It’s certainly predictable. Take an incompetent mobster, give him power, and watch his incompetence just ratchet up more frustration from him, more demand for more sycophancy from all his horribly educated cultists, more anger at the pinnacling fruits of all their incompetence.
They gave their tax cuts to their mega rich enablers. No programs, no policies for any Americans in the bottom 90%. Glitzy gold geegaws smeared all over the Oval Office. More flag poles. An idiotically gratuitous, amateur military parade. Lawsuits in retribution against public figures. Extortion. More extortion. (To which our most elite law firms, universities, and media companies just caved.) Destruction of the East Wing. Regular, wholesale murders of civilians in small boats on the Caribbean. Historic violations of the Constitution on emoluments.
He's a mobster. Allied with Putin and all the world’s worst dictators, all the world’s biggest rapists of underage girls Donald’s years-long pals for years trafficked.
Naval Captain Mark Kelly (USN Ret.) is not only "a hero." For those unfamiliar with military ranks, his captaincy is the equivalent of bird colonel in the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force. In the Navy he would command a warship; in the Army or the Marine Corps, a full regiment.
Now at last we of the (real) resistance have a (true) leader, and I as a long-ago Regular Army veteran raise my crippled 85-year-old body to its feet, snap my arthritis-plagued bones to attention as best I can and salute him as smartly as I am able. "Sir, we await your orders, sir."
(And, yes, I believe that by siccing its goon-squad of uniformed oath-breakers on Captain Kelly, Trump's regime of nation-destroying Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners has crossed a line of no return. Nor will I deny the tears that filled my eyes as I wrote the words in the second paragraph above.)
Also, let us not forget that President Washington was himself once a colonel, commander of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War.
I was but a Spec-4; active duty 1959-1962, 16 months in Korea, honorably discharged 1965. (As we used to say back then, "Don't 'sir' me; my parents were married.") With salutes of respect and gratitude to Dr. Richardson for her unyielding courageousness and to all of us here in militant solidarity: may we Never Give Up the Ship, no matter what.
As a former army NCO (active duty 1967-71), my reply to ‘Sir’ would have been, “Don’t call me Sir; I work for a living.”
It was, of course mostly all in a kind of fun. Complaining about something is an essential part of military life. But at a time when both the nation and the army were being torn apart, and wearing a military uniform in the US was as likely to result in getting an insult on the street as a compliment, there was a defensive edge to our lives that I’ve not seen since until this moment when Pvt Bonespur and his overgrown kindergartener Secretary of Defense turned loose on six Americans who were simply honoring an oath that neither Trump nor Hegseth appear to understand.
The army taught me something else as well. The strongest among us were also the ones who never blew their own horns because they knew something else that neither Trump nor Hegseth have any clue about - the kind of strength that knows it need not prove anything to anybody - indeed, they were often the gentlest in a quiet, competent sort of way.
This debate about orders is, of course, far more complex than a few sound bites. I would refer you to David French’s excellent article on the subject in yesterday’s NYT.
I watch Trump and Hegseth and all I see are cowards trying to wrap themselves in the ersatz armor of braggadocio - strutting on a stage of their imagination, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
James, I never served in the armed forces but did serve our nation as a public school educator teaching my students respect, honorable acts, and negotiation for better outcomes. I’m with you 100%.
Is it the job of the Attorney General to start with a crime and then look for the person(s) who committed it? Or is her job to start with a person she wants to convict, and then find a crime they are guilty of?
Given Novii Tsar Putin's mastery of Trump, it should surprise no one that their Christonazi AG Pam Bondi is the attitudinal reincarnation of Stalin's NKVD Chief Lavrentiy Beria. Quoth Beria: "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." (https://www.azquotes.com/author/63981-Lavrentiy_Beria )
My husband was at US Naval Hospital #5, Philadephia 1963-1965. He was a ‘Naval psychiatrist’.. During his 2 years, a list was compiled, shredded in front of men on duty that weekend and restored. It was a list of all the ‘homosexuals’ …. They were all gone by the end of the week, leaving the Naval hospital without staff to care for the patients…. We are definitely a “work in progress”. Thank YOU, Loren
Thank you. Also, though hetero, I have LGBTQ relatives and friends, thus it is personally important to me to ensure such atrocities as you describe above are genuinely ended forever.
Loren, WE are hope… and because of Heather, The Bulwark and others, there is a communication that is actually “awesome” from ‘Everyones’ and Everywheres!” Serious, amazing and GOOD! (-: WE ARE!….
Thank you for your statement. And thank you you for this :”
“ Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners”
The best description of this regime yet. One I will share with others
With men like Senator Kelly and yourself , among many others, standing up for democracy and the constitution, the Nation will weather this ugly storm that has cast a long shadow over this great nation.
You can reach any legislator through the Capitol Hill switchboard. Mostly you get a recording to respond to but I believe most do pay attention to messages. 202-224-3121
We have to keep calling. Keep writing post cards and emails. Keep demonstrating. Tell your senators and rep to shape up if they're on the MAGA side. Praise them and send them money if they're on the Kelly side. We have to thank Trump, I think, for singling out Sen. Kelly. He has touched a chord among the true Americans who are fighting this regime. What did Churchill say? "We will fight in the roads, in the ditches, on the highway overpasses..." -;)
History will try to analysis how Americans could have voted twice for someone with his history and lack of character to be president only to have him degrade government and international reputation.
I think when time passes and all the true information finally comes out, we will learn that he cheated not only in the 2024 election, but all the prior elections too. Not that it makes any difference now because he in office, but there is no question that he has been and is firmly in Putin’s pocket and that U.S. the biggest tragedy that has befallen our country.
I agree, Elizabeth. But I don't know if Trump cheated. Putin cheated. Remember when Reagan celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall with Gorbachev's help? Now Putin is celebrating the hollowing-out and destruction of America, with Trump's help. We must not let Putin succeed.
There is a new book a stumbled on a memoir about a family from Germany moved to Hawaii to help assist the Japanese government. It took a long time to come out but that doesn’t surprise and fits so well. I would think this framework is once again being used somehow.
If their analysis is at all accurate, gender will be the prime reason for both of his elections. I base my analysis on this: his first term opponent was a former Senator and former Secretary of State as well as former First Lady. His second term opponent was a former State Attorney General (of a state that has the 4th largest economy in the world), Senator, and Vice President. The person he lost to was also a former Senator and Vice President, but peed standing up.
I fear you're correct. Misogyny is far more intense, biblically reinforced and therefore incorrigible in this Prosperity-Gospel-Christian nation than even white racism.
You can’t fix stupid. The same people who voted for our president, the idiot, the first time voted for him again. Throw in the Neanderthal attitude that we can’t have a woman president and you have the f—ked up mess we are currently in.
That, along with the blitz of dishonest ads that flooded the airwaves during the World Series and football games last fall, obviously aimed at the age 18-34 male demographic, the so-called "manosphere."
I think history, with improved technological analysis techniques, will be able to analyze how Russian social media troll farms put a fat finger on the scales and, by manipulating a significant number of uneducated Americans who responded to their artfully-crafted propaganda, installed a Russian asset of decades into the highest office in the land.
I have maintained that those elections were fixed by voter suppression and RW propaganda which included Russian efforts. Furthermore as far as affordability being the driving issue based on exit polling, wrong hate was the motivation factor. People would not tell pollsters, "I voted for tRump because I hate trans, immigrants, