of the many that I’ve learned nothing from this election. You continue to use the isms, such as racism and sexism and xenophobia and bigotry and misogyny you will lose every election hence. Have you actually noticed the Trump appointed two women to the top post of his cabinet? Have you seen the diversity in his cabinet without even having trying be diverse. I hate to say this to you, but I know it’s like offer you a disease, but 73% of cable news now is controlled by Fox. They are now the third rate is primetime network on TV and their digital footprint. Every other major networks, including all the ABC, NBC, etc.. The post news decline of the CNN and MSNBC was about 40% of their viewership and another 15% for Mika and Joe on top of that. In the meantime Fox went up 21%. I have suggested this to a lot of this group before go watch Fox News for a week starting from let’s say Brett bear on till Gutfeld is over for a week and see the difference between the news you’re getting there and the news you’re getting from the legacy media and then make up your own mind. Feel free to dismiss everything you see on Fox, but at least you’ll understand why America is choosing them over the lives of the seat of the two other networks, which of one is actually being spun off due to its failure
So all the sexual predators and Russian assets and outright loons in that cabinet lineup, not to mention the sexual predator, Russian asset and rapidly dementing lunatic in chief just don't bother you at all?
Sexual predators, and Russian assets. Are you reading from Aesop‘s fables?
Do you not realize that your media legacy media lied to you and they’re being destroyed in the ratings because people no longer want to listen to their lies.
We had to listen to 3 1/2 years of Hillary and Adam Schiff and the Russia hoax and Robert Mueller and it was all bullshit so please spare me your condescending and incorrect post. The sexual predator was not replaced with a woman who’s done her job for the last eight years for the third largest most popular state in the country. What I love about that particular selection is one of your most liberal networks called her position at Nightmare because “she knows how to do her job“. Omg.
And you also love to see things from only one side of the aisle. You forget about Bill Clinton‘s 10 year affair with Gennifer Flowers while he was married you forget about his $850,000 payoff to keep another woman quiet you forget about Monica Lewinsky and him lying on the road and she was his employee.
And yes, even the great John Kennedy was a prolific sexual predator according to many sources and many women.
You also dismissed 76 million voters like Hillary did placing them in a porta deplorable basket when you should’ve learned from that. And he’s back in the White House for only one reason. The current administration misread the public. I drove this country into a ditch. Made daily expenses on affordable, and open the border to a torrential amount of criminals and unvetted illegals.
You also frightened me, calling him rapidly dementing. Joe Biden was already a semi cadaver when they allowed him to run a second term. And while they discussed the 25th amendment all the time with Trump, they refuse to use it on Biden, not only knowing he was losing it, but hiding the fact. If he if they had use the 25th amendment originally like 2 1/2 years ago, you would have a democrat president in the house probably if they would affirm the country around
So stop the fake fear, mongering and watch this country regain its shen. again
The Russian hoax didn’t work well the first time and it’s only gonna get worse if you keep it up. Portland is scared shitless of Trump but I guess you don’t know wife if you wanna know just ask me and I’ll tell you
Putin is scared shitless of Trump Biden on the other hand was a push over and not only that he is escalating a war that we should’ve never been involved in in the first place $200 billion of money we could’ve use on our homeless and our poor. Instead he’s re-creating another Vietnam the only difference is that it’s 60,000 Ukrainians have already died versus 60,000 Americans and a few of my friends died during Vietnam. And now Russia is lowering their threshold for nuclear weapons, because Biden allowed Zelenskyy to escalate using American weapons. Biden should be tried for treason at this point
You are not educating anyone. You are part of the cult that we all see through. Give it up. The Russia “hoax” is real. Trump is beholden to Putin. This country is now well and truly screwed in the name of a billionaire autocracy. You all fell for the lies. Go back to your own media because no one here wants to hear from you at all. You are clearly not even reading the posts or you would have learned something by now.
You don’t even realize why you lost an election. Anybody with a thinking body part above their neck knows that the Russia hoax was just that and still is. Nobody told you that Russia was going bankrupt because Trump was exporting energy to Europe and he wouldn’t even even had the money to go attack Ukraine. Iran is the same story. When other governments began to buy fossil fuel from Iran because there wasn’t enough coming from here, it fueled Irans pockets. And you see what that did. You forget that during Trump’s administration there were no wars. Russia did not attack. Ukraine. Iran did not attack Israel.
I’m sorry to say this, but delusions don’t help. The world knows that Trump is not beholden to anybody except for Americans and the reason he’s back in office in a landslide election where 49 of 50 states moved red and for the first time in two decades a republican one a majority of the role of the votes because of two things Biden drove this country into a ditch and he lied about it
Most liberals,seem to be fatalists or conspiracy theorists or negative in advance
It’s not a job. I’m an altruist. I retired some 12 years ago. Happy and healthy thank goodness I like to help people see both sides of an issue.
I only started involving myself with social media about four weeks ago. I got on X and somebody sent me an email that got me here otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But I find it’s very heavily liberal and what I will try to delicately put to you is that most of the people here seem to have a bad case of TDS.
I’ve been an independent voter for 40 years socially liberal fiscally conservative. I don’t vote by party at all. I vote for the person and their policies. I could care less about their sex. I could care less about their race. I could care less about their sexual orientation. And people here seem to disbelief that that’s possible. Sad. I owned many businesses in my life and was chairman of the board of the marketing department of one of the largest companies in the world
Traveled to all 50 states and 118 countries. And what I’ve come to hate most about American politics are the lies and deceptions on both sides, but most of all I hate the ISMS. RACISM AND SEXISM XENOPHOBIA BIGOTRY MISOGYNY YOU NAME THEM. TO ME THEY ARE LABELS THAT JUST DON’T FIT. THEY JUST FIT THE NARRATIVE OF THE ORACLE. THAT’S REPEATING THEM.
AND I WILL TELL YOU IF THE LIBERALS AND THE DEMOCRATS CONTINUE TO USE THAT KIND OF VERBIAGE THEY WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE ELECTIONS..
I find it amazing that Trump has not only put two women in the most powerful cabinet positions in his office but he’s actually placed two Democrats in his cabinet which is unheard of and if you look at the diversity in his cabinet, it’s pretty amazing and that’s even despite not even looking at diversity as an issue as the who to hire it just happened without even looking
I watched faux snooze for six weeks straight and my brain started oozing out.
Guess you missed the fact they payed almost a billion dollars for lying to their viewers about the 2020 election.
Good ole tucker boy love to call the donvicts followers cousin f*uckers and hated the donvict.
Maybe you should do some research into that.
As for the russia hoax, maybe read the republican report on that too and learn something.
What I've learned from people who voted for the donvict is that character no longer matters especially when that person can give a hand and mouth job to a microphone stand and everyone cheers for him.
My grandson will grow up knowing that the donvict is a crass, vile, whiny man baby who should be pittied and never look at as someone to emulate.
Well I posted a long comment here but it apparently got waylaid somehow so I’ll start all over.
Yes, Fox News was sued and do you know that many other of your favorite networks have been sued as well. Do you think your networks have not lied? Let’s try a few of these. THE BORDER IS SECURE. BIDENOMICS IS WORKING.
CRIME IS DOWN INFLATION IS TRANSITORY. AND MY FAVORITE JOE BIDEN HAS NEVER BEEN SHARPER THAN EVER. You talk about lies. They knew about it for 2 1/2 or three years and not only lied but then covered it up only to find out it was too late.
The Russia hoax was just that the Russia hoax you could try to spin it every way you want the two years of Hillary bit bleaching destroying her emails and her phone Adam Schiff lying about the hoax Russian info about the 51 people who said Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian and then the Robert Mueller investigation that found nothing. All to preempt Donald Trump from completing his promises, which he will no doubt do on this tour.
Oh, and I have some more bad news for you to your chagrin. He is not a convict. Uh oh
And why do you think the media is scared about revenge because they lied about him called him Hitler, a fascist, a misogynist, a racist, a xenophobic, a bigot you name it all lies. Although Biden did invite Hitler into the White House and Joe and Mika went to visit Hitler in his home and had a very nice conversation with Hitler himself.
Take a look at his cabinet he just posted two women to the top posts most important and powerful post in this cabinet and his cabinet looks like the most diverse of cabinet ever and not because he tried to make a diverse because it happened by itself
If your grandson is lucky enough, he’ll judge for himself without hearing your poison and your hate as far as the performance that Donald Trump completes during his next term
And let’s hope he doesn’t emulate the shifts and the madhouse and the Mayorkas and the Garlands where they are now trying to flea before they can be forced to testify and disclose information that they’ve been hiding. Mayorkas especially the liar in chief. As opined in the media.
The worst thing for you is that you haven’t caught on what just occurred 76 million people voted for this man and 49 of 50 states went redder.
And if you wanna talk about crass we can look at both side sides of the aisle where you refuse to do so and talk a little bit about people like Bill Clinton who I voted for twice and his affair with Jennifer flowers or the 850 grand he paid as an NDA and nothing happened to him not to mention that little blue dress that he had sex in the White House while president while married and lied about it under oath. Oooops. So let’s look at both sides shall we there are no innocent people here. We could even look at JFK who is a fabulous president, maybe one of the best ever and his sex life.
The best quote and description ever I can give you of Donald Trump is one by by a very famous individual who said this : I do not like Donald Trump. I like every single one of his policies that helped all Americans and helped this country. Stay safe keep prices low keep crime, low and prevent wars all over the world.
And since you’re not gonna respond to me, which is absolutely fine I hope your grandson doesn’t grow up with the hate that you have in your body caused by nothing other than Trump arrangements syndrome. Trump is going to go down as one of the best presidents of your lifetime and the best one of the best presidents in American history. Sorry. And I don’t know how old you are, but if he does a great job this next presidency, he may indeed fulfill Nancy’s suggestion only a bit different. He might indeed end up on Mount Rushmore
Wow, that’s really out there, but I did go there and read it at least where is most of you? Don’t go look at another network such as Fox, which is now the number one network and cable news almost double its nearest competitor and raking and 73% of cable TV news. Try it.
If you wanna talk about the judgment of a supreme. Maybe we should discuss Ketanji who didn’t even under oath, seem to know what a woman was….yikes. Of course she did, but she was just a ruse.
Let me assess him your analysis of the Supreme Court for a second and I may be wrong here or my opinion of why you sent me to that link
Liberals were thrilled when the Supreme Court invoked Roe v. Wade
Liberals were freaking out when the Supreme Court overturned Rohaley and hated the decision whereas they love the initial decision
Now liberals hate the voters… the reason we have democracy. They hate the voters because now the voters get to choose rather than the government choosing for them, which exemplifies America exceptionalism.
You know, I found Bill that one of the worst things you can do is to do one or both of the next things I’ll mention first you should never put your head on someone else’s shoulders. You have a unique mind and you think based on your history and experiences, but others don’t have the same experiences nor mindset and two you should never judge anybody without knowing them first. I have a very young and energetic mind that I like to keep going. Keep moving forward keep engaging with people. You’ll probably find this interesting, but i was the chairman and board member of one of the largest marketing entities in the world I used to communicate with about a half 1 million people or more every quarter
Ok I’ll buy. You surely connect dots that are simply unconnected. You speak of high prices and inflation but that’s a false narrative. We had just emerged from a massive global pandemic and the infrastructure was damaged. In 2020 and 2021, o one was driving. All were staying in their homes. Of course gas’s was cheap. There was global inflation but you blame this on Biden. Simple minds will do that. It had nothing to do with Biden’s policies. He passed wise legislation read about it if you care. The Ukraine was was the stupidest response when we said no to Putin’s request to end admission to nato. But the I’m accused here of being a Russian asset but of course I’m not. That is because my side, mostly democrats are so insecure and can’t handle criticism. But you are off your rocker I can see that. And Biden for all his wisdom, couldn’t understand that a refusal to get tough at the border would be the democrats undoing. Then I’m accused of being heartless. No,I just wanted to save our nation from what we are about to experience; the Wholesale pillage and raping of America by faithless disgusting goons led by a mafia wannabe who has made the art a lying well, an art form.
A few years ago I responded to a cnn writer from UK then living in NYC and he complained how badly our health care system was. I found his email and he asked who we Americans don’t rise up and get things fixed. My response was that as a people, we have been divided and conquered and have been beaten into submission. This election is a shining example of being divided and conquered. I have little sentimental feelings for this country. I lived in Europe for a few years and it was like taking a breath of fresh air. I could return. We Americans are the most dangerous people on earth, well, besides Putin and Xi. Here is a fact; all dominant nations dominate their neighbors in one way or another. We are no different and neither is Russia. You should enlighten yourself and buy my book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums.” Guarantee your love it.
Sorry, I got a number of texts and when I came back, I could not find the place where I left off so I’m gonna start posting here. Hopefully you’ll get it.
And by the way, the only legislation that he passed that made any sense at all was as infrastructure bills. Unless you think that the border bill that they tried to pass at the last moment was really a border bill, and that was a good legislation, while trying to pay the Republicans as defeating the border bill because they didn’t really care about the border when all the Bill did was allow 2 million illegal immigrants in the country every year. Yikes
So I started to write about CNN and I can’t find that post as I mentioned because when I come back if it was gone I’m sure I’ll find it, but I’ll continue here
CNN is now almost an irrelevant entity where it used to be the Oracle of news. They lied so much and hated so much that they have less than half the viewership of MSNBC, which will soon be discarded by Comcast. What makes it worse is that you actually want to attribute something not only to CNN, left leaning zealots in the first place, but then you want to harbor it the UK. It hasn’t done anything right in the last 40 or 50 years because of their socialist tendencies now.
The UK has become relatively irrelevant on the global stage. And even the mildest reason for that by its most art and supporters is that they allow too much immigration. Even Canada has woken up, which is unbelievable, but I’ll get into that in another post.
If you think that their healthcare system is better than ours why don’t you check out all the smiling faces with yellow rotten teeth and realize that people there and more over people in Canada have to wait months to see a specialist. In fact, I had a friend of mine that had a brain aneurysm and had to wait six months and rather than wait. He came to America had it taken care of
The reason that this election was to your “divide and conquered was all attributed to your hateful left leaning legacy media, who called Trump every name in the book and beyond and are now relative toast unless they change their tune and it looks like a few are waking up
For the first time in a long time, your major newspapers did not I repeat, did not endorse the liberal democratic candidate Ooooops
The New York Times and even Cory Booker is looking forward to RFK Junior doing what he does. Which is incredible to me that people don’t like this, even though Trump, the goon that you say he is has probably one of the most diverse cabinets in a long time. WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO BE DIVERSE. I probably posted this to you before, but he just appointed two women to the most important posts in his cabinet.
Has two Democrats, which is unheard of and a bevy of very competent individuals from all walks of life and society. I laughed just yesterday when one of your very famous liberal commentators actually said this.
When Pam Bondi was announced this commentator said on national TV. “this is a nightmare. She’s been a very competent attorney general in Florida for eight years and she really knows how to do her job. What a nightmare for us. He actually said that.
Back to divided, and conquered the day that Trump stood on the escalator he has had to put up with liberal nonsense in the media
They basically tried to defecate him at every turn. Witch hunts 3 1/2 years of hoaxes led by Hillary and Schiff and even Robert Mueller, the liberal attack dog found nothing. So then they went legal just like they do as I said in Russia and places like that. And actually looked at stormy Daniels And Michael cohen Liar extraordinaire as their consummate witnesses omg. Always amaze me as one side of the aisle, tries to accuse the other side of the aisle and doesn’t look in its own house.
If you’d like some example specifically relating to this, I’d be MORE THAN WILLING to talk about Bill Clinton as just one example of the liberal hypocrisy.
I will admit one thing about America, but not what you think as I mentioned before, my wife and I have traveled to 118 countries and all 50 states. But I will never forget the first time we travel to Europe we were in Spain watching BBC probably the mid 80s mid to late 80s and we didn’t even recognize the news. The views of America from Europe were so much different from the views of America in America. And it’s the first time we actually realized that there’s other points of view which we learned and took to heart from that point on.
America is the greatest country in the world’s history And it’s basically because of the preamble two and the body of the constitution of the United States and it all is based upon individual freedom
But now to your other point about how horrible America is, which is the basis for much liberal resentment and mostly, I find it because of liberal ignorance in this particular regard
Name me a country that wasn’t invaded by a neighbor or another country and did not either enslave the indigent population or kill it off overtime There are almost None on the planet. I think there aren’t any, but I don’t want it to be an all encompassing statement. Most people are ignorant of history, especially world history. America did whatever other country did in acquiring its land, etc. but America did something that nobody else did in creating the free country that it is. And that is why 20 million people decided to come from all parts of the world and pass through our doors. And that is why if we opened our doors wide the population of America will probably be 2 billion rather than 330 million.
Europe and Asia were conquered and reconquered over centuries and why do you think South America predominantly speak Spanish or Portuguese? That’s complete naïveté if you don’t understand that America did nothing different than anywhere else.
You’ll be a lot better off if you find an elixir to extricate your TDS and get on board with the optimism, that’s being felt around the world right now
Trump is not even an office yet, and he is already getting gov’ts to align with him around the world Europe in Germany is already offering to buy natural gas and stop buying it from Russia. Canada is going to bring less immigration to its Shores. A couple of flailing governments in South America are going to be following Trump’s lead. Bukele in El Salvador, has cleaned up that country to the point where it’s inhabitable again by being strong and getting gangs off the street. Argentina, who has been in a slump for years is now a Trumpy fan if you’d like to call it.
Zelinsky actually made comments that Trump will find a way to bring peace to the region where we should’ve never been in the first place because it was nothing more than another Vietnam and we pissed away $200 billion that could’ve been used here on the homeless and the poor instead of pissing it away in a war we should’ve never been involved in
The only difference there is that 60,000 Ukrainians have died versus 60,000 Americans, but there’s no end to the war but now there is
He will bring peace to Israel and the region, and he’s been the most vocal supporter of Israel in recent history there are billboards all over Israel now with Trump’s picture on it and him and Bebe are very tight
Iran will stop screwing around now that Trump is in office or pay the price.
You don’t have to like Trump there are many things about Trump. I don’t like, but he loves America with all his heart, and he will bring it back to despite your protestation to the contrary.
Not only did was he not tough on the border he did just the opposite what the hell was that? Somebody whispered in his ear, probably Obama… hey, if we let all these people in, they’ll be beholding to you and they’ll vote for you (after we finagle a way to get them the right to vote) and the Republicans will never get elected again.
And by the way, if you want to be in denial that Biden had nothing to do with the inflation he had everything to do with inflation not just something but everything.
Ouch. I’ll continue in a moment. I got a number of text. I must address and this is not the only one website in which I post but that’ll be short-lived. Because very shortly America will regain it. Strength will regain its respect and Trump lift all boats as he did in his first term.
My love, I love that you intersperse facts with comedy did you just say Biden and all his wisdom? That is a capital OXYMORON. LOL
BIDEN doesn’t have any wisdom all he has is mistakes and continually takes things in the wrong direction. But I don’t blame him really I blame the people that had him run in the first place. He was a semi cadaver, his whole presidency and your side hit it from site, which was a big mistake.
Had they invoked the 25th amendment as they were talking about doing with Trump? You would’ve probably had a different president in the White House on January 20. Instead, the Democrat party which Cohen constantly talked about a threat to democracy, went beyond a threat and staged a coup de etat in America. Right in front of everyone’s eyes. And then placed an incompetent woman of color in his place, because they thought that was a good idea? Honestly, they didn’t have a good lineup of replacements, but she was probably one of the worst they could put there. She had no clue in her entire 107 days of campaigning she didn’t answer one question but she did managed to spend $1 billion and still get creamed.
Gas was cheap the day that Trump took office and guess what gas prices are already coming down even though he hasn’t taken off and you know why because right now and unfortunately and spitefully Biden is doing everything he can to make the transition harder instead of lying to the public saying that he’s going to make a smooth trans.
Gas prices now are coming down because people see the inevitable that gas prices will come down as well. The price of everything else that’s driven by fossil fuel. But if prices of gas come down now , then two things occur first Biden can take some credit for prices coming down which at this point is really meaningless and two Trump can’t take credit for the price is coming down if they come down now.
The stupid effing idiot is escalating a war we shouldn’t even be in in the first place and he just passed some type of executive order to allow the 1500 to 2000 more migrants coming up the street from Mexico he’s gonna allow them to get in un vetted this is why he lost the election
He doubled down out of spite and everybody saw it except people with Trump the arrangement syndrome whose numbers are substantially lower than they were when he was in his first term
And by the way, the reason there’s Trump the arrangement syndrome in the first place is because the media put it there and a lot of gullible liberals just swallowed it whole.
I don’t know why, but the balance of your post is not here above and I’m searching for it so I can continue to respond and I will do that as soon as I find
You need to look introspectively and understand the Democrat party went nuts. It went left almost left of Santa Claus. Joe Biden was the second worst president in the last 50years. And no, the first was not Jimmy Carter. I’ll try to find the rest of your post and get back to you shortly.
Really? Wow. Well I’m getting a good laugh out of this. Yes, we came out of global pandemic and when Donald Trump passed the torch to the Biden administration. All they needed to do was to sit back behind their desks. Smoke a cigar and let Trump’s policies continue to work. But no.But noooooooo! They tried every way to defeat ANY OF TRUMP’S POLICIES JUST OUT OF SPITE AND JUST OUT OF HATE AND IGNORANCE OF COURSE.
Of course the infrastructure was damaged and Biden went onto to damage it further. What most liberals don’t understand or maybe they do, but they are in denial…… every single price of almost every single item in the world is driven by fossil fuel. Thank goodness they’re at least talking about going nuclear again should’ve happened a long time ago.
But when you decided to buy a product instead of use the product that you have and can produce yourself prices go up. And in fact, he was able to increase prices all over the world thank you , Mr. Biden.
It’s one thing if they saw what was going on with everyday lives of people rather than referring to it as the economy is OK and inflation is OK but if they told people the truth and told them they were working on it AND WERE REALLY WORKING ON IT, instead of doubling down and continuing to worsen it, Joe Biden (or ms cackle-knees) might indeed be in the White House today. Alas he couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I just got up and I’m a bit groggy, but I’m gonna stop here and then pick up some of your other imaginary facts in a few few minutes
I realize that to win elections, Democrats will have to abandon their goal of fair treatment in the legal and political realms for black people and other marginalized groups. I leave it to the experts to figure out how to do that. The project doesn’t interest me. The last time we made what could have been lasting progress, we failed to complete the task by applying the customary punishment for treason to every CSA politician and military officer.
Yes the famous Russian bought defense. You know here’s what I’m gonna tell you the more you use things like that is fantasies in your head. The worst the future elections are going to be for you. I voice text everything and I don’t go back and check it because I believe people here are intelligent enough to figure things out. Liberal seem to like form over content. I don’t buy it. I demand that you understand content before you look at form. That’s just me the old Russian bot lol you poor guy.
I was a Sophomore in high school in Dallas on that dreadful day. I was at Love Field with a few thousand admirers. I watched JFK and Jackie arrive and descend from Air Force One. They came to the fence and I shook JFK’s hand. I was thrilled and held my hand in awe. As I watched JFK proceed, I felt someone grab my hand. To my shock it was LBJ who had my hand between his and was greeting me. Over 200,000 people greeted JFK that day and were happy and proud and enthusiastic. The city sank into a terrible and sad state of horror that lasted for a long time. The vast majority of citizens were appalled and ashamed.
Chris, I was a sophomore as well -- at Lake Highlands High School in NE Dallas. My parents watched the motorcade from their respective places of work in Dallas.
I was a freshman in college in 1963 - no televisions available except for 1 in the student union, where so many of us crowded around. More memories shortly that time: recently watching Robert McNamara talking to LBJ saying that he knew we couldn’t “win” in Vietnam in any sense like “winning” WW II, but not seeing how we could get clear (from Ken Burns’ multi-episode documentary about Vietnam). I had to stop watching at that point - I just couldn’t watch more. Being insulated from the late ‘60’s at an Air Force base with new husband - no national papers, and we couldn’t afford a television, so missing the rather astonishing number of near daily bombings at that time (and other girls at college talking about joining SDS like it was some kind of sorority). My being furious at those who ran to Canada to avoid being drafted, unlike a certain current prominent politician who had a daddy who bought a doctor to get his son out of the draft. At the time, admiring Cassius Clay who refused to be drafted ( saying something like “I ain’t got no beef with them. They’ve never done anything to me. Why would I go shoot at them?”) and was willing to be stripped of his titles and to go to jail. Also admiring a friend who told his draft board that he wouldn’t carry a gun, but would enlist as a medic…and did, at considerable personal cost. George Wallace, enough said. In some ways we’ve come far; in others, not so much.
I was only born 10 years later. I think Heather should write a follow up letter regarding how LBJ was committed to civil rights after taking over as President. I would love to learn more about that! And it is relevant for what is happening today, taking rights away and even destroying US democracy itself!
Caro isn't without flaws but it's worth reading. I've always been suspicious of his idolization of Coke Stevenson without mentioning that Stevenson was a bitter racist.
I guess it is a fundamental LIE on several levels, but it became part of the story that became the national creed. Some try to follow it, others treat it with hypocrisy, while the worst treat it with contempt. It might be better stated as: All must be treated equally under the law … in the spirit of the “golden rule”?
I have to say I’ve only read the first volume of Caro’s biography of LBJ. I’m convinced, though, that his presidency was influenced by his growing up in parts of the country that were just receiving electricity. Today we have no idea what that was like. I had an aunt and uncle who farmed in North Dakota (yes, you could practically see the Artic Circle from their farm…slight joke). He died of a heart attack because they had no phone to call for help, their children grown and gone. I will read the second volume, though!
Neither will any of us who experienced that day & the absolute grief & mourning—of the entire country! Families huddled together glued to the television coverage of the assassination for an entire week. Our parents were so despondent we grieved for them as well….we were all in total shock & disbelief—TRAUMATIZED!!
We have never recovered, or healed from this and the murders of MLK Jr. (after his “I have a dream…” speech in Washington D.C.) and Bobby Kennedy’s murder (the night he won the Presidential Primary)!
This haunts us to this day, and it was over 60 year’s ago!! We MUST NOT allow this to ever happen again, and trump’s supposed “election” has brought back horrific memories and many of us simply cannot handle enduring any more Greedism winning in the end….
Very well put, Susan. I knew that all was heading toward loss some years ago when an intelligent nephew born well after 1963 and who leans hard toward THAT man, asked me “why should anybody care about who killed Kennedy? It’s over. Done.” Clearly, the lessons of history have limited reach … well, and you know the rest …
It was the first time I saw a man cry. My science teacher was in tears when he told us. We were dumbfounded- things like that were unthinkable to us 7th graders.
Yes, John! I was in the 8th grade & the news came over the intercom & my algebra teacher (who I couldn’t stand) was actually silent & in shock….we all just sat there in total disbelief! Anyone who was old enough to remember this will NEVER forget where they were when they heard the news…..
No, only if we let them. No, too many of us will not let that happen. There will always be the ugliness; we are a nation of people who came here, not because we wanted to, but because we had to. We won't let those who are abusing our creating a nation for all who seek refuge to turn it into a thug's paradise. We just won't.
The only way it will overtake us is if we want it to and/or let it…do not be like many of the conservative politicians - the staunch examples set by some of their males - spineless and weasel-like!
We have made a lot of progress in many ways the past 75 years as a country.
Our fight should be against the theocrats and the oligarchs. Elon Musk is a foreign agent and an enemy of America. And there are dozens of others just like him with money and influence. Trump is just a pawn compared to Musk and the oligarchs.
We need to demonize them and hit them where it hurts, in their greedy little pocket books.
Another one who has lost her way. You probably didn’t hear from Bill Clinton the other day either that said, the first woman president is around the corner and it will probably be a republican woman. If you’re an honest person, go look at trumps cabinet. The two top posts in his cabinet are women and he has one of the most diverse cabinets in America history without trying to be diverse
That would be pretty easy for your miselle. But that’s called denial. Just get in front of a mirror and focus on your conscience and your realize even if I was which I’m not the truth is still the truth
Not at all, I’m actually thrilled walking with my feet off the ground with a prospect of America being revered again America being , feared again, America, winning again, lifting all boats as Trump did during his first term.
And for people like you, Danny, I will used an Axiom I often use To people who are negative in advance, and only want to see one side of the argument when 76 million Americans saw a different side than you
Minds are like parachutes they work better if they’re open.
Well, out of your extensive knowledge of appointing a cabinet to the government, please share with us how the competency is lacking
And perhaps you might look at the current competency before you start casting stones at another. It’s a stellar cabinet from all walks of life, including two Democrats and a republican administration. Including two women to the most important posts in the cabinet. Maybe we should just keep Pete Buttigieg that cost us 8 billion for a charging station and who knows how many millions for one electric bus. Lol. And you exemplify what I say to you when liberals are negative in advance and fatalist why don’t you wait to see what they do and then critique it most liberals are negative in advance and always find fault in America, the greatest country on the planet
A very well researched and well thought out response. Did you have to look that up in a thesaurus? And by the way, you didn’t refute a damn thing because you can’t.
Quick question for you though. Do you want your presents to succeed? Just askin. 😀
Ricardo, you might not have read my post above but if JFK were alive today he’d be a middle of the road Republican compared to how far left the Democrat party has gone
Are you sure you know what “left” actually is? Last observation I made was that the USA is still a Capitalist country. Some social programs, but not many.
Well, I will say this, Annie if JFK were alive today he’d be a middle of the road republican based on his political philosophy of a hand up not a handout as an example. He wouldn’t be able to identify the Democratic Party as the party when he was president and he was a great one. One of the things that the Democrats I’m sure have learned as they went a little bit too far left during the cycle.
We know there’s a couple of large corporations that learned that lesson in the hard way And actually, I think the basis for the capitalist issue is the preamble two and the body of the constitution
Well, I would suggest you find them in the 76 million people that voted for him this time. And if you realize that 4950 states went redder than before. Where do you think they came from? They came from independence who tend to be middle of the road and they came from dispossessed Democrats that were fed up with the promises that never came from the Democrat party.
He got more Hispanic vote than ever. He got more black vote than ever.
And I hate even discussing that because I look at everyone despite their skin color versus because of their skin color, which is sickening to me
Again, please apologize for the typos like when it says independence instead of independents. I voice text and AutoCorrect kicks in and I don’t see form over content as that important.
By the way, I hope you heard Bill Clinton’s message the other day a lot of people here are talking about. They’ll never be a woman president, blah, blah, blah blah, and especially a black woman president blah blah blah.
I think perhaps if Condoleezza Rice had run for president she probably could’ve won
But I’m more referring to Bill Clinton’s comments that said that it will be soon that a woman is going to be president and that remarkably that woman president will come from the Republican Party, which defies everything that liberals have been saying for years.
I have been posting recently that if either party puts up a viable competent centric woman candidate that she will get elected in a landslide despite any skin, color, ethnicity, etc. Bill Clinton thinks it will be a republican woman which even takes that to a higher level. Have a good night.
Repubs are better propaganda masters, no doubt. They can make Schitt smell like roses, so the bitch that ignored the 9/11 threat could be Pres. after all, Rove made W the cat’s meow.
Would you like some milk and cookies with that? Stop the histrionics nothing is gonna happen. Fuck, you should listen to Stephanie Ruhle’s advice from CNN she said we should stop the histrionics because we know from history 80% of what we think is gonna happen never happens
This thread is about our lived experience of the assassination of JFK and the aftermath. It's not histrionics to talk about personal trauma. Also, just FYI: Stephanie Ruhle is on MSNBC, not CNN.
Jack Kennedy was—still is—the only President I’ve ever accepted in my eight decades.
After my turn in the barrel—Vietnam 1967-68–it was my greatest privilege to serve in the crew that put in commissioned service my nation’s newest aircraft carrier—USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67)—in September 1968.
Now I’m in my eighth decade. I do not know the names of those who murdered President Kennedy, but I know the title of both them and their progeny: Coward.
Well, there’s two things I would say to you first of all my bad as far as naming the wrong network, but I am a firm believer in Content over form so there’s that
It’s histrionics to talk about what happened on November 5 as if it’s the end of your life As many of the people on the substack post to do. And obviously you missed the essence of my post of what Stephanie Ruhle suggested saying 80%
Of histrionics never happens. I would venture to guess it more than 90% and even then it’s not as bad.
But now since you brought up and Msnbc I have some tongue in cheek for you regarding MSNBC. New acronyms and nicknames for that stationS Call letters are coming in by the hundreds. Here’s a couple for your listening pleasure. MSRIP. MSNBC= Must sell now before Christmas But my personal favorite is We’re History channel using the history channel logo.
The day, John Kennedy was shot was probably the worst day of my life at that time. He was a true leader, and so be loved by everyone. What is most if not all the people on this particular paper trail on Liberal? I wish to make the point that John Benedict was not an enabler. He was not a handout person. He was a handout person and would be a middle of the road republican today compared to how far left the Democrat party has gone.
Did you happen to live United States during trumps first term? Even the liberal hater suggested if not for Covid Trump would still be sitting in the White House today why? Low prices groceries, gas, and Mortgages, Safe Streets The border wall would’ve been completed we would’ve not had to pay 110, billion up from now for illegal immigrants instead of 10 billion for the wall. No wars around the world.
At this time, it’s even gonna be better than that if Biden doesn’t screw it up before he leaves office by escalating to almost the world war by allowing more illegal criminals in this country to remove
Your list of benefits from a Trump presidency and what could have happened. Name one of those things over which a president has any control. Just for the record, the US has had the best recovery from the pandemic than all of the G20 nations. What you fail to also mention is the effect that the Trump presidency had on the nation and our international alliances. There was the Muslim ban that didn't include any people from any Muslim country in which Trump had business interests. There was Tiki Torch marchers chanting "Jews will not replace us" chant followed by the death of Heather Heyer and Trump claiming "there were fine people on both sides." There was the politicization of the pandemic response and the gross mismanagement of same. There was the call-out to the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," which they heard as a call to action. There was the refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and the attempted coup d'etat on January 6, 2021. There was his refusal to follow protocol by deliberate delay in the transition process, knee capping the ability of the Biden administration to deal with the on-going pandemic. After the fact we learned that he had stolen government documents, many of them classified and stored them in unsecured rooms at his Palm Beach residence. That's just a sampling of the truth about Trump 1.0. But that was amateur hour compared to what we will face with Trump 2.0. We can look forward to critical agencies being led by shockingly unqualified people such that one could believe the real purpose of putting them there is to destroy the government from within, as outlined in Project 2025, which, quite suddenly, Trump remembers that in fact he does something about. Enjoy your Christofascist kakistocracy.
Sorry Steve I need a little bit more information because I see a lot of histrionics in a lot of posts here after the results of the November 5 election so I’m not sure what part or what post you’re referring to of mine
One of the things I suggested to a lot of people who are going through these histrionics is what Stephanie rule of MSNBC I guess is the right network
Stop all the histrionics because we all know that 80% of what we think is gonna happen never happens. I actually believe it’s closer to 90. I’ll be more than happy to respond to your question above if I had better context, feel free to fill in the blank there thanks.
I read her letter, and I realized what this was about and I even responded to it but many of the post here and another link posts alluded to the nightmare. That was the election of Donald Trump. I didn’t mean to conflate the two I was just responding to the post that I’ve seen here. Didn’t by any means attempt to diminish the tragic loss of John F Kennedy. My apologies if I did
"Fuck, you should listen to Stephanie Ruhle’s advice from CNN she said we should stop the histrionics because we know from history 80% of what we think is gonna happen never happen".
Sounded like a curse to me. No other word sounds like that lead word that makes sense in that sentence. Duck? Truck? Muck? Buck? Cuck? Guck? Huck? I could go on... I don't think "Shucks" really fits in the sentence structure.
I wasn’t giving you milk and cookies to make you feel better about the death of John F. Kennedy or the other two heroes that died that same year. There were a few people on the post that were mentioning about their histrionics about this November 5 election that just happened and I was responding to that. Sorry if you misunderstood the meaning or the direction of my post. I revered John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one of the best presidents ever but you should know this if John Kennedy we’re alive today he’d be a middle of the road republican based upon his political philosophy, and not the wackos the Democrat party that took the party too far left
PS I did not use a curse. Word as a voice text that apparently was a auto correct and I don’t usually go back and check my things because I have a lot of posts to attend to on this and other sources.sorry
I too was 16 years old. I was in a journalism class when a classmate came into the room and said that Kennedy had been shot. Like you, I didn't believe him as he was a bit of a class clown. Then the principal made an announcement over the school PA system. I was devastated. I had started to recover when 5 years later I was in Memphis when MLKJr was assassinated. Then a mere two month after that RFK was murdered. Now, 61 years later, the grief rises up yet again.
I felt the same way st that age. And five years later as a student in DC witnessed for the first time tanks in our streets as riots broke out at the death of MLK. As an exchange student in Peru I had never expected to see such chaotic responses in our capital.There yes but not here.
Then to be living so few miles from our capitol again on Jan 6th 2021, how could we have ever allowed the person who incited insurrection back into our capital. We MUST oppose this. We cannot have suffered these events and not stand up to them. Every day I rejoice that even in my 7th decade I've found people who are going to continue to make a difference.
Like several others here, I too was a 16-year-old high school student when the news that the President had been shot was broadcast over the PA system. It was a Catholic high school, and many of us went to the school chapel to pray for the President's recovery. Not long after, we learned that he was dead. For many of us, from the perspective of 61 years, it seems like the decline of America, now verging on the precipitous, began on that day. We just didn't know it then.
that’s more or less how I see it now too, James. It is appalling what hateful self-centred men are willing to do when their interests conflict with those of those wanting a better way
I too was 16. About 50 of us were sitting in choir. The announcement had come in over the classroom loudspeaker, but we didn't know yet if the President was still alive. Everyone was stunned into silence as we waited to hear more, unable to do anything else. Our choir teacher was Catholic too, like the President, and went to her car to get her Rosary which she brought back into the classroom with her. She was crying and we were all frightened and terrified the worst would happen, which it did. My father (who passed away before 9/11), and who had voted for Kennedy, was in class at that same high school teaching civics down the hall to the seniors. It was a required class back in those days. Thank you Heather for the background leading up to this, I had actually forgotten about that. Yet it is SO important. And look where we are today. Good grief, when will it all end?
And, since those days, TJ, civics has been removed from most HS curricula, often based on objections of parents who don’t want “their children” to understand
Yes, so unfortunate. It was really an important class. When I taught sociology and ethics at the junior college level many years later, I was stunned at how many students (ages 18 to 65) had never voted and didn't understand the basic differences between Republicans and Democrats.
Same here in NC where responses were mixed but school closed early and didn't reopen for a day or two so we saw the murderer murdered live on black and white TV. Gun violence just never stops. It's all so sad.
I have been waiting for your reflection on the JFK anniversary, Heather. I knew it would be solemn and poignant. I was nine years old, in fourth grade at the time. I’d never seen my mother cry that much, and I think it was the first time in my life I felt like the world was not a safe place. Fewer and fewer of us are alive who remember that day. It was a generational dividing line, the way 9/11 was for Gen X and Millennials.
My brother was stationed at Carswell AFB and was in a group of officers that met the plane. When they brought the news of the President’s death, he said, “I just shook his hand!” We were nearby in Northwest Louisiana. I was a child, but I clearly remember it. My parents and their friends were all devastated. There were so many conspiracy theories. They said they would release more details in twenty years but I don’t remember that happening. I’m not sure we will ever know the whole truth.
I was twenty-two years old on that terrible Friday on my way home for a weekend in southern New Jersey from Philadelphia where I was a medical student. I recall feeling numb and being in disbelief. At the time Kennedy seemed so young and vigorous and he had instilled a sense of possibility that was exhilarating. Soon after I got home a friend called and asked me if I was ready. When I asked for what he said “we’re driving to Washington”. A lot of that trip is now a blurry memory but standing in line for hours to walk by the casket in the Rotunda will never fade. In the years since we have had good times and bad times but at present it seems that about half of my fellow citizens have made a choice to turn our democracy into nut country. As I read this piece recounting Lady Bird’s wrenching words I wasn’t sure if my tears were for recalling the pain of that time or for the awful darkness now threatening.
I was a young mother, living in Alexandria, Va. My next door neighbors asked if I wanted to go with them to the Rotunda to pay our respects. We expected to pop over, but found ourselves in a huge line...there were people there who had flown in from all over, people pushing baby carriages, no one expected anyone else to be there! After four hours in line, I'll never forget coming into the warm Rotunda and seeing the casket. It was the hardest night of my life, but so worth it.
My grandparents were vacationing in Dallas that day but were not on the parade route. I often wonder how our country might have been different had JFK, MLK, and RFK lived.
Or, Devon, tho’ not gut wrenchingly tragic as these assassinations, what if Carter had won a 2nd term (and the solar panels stayed put on the WH)or that SCOTUS would have let the count go forward in Florida, hanging chads & all, and Gore became POTUS…where might we be as a country today? Perhaps in some alternate universe the answer is known. 🌌
I wonder what we would look like if Rupert Murdock had not darkened our world when he almost elected Ronnie single-handed in 1980. Light years ahead of the mire we’re stuck in today.
Yes! And that, in these times, Elon stayed in So Africa & Peter Thiel’s family never immigrated to the USA from Germany. Chaps my ass that many folks with lots of money think they have some kind of “right” to make the decisions & rules.
They see more bucks and suckers to hand them over…”ask what your country can do for you.” It’s not “their” country, but as immigrants, they used and abused what others have built; they were aided by a spoiled brat who couldn’t accomplish anything on his own. But he had learned to lie, cheat and steal like the best mobsters, and do it with finesse, taught by master of evil, Roy Cohn. They represent the worst of the immigrants who have braved the challenges of travel to a foreign land. And they surely weren’t invited by Lady Liberty…and that includes Rupert and his progeny..
Hmmm….the thought just struck me that perhaps TFFFG’s comments about immigrants being crooks was actually a self-own, given his paternal grandfather’s, ahem, checkered past. Seeking riches & cheating, bending or breaking the rules/law to achieve them seems to be in his DNA.
Its completely outrageous that two men who were welcomed to the USA as immigrants have succeeded in creating so much chaos and division in the country. They should be first on the deportees list.
I have pondered the same thoughts over the years. I don't think that this country has ever really healed from the loss of JFK, RFK, and MLK, three powerful & inspirational visionaries, who wanted to lead this country to a much better direction. With the loss of their influence, it has always felt to me that the country never has quite regained its footing, in trying to reach its most aspirational goals
I think for sure it would have been different, although maybe not as different as I like to think, or maybe more so. What if we had just banned slavery and discrimination from the get-go? Seems like it would have saved a lot of heartache for most everybody. What (and this is possible) we learned from history and corrected our mistakes?
Thank you so much for the back story of why President Kennedy was in Dallas that day. Back then, people who wanted equal rights weren’t “woke”, they were “communists”. The one thing in common is the attacks on those who would advocate for the marginalized.
And yet here we are once again…. Sadly tfg and his cronies have convinced half the country they are the marginalized and that they have been marginalized by the “lefties”. Except this time tfg and company have deliberately created this riff and will not seek to heal anything much less have any desire to do so. The division, the derision is their desire.
The road ahead looks to be a rough one. Likely much more difficult than the one we’ve been on
Sadly George, it isn't even close to 1/2 of the country. 1/3 of the registered voters didn't vote. And then there are the illiterates, about 11% of the population. And those that don't speak English and live in states where they don't offer Spanish or other translated ballots. And others that are disenfranchised for some other reason.
Trump didn't receive one half of those that actually voted and millions of them voted because they believe the lies they read on social media or heard on Fox News or Newsmax.
Roberts and the Supremes knew exactly what the were doing in 2010 when they allowed corporate money to influence elections.
What were the results of the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections been without the hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate money?
The money in politics is killing us. Consider how profitable it is for media that benefit from election spending. Not to mention the benefit that those largest donors get when their team wins. There is an indirect correlation between the amount of money in politics and the level of democracy we experience.
True, the money in politics buys up television systems and print media, using them to spread wedge issues. Abortion is an excellent example. Many Americans don't like abortion but accept it as a woman's choice for whatever the reason. But many don't and for that reason they vote Republican, which in turn is destroying their futures. The national debt is now $37 trillion. By 2034 it could be $60 trillion, meaning virtually that Social Security and Medicare will be gone or else nothing but a skeleton. It's said that 80% of one's medical bills are incurred in the last 20% of one's life. I'm now 84. I would say that the percentage is closer to 95%. The abortion wedge issue, along with gay rights, female rights, immigrants and the like are leading the unsuspecting down the road to certain misery. They will suffer medically, emotionally and financially "when the chickens have come home to roost." By the time they realize that they've been suckered, it'll be too late.
"Many Americans don't like abortion but accept it as a woman's choice for whatever the reason." Unfounded and unproven statement.
"In a Center survey conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion, 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases."
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/#:~:text=Public%20Opinion%20on%20Abortion
Pew Research
"Wedge issue"? This is a life and death issue.
Old age health issues? You don't know that a woman's reproductive health issues are continuous throughout her life as the nature of her gynecological needs change. As more and more physicians specializing in women's reproductive health exit the field and less and less physicians will enter the women's health field it is very likely women of all ages will be denied the health care they need throughout their life.
Not a wedge issue if you are a woman.
My most intense use of a gynecologist was not during my reproductive years, not during my three pregnancies, not during my three deliveries. No, it was in my early 60s, when I had a gynecological cancer. I’m in my mid-sixties now, and still getting gynecological care twice a year, which I likely will have forever. I profoundly hope that wasn’t the last 20% of my life, but it sure was expensive.
Men don’t know very much about women’s bodies, and yet have no problem legislating our care. Women’s health care isn’t all about abortion, but abortion policy affects a lot of women’s health care. I fear for the women in southern states, when getting any kind of gynecological care, including oncology, will become increasingly difficult as doctors leave those states. Should we see a national ban, I predict fewer doctors choosing gynecology as a specialty. All women will suffer, whether we’re pro choice or not, whether we live in a blue state or not.
You wrote abortion is a“"Wedge issue"? This is a life and death issue.”
It is both. It is a life and death issue that is used as a wedge issue by Republicans to divide Americans as a way of gaining political power… to among other things control women by restricting their legal options to control their reproductive lives.
YES. Not a wedge issue AT ALL. Women wants sovereignty over their body. FULL STOP.
I’m so tired of having to explain this. No one is telling men what to do with their dicks. (Let’s examine the recent demise of Gaetz due to his insatiable appetite for girls and taking pills to sex all night . . .) What a disgrace. This country is an embarrassment. Perfect timing for another country to take advantage of us.
I sorry but I’m angry. Forgive my ranting. Barbara, I read the same stats that you did. My daughter has had complications in two of her three pregnancies. She was bleeding too much after the birth of her first child. She was given medication they want to ban to ease the bleeding. Her second pregnancy, she had a positive lab test, everything was progressing normally. She and her husband went for the first sonogram and there was no heartbeat. As a matter of fact, there was no baby. The gestational sack was there but the egg never developed. The sack was empty, no baby. The doctor said she would have miscarriage. After two weeks the doctor performed a D&C, because of health concerns. There is a name for this but I can’t spell it. What would happen now? As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t have a uterus, shut up! Furthermore, how could any woman vote for a man who was convicted in civil court of sexual abuse. He has been unfaithful to all three of his wives. And finally, this man was awaiting sentencing in NY convicted of fraud. He is a felon. Elon has said it will be tough times, but he and trump won’t be suffering we will. So, remember you get what you stupidly voted for, God help our beloved country.
As for November 22, 1963, I was just 18. However, I can tell you what I was doing that day. There is never a time that I write that date and don’t think of JFK. I read what Jackie said about changing her clothes, a while ago. I always admired her. I was sitting in front of the tv for the Jack Ruby murder of LHO. In shock, as most of the country was. Interesting, Lady Bird, heard three shots.
And, of course, the centre of this issue is whether one citizen should be able to force their religious views on another, when the decision has no impact on the would-be enforcer or on society at large except according to the most contrived arguments.
Barbara, I have to agree here. Also much research has been done on men for conditions that affect genders differently. I have a female gyn, a good male primary, and a wonderful male orthopedist. One of the things they do best is listen.
I read this somewhere: remember, your congressperson’s mistress will always have access to abortion. Crude. But when you look at his recent nominees . . .
I hear you and agree - but here we are letting wedges separate our own side. With such a large percentage of US citizens favoring women having control over their own bodies, my unwoke opinion is that we keep that the core issue, along with civil rights, and back off a little on some of our more holier than thou issues, like trans athletes for example. Tone down our rhetoric on divisive international policies. Yes, the goalposts are on the move again, but we must start winning again too.
Not to mention that research on women's health is still taking a back seat to research on men's health. And let's not forget, we're talking about white men in large part.
Richard, we are going to suffer unless we are wealthy. Already it is dawning on a few of them that they are not going to do well, Yes, that Obamacare you hate is the actually the ACA which provides your health insurance despite your pre-existing conditions. And those immigrants you hate, they are the ones who do the scut work in the ag business that puts food on your table.
So, so right, Michele.
Yeah, I remember when Obamacare was passed & the people who were so against it thought the ACA was great! Makes you wonder.
And exactly who do these folks think picks their fruit & vegetables, works in the slaughter houses or meat packing industry or cleans their houses & waits on them? Doing all those jobs that "Amuricans" wont do!
Somehow, in the next few years Democrats HAVE/MUST do a better job of not only getting their message across BUT understanding and dealing with the people who dont live part of the year in Washington and who dont make almost $200,000 a year - understanding how normal ordinary people survive and live appears to have escaped them.
And millions will really regret it when their or their parents' social security payments stop arriving or suddenly become half of what they were. While a new cushy tax break is passed for the top "earners", and inflation resumes.
Richard, you wrote “By the time they realize that they've been suckered, it'll be too late.”
True, and that sounds like the classic definition of how the consequences of having “sold your soul to the devil” turn out.
The impact of a second Trump presidency on America and the world are likely to be characterized by future historians as tragically horrific.
Of Trump's victory, Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne has said it best:
"Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics:
Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please."
We are the proverbial lobsters
Buyers’ remorse will set in, and voters will discover the return window is closed.
I think and hope that you are correct, Joe. Right now the several tRump-voters that I know are gloatingly happy, and will remain so over the next two years while tRump extracts his revenge. If enough of the government structure remains functionally in place at the mid-terms, there is a chance for massive correction. If not, harder times are coming in the republic IMO.
Thank you Mr. Sutherland. So well put
Older people can make a huge difference now by asking earlier for palliative care and hospice, when they recognize they have a terminal condition. We are going to see huge numbers of deaths, if we lose the ACA, and we lose vaccines. We are going to be like people in the 1850s. We also need to try to get Congress to stop the dark money coming in because of the Citizens United SCOTUS decision. In 2 years, we have a chance to repair the balance in the House!
I agree about the medical needs of older citizens. I had one doctor appointment which led to 3 others. Every doctor found something else. One medication was causing liver function to decrease. So, I went to a liver specialist who wanted an ultrasound. T ultrasound person found something, and I was supposed to go to an urologist, then back to the liver guy. All this from some frigging blood test I had with my shrink!
It disturbs me that every day even after the election I was getting emails asking for money basically to support people who are devoted to making democracy work for all the people. And those who have most of the wealth have most of the impact. In my state Pennsylvania a billionaire who does not even live in our state won an election for the Senate just barely over Bob Casey another boy from Scranton who along with his father ,a past governor of our state, worked for a democracy for all the people.
I stopped answering those appeals for money -daily!!!!- And one reason is I decided I don't know where my money might be going. The other side would not be above pretending to be Democrats and raking in our money. Or some of the criminals out there could take advantage of the situation. No, I decided not to respond to appeals that arrive through the Internet. What is a little bit disturbing though is that pressing "delete and report as junk mail" does not seem to stop anything.
Ms. Neyman, thank you My thoughts exactly. So if I am nuts, thank goodness I am in good company.
One huge problem is with the delivery of the
“ news”. Up until Ronnie Reagan news broadcasts were a public service that the media were bound to along with some journalistic standards. Under Reagan that rule was abolished in favor of making the news profitable for the networks ,and standards went out the window. This allowed cable networks to flourish, and todo so outside of FCC regulations. This brought us Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh. “News” is now a commodity to sell and market share is what it all about. Each outlet caters to its “market” and tells them what they want to hear.
One simple rule change could begin to rectify the chasm between fact and conspiracy. And we would see journalists return to doing what they are meant to do.
You wrote “ One huge problem is with the delivery of the
“ news”. Up until Ronnie Reagan news broadcasts were a public service that the media were bound to along with some journalistic standards. Under Reagan that rule was abolished in favor of making the news profitable for the networks ,and standards went out the window. This allowed cable networks to flourish, and todo so outside of FCC regulations.”
Yes and no. You are referring to what was known as the fairness doctrine, which applied to the public airways.
Cable is a different medium and thus not subject to the same regulations. Rush Limbaugh was among the first to realize he could get away with pushing only one side of issues and was thus a key cause if today's poisonously divided body politic.
“The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints.[1]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine
I believe that was the point of my post.
That is exactly what she wrote when she put "news" in quotes, and indicated that and actually used the words " Under Reagan that rule was abolished in favor of making the news profitable for the networks ,and standards went out the window. This allowed cable networks to flourish, and todo so outside of FCC regulations."
That's right, and Trump is still eating up the news attention!! Every day every day. Can you imagine how this helps the profit line of all our news media? I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to keep track of what the hell is going on.
This is a really important issue. Money interest have taken over the levers of public affairs.
But why didn’t our money raised, three times the R’s, show that? I really thought for once THAT money would counter the dark money. Wrong I was.
Hate to be a Contrarian but this is NOT something "new". Money had controlled politics for my entire lifetime (73). You don't think Kennedy won in 1960 because of his family's money and their moneyed connections? You don't think Nixon won because he was able to curry favor with the right wing moneyed interests against Humphrey who had threatened to use populist power to reduce the money influence in Washington? Reagan? The Bush family? Even Clinton sold his soul to a large number of big Democratic donors.
Money has played a major part in American politics for almost forever. This is nothing new, it's just that nobody even tries to hide it anymore.
What has changed isn't what is happening but simply that there is no longer any shame if you are a Trump or a Musk or, yes, even a Soros.
What may have changed, Jon, is that money is used to promote lies and disinformation, their are no limits on it and the sources can be anonymous.
Agree Jon one contrarian to another.
We can say they "bought" the American middle class as well. What do we think 401K Plans do, and, for that matter, private health insurances, which don't stop increasing yearly deductibles, selling our personal information to their unsolicited "satellite plans" that have flashy selling points, but lack real service? Think about the push for private Medicare associated health providers. I bet our 401K portfolios have increased because our money was being invested in the same companies that have been in the business to undermine public health and Democracy. The complexity and complicity behind "too big to fail" should not be ignored.
I'd go a little farther and say the correlation is direct...
But didn’t Harris’s receive more? I thought it was lack of media attention on Biden’s accomplishments and allowing Trump’s disinformation to circulate. Trump received far more attention because he is basically a circus performer., not a serious., educated leader.
Absolutely, Harvey. You nailed it!
Not so indirect.
Gary, it is all about the money. It is how the wealth of the country is conveyed to the most wealthy. The plantation owners had their slaves. The US wealthy have some 300 million people that are fleeced.
The media are corporations.
The founding fathers hated corporations.
We would expect wealthy persons to seek political influence. But there should be limits and restrictions. Perhaps FCC could require able channels to provide some free time or modest charges to candidates. Perhaps a forum for candidates almost like a debate can be printed in newspapers where candidates can provide their messages (fact checked). In a representative democracy, the voices of less privileged need to heard.
And sadly the "media" makes money when we are fighting and arguing and having sex scandals. No publicity is bad publicity if it sells ads and gains viewers.
It seems fairly clear Gary, that it was NOT that people didn't vote but that their voting was suppressed, firebombed in drop-off ballot boxes and polling stations in specific swing state localities, "challenged" by "voting vigilantes" by the 100's of thousands, almost all of whom were black voters who were alleged to not live at that address anymore, many serving on active duty in the military, with the only way to correct it, often just days before election day, by appearing in person at the polling station. Many were offered provisional ballots which themselves were not counted. It seemed so many did not vote because they were actively and vigorously suppressed with ever more nefarious Jim Crow type laws and intimidation. At least in the swing states this was in NO WAY a free and fair election!
Too bad this wasn't given more attention. First the votes were suppressed. Then the issue was suppressed by the media.
Exactly, the “media” never looked outside to see if it was raining. A few did, but were buried under the crazy headlines…
My print paper is trying hard to switch everybody to digital. It will be the end of their influence and they don’t care.
The media told people it was raining when in fact the sun was out. And they kept saying that for years. Then they kept saying there were brown skinned bad people outside. And on and on and on.
And the sad part is that the PEOPLE voted for Ms .Harris -- over 50% -- but the Electoral College -- created by the rich and put into the Constitution in order to get it signed -- elected tr***. that needs to be stated over and over again to everyone so they understand that the People do not control the election.
Sorry this is just wrong. Harris got almost 2 million votes FEWER that Trump so how do you suggest that she win more than 50 percent of the popular vote?
I am sorry we lost, but we lost. Harris didn't win EITHER the electoral college or the majority of the popular vote. It was NO " mandate" as the right wing nuts claim but the election wasn't "stolen" either.
We lost. We need to get over it and stop acting like children who want to pout and start figuring out how to make sure this doesn't happen again.
This does not sound like a conspiracy theory. T told people he did not need votes. The far right knew this was going on.
Certainly true in Texas
Thank you, John. Tffg’s fat thumb on the scales of justice, aided by the filthy rich and brainwashed cult to take us back to the 1850’s. The big secret—cheat and lie at every opportunity—is not a secret to most of us. Can the election be recalled for fraud?
The political parties have become vultures. I’m old, I don’t remember my parents ever having to pay for the privilege of voting or being hounded to death by begging for your $5 to save democracy. How could my modest contribution compare with 100 mil from Miriam Adelson and god knows how much from muskrat. The situation is untenable and a joke when we blather about a free and fair election. Chump “won” a rigged election from start to finish. He finally knew he would when he stopped yammering about Joe dropping out and the campaign switched to racism and sexism. Chump told us of the “secret” and how we would never need to vote again. He went to entertaining, the only thing the carnival barker knows…. And us poor suckers were flim flammed…
Corporations are not people Until a corporation can get life in prison or the death sentence.. No person is ever accountable with Citizens United. The worse America could do is slap a fine on them. Dark money pours in. Corporations own our government. We just think we have a part and now when Musk bluntly bought votes and possibly rigged the election with Starlink and the 60 bomb threats and bullet ballots. May we all live our best day, every day.
This is a coup by the oligarchs.
Thank you. To be exact, 93 million registered voters didn’t vote in this election, vs. 79 million in the 2020 election. Is the difference (I think both figures are appalling) that the Democratic candidate was a woman of color?
it IS sooo appalling!
Gary, I wonder how much of the non voting was voter suppression. The vote was down here in Oregon even though it is easy as we vote by mail and the postage is paid. This is truly a loathsome Supreme Court and it could only get worse.
By not voting aren't they expressing an opinion that it doesn't matter, that "they" are all the same? Certainly though many cannot vote, no time working three jobs and caring for children...Why didn't VP Harris mention the minimum wage and think of changing that for the working poor?
Thank you Terry.
VP Harris would have been a fine president. She lost because millions and millions of people are suffering from one paycheck to the next. Her candidacy - as decent and positive as it was - did not speak of change.
So when the guy at the bar or the coffee shop says "all politicians are the same", the others grumble in agreement. When mom has to call in sick because her kid's school is having a holiday (there are so many) and there is no one else to watch him/her...child care, if available, is so expensive as to be a sick joke.
Democrats need to regroup and reframe their platform. I'm all for "social justice". Good, keep it. But we will not regain ground with the average hard working American until we offer some fresh ideas about helping them.
That should include universal health care - start by covering all kids. Provide day care and then pre-school to all kids. There is no economic justice if one parent can't work. Parents who work can pay taxes!
Provide elder care AT HOME. Keep grandma in her home happy and safe - save the Nation billions in nursing home costs (elder warehousing provided for PROFIT). Harris did mention this...
Defend public schools and demand more level funding. Fight vigorously against vouchers that suck money away from universal education.
And aggressively tax the ultra rich to pay for all this and more. Lift the cap on Social Security taxes - everyone should pay the same percentage! Maybe people like Zuckerberg and Musk should pay even higher rates!
Want a campaign ad? Select Google Images. Search for Mark Zuckerberg Yacht(s). See him being towed on his new motorized surfboard. Try to control your hurl factor as the details and costs of his floating hobby are described.
Democrats can claim the moral high ground, if they have the chutzpah to do it. "The rich are too rich and the poor are getting poorer." Yell it from the mountain tops!
Democrats need to become CHANGE AGENTS if they want those eligible voters who don't vote. We need to become "populists"!
"Tax the rich, feed and house the working poor." Economic Justice!
It shouldn't be hard in the richest nation to have ever existed.
I firmly believe that Sexism and racism were involved in her not winning.
Absolutely agree. But Hillary won the popular vote and we voted in a black man with little experience - twice. I think those factors are real. So was Gaza or Israel - based on one's point of view.
But perhaps all of that could have been overcome with a vision of greater change. MAGA is as radical as possible - we need a radical counter balance that shakes the status quo.
My sadness about losing her leadership...I have no words. I had never been so hopeful for a presidential candidate. Still stunned that someone so qualified, so positive, so damn smart (!) could lose to such a monster. Astounding.
What you say is needed is exactly what Kamala was running on.
I have no time for the guy standing next to his $70,000 pickup saying he is voting for Trump because of “the economy”; ours is the strongest in the world. People do need help, listen to her speeches.
A large portion of our nation has been lobotomized by Fox News for 30
plus years. Add in the richest man in the world who controls social
media, add the Russians and other nefarious group: voila Trump.
Sorry, I loved her platform, but it wasn't radical enough. I do agree with your thoughts about Fox, Musk and the Russians.
But the people I am referring to might have a 10 or 15 year old vehicle with 200,000 miles and buy gas $10 at a time.
I believe Harris was running on all the above points
I agree with what you say here. Unfortunately the dems have gone all in for corporate donations and have thrown the working poor under the bus. I was very excited by VP Harris and believed she would win. Yes she didn't get on the change bandwagon, even though people want that and it is desperately needed. There are complicated and myriad reasons she lost. Wide spread voter suppression in the toss up states was huge esp Georgia, Arizona, PA, and Nevada, beyond the confederacy. I guess the desire of slave owners to spread their cancer to the west won after all...
Careful who you're calling "illiterates". Would they be the people who didn't go to college, like my husband, who reads more news sources than most college-educated people (including the professors, doctors, lawyers, and scientists in our neighborhood), or the people who voted for Trump because they are Conservative or Orthodox Jews and he "put the US embassy in Jerusalem"? Or the people who are so concerned with nuclear war with the current president that they'd rather take a chance on an actor/egotist? Or the people so upset by watching dead children wrapped in plastic sheeting in Gaza that they could no longer vote for a pro-Israel candidate? Or the people stuck in poverty with whom I spoke when canvassing for Bernie who had given up on both parties and couldn't stomach voting for either one? Yes, you are correct about the AIPAC money defeating Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, because they proclaimed the need for a ceasefire in the Middle East. As a number of experts have said, we are at the end of the American Empire, and this current administration and the next one are perfect signs of this.
Yes, I'm angry, but also worried about the futures of many, many people, all around this world.
When Trump starts building hotels and apartments in Gaza, with the PM’s blessings, perhaps those short sighted people worried about the children should have realized
no candidate is perfect. But one was supremely qualified and not a rapist, felon, lier.
The money is now IN the white house not influencing, but directing policy.. they have transcended the boundary that was once, no matter how transparent, there..
Thank you Mr Loft
Sadly Gary, elaborating on the numbers is beside the point. The non-engagers and low-information voters aren't going to be our salvation in the face of the Trumpian goose-steppers arrayed against American values. This will be fought by a collective minority of Americans.
Well, let’s not forget that the country fired the Dems for cause. For three years the Administration ignored the complaints of high prices while bragging that eleven-teen Nobel economists said the economy was great. And border mismanagement.
I agree Dems have a messaging problem and a message problem. We also have an ‘out of touch’ problem that we can and must solve.
Gee, perhaps next time the Democrats should nominate a fascist rapist. Perhaps the
typical voter will approve? /s
It’s hard to believe they now control all three branches of government. They won this election by exploiting lies, fear, and hatred—and they’ve openly vowed to seek revenge. Their newly appointed Attorney General has expressed intentions to prosecute prosecutors, among others they despise. More than half the country didn’t vote for this group of unqualified, angry gang whose focus seems to be on destruction rather than fixing. They show no interest in solving real problems but instead seem intent on dismantling our institutions, targeting vulnerable groups like immigrants, and undoing our liberal democracy.
Their focus doesn't "seem to be" on destruction; it is explicitly so.
No confusion there. They promised
Welp Harvey.., I'd say we've got us a whole room full of 'swingers' here. I do believe they will 'screw' themselves 'in the end'...., get an equivalent of AIDS and suffer. For they are some sick mf's to be sure. The red-blanket covering our nation is ill-woven and will self-destruct.
That's their plan in a nutshell.
The question is: Are we the people going to allow this?
The voters did not know who or what they were voting for. This is an extremely important point. The voters did not know what Harris stood for. The voters do not know what the Biden Administration had done for them. People erroneously voted against their own interests.
There is a massive net of factual disinformation in the United States.
The information systems in our Country were overtaken by right wing/Russian entities decades ago. The legacy media (NBC etc.) were overtaken by oligarchs such as Bezos of the Washington Post.
The double edge sword of rabid disinformation and voter suppression won this election for trump. But barely. We are looking at a margin of 1.5% victory.
I'm angry at the voters who chose not to know what Harris stood for. She couldn't have sent a clearer message.
I agree, and do not believe for a minute people didn’t know what they were voting for. T told the public SO MANY TIMES.
Some of them want that, with all their hearts. White Christian nationalism, with the white, Christian, cisgendered, heteronormative male in charge of everyone else.
Jimmy Carter’s grandson talked to many Trump voters and the majority said they avoided the campaign altogether. They didn’t go to his rallies. They didn’t watch the debate. They were not exposed to Kamala’s message at all. They believed the lies told them online and on Joe Rogan. And the corporate media told them over and over and over that the economy was bad and despite their own experience they believed the propaganda and voted accordingly. That was “doing their research”—confirming their pre-existing bias.
So even if they had paid attention they would voted the same…
The fact is that for many especially at or below the poverty line the economy IS bad. If you are still in the middle class or slightly above you probably don't see it. If you own your home you probably don't see it. If you have two cars, maybe even a Tesla, you certainly don't see it.
But if you rent in a lower income neighborhood, if you buy groceries every week, if you only have one car that is 12 years old, if you take home less than $3000 a month then to you this economy sucks. And nothing Biden or Harris or Tom Walz said was going to change that.
Biden solved a lot of problems, many of which were caused by Trump. But face it, we are 5+ years and one pandemic past that time and the only person those people still mired in working class poverty are going to blame is the guy in charge “right now”.
And when that guy got on TV and couldn't even answer questions coherently (and it matters not at all WHY that was, a head cold or senility) he was toast. Moreover I think even Jesus would have had a hard time getting elected President if he had been Biden's VP at that point. Let alone a black Indian woman married to a Jew?
In politics appearances really DO matter, but more important appearances of the first impression matter the most. After Biden's screw up, not only was he done but the whole party was in jeopardy.
In fact what is amazing is that despite all that, Harris STILL came very close (just 200,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the other direction and she would have won the election). And we lost just four seats in the Senate and maybe 2 or 3 seats in the House when a 20% swing to the GOP might have happened.
So now we have to buckle up for 4 years of Trump insanity and yes inanity. The one good thing is that, much like Trump and his minions in 2017, most of these people have no clue what they are doing or how it works and they are very likely to at least start with a lot of screw ups that will result in court cases and other challenges that will delay what they can accomplish if anything.
And 2026 midterms are just 2 years away. With Trump focused on trying to deport 10 million illegal immigrants, he will have his hands full. Hopefully by 2026, with typical GOP voters sitting on their hands as mostly happened in 2018 and 2022, and with lots of GOP Senate seats up for grabs, Democrat could take back both the House and Senate and put some serious brakes on the damage Trump will try to do.
Or the worst could happen and we will find ourselves in the midst of a brewing second Civil War.
I don't know how it will turn out but it isn't going to be pretty no matter what.
Stay tuned…
Jade. My after-the-election attitude, knee-jerk as it is, is to stop caring about people who can't or won't care about themselves. I've always voted altruistically. What's good for the country always ends up being good for me.
But the attitude of people who voted Trump in can be expressed in a 5-word political philosophy: "I got mine, fuck you!" So if they are happy with what they have, and eventually find that their vote ends up eroding their security and place in this country, I just can't find it in my heart to care for them anymore.
Now, I mentioned that was somewhat knee-jerky of me. In reality, 70 years of caring can't be turned off like a light switch. I suspect I will soften. I always do...
John, I tend to agree with you. I have a friend (a fellow who used to work for a neighboring agency who was one of the first cops that killed someone during my time in law enforcement--it was a true "me or him" situation, 100% justified) who shortly left law enforcement (before the days of understanding how traumatic killing someone is). We became Facebook friends 10 years ago or so; we'd always been friends because our birthdates are almost identical, I'm about a year older than he is. He was always what I would have termed a "conservative Christian". He is now dying of some unspecified heart and lung ailment and is currently in the hospital. He proudly posted a photo of his left hand (with a hospital ID band and an IV showing) and made the announcement that it had helped him vote for tfg in hopes to hold Biden and Harris "accountable" for the condition the country was in.
We do not see the same world as they do. Period.
That's incredibly sad. How cult-like of a dying man, who's probably taking advantage in his last days of the advances created by left-thinking people. The right couldn't give a rat's ass about him.
They can’t even experience their own lives. They believe what Russia and its US amplifiers tell them. They are addicted to their rage.
They are deeply indoctrinated. There’s no “choice” when their mind has become infested with disinformation. It becomes their world view. Deprogramming is complex and next to impossible. This is what we have now; right wing media dominance whose goal is to indoctrinate and create division. This is America.
I agree with you. We are all adults. Yes, one is mentally deficient after years of right wing kool aid,but we are all adults who know right from wrong. Anyone
who listens to 3 minutes of T talking and still supports him is seriously
in moral decay. They enjoy the entertainment and the cruelty or they are so
greedy they chose to ignore it. Both types are vile people. How many million?
Sickening.
You have to get your head out of targeted news; when all you listen to is the garbage pouring in from Faux, OAN, etc. AND BELIEVE EVERY WORD OF IT, of course you're going to vote the way you're told to. When the millions of people watching NFL football see ads that target trans people without knowing a single trans person, they're going to vote the way the ads tell them to.
One of the most enjoyable evenings of my life was when my wife's hairdresser turned 40 and we celebrated his birthday (28 of us) at a drag show in Jacksonville, FL. I have no clue who, if any of them were trans, gay or whatever, but it was a great time. Our 17 year old daughter came with us and she had just as much fun.
My daughter dated a guy for a couple of months as he had just left the army and was preparing to transition. He was extremely conflicted by his own feelings as well as the judgment of others. We all felt so bad for him.
Jade, so am I. To what extent I’m angry, I shall discover with time. But I can tell you that I’m in no state of mind to join Braver Angels, where people talk - meet - listen to one another on the other side.
People who have been drowning in a cult need de-programming. People who have not been in the cult shouldn't be "open" to negativity.
That's exactly how I feel. I am not proud of the fact that the other day I actually told one of them what I think! But I feel better I have to say that. And now I know I won't have to worry about this person trying to cozy up to me. But I have to admit that part of me thinks that it's not a very good strategy for our country or for me personally.
I agree with many of your comments about disinformation, but I do believe that many people knew full well what they were voting for when they marked Trump on the ballot. It’s been 61 years since I remember hearing the awful news about Kennedy’s death. And I also remember the shocking coverage of the open, rampant, and mean-spirited racism at the time. It’s ironic or maybe predictable that Trump and his ilk now again call for “states” to handle various issues. We’ve heard it before. Anyone who thinks that Trump was elected for his views on the economy is naive.
I do not believe people understand core economics. They also do not understand how tariffs work or that starving "entitlement" programs will result in their Grandmother losing her SS Disability check. They don't know that Obama Care is indeed the ACA.
That said. The motivator for their acquired ignorance is racism. I remain astounded at the level of hatred in these people. You can even see it in some of the MAGA commenters in this forum. Hateful talk, name calling, lies and ignorance is their communication mode.
Thank you for this, Barbara. You’ve summed it up perfectly. We need to be shouting this from the rooftops.
I am writing about this topic in my Substack this morning. Check in later today in my Substack called Trilogy. You can just click on the work "Trilogy" beside my name. I apologize everyone for mentioning by Substack site. I am responding to Aslo's interest in the topic. I do not have paid subscribers.
The "not knowing" part would be on Biden and Harris.
Yes, Barbara. This cannot be said often and loudly enough. They didn’t know WHAT they were voting for.
45 and his minions want to create such chaos that people are not paying attention to 45 and the robber barons stealing the country blind.
Con men have their tactics.
💥
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing...
George T, my thoughts exactly. I was at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone when this happened. I didn't want to believe it when one of the African students told me that JFK had been shot. It was dinner time there. We were supposed to go to a concert at the American Embassy and went although it was cancelled. One tone deaf Brit complained. I remember it like it was yesterday. And yes, here we are once again.
😫🤬🤮😭😭😭
George T -- and others who have contributed to this steam -- Heather Cox Richardson's story has **nothing** to do with abortion or Trump or __anything else__ other than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I was visiting New York City for Thanksgiving weekend and was having lunch at a French restaurant with my mother and sister -- the first time we'd ever been in a restaurant together! Our waiter came to our table in extreme tears to tell us what had just happened. When he started the story, the President had been shot. In the middle of his story, he updated it! I will never ever ever forget those moments! I was radicalized on the spot, having been a Barry Goldwater fan at the moment (can't believe that now, of course). I was 28 years old.
exactly, George
I remember well. I was sitting in a Catholic school 4th grade class when a nun knocked on our classroom door and a nun announced the JFK had been shot. We were asked to stand and pray. I recall a lonely walk home from school that New England day. Then rushing upstairs into my parents bedroom with my sister watching Walter Cronkite announce to the world as he looked up at the clock. We cried. My mother tried to say something amusing to diminish our cry’s but that didn’t help.
I kinda view 1963 the year my innocence died. Along with Kennedy, the Beatles became the new music. The Buddy Holly period ended. The doo wop music sank into memory. My golden era of pop music was from about 1958 to 1963. Today as a part time songwriter, I’m at times drawn to those silly little love songs from that era as a sweet remembrance of my brief days of innocence.
I was serving in the U.S. Army on Okinawa when early in the morning on Nov. 23 a soldier knocked on my door, opened it and shouted that the president had been assassinated. I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands and wondered, "Did LBJ have anything to do with it?"[I was born and reared in Texas, enlisting in the Army in El Paso in May, 1960.] I soon dismissed that thought. But for LBJ, there probably would be neither a 1965 Voting Rights Act nor Medicare.
LBJ was a very complicated man. Yes he championed civil rights on one hand, but he was a long time racist embedded in the southern democrat white supremacy. Much has been written about the thought that giving blacks the right to vote would make them loyal to the party who got that through, not so much to make them equal. And LBJ hated both John and Bobby Kennedy. So the same questions remain about who was actually behind the assination.
It’s plausible. Getting rid of Lee Harvey Oswald meant silencing the conspiracy. Jack Ruby was mob connected. So there is plenty to extrapolate.
Yes, still today we know it was an "inside job"
Yes, the songs. Applause for music makers and dancers! A loss of innocence for me too and a drive to heal arose. Sadly, I gave speeches when I was alone in my bedroom because I wasn't recognized or empowered to lead or organize or be heard. I envy people whose families cried together or who unraveled the mental manipulations of polarized thinking (like calling anti-segregationists communists or wokes). It's a blur along with Robert Kennedy's and MLK's death. The Jan. 6th US Capitol attack and Project 2025 are like socio-political Earthquakes to me.
Joan that is such a sweet story of speeches in your bedroom. We cut our teeth on violent social unrest. This time sure is a nightmare all over again.
We will prevail. We will take care of each other.
I share your pain.
I was in Freshman year of Catholic high school in Latin class. It was announced over the intercom. Yes. Something did die when John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, MLK, Malcom X were shot. The Viet Name war raged. A bloody time juxtaposed with the hippies calling for flowers and free love.
I was one of those hippies although I wouldn’t have recognized it at the time. When you reject classifications you reject your own.
There were different types of hippies. There were the hardcore hippies who dropped out for real and were heavily into drugs. Then there were the college students who wore the pretty hippie clothes and dabbled in pot and acid maybe. Then there were the really politically serious hippies like Abbie Hoffman. Then.....
I never really thought about whether I classified as one although looking back I can see where people might have thought I was.
Hum… I was a young one a baby hippie if you will. Still in grade school. By 1968, I totally dispised the Abbie Hoffmans and their ignorant politics and always thought there would be an ugly backlash to Chicago 1968. Guess what happened? One of my early predictions.
Their "ignorant politics" set the stage for an awful lot of the societal change we see today. I invite you to look at LBJ's Greatest Generation results Kennedy's astounding work in the American Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act, advances in Women's Rights. Educational Reforms, the end of the Viet Nam war.
Activism pays off. The voices of the times heralded change still felt decades later. These guys never hated Democracy.
The ugliest people I know today are dressed in suits, carrying their briefcases in one hand and a nazi flag in another. And they hate our Democracy
I was 19 when the 1968 Chicago Convention sprang onto our TV screens and into our living rooms. Richard Daly was not going to have protestors in "his town." He acted like a bully. I supported the right to protest then and I support that right now.
The day our innocence died
Yeah Bill, those "45's" capture it: So Fine.. so fine.. my baby's so doggone fine.. lyrics by the Fiestas in 1959. There have been a bunch of "so fine' titles but, I believe The Fiestas did the first DooWop 45. Meantime, se're definitely in one fine mess.
Here is a fun story. I’m from Hartford, CT. In nearby New Britain, there was a local doo wop group called The Crystal Tones. They produced a song titled “Debra Lee.” Really fantastic song you can still find it on YouTube. So the group leader pitched the song to the Ed Sullivan Management for a performance on the show. Sullivan said yes. The group leader asked how much they would receive for performing and Sullivan responded that they don’t pay performers. The group leader said no pay no go. They didn’t perform and after a few years, disappeared from the music scene. For one blessed moment they could have gone national. Talk about making a career mistake.
I think the election was hacked.
A data scientist, Stephen Spoonamore, strongly suspects a hack took place during the 2024 election. He speaks of tremendous numbers of “bullet votes” for Trump, occurring in just the swing states. A bullet vote is where there is only one selection in one race out of the entire ballot. For example in Arizona and Nevada, 5% and 7% of the ballots were people who only voted for Trump. He explains how easily it could occur particularly with the ability of Starlink, headed by Elon Musk. He also explains that a hand recount would clear this up. Mr. Spoonamore is imploring Kamala Harris to request a HAND RECOUNT as only she can do. He states that a hand recount will determine the correct number of votes for the 2024 presidential election
https://open.substack.com/pub/spoonamore/p/duty-to-warn-letter-to-vp-harris
As I understand it, voting systems are not online and if this is true, then how is it corrupted? Further, Mr Spoonamore states that Hamas was victimized by pager explosions and they were not. It was Hezbollah not Hamas which is a glaring mistake.
Ah, Roy Orbison.
Exactly so, Mary. I had no recollection of the connection between James Meredith's registration at the University of Mississippi and the Kennedy assassination either. However, If you are of a certain age, you remember 11/22/63 as if it were yesterday.
During the 1960 election campaign, those who supported Nixon opposed Kennedy because he was Catholic. They claimed he would be taking orders from the Pope. Then he was a "communist." In any case, he was the "other" and therefore suspect because he attended a Catholic church and supported civil rights.
November 22, 1963 was my 17th birthday, and I remember hearing about the Kennedy assassination sitting in my 12th grade Journalism class. Being good journalism students, we asked where that information had come from. Someone said they had heard it on WPGC, then the teen rock station, so we thought we needed a more reliable source. Then we heard people screaming in the hall. Everyone stayed glued to the tv for days afterwards.
Five years later, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King lost their lives as well. Whatever the personal motives of the men who pulled the triggers, Kennedy and King's deaths were about opposition to the attempt of America's leaders to live up to that central ideal of our founders that all men are created equal.
Sixty-one years later, that battle is clearly not over as too many people not even born in the 1960's supported a presidential candidate who has made a career of leveraging bigotry to attain power. Clearly, the battle for equality of all people has to be fought all over again, but we did it before, and we can do it again. And we will.
I too was a senior in a Jesuit high school in Beaverton OR. For some reason we knew the president was going to be in Dallas that day, probably the news. They announced over the intercom that he had been shot and asked all of us to pray for him which we did, a while later they announced that he was dead and we were sent home to be with our families. I remember it like it was yesterday, the following summer we moved to Atlanta which was like a foreign country and from there I had a front row seat to the civil rights struggles. I really believed that we were going to finally begin to realize the promise of our constitution earlier this month, but some of our fellow citizens chose a darker path, and now we are faced with the unthinkable. 🙏
Thanks for writing Dick. We were living in Prince George's County, just outside DC through most of the 1960's and early 1970's, so I was very aware of the work King and other leaders did to further equality. Kamala Harris wanted to lead us forward, not allow us to go back to a time before the civil rights legislation of the 1960's was passed. Since then, so many people have worked so hard to further rights for women, gays, and other marginalized people. We cannot let Trump and his enablers destroy that progress. It's up to all of us to hold fast to our values and to pick up the work of those brave, strong people who believed they could make our country the best it could be. I will never forget seeing Norman Rockwell's portrait of Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by federal marshals. She was six. I don't have the energy I did back in 2016 when we fought against Trump before, but I'll use what I've got. I think the challenge is even greater this time, but we have to be equal to it. As they say in the military, failure is not an option.
Don’t forget George Wallace, who was pro-segregation, carried 5 southern states in the 1968 Election. Not so very long ago. Obviously the sentiments are still alive.
The sentiments are very much alive and that is why we are now faced with the felon elect. I am flabbergasted at the bigotry that is alive and well in this country. It is what elected the felon along with all the lazy ass non voters! As an Army brat, I grew up surrounded with diversity. I will always be thankful for that. Perhaps I am naive because of it, but nonetheless I am thankful.
Linda: thousands of miles away, in Ankara, Turkey, I remember hearing the news on the radio and something inside me sank. Thinking of the US as a beacon of justice & freedom took a huge hit. Having made it my home, I can’t believe what we are going through now. But racism and misogyny are deep, deep in the country. Sadly. Ready to fight!
Thank you for writing Janan. So many people around the world have seen us as exactly that beacon of justice and freedom that you saw. We owe you and everyone else that has believed in us the hard work we will now have to do to live up to your faith in us. I'm afraid you are right: racism and misogyny are indeed deeply embedded in our culture. I think those are major reasons Kamala Harris lost the election: she's a black woman. Those characteristics may have cost her the election, but she's strong and wise. We must now join hands and work together toward the future she wants us all to have. She said she was conceding the election, but not the fight. You're willing to fight; so am I. I think millions of other people will join us. After Kennedy's assassination, we made tremendous progress toward equality. We can do it again.
I guess that the true meaning or intent and interpretation of those words and “wokeness” depends upon one’s perspective and their skin color or racial identity?!?!
Is there a single “the true meaning” of that now hijacked term, “woke”? I don’t think so.
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines "woke" as: "Aware of & actively attentive to important facts and issues, especially of racial and social injustice."
That seems to me to be a very positive trait - not a negative one.
I’m going to copy paste this in to comment sections EVERYWHERE. This big push for people to just get along — honestly, electing this joke of a human is unforgivable. AFTER the fact they are trying to make it about the economy. It will never not be about a cult.
They did not ask for everyone getting along under Biden. Just one more way to gain power over people. It's really insidious to think people are commanding us to like what they are doing to our Country.
Sad, but true. Will we line up like cattle at a slaughter house???
Can't wait to see their faces when they see real inflation. No sympathy from me.
I wish someone would make a t-shirt with this definition. I would wear it proudly!
Check into any local print shops you have, or check into Zazzle, VistaPrint, or DesignAShirt. I've also had shirts made using TeeSpring (which has a new name but I don't have the icon on my laptop). Be advised their shirts run a bit small. Decent quality, though.
Thank you KMD; I and most of the people with whom I am and have been acquainted, agreed with your sentiments and that definition…and if I might add, the one that also relates to the time my or our sleep ends - although there are some who are walking around among us - but who remain asleep…they ain’t “woke” even though they may have awoken from their physical sleep!
As I was saying, there is no single true meaning. Yours I consider to be a very Pollyanna-ish take on the word. Here’s another, which is, sadly, I think more widely used these days.
“By 2019, the term was being used sarcastically as a pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries targeting various leftist and progressive movements. It has been used to disparage actions as superficial or insincere.[4] Subsequently, terms such as woke-washing and woke capitalism emerged to criticize organizations who advertise their commitment to social justice for financial gain, also referred to as "performative activism".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke#:~:text=According%20to%20French%20sociologist%20and,right%20to%20label%20individuals%20engaged
the hi-jack and ridicule of this term has be tragic IMO, but illustrates the despicable nature of right-wing extremists
Your use of hijacked is appropriate.
Term capture is a very old and widely used technique in science as well as politics.
It is where a traditionally neutral or especially positive term is co-opted and given a new negative connotation.
Note especially the last sentence below.
“ AI Overview
The term “woke” has a long history in Black culture and can be traced back to the early 20th century:
1923
Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey wrote "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!" in a collection of philosophical ideas, calling for Black citizens to become more politically and socially conscious.
1938
Blues singer Lead Belly included the phrase “stay woke” in the lyrics of his song “Scottsboro Boys”, a protest song about the 1931 Alabama case where nine Black teenagers were accused of raping two white women.
1962
Novelist William Melvin Kelley wrote the New York Times article “If You're Woke You Dig It,” which is considered the first citation of the word “woke”.
2008
Erykah Badu's song “Master Teacher” popularized the phrase again with the refrain “I stay woke”.
2014
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement popularized the term during the Ferguson protests to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans.
The term “woke” has come to describe being politically aware and vigilant, especially to racial prejudice and other forms of social injustice. However, some Republicans have co-opted the term as a pejorative to signify identity-based social justice issues”
In my opinion, being woke means you are aware. Aware of the injustice.
That is one meaning among many. But not the only one.
No, just what Christopher Rufo assigned to it. Made it a weaponized four-letter word. He is as good at using words as weapons as Frank Luntz was in W’s day.
I know Rufo demonized CRT, but not also “woke”. Do have a reference for that? If so, I’d appreciate a URL link. Thanks in bc advance.
Sorry, I don’t remember where I read that. I think it was about the time that Youngkin won Governor of VA. Rufo was bragging about how he had tipped the scale.
“How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory
To Christopher Rufo, a term for a school of legal scholarship looked like the perfect weapon.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theorys
I believe that 'woke' simply refers to someone who respects the human dignity of others, unconditionally. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I agree, partially. While it means nothing less, it does have other meanings to other people.
For example, and as I wrote above…” “By 2019, the term [woke] was being used sarcastically as a pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries targeting various leftist and progressive movements. It has been used to disparage actions as superficial or insincere.[4] Subsequently, terms such as woke-washing and woke capitalism emerged to criticize organizations who advertise their commitment to social justice for financial gain, also referred to as "performative activism".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke#:~:text=According%20to%20French%20sociologist%20and,right%20to%20label%20individuals%20engaged
It does help to look back and realize this country has been through rough times and survived and good has come of it. I was too young to know how devastating Kennedy’s death was to the nation but in my little part of the world, our community held a memorial service in the local grange hall. I’ll never forget the Boy Scouts marching in with the flag and how somber everyone was in the room. It impacted my 13 year old self and drove commitment to look for ways to serve others down into my soul. I never knew one black person but I had compassion for them and as it turns out, I now have a lovely black granddaughter.
The election was most likely hacked ! ACT! This tells who and how to notify:
https://blog.voteforlove.net/2024/11/20/unhack-the-2024-presidential-election/#main
Read Spoonamore’s “duty-to-warn” VP Harris letter:
https://open.substack.com/pub/spoonamore/p/duty-to-warn-letter-to-vp-harris
Also read:
https://open.substack.com/pub/planetcritical/p/cyber-security-experts-warn-election-hacked
and it hasn't quite "gone away", has it, Mary? As Johnson ensured the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Democratic Party was in the process of splitting up, the southern wing migrating into the Republican Party.
It wasn’t the Democratic Party per se, it was the Southern Democratic electorate, which had been solidly against the Republican Party since the South lost the Civil War and Lincoln freed the slaves.
With the passage in the mid 1960s of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, those who had voted for Democrats switched to being Republican.
Understood, but I'm pretty sure the Parties realigned as well.
Memory is fickle but after a century of the South being solidly Democratic there was a dramatic shift to Republicans coincident with the Civil Rights legislation of Kennedy and then carried over the goal line by LBJ.
The segregationist views of the people did not have a sea change, just the Party which supported those views.
““I [Bill Moyers, LBJ’s aide] said, ‘Quite a day, Mr President.’ As he reached a sheaf of the wire copy he tilted his head slightly back and held the copy up close to him so that he could read it, and said: ‘Well, I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime – and mine.’”
That Party line shift was cemented in place shortly thereafter by Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy.
“In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3] As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party. The strategy also helped to push the Republican Party much more to the right relative to the 1950s.[4]”
https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/22/we-may-have-lost-the-south-lbj-democrats-civil-rights-act-1964-bill-moyers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#:~:text=Under%20the%20Southern%20Strategy%2C%20Republicans,conservative%20voters%20in%20the%20South.
Speaking of Barry Goldwater, I’m reminded of a pair of campaign buttons….
One said, referring to Goldwater, “In your heart you know he’s right, far right”, and another also with a picture of Goldwater, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”
Thanks for that, Ed. I think too with forced removal of prayers from schools, rvwade, Republicans doubly won Evangelicals in the years following.
And who want to increase the numbers of marginalized.
Now we became the marginalized
As an 18 year old teen who ran the Kennedy for President office with a friend in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles, I recall the sadness of that day and the weeks following. Much sadness and joy since. So, as for Trump, hopefully this will pass too.
Thank you for every part of this post; Lady Bird’s concise, and in moments, poetic commentary of the day of the assassination.
Including the citizens of Ukraine. President Kennedy would have pushed back on Russian aggression to prevent Crimea or 2022; otherwise, he would have smoked the Red Army.
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/42703
Recent statements covering the collective ass of president Biden's policy-makers -- that Ukraine has not mobilized sufficiently -- is not woke but broke.
Thanks for reminding us of the First Lady’s comment, “I want them to see what they’ve done to Jack.” Powerful.
This quotation is eerily similar to that of Mamie Till of Chicago less than 10 years earlier. Her son Emmit was brutally murdered while visiting relatives in Mississippi, for whistling at a white woman. She demanded an open casket at his funeral so all the world could see “what they did to him”.
Like Carolyn above me, I also thought of Mamie Till like you did. This country tries to paper over its internecine violence and project sunny perfection instead. It's the courageous, in these two cases strong women Jackie Kennedy and Mamie Till, who cast the cultivated appearances and demanded customs of propriety aside, to hold a mirror up to America's face.
Unfortunately, America so frequently forgets what we've looked like. We tell ourselves we're perfect, we always were and lie to ourselves with sanitized retellings of our past. It's tragic that our nation almost seems to demand it be reminded of its capacity for cruelty by deaths like Till's, Kennedy's and riots like January 6th.
Many thanks to Heather Cox Richardson for this poignant account of JFK's assassination.
i thought that too.
I was in my ninth grade French class when the news arrived and an announcement made....and my father, who worked for the New York Central Railroad, received the news via Morse code in his offfice. He kept that piece of paper forever.......
This brought the ‘60s back to me like a gut punch. I DO NOT want to go back to those times.
Do Elon Musk, Nick Fuentes, Laura Loomer, Pete Hegseth and the rest of trump’s idiot enablers have any idea what those times were like? No. They didn’t live through it. In the ‘60s I was a white middle class teen in the Midwest and was scared most of the time that the U.S. would be destroyed in another civil war. I don’t like being that scared again. Some days it seems like everything we worked for the in ‘70s was for nothing.
😭😭😭
Jackie was in a class of her own. I was 13 you when Jack died. She was very young maybe 30 coming into the White House. Jackie was probably the most admired woman in our lifetimes.
I was 12 years old and remember being in my school hallway when I heard the news. It was when I got home and saw my mother sobbing that the full enormity of the moment hit me. I’ll never forget that day, but thank you Dr. Richardson, for giving us this eyewitness account, especially of the courage of poor, dear Jackie.
👍👍🙏
I was in 6th grade at the time and never knew until reading this just now about the civil rights events leading up to the assassination. Whenever anyone mentions Kennedy’s assassination, they always seem to be focused on everything else so thank you for writing this. I learned something new today about events that happened in my lifetime.
Me three! I was thinking about how it’s another example of the whitewashed history that we learned.
Me too! I learned something new and I’ll read it again n the morning!
Cleaned up... "to protect the innocent"..., Ya'll go home now, ya hear..
🤬
Oswald was shot and it is hard to figure how he fit into it all. That has been grist for conspiracy theories, Hate speech seems to encourage violent people to act out their impulses, as we've been seeing recently. And for what?
In the context of the Civil rights movement and the accusations of "communism," Oswald's position is far more plausible.
We don't know what we don't know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z5MgCG4COY
I believe the evidence is overwhelming that he did it. I know a retired police officer who is convinced that LBJ was behind it.
Please Bill ... "I know a retired police officer ... ''convinced of ...". I called it BS then and I call it again now.
What kind of response is that? Nothing better to do this morning? Oh, please don’t report me I’m a shaken in my booties.
Read my response to Frank below.
Do I really want too? Have you turned him in to the FBI yet?
I was in 8th grade - and I also didn't realize the connection to civil rights.
I was in 5th grade and neither did I understand the significance of James Meredith. I've heard his name over years but did not tie it all together.
I was a senior in High School on that day sitting in the large Assembly when the principal announced JFK had been assassinated. We were all told to go home for the rest of the day.
Me too, Thank you HCR...
Me either
There's been a lot on this Jeanne. In a way I'm almost surprised, the issues had been stark in the news already. Mind you I was an 18 year old albeit in a neighbouring country. and through my life a bit of a history buff. I see others share your experience. Well, I here that history (of any kind) is not a top hit in the education system. I was lucky, i had a few motivating teachers along the way.
Thank you for that statement Frank. I was not 'lucky' in California as the state spent substantial sums to build elementary, junior high, high school & a university campuses to educate the daughters & sons of the Greatest Generation.
When I arrived at UCLA I was a very green Freshman. In the first weeks on campus I was confounded by then Governor Reagan's attack not only the California educational "system" but, the faculty, teaching assistants & the students enrolled.
One of the first Reagan's targets was CLARK KERR who I spotted walking to a on-campus Regents Meeting where he would be under intense fire. I had the opportunity to shake his hand as he walked along. I was struck by the look of determination on his face not against his personal adversaries but,of the human value of learning.
Naively, I thought the Age of Reason was won & over. I was wrong.
You might enjoy this Wiki on Kerr. I
vaguely remember a lot of that, esp the Berkeley campus demonstrations and riots. You have to admit, these were very trying times. I was hardly a fan of Reagan, then, or now. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Clark_Kerr#University_of_California_president
Immense Thank you Frank.
I downloaded 'Wikiwand' with their adaptable formats.✔️ I put it on Chrome as long as Google owns it.
And America's greatest weakness: "her lack of moral self-confidence." Dinesh D'Souza. (America the Beautiful: What We're Fighting For)
Thank you Kathy not only for this one comment but, many others.🙏
I was a senior in high school and I too did not know the backstory until today.
Ditto
It’s still nut country.
It's not nut country. The mindset of the Confederacy, of one person as superior to another due to skin color and chance of birth, is a cancer. And because the patient refused to have the cancer removed it behaved like any other cancer. It metastasized, spread throughout the body politic, and now stands to kill the patient.
Worse, Steve, the world.
As to how it "now stands to kill the patient," we're talking the U.S., a till-now 248-year-old republic, and ever-aspiring democracy.
Poisons have festered in the black soul of this country since Puritans lynched witches -- same black soul as in the Clarence court justices who license states to kill women's freedoms, same justices who rule a most vulgar convicted criminal above the law.
This country, America, has had the greatest music, the greatest novels, greatest films, greatest memoirs, histories, and other arts (mural, photography, poem, stage plays, more) -- but all that got evicted from the schools so that the commercial classes could more lethally roam as predators, so that the standardized testing behemoths could more totally push their dehumanizing conceits, further too that the social media billionaires can more thoroughly profit by their algorithms for hate.
Should such a country die, as black logic perhaps portends?
Trouble is, having elected that convicted criminal, we've no longer the luxury of inquiring as to but one country's imminent death. Its alliances with other democracies may be doomed. Its progress in stemming climate change worldwide may be doomed.
Its connivance with all the world's worst, and all their killings and hatreds may be assured.
"Fuck the patriarchy." Emma Watson (and myriad others).
Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana all want to force their public school teachers to teach from the Bible, while the churches preach, "Hate thy neighbor."
Many of the Bible myths and lessons are slowly disappearing from our cultural literacy as are other lessons we learn from mythology, fables and other world religions.
So much of what we hear and read everyday requires basic knowledge of literature and various religions.
Phil, as you and others here have said, bring back the humanities.
There are about 4000 religions on the planet. That should be the title of any course taught about the subject. And yes, the "myths of the Bible" should be explained for what they became. Cherry picked stories twisted to justify hateful bigoted behavior.
Then find the common core of most faiths that includes loving thy neighbor and sheltering the stranger. Piety not property. Kindness vs brutality.
And for sure, include Pastafarianism. The basic dogma is that there will be no dogma. Ridicule the absurd but not each other. And you have to be nice. No one ever died in the name of the FSM. That's what I call "humanity".
The founders were deists, but they would be horrified by the use of "religion" as a weapon against "the others". Many had suffered from that oppression in the old world and didn't want to repeat those atrocities again.
amen!
And keep up with the sciences, Gary. eg Evolution in biology, the long reach of time in geology, the so long reach into the heavens by astronomy, the huge value in following empirical processes even with the truth "hurts".
So will they be teaching from The New Testament or the Old? My money says Old, lots of rules, retribution and punishment there
It goes back before the Puritans lynched witches, who were not witches at all, but that's another story. It goes back to the genocide of slaughtering 19 million Indigenous peoples...that is really what this country is founded on: genocide, slavery and insatiable greed.
You might as well say "all of Europe", imperialism became a de facto mantra thanks to technological advances in an age where empire building was the general way of doing things. Remember too, the Justinian plague and Black Death wiped out huge European populations as diseases to which Europeans had no resistance spread along the Silk Road before anyone even know of the "Americas" (except of course the inhabitants!)
But supposedly this country was built on anti imperialism...or is that just another lie...and we know small pox was an early example of biological warfare against the indigenous people of the 'merikkkas
Terry, indeed, just one example. USA was self-admittedly a nation of aggrandizement across the continent, displacing all the indigenous with what amounted to near-genocidal measures, "ethnic cleansing" is a modest term for what happened. Protecting American economic interests in Latin America including maintaining control of the Panama Canal, projecting its power across the Pacific. Philippines for example, blocking Japanese economic/military expansion into mainland Asia, since then having the world's outsized by far "two ocean" navy. Global military dominance is implicitly writ large into the motto of the Air force “Aim High … Fly-Fight-Win” . Not for nothing US maintains a world straddling set of bases to support any military projection it might want to deploy. It's been known as the "Pax Americana" but as you well know it's a bit more "complicated" than that.... US is the bastion of international capitalism.
So, basically, the Constitution works!
???
I do not think democracy will be so easy to kill. As you said, we have a 248 year old tradition of it in this country - imperfect as it may be. Democracy will not die, it will be relegated to school boards, town meetings, local offices, and in a few places, state governments. It will be saved from the bottom up, not the top down.
Steve, I'd like to think so. That is what we are doing here in Las Cruces NM. We are attending local meetings. Giving spport to our local elected officials. Biden was right about that: from the bottom up and the middle out. Hopefully, hopefully there will be something left to work with in 2 or 4 years.
This is hardly the first time the Dems lost a presidential election. The big worry being can the project 2025 visions be thwarted and/or reversed if and when Dems claw back some political capital. They are not exactly "down and out"... by a stretch.
Hope you're right
Have you been to a school board meeting lately.
Of course, Phil, those on the right assert that one cannot have all that multilayered excellence without the profit motive. History, in so far as I am aware does not refute that assertion (I wish it did). However, it does show that cultures have prospered when the wealthy have plowed much of their wealth back into society in ways not designed to increase their holdings. In contrast, many, perhaps most, these day invest mainly in tilting the table to their pockets through politics. A principled society could properly balance these tendencies; however the rich invest to resist it.
Refusing to remove the cancer … is nuts
We were just the last to realize to realize that cancer. It's worldwide and our own arrogance led us to believe it wouldn't/couldn't happen in the U.S.
Racial inequality hardly just belonged (s) to the Confederacy, they happened to have a vested economic interest which at the time had grown to become a huge source of wealth. Of course mass plantation slavery generated swaths of wealth in Europe and elsewhere.
And NYC
"It metastasized"
Exactly!!! The awful irony is that it was THAT BLACK PRESIDENT that brought it to a Stage 4.
Steve, great analogy
Steve: Have you seen the movie Origin? It is based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste. Exactly what you say about people wanting to feel superior to others based on birth circumstances. Perhaps it’s not even race because Jews are white but there is that discrimination as well. I think Wilkerson is 100% on the money.
And it's getting bigger..
Now, the white supremacists control 28 states instead of 13, and they control all three branches of government.
Not for long. I believe that.
I hope you are right, but I’m confident that, whatever happens politically, the 75 million white supremacists who voted for Trump are not going to have a change of heart. Their ilk has been at it for 400 years in this part of the world.
They are, by nature, cowards. They listen to the straw man's song and dance, they are aware their own inadequacies and they are afraid. So they hide behind the grifter, the malignant clown, the imposter. But left on their own? They are weak and without a moral compass. I don't believe there are 75 million of them. Some are already realizing they were duped. The rest? They are the underbelly of every society.
This is what I think.
It's hard for us to believe, when we pay attention, but many people just don't. I hope some of them figure out why we do.
I'm guessing at least half of them have no clue about what the white supremacist MAGAs and evangelicals believe.
I've seen various estimates over the years, but about 1/3 of people living in the US have never traveled outside the state where they were born.
Just imagine, removing all of your life experiences that you have had outside of the confines of your own community.
They should volunteer at the local food banks. This was a major eye-opener for my white-privileged self. It was the first time in my life that I met and got to know illegals, Muslims, and poor black and white folks. They changed me for the better. They did not have much, but they had the sweetest spirit. All my fears about them vanished. We all want the same thing in life. I'll fight for justice for them for the remainder of my days.
The red-lining has kept us separated. Deliberately and with malice
People need to travel. You get a much better understanding of how people live, think, and others needs . People become what they live around. Some will turn racist living around racist people. When you live around woke people, you become color blind. Notice they never have these problems on Star Trek. Lol
My bro you describe and he is proud of it. Like a living statue, carved in stone but somehow breathing.
I'm not sure how to eliminate racism but there has to be a way to convince people that racism is less important than taking care of their own economic interests, and that those interests can best be addressed without oppressing anyone else.
Unfortunately, There will always be people who need to put others down to make themselves feel superior. Probably starts with siblings that bully younger siblings and get away with it.
B
I too support that it cannot be long and among us already feel a resurgence of belief, and actions to take us on a better path. Like many who are remembering, I was in high school history class when our teacher was called out then returned to tell us. It was the first time I witnessed a grown man crying. I love that Heather has recounted this traumatic event from the perspective of the women because I fear we women have the most to lose if we don't overcome tfg and company now.
One thing that I see: DT and his team are neophytes with too much hubris to see that fact. Never in the history of the world has a bunch of hacks been able to effectively run anything, let alone an enterprise as large and complex as the US government. They will not be able to deliver on their economic promises especially, since they have no real sense of how economies actually work. 2% inflation seems to have killed the Harris/Walz ticket, what will 10% inflation do to Donvict & company? Not to mention the presence of massive concentration camps in many boarder states.
Hopefully they will start waking up, vote and fight for our country.
Rex but not one of the many that I’ve learned nothing from this election. You continue to use the isms, such as racism and sexism and xenophobia and bigotry and misogyny you will lose every election hence. Have you actually noticed the Trump appointed two women to the top post of his cabinet? Have you seen the diversity in his cabinet without even having trying be diverse. I hate to say this to you, but I know it’s like offer you a disease, but 73% of cable news now is controlled by Fox. They are now the third rate is primetime network on TV and their digital footprint. Every other major networks, including all the ABC, NBC, etc.. The post news decline of the CNN and MSNBC was about 40% of their viewership and another 15% for Mika and Joe on top of that. In the meantime Fox went up 21%. I have suggested this to a lot of this group before go watch Fox News for a week starting from let’s say Brett bear on till Gutfeld is over for a week and see the difference between the news you’re getting there and the news you’re getting from the legacy media and then make up your own mind. Feel free to dismiss everything you see on Fox, but at least you’ll understand why America is choosing them over the lives of the seat of the two other networks, which of one is actually being spun off due to its failure
So all the sexual predators and Russian assets and outright loons in that cabinet lineup, not to mention the sexual predator, Russian asset and rapidly dementing lunatic in chief just don't bother you at all?
He's a troll. Please dont feed him
Miselle, I know - not going to waste any time on it.
Miselle.., fer crissakes run down to the WAwa and see if they have any nachos left, we're all out of popcorn.
Rupert knows the Goebbels rules of propaganda very well. It attracts those who must be amused…
Sexual predators, and Russian assets. Are you reading from Aesop‘s fables?
Do you not realize that your media legacy media lied to you and they’re being destroyed in the ratings because people no longer want to listen to their lies.
We had to listen to 3 1/2 years of Hillary and Adam Schiff and the Russia hoax and Robert Mueller and it was all bullshit so please spare me your condescending and incorrect post. The sexual predator was not replaced with a woman who’s done her job for the last eight years for the third largest most popular state in the country. What I love about that particular selection is one of your most liberal networks called her position at Nightmare because “she knows how to do her job“. Omg.
And you also love to see things from only one side of the aisle. You forget about Bill Clinton‘s 10 year affair with Gennifer Flowers while he was married you forget about his $850,000 payoff to keep another woman quiet you forget about Monica Lewinsky and him lying on the road and she was his employee.
And yes, even the great John Kennedy was a prolific sexual predator according to many sources and many women.
You also dismissed 76 million voters like Hillary did placing them in a porta deplorable basket when you should’ve learned from that. And he’s back in the White House for only one reason. The current administration misread the public. I drove this country into a ditch. Made daily expenses on affordable, and open the border to a torrential amount of criminals and unvetted illegals.
You also frightened me, calling him rapidly dementing. Joe Biden was already a semi cadaver when they allowed him to run a second term. And while they discussed the 25th amendment all the time with Trump, they refuse to use it on Biden, not only knowing he was losing it, but hiding the fact. If he if they had use the 25th amendment originally like 2 1/2 years ago, you would have a democrat president in the house probably if they would affirm the country around
So stop the fake fear, mongering and watch this country regain its shen. again
The Russian hoax didn’t work well the first time and it’s only gonna get worse if you keep it up. Portland is scared shitless of Trump but I guess you don’t know wife if you wanna know just ask me and I’ll tell you
Putin is scared shitless of Trump Biden on the other hand was a push over and not only that he is escalating a war that we should’ve never been involved in in the first place $200 billion of money we could’ve use on our homeless and our poor. Instead he’s re-creating another Vietnam the only difference is that it’s 60,000 Ukrainians have already died versus 60,000 Americans and a few of my friends died during Vietnam. And now Russia is lowering their threshold for nuclear weapons, because Biden allowed Zelenskyy to escalate using American weapons. Biden should be tried for treason at this point
You are not educating anyone. You are part of the cult that we all see through. Give it up. The Russia “hoax” is real. Trump is beholden to Putin. This country is now well and truly screwed in the name of a billionaire autocracy. You all fell for the lies. Go back to your own media because no one here wants to hear from you at all. You are clearly not even reading the posts or you would have learned something by now.
You don’t even realize why you lost an election. Anybody with a thinking body part above their neck knows that the Russia hoax was just that and still is. Nobody told you that Russia was going bankrupt because Trump was exporting energy to Europe and he wouldn’t even even had the money to go attack Ukraine. Iran is the same story. When other governments began to buy fossil fuel from Iran because there wasn’t enough coming from here, it fueled Irans pockets. And you see what that did. You forget that during Trump’s administration there were no wars. Russia did not attack. Ukraine. Iran did not attack Israel.
I’m sorry to say this, but delusions don’t help. The world knows that Trump is not beholden to anybody except for Americans and the reason he’s back in office in a landslide election where 49 of 50 states moved red and for the first time in two decades a republican one a majority of the role of the votes because of two things Biden drove this country into a ditch and he lied about it
how did you apply for this job?
Most liberals,seem to be fatalists or conspiracy theorists or negative in advance
It’s not a job. I’m an altruist. I retired some 12 years ago. Happy and healthy thank goodness I like to help people see both sides of an issue.
I only started involving myself with social media about four weeks ago. I got on X and somebody sent me an email that got me here otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But I find it’s very heavily liberal and what I will try to delicately put to you is that most of the people here seem to have a bad case of TDS.
I’ve been an independent voter for 40 years socially liberal fiscally conservative. I don’t vote by party at all. I vote for the person and their policies. I could care less about their sex. I could care less about their race. I could care less about their sexual orientation. And people here seem to disbelief that that’s possible. Sad. I owned many businesses in my life and was chairman of the board of the marketing department of one of the largest companies in the world
Traveled to all 50 states and 118 countries. And what I’ve come to hate most about American politics are the lies and deceptions on both sides, but most of all I hate the ISMS. RACISM AND SEXISM XENOPHOBIA BIGOTRY MISOGYNY YOU NAME THEM. TO ME THEY ARE LABELS THAT JUST DON’T FIT. THEY JUST FIT THE NARRATIVE OF THE ORACLE. THAT’S REPEATING THEM.
AND I WILL TELL YOU IF THE LIBERALS AND THE DEMOCRATS CONTINUE TO USE THAT KIND OF VERBIAGE THEY WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE ELECTIONS..
I find it amazing that Trump has not only put two women in the most powerful cabinet positions in his office but he’s actually placed two Democrats in his cabinet which is unheard of and if you look at the diversity in his cabinet, it’s pretty amazing and that’s even despite not even looking at diversity as an issue as the who to hire it just happened without even looking
I welcome your thoughts
Tell me about you family.
Excuse me, the sexual predator was now replaced. I’m voice texting and it was an auto correct. Sorry
Dumb bozo.
For God’s sake people. Proofread before you post!
Hey 'Alex'.., hand me the popcorn will ya.
I watched faux snooze for six weeks straight and my brain started oozing out.
Guess you missed the fact they payed almost a billion dollars for lying to their viewers about the 2020 election.
Good ole tucker boy love to call the donvicts followers cousin f*uckers and hated the donvict.
Maybe you should do some research into that.
As for the russia hoax, maybe read the republican report on that too and learn something.
What I've learned from people who voted for the donvict is that character no longer matters especially when that person can give a hand and mouth job to a microphone stand and everyone cheers for him.
My grandson will grow up knowing that the donvict is a crass, vile, whiny man baby who should be pittied and never look at as someone to emulate.
I only respond to trolls once.
Well I posted a long comment here but it apparently got waylaid somehow so I’ll start all over.
Yes, Fox News was sued and do you know that many other of your favorite networks have been sued as well. Do you think your networks have not lied? Let’s try a few of these. THE BORDER IS SECURE. BIDENOMICS IS WORKING.
CRIME IS DOWN INFLATION IS TRANSITORY. AND MY FAVORITE JOE BIDEN HAS NEVER BEEN SHARPER THAN EVER. You talk about lies. They knew about it for 2 1/2 or three years and not only lied but then covered it up only to find out it was too late.
The Russia hoax was just that the Russia hoax you could try to spin it every way you want the two years of Hillary bit bleaching destroying her emails and her phone Adam Schiff lying about the hoax Russian info about the 51 people who said Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian and then the Robert Mueller investigation that found nothing. All to preempt Donald Trump from completing his promises, which he will no doubt do on this tour.
Oh, and I have some more bad news for you to your chagrin. He is not a convict. Uh oh
And why do you think the media is scared about revenge because they lied about him called him Hitler, a fascist, a misogynist, a racist, a xenophobic, a bigot you name it all lies. Although Biden did invite Hitler into the White House and Joe and Mika went to visit Hitler in his home and had a very nice conversation with Hitler himself.
Take a look at his cabinet he just posted two women to the top posts most important and powerful post in this cabinet and his cabinet looks like the most diverse of cabinet ever and not because he tried to make a diverse because it happened by itself
If your grandson is lucky enough, he’ll judge for himself without hearing your poison and your hate as far as the performance that Donald Trump completes during his next term
And let’s hope he doesn’t emulate the shifts and the madhouse and the Mayorkas and the Garlands where they are now trying to flea before they can be forced to testify and disclose information that they’ve been hiding. Mayorkas especially the liar in chief. As opined in the media.
The worst thing for you is that you haven’t caught on what just occurred 76 million people voted for this man and 49 of 50 states went redder.
And if you wanna talk about crass we can look at both side sides of the aisle where you refuse to do so and talk a little bit about people like Bill Clinton who I voted for twice and his affair with Jennifer flowers or the 850 grand he paid as an NDA and nothing happened to him not to mention that little blue dress that he had sex in the White House while president while married and lied about it under oath. Oooops. So let’s look at both sides shall we there are no innocent people here. We could even look at JFK who is a fabulous president, maybe one of the best ever and his sex life.
The best quote and description ever I can give you of Donald Trump is one by by a very famous individual who said this : I do not like Donald Trump. I like every single one of his policies that helped all Americans and helped this country. Stay safe keep prices low keep crime, low and prevent wars all over the world.
And since you’re not gonna respond to me, which is absolutely fine I hope your grandson doesn’t grow up with the hate that you have in your body caused by nothing other than Trump arrangements syndrome. Trump is going to go down as one of the best presidents of your lifetime and the best one of the best presidents in American history. Sorry. And I don’t know how old you are, but if he does a great job this next presidency, he may indeed fulfill Nancy’s suggestion only a bit different. He might indeed end up on Mount Rushmore
Bad judgment . Across the board.
http://yadontknow.blogspot.com/2020/10/bad-judgment.html
Wow, that’s really out there, but I did go there and read it at least where is most of you? Don’t go look at another network such as Fox, which is now the number one network and cable news almost double its nearest competitor and raking and 73% of cable TV news. Try it.
If you wanna talk about the judgment of a supreme. Maybe we should discuss Ketanji who didn’t even under oath, seem to know what a woman was….yikes. Of course she did, but she was just a ruse.
Let me assess him your analysis of the Supreme Court for a second and I may be wrong here or my opinion of why you sent me to that link
Liberals were thrilled when the Supreme Court invoked Roe v. Wade
Liberals were freaking out when the Supreme Court overturned Rohaley and hated the decision whereas they love the initial decision
Now liberals hate the voters… the reason we have democracy. They hate the voters because now the voters get to choose rather than the government choosing for them, which exemplifies America exceptionalism.
The part of winning elections you have valid points on but essentially you are a nut job. Probably a very lonely one indeed.
You know, I found Bill that one of the worst things you can do is to do one or both of the next things I’ll mention first you should never put your head on someone else’s shoulders. You have a unique mind and you think based on your history and experiences, but others don’t have the same experiences nor mindset and two you should never judge anybody without knowing them first. I have a very young and energetic mind that I like to keep going. Keep moving forward keep engaging with people. You’ll probably find this interesting, but i was the chairman and board member of one of the largest marketing entities in the world I used to communicate with about a half 1 million people or more every quarter
Ok I’ll buy. You surely connect dots that are simply unconnected. You speak of high prices and inflation but that’s a false narrative. We had just emerged from a massive global pandemic and the infrastructure was damaged. In 2020 and 2021, o one was driving. All were staying in their homes. Of course gas’s was cheap. There was global inflation but you blame this on Biden. Simple minds will do that. It had nothing to do with Biden’s policies. He passed wise legislation read about it if you care. The Ukraine was was the stupidest response when we said no to Putin’s request to end admission to nato. But the I’m accused here of being a Russian asset but of course I’m not. That is because my side, mostly democrats are so insecure and can’t handle criticism. But you are off your rocker I can see that. And Biden for all his wisdom, couldn’t understand that a refusal to get tough at the border would be the democrats undoing. Then I’m accused of being heartless. No,I just wanted to save our nation from what we are about to experience; the Wholesale pillage and raping of America by faithless disgusting goons led by a mafia wannabe who has made the art a lying well, an art form.
A few years ago I responded to a cnn writer from UK then living in NYC and he complained how badly our health care system was. I found his email and he asked who we Americans don’t rise up and get things fixed. My response was that as a people, we have been divided and conquered and have been beaten into submission. This election is a shining example of being divided and conquered. I have little sentimental feelings for this country. I lived in Europe for a few years and it was like taking a breath of fresh air. I could return. We Americans are the most dangerous people on earth, well, besides Putin and Xi. Here is a fact; all dominant nations dominate their neighbors in one way or another. We are no different and neither is Russia. You should enlighten yourself and buy my book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums.” Guarantee your love it.
Sorry, I got a number of texts and when I came back, I could not find the place where I left off so I’m gonna start posting here. Hopefully you’ll get it.
And by the way, the only legislation that he passed that made any sense at all was as infrastructure bills. Unless you think that the border bill that they tried to pass at the last moment was really a border bill, and that was a good legislation, while trying to pay the Republicans as defeating the border bill because they didn’t really care about the border when all the Bill did was allow 2 million illegal immigrants in the country every year. Yikes
So I started to write about CNN and I can’t find that post as I mentioned because when I come back if it was gone I’m sure I’ll find it, but I’ll continue here
CNN is now almost an irrelevant entity where it used to be the Oracle of news. They lied so much and hated so much that they have less than half the viewership of MSNBC, which will soon be discarded by Comcast. What makes it worse is that you actually want to attribute something not only to CNN, left leaning zealots in the first place, but then you want to harbor it the UK. It hasn’t done anything right in the last 40 or 50 years because of their socialist tendencies now.
The UK has become relatively irrelevant on the global stage. And even the mildest reason for that by its most art and supporters is that they allow too much immigration. Even Canada has woken up, which is unbelievable, but I’ll get into that in another post.
If you think that their healthcare system is better than ours why don’t you check out all the smiling faces with yellow rotten teeth and realize that people there and more over people in Canada have to wait months to see a specialist. In fact, I had a friend of mine that had a brain aneurysm and had to wait six months and rather than wait. He came to America had it taken care of
The reason that this election was to your “divide and conquered was all attributed to your hateful left leaning legacy media, who called Trump every name in the book and beyond and are now relative toast unless they change their tune and it looks like a few are waking up
For the first time in a long time, your major newspapers did not I repeat, did not endorse the liberal democratic candidate Ooooops
The New York Times and even Cory Booker is looking forward to RFK Junior doing what he does. Which is incredible to me that people don’t like this, even though Trump, the goon that you say he is has probably one of the most diverse cabinets in a long time. WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO BE DIVERSE. I probably posted this to you before, but he just appointed two women to the most important posts in his cabinet.
Has two Democrats, which is unheard of and a bevy of very competent individuals from all walks of life and society. I laughed just yesterday when one of your very famous liberal commentators actually said this.
When Pam Bondi was announced this commentator said on national TV. “this is a nightmare. She’s been a very competent attorney general in Florida for eight years and she really knows how to do her job. What a nightmare for us. He actually said that.
Back to divided, and conquered the day that Trump stood on the escalator he has had to put up with liberal nonsense in the media
They basically tried to defecate him at every turn. Witch hunts 3 1/2 years of hoaxes led by Hillary and Schiff and even Robert Mueller, the liberal attack dog found nothing. So then they went legal just like they do as I said in Russia and places like that. And actually looked at stormy Daniels And Michael cohen Liar extraordinaire as their consummate witnesses omg. Always amaze me as one side of the aisle, tries to accuse the other side of the aisle and doesn’t look in its own house.
If you’d like some example specifically relating to this, I’d be MORE THAN WILLING to talk about Bill Clinton as just one example of the liberal hypocrisy.
I will admit one thing about America, but not what you think as I mentioned before, my wife and I have traveled to 118 countries and all 50 states. But I will never forget the first time we travel to Europe we were in Spain watching BBC probably the mid 80s mid to late 80s and we didn’t even recognize the news. The views of America from Europe were so much different from the views of America in America. And it’s the first time we actually realized that there’s other points of view which we learned and took to heart from that point on.
America is the greatest country in the world’s history And it’s basically because of the preamble two and the body of the constitution of the United States and it all is based upon individual freedom
But now to your other point about how horrible America is, which is the basis for much liberal resentment and mostly, I find it because of liberal ignorance in this particular regard
Name me a country that wasn’t invaded by a neighbor or another country and did not either enslave the indigent population or kill it off overtime There are almost None on the planet. I think there aren’t any, but I don’t want it to be an all encompassing statement. Most people are ignorant of history, especially world history. America did whatever other country did in acquiring its land, etc. but America did something that nobody else did in creating the free country that it is. And that is why 20 million people decided to come from all parts of the world and pass through our doors. And that is why if we opened our doors wide the population of America will probably be 2 billion rather than 330 million.
Europe and Asia were conquered and reconquered over centuries and why do you think South America predominantly speak Spanish or Portuguese? That’s complete naïveté if you don’t understand that America did nothing different than anywhere else.
You’ll be a lot better off if you find an elixir to extricate your TDS and get on board with the optimism, that’s being felt around the world right now
Trump is not even an office yet, and he is already getting gov’ts to align with him around the world Europe in Germany is already offering to buy natural gas and stop buying it from Russia. Canada is going to bring less immigration to its Shores. A couple of flailing governments in South America are going to be following Trump’s lead. Bukele in El Salvador, has cleaned up that country to the point where it’s inhabitable again by being strong and getting gangs off the street. Argentina, who has been in a slump for years is now a Trumpy fan if you’d like to call it.
Zelinsky actually made comments that Trump will find a way to bring peace to the region where we should’ve never been in the first place because it was nothing more than another Vietnam and we pissed away $200 billion that could’ve been used here on the homeless and the poor instead of pissing it away in a war we should’ve never been involved in
The only difference there is that 60,000 Ukrainians have died versus 60,000 Americans, but there’s no end to the war but now there is
He will bring peace to Israel and the region, and he’s been the most vocal supporter of Israel in recent history there are billboards all over Israel now with Trump’s picture on it and him and Bebe are very tight
Iran will stop screwing around now that Trump is in office or pay the price.
You don’t have to like Trump there are many things about Trump. I don’t like, but he loves America with all his heart, and he will bring it back to despite your protestation to the contrary.
Not only did was he not tough on the border he did just the opposite what the hell was that? Somebody whispered in his ear, probably Obama… hey, if we let all these people in, they’ll be beholding to you and they’ll vote for you (after we finagle a way to get them the right to vote) and the Republicans will never get elected again.
And by the way, if you want to be in denial that Biden had nothing to do with the inflation he had everything to do with inflation not just something but everything.
Ouch. I’ll continue in a moment. I got a number of text. I must address and this is not the only one website in which I post but that’ll be short-lived. Because very shortly America will regain it. Strength will regain its respect and Trump lift all boats as he did in his first term.
My love, I love that you intersperse facts with comedy did you just say Biden and all his wisdom? That is a capital OXYMORON. LOL
BIDEN doesn’t have any wisdom all he has is mistakes and continually takes things in the wrong direction. But I don’t blame him really I blame the people that had him run in the first place. He was a semi cadaver, his whole presidency and your side hit it from site, which was a big mistake.
Had they invoked the 25th amendment as they were talking about doing with Trump? You would’ve probably had a different president in the White House on January 20. Instead, the Democrat party which Cohen constantly talked about a threat to democracy, went beyond a threat and staged a coup de etat in America. Right in front of everyone’s eyes. And then placed an incompetent woman of color in his place, because they thought that was a good idea? Honestly, they didn’t have a good lineup of replacements, but she was probably one of the worst they could put there. She had no clue in her entire 107 days of campaigning she didn’t answer one question but she did managed to spend $1 billion and still get creamed.
More to come in my next post
Gas was cheap the day that Trump took office and guess what gas prices are already coming down even though he hasn’t taken off and you know why because right now and unfortunately and spitefully Biden is doing everything he can to make the transition harder instead of lying to the public saying that he’s going to make a smooth trans.
Gas prices now are coming down because people see the inevitable that gas prices will come down as well. The price of everything else that’s driven by fossil fuel. But if prices of gas come down now , then two things occur first Biden can take some credit for prices coming down which at this point is really meaningless and two Trump can’t take credit for the price is coming down if they come down now.
The stupid effing idiot is escalating a war we shouldn’t even be in in the first place and he just passed some type of executive order to allow the 1500 to 2000 more migrants coming up the street from Mexico he’s gonna allow them to get in un vetted this is why he lost the election
He doubled down out of spite and everybody saw it except people with Trump the arrangement syndrome whose numbers are substantially lower than they were when he was in his first term
And by the way, the reason there’s Trump the arrangement syndrome in the first place is because the media put it there and a lot of gullible liberals just swallowed it whole.
I don’t know why, but the balance of your post is not here above and I’m searching for it so I can continue to respond and I will do that as soon as I find
You need to look introspectively and understand the Democrat party went nuts. It went left almost left of Santa Claus. Joe Biden was the second worst president in the last 50years. And no, the first was not Jimmy Carter. I’ll try to find the rest of your post and get back to you shortly.
Really? Wow. Well I’m getting a good laugh out of this. Yes, we came out of global pandemic and when Donald Trump passed the torch to the Biden administration. All they needed to do was to sit back behind their desks. Smoke a cigar and let Trump’s policies continue to work. But no.But noooooooo! They tried every way to defeat ANY OF TRUMP’S POLICIES JUST OUT OF SPITE AND JUST OUT OF HATE AND IGNORANCE OF COURSE.
Of course the infrastructure was damaged and Biden went onto to damage it further. What most liberals don’t understand or maybe they do, but they are in denial…… every single price of almost every single item in the world is driven by fossil fuel. Thank goodness they’re at least talking about going nuclear again should’ve happened a long time ago.
But when you decided to buy a product instead of use the product that you have and can produce yourself prices go up. And in fact, he was able to increase prices all over the world thank you , Mr. Biden.
It’s one thing if they saw what was going on with everyday lives of people rather than referring to it as the economy is OK and inflation is OK but if they told people the truth and told them they were working on it AND WERE REALLY WORKING ON IT, instead of doubling down and continuing to worsen it, Joe Biden (or ms cackle-knees) might indeed be in the White House today. Alas he couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I just got up and I’m a bit groggy, but I’m gonna stop here and then pick up some of your other imaginary facts in a few few minutes
Dumb bozo.
What a fine intellectual and erudite comment there Bill. Well done !
It’s one of my better comments and right on.
Well, you certainly have a low bar bill, but if that suits you, it’s good with me.
I realize that to win elections, Democrats will have to abandon their goal of fair treatment in the legal and political realms for black people and other marginalized groups. I leave it to the experts to figure out how to do that. The project doesn’t interest me. The last time we made what could have been lasting progress, we failed to complete the task by applying the customary punishment for treason to every CSA politician and military officer.
"choosing them over the lives of the seat of other networks" please clarify. I know you can, because you are a Russian bot.
Yes the famous Russian bought defense. You know here’s what I’m gonna tell you the more you use things like that is fantasies in your head. The worst the future elections are going to be for you. I voice text everything and I don’t go back and check it because I believe people here are intelligent enough to figure things out. Liberal seem to like form over content. I don’t buy it. I demand that you understand content before you look at form. That’s just me the old Russian bot lol you poor guy.
They do indeed
I was a Sophomore in high school in Dallas on that dreadful day. I was at Love Field with a few thousand admirers. I watched JFK and Jackie arrive and descend from Air Force One. They came to the fence and I shook JFK’s hand. I was thrilled and held my hand in awe. As I watched JFK proceed, I felt someone grab my hand. To my shock it was LBJ who had my hand between his and was greeting me. Over 200,000 people greeted JFK that day and were happy and proud and enthusiastic. The city sank into a terrible and sad state of horror that lasted for a long time. The vast majority of citizens were appalled and ashamed.
‘
Back in the day when shame was still a thing.
That’s a wonderful and personal story.
Chris, I was a sophomore as well -- at Lake Highlands High School in NE Dallas. My parents watched the motorcade from their respective places of work in Dallas.
What good memories only to be overshadowed by such horror…
I was a freshman in college in 1963 - no televisions available except for 1 in the student union, where so many of us crowded around. More memories shortly that time: recently watching Robert McNamara talking to LBJ saying that he knew we couldn’t “win” in Vietnam in any sense like “winning” WW II, but not seeing how we could get clear (from Ken Burns’ multi-episode documentary about Vietnam). I had to stop watching at that point - I just couldn’t watch more. Being insulated from the late ‘60’s at an Air Force base with new husband - no national papers, and we couldn’t afford a television, so missing the rather astonishing number of near daily bombings at that time (and other girls at college talking about joining SDS like it was some kind of sorority). My being furious at those who ran to Canada to avoid being drafted, unlike a certain current prominent politician who had a daddy who bought a doctor to get his son out of the draft. At the time, admiring Cassius Clay who refused to be drafted ( saying something like “I ain’t got no beef with them. They’ve never done anything to me. Why would I go shoot at them?”) and was willing to be stripped of his titles and to go to jail. Also admiring a friend who told his draft board that he wouldn’t carry a gun, but would enlist as a medic…and did, at considerable personal cost. George Wallace, enough said. In some ways we’ve come far; in others, not so much.
I’ll never forget that day. 💔
I was only born 10 years later. I think Heather should write a follow up letter regarding how LBJ was committed to civil rights after taking over as President. I would love to learn more about that! And it is relevant for what is happening today, taking rights away and even destroying US democracy itself!
You could read Robert Caro’s superb four volume (a fifth is anticipated) biography of LBJ.
Caro isn't without flaws but it's worth reading. I've always been suspicious of his idolization of Coke Stevenson without mentioning that Stevenson was a bitter racist.
Thanks. I'll look for it.
The most disputed words our founders wrote. “all men are created equal.”
I guess it is a fundamental LIE on several levels, but it became part of the story that became the national creed. Some try to follow it, others treat it with hypocrisy, while the worst treat it with contempt. It might be better stated as: All must be treated equally under the law … in the spirit of the “golden rule”?
That Golden Rule is what resonates with me, and I grew up thinking that it did with most. Shockingly, not true at all. Lip service only for most.
I have to say I’ve only read the first volume of Caro’s biography of LBJ. I’m convinced, though, that his presidency was influenced by his growing up in parts of the country that were just receiving electricity. Today we have no idea what that was like. I had an aunt and uncle who farmed in North Dakota (yes, you could practically see the Artic Circle from their farm…slight joke). He died of a heart attack because they had no phone to call for help, their children grown and gone. I will read the second volume, though!
Neither will any of us who experienced that day & the absolute grief & mourning—of the entire country! Families huddled together glued to the television coverage of the assassination for an entire week. Our parents were so despondent we grieved for them as well….we were all in total shock & disbelief—TRAUMATIZED!!
We have never recovered, or healed from this and the murders of MLK Jr. (after his “I have a dream…” speech in Washington D.C.) and Bobby Kennedy’s murder (the night he won the Presidential Primary)!
This haunts us to this day, and it was over 60 year’s ago!! We MUST NOT allow this to ever happen again, and trump’s supposed “election” has brought back horrific memories and many of us simply cannot handle enduring any more Greedism winning in the end….
They are inside the gates, and headed for the throne
Very well put, Susan. I knew that all was heading toward loss some years ago when an intelligent nephew born well after 1963 and who leans hard toward THAT man, asked me “why should anybody care about who killed Kennedy? It’s over. Done.” Clearly, the lessons of history have limited reach … well, and you know the rest …
The grief was world-wide.
Me, too.
It was the first time I saw a man cry. My science teacher was in tears when he told us. We were dumbfounded- things like that were unthinkable to us 7th graders.
Yes, John! I was in the 8th grade & the news came over the intercom & my algebra teacher (who I couldn’t stand) was actually silent & in shock….we all just sat there in total disbelief! Anyone who was old enough to remember this will NEVER forget where they were when they heard the news…..
At 77 years old, I thought racism was falling behind us, but its ugly footprints have been shadowing us and now overtaking us.
No, only if we let them. No, too many of us will not let that happen. There will always be the ugliness; we are a nation of people who came here, not because we wanted to, but because we had to. We won't let those who are abusing our creating a nation for all who seek refuge to turn it into a thug's paradise. We just won't.
Thank you Carol-Ann, for your words of encouragement. We must resist and persist.
Thank you as I weep. Thanks for giving me the strength I need to fight.
Thanks indeed for your hope and strength. Together we will rise
The only way it will overtake us is if we want it to and/or let it…do not be like many of the conservative politicians - the staunch examples set by some of their males - spineless and weasel-like!
We have made a lot of progress in many ways the past 75 years as a country.
Our fight should be against the theocrats and the oligarchs. Elon Musk is a foreign agent and an enemy of America. And there are dozens of others just like him with money and influence. Trump is just a pawn compared to Musk and the oligarchs.
We need to demonize them and hit them where it hurts, in their greedy little pocket books.
Another one who has lost her way. You probably didn’t hear from Bill Clinton the other day either that said, the first woman president is around the corner and it will probably be a republican woman. If you’re an honest person, go look at trumps cabinet. The two top posts in his cabinet are women and he has one of the most diverse cabinets in America history without trying to be diverse
You’re just sad
He's a troll. Ignore him please.
That would be pretty easy for your miselle. But that’s called denial. Just get in front of a mirror and focus on your conscience and your realize even if I was which I’m not the truth is still the truth
Not at all, I’m actually thrilled walking with my feet off the ground with a prospect of America being revered again America being , feared again, America, winning again, lifting all boats as Trump did during his first term.
And for people like you, Danny, I will used an Axiom I often use To people who are negative in advance, and only want to see one side of the argument when 76 million Americans saw a different side than you
Minds are like parachutes they work better if they’re open.
"thrilled with my feet off the ground' please clarify.
The proposed Trump cabinet is diverse as to gender but not in competency.
Well, out of your extensive knowledge of appointing a cabinet to the government, please share with us how the competency is lacking
And perhaps you might look at the current competency before you start casting stones at another. It’s a stellar cabinet from all walks of life, including two Democrats and a republican administration. Including two women to the most important posts in the cabinet. Maybe we should just keep Pete Buttigieg that cost us 8 billion for a charging station and who knows how many millions for one electric bus. Lol. And you exemplify what I say to you when liberals are negative in advance and fatalist why don’t you wait to see what they do and then critique it most liberals are negative in advance and always find fault in America, the greatest country on the planet
Such BS!!
A very well researched and well thought out response. Did you have to look that up in a thesaurus? And by the way, you didn’t refute a damn thing because you can’t.
Quick question for you though. Do you want your presents to succeed? Just askin. 😀
It was very well thought out. You just didn’t like it and so you get snarky. Have a good day.
Snarky? Is that a defense for being incorrect? And you DID NOT answer the questions? Have you EVER vote for an “R”?
And do you want your president to be successful?
As a young teenager, at that time living in Argentina, I become a Democrat in that instant 30 years before becoming a US citizen .
I did too, in Texas
😁
Ricardo, you might not have read my post above but if JFK were alive today he’d be a middle of the road Republican compared to how far left the Democrat party has gone
Are you sure you know what “left” actually is? Last observation I made was that the USA is still a Capitalist country. Some social programs, but not many.
Well, I will say this, Annie if JFK were alive today he’d be a middle of the road republican based on his political philosophy of a hand up not a handout as an example. He wouldn’t be able to identify the Democratic Party as the party when he was president and he was a great one. One of the things that the Democrats I’m sure have learned as they went a little bit too far left during the cycle.
We know there’s a couple of large corporations that learned that lesson in the hard way And actually, I think the basis for the capitalist issue is the preamble two and the body of the constitution
You are correct but he would not be in the same place today as he was then. Where can I find even a few middle of the road republicans today?
Well, I would suggest you find them in the 76 million people that voted for him this time. And if you realize that 4950 states went redder than before. Where do you think they came from? They came from independence who tend to be middle of the road and they came from dispossessed Democrats that were fed up with the promises that never came from the Democrat party.
He got more Hispanic vote than ever. He got more black vote than ever.
And I hate even discussing that because I look at everyone despite their skin color versus because of their skin color, which is sickening to me
Again, please apologize for the typos like when it says independence instead of independents. I voice text and AutoCorrect kicks in and I don’t see form over content as that important.
By the way, I hope you heard Bill Clinton’s message the other day a lot of people here are talking about. They’ll never be a woman president, blah, blah, blah blah, and especially a black woman president blah blah blah.
I think perhaps if Condoleezza Rice had run for president she probably could’ve won
But I’m more referring to Bill Clinton’s comments that said that it will be soon that a woman is going to be president and that remarkably that woman president will come from the Republican Party, which defies everything that liberals have been saying for years.
I have been posting recently that if either party puts up a viable competent centric woman candidate that she will get elected in a landslide despite any skin, color, ethnicity, etc. Bill Clinton thinks it will be a republican woman which even takes that to a higher level. Have a good night.
I couldn't agreed more!!!
Lordy
😁
Repubs are better propaganda masters, no doubt. They can make Schitt smell like roses, so the bitch that ignored the 9/11 threat could be Pres. after all, Rove made W the cat’s meow.
And they are loud, unified and know how to use the ecco chamber and don't forget Fox....🤕
That day and the four days that followed are deeply imprinted on my soul.
Me too! We went into the side room off our kitchen and watched the black and white TV.
I feel that. I was only just born but it was imprinted on our souls as a nation, stunned loss.
Ditto MisT
Would you like some milk and cookies with that? Stop the histrionics nothing is gonna happen. Fuck, you should listen to Stephanie Ruhle’s advice from CNN she said we should stop the histrionics because we know from history 80% of what we think is gonna happen never happens
This thread is about our lived experience of the assassination of JFK and the aftermath. It's not histrionics to talk about personal trauma. Also, just FYI: Stephanie Ruhle is on MSNBC, not CNN.
Jack Kennedy was—still is—the only President I’ve ever accepted in my eight decades.
After my turn in the barrel—Vietnam 1967-68–it was my greatest privilege to serve in the crew that put in commissioned service my nation’s newest aircraft carrier—USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67)—in September 1968.
Now I’m in my eighth decade. I do not know the names of those who murdered President Kennedy, but I know the title of both them and their progeny: Coward.
Rest in Peace, John F. Kennedy.
PLEASE he's a troll. Ignore him.
Well, there’s two things I would say to you first of all my bad as far as naming the wrong network, but I am a firm believer in Content over form so there’s that
It’s histrionics to talk about what happened on November 5 as if it’s the end of your life As many of the people on the substack post to do. And obviously you missed the essence of my post of what Stephanie Ruhle suggested saying 80%
Of histrionics never happens. I would venture to guess it more than 90% and even then it’s not as bad.
But now since you brought up and Msnbc I have some tongue in cheek for you regarding MSNBC. New acronyms and nicknames for that stationS Call letters are coming in by the hundreds. Here’s a couple for your listening pleasure. MSRIP. MSNBC= Must sell now before Christmas But my personal favorite is We’re History channel using the history channel logo.
The day, John Kennedy was shot was probably the worst day of my life at that time. He was a true leader, and so be loved by everyone. What is most if not all the people on this particular paper trail on Liberal? I wish to make the point that John Benedict was not an enabler. He was not a handout person. He was a handout person and would be a middle of the road republican today compared to how far left the Democrat party has gone.
Said one dinosaur to another as they watched a large asteroid descending upon them:
“maybe this won’t be so bad.”
PLEASE don't answer him. He's a troll.
Oh stop with the troll business. Rick Sender is just a lonely old man who feels empowered with his mini diatribes.
Did you happen to live United States during trumps first term? Even the liberal hater suggested if not for Covid Trump would still be sitting in the White House today why? Low prices groceries, gas, and Mortgages, Safe Streets The border wall would’ve been completed we would’ve not had to pay 110, billion up from now for illegal immigrants instead of 10 billion for the wall. No wars around the world.
At this time, it’s even gonna be better than that if Biden doesn’t screw it up before he leaves office by escalating to almost the world war by allowing more illegal criminals in this country to remove
Your list of benefits from a Trump presidency and what could have happened. Name one of those things over which a president has any control. Just for the record, the US has had the best recovery from the pandemic than all of the G20 nations. What you fail to also mention is the effect that the Trump presidency had on the nation and our international alliances. There was the Muslim ban that didn't include any people from any Muslim country in which Trump had business interests. There was Tiki Torch marchers chanting "Jews will not replace us" chant followed by the death of Heather Heyer and Trump claiming "there were fine people on both sides." There was the politicization of the pandemic response and the gross mismanagement of same. There was the call-out to the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," which they heard as a call to action. There was the refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and the attempted coup d'etat on January 6, 2021. There was his refusal to follow protocol by deliberate delay in the transition process, knee capping the ability of the Biden administration to deal with the on-going pandemic. After the fact we learned that he had stolen government documents, many of them classified and stored them in unsecured rooms at his Palm Beach residence. That's just a sampling of the truth about Trump 1.0. But that was amateur hour compared to what we will face with Trump 2.0. We can look forward to critical agencies being led by shockingly unqualified people such that one could believe the real purpose of putting them there is to destroy the government from within, as outlined in Project 2025, which, quite suddenly, Trump remembers that in fact he does something about. Enjoy your Christofascist kakistocracy.
Read my book, “Donald’s Vanity Tantrums “ you will love it.
"of histrionics never happens" please clarify.
Sorry Steve I need a little bit more information because I see a lot of histrionics in a lot of posts here after the results of the November 5 election so I’m not sure what part or what post you’re referring to of mine
One of the things I suggested to a lot of people who are going through these histrionics is what Stephanie rule of MSNBC I guess is the right network
Stop all the histrionics because we all know that 80% of what we think is gonna happen never happens. I actually believe it’s closer to 90. I’ll be more than happy to respond to your question above if I had better context, feel free to fill in the blank there thanks.
I read her letter, and I realized what this was about and I even responded to it but many of the post here and another link posts alluded to the nightmare. That was the election of Donald Trump. I didn’t mean to conflate the two I was just responding to the post that I’ve seen here. Didn’t by any means attempt to diminish the tragic loss of John F Kennedy. My apologies if I did
It can be hard to follow conversations on Substack.
A great man was killed. You call our reaction histrionics. How will offering milk and cookies make us feel better. How do you feel?
"Fuck, you should listen to Stephanie Ruhle’s advice from CNN she said we should stop the histrionics because we know from history 80% of what we think is gonna happen never happen".
Sounded like a curse to me. No other word sounds like that lead word that makes sense in that sentence. Duck? Truck? Muck? Buck? Cuck? Guck? Huck? I could go on... I don't think "Shucks" really fits in the sentence structure.
I wasn’t giving you milk and cookies to make you feel better about the death of John F. Kennedy or the other two heroes that died that same year. There were a few people on the post that were mentioning about their histrionics about this November 5 election that just happened and I was responding to that. Sorry if you misunderstood the meaning or the direction of my post. I revered John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one of the best presidents ever but you should know this if John Kennedy we’re alive today he’d be a middle of the road republican based upon his political philosophy, and not the wackos the Democrat party that took the party too far left
PS I did not use a curse. Word as a voice text that apparently was a auto correct and I don’t usually go back and check my things because I have a lot of posts to attend to on this and other sources.sorry
I was 16 years old, sitting in some sophomore high school class.
A friend of mine was walking down the hall, and through the open door next to my desk, he told me.
Of course I couldn't believe it. But this friend would never pass on anything like this unless it were so crazily true as it turned out to be.
Never recovered.
I too was 16 years old. I was in a journalism class when a classmate came into the room and said that Kennedy had been shot. Like you, I didn't believe him as he was a bit of a class clown. Then the principal made an announcement over the school PA system. I was devastated. I had started to recover when 5 years later I was in Memphis when MLKJr was assassinated. Then a mere two month after that RFK was murdered. Now, 61 years later, the grief rises up yet again.
I felt the same way st that age. And five years later as a student in DC witnessed for the first time tanks in our streets as riots broke out at the death of MLK. As an exchange student in Peru I had never expected to see such chaotic responses in our capital.There yes but not here.
Then to be living so few miles from our capitol again on Jan 6th 2021, how could we have ever allowed the person who incited insurrection back into our capital. We MUST oppose this. We cannot have suffered these events and not stand up to them. Every day I rejoice that even in my 7th decade I've found people who are going to continue to make a difference.
Like several others here, I too was a 16-year-old high school student when the news that the President had been shot was broadcast over the PA system. It was a Catholic high school, and many of us went to the school chapel to pray for the President's recovery. Not long after, we learned that he was dead. For many of us, from the perspective of 61 years, it seems like the decline of America, now verging on the precipitous, began on that day. We just didn't know it then.
that’s more or less how I see it now too, James. It is appalling what hateful self-centred men are willing to do when their interests conflict with those of those wanting a better way
I too was 16. About 50 of us were sitting in choir. The announcement had come in over the classroom loudspeaker, but we didn't know yet if the President was still alive. Everyone was stunned into silence as we waited to hear more, unable to do anything else. Our choir teacher was Catholic too, like the President, and went to her car to get her Rosary which she brought back into the classroom with her. She was crying and we were all frightened and terrified the worst would happen, which it did. My father (who passed away before 9/11), and who had voted for Kennedy, was in class at that same high school teaching civics down the hall to the seniors. It was a required class back in those days. Thank you Heather for the background leading up to this, I had actually forgotten about that. Yet it is SO important. And look where we are today. Good grief, when will it all end?
And, since those days, TJ, civics has been removed from most HS curricula, often based on objections of parents who don’t want “their children” to understand
Yes, so unfortunate. It was really an important class. When I taught sociology and ethics at the junior college level many years later, I was stunned at how many students (ages 18 to 65) had never voted and didn't understand the basic differences between Republicans and Democrats.
Same here in NC where responses were mixed but school closed early and didn't reopen for a day or two so we saw the murderer murdered live on black and white TV. Gun violence just never stops. It's all so sad.
you are not alone, Phil
I have been waiting for your reflection on the JFK anniversary, Heather. I knew it would be solemn and poignant. I was nine years old, in fourth grade at the time. I’d never seen my mother cry that much, and I think it was the first time in my life I felt like the world was not a safe place. Fewer and fewer of us are alive who remember that day. It was a generational dividing line, the way 9/11 was for Gen X and Millennials.
My brother was stationed at Carswell AFB and was in a group of officers that met the plane. When they brought the news of the President’s death, he said, “I just shook his hand!” We were nearby in Northwest Louisiana. I was a child, but I clearly remember it. My parents and their friends were all devastated. There were so many conspiracy theories. They said they would release more details in twenty years but I don’t remember that happening. I’m not sure we will ever know the whole truth.
It seems quite certain that none of us alive at that time will ever know
When folks become frightened and believe they are losing “control” they are apt to believe anything that could seem plausible.
I was twenty-two years old on that terrible Friday on my way home for a weekend in southern New Jersey from Philadelphia where I was a medical student. I recall feeling numb and being in disbelief. At the time Kennedy seemed so young and vigorous and he had instilled a sense of possibility that was exhilarating. Soon after I got home a friend called and asked me if I was ready. When I asked for what he said “we’re driving to Washington”. A lot of that trip is now a blurry memory but standing in line for hours to walk by the casket in the Rotunda will never fade. In the years since we have had good times and bad times but at present it seems that about half of my fellow citizens have made a choice to turn our democracy into nut country. As I read this piece recounting Lady Bird’s wrenching words I wasn’t sure if my tears were for recalling the pain of that time or for the awful darkness now threatening.
I was a young mother, living in Alexandria, Va. My next door neighbors asked if I wanted to go with them to the Rotunda to pay our respects. We expected to pop over, but found ourselves in a huge line...there were people there who had flown in from all over, people pushing baby carriages, no one expected anyone else to be there! After four hours in line, I'll never forget coming into the warm Rotunda and seeing the casket. It was the hardest night of my life, but so worth it.
💔🗽🇺🇸
My grandparents were vacationing in Dallas that day but were not on the parade route. I often wonder how our country might have been different had JFK, MLK, and RFK lived.
Or, Devon, tho’ not gut wrenchingly tragic as these assassinations, what if Carter had won a 2nd term (and the solar panels stayed put on the WH)or that SCOTUS would have let the count go forward in Florida, hanging chads & all, and Gore became POTUS…where might we be as a country today? Perhaps in some alternate universe the answer is known. 🌌
I wonder what we would look like if Rupert Murdock had not darkened our world when he almost elected Ronnie single-handed in 1980. Light years ahead of the mire we’re stuck in today.
Yes! And that, in these times, Elon stayed in So Africa & Peter Thiel’s family never immigrated to the USA from Germany. Chaps my ass that many folks with lots of money think they have some kind of “right” to make the decisions & rules.
Love the “chaps my … “ expression, Barbara!
They see more bucks and suckers to hand them over…”ask what your country can do for you.” It’s not “their” country, but as immigrants, they used and abused what others have built; they were aided by a spoiled brat who couldn’t accomplish anything on his own. But he had learned to lie, cheat and steal like the best mobsters, and do it with finesse, taught by master of evil, Roy Cohn. They represent the worst of the immigrants who have braved the challenges of travel to a foreign land. And they surely weren’t invited by Lady Liberty…and that includes Rupert and his progeny..
Hmmm….the thought just struck me that perhaps TFFFG’s comments about immigrants being crooks was actually a self-own, given his paternal grandfather’s, ahem, checkered past. Seeking riches & cheating, bending or breaking the rules/law to achieve them seems to be in his DNA.
Frederick left too soon, would have been a great Hitler henchman. Of course, their military wanted him for desertion way before evil took over
Its completely outrageous that two men who were welcomed to the USA as immigrants have succeeded in creating so much chaos and division in the country. They should be first on the deportees list.
High five that. Exiled to Siberia would suit me. Or Mars…
I have pondered the same thoughts over the years. I don't think that this country has ever really healed from the loss of JFK, RFK, and MLK, three powerful & inspirational visionaries, who wanted to lead this country to a much better direction. With the loss of their influence, it has always felt to me that the country never has quite regained its footing, in trying to reach its most aspirational goals
I think for sure it would have been different, although maybe not as different as I like to think, or maybe more so. What if we had just banned slavery and discrimination from the get-go? Seems like it would have saved a lot of heartache for most everybody. What (and this is possible) we learned from history and corrected our mistakes?
I'm an older man and not often brought to tears.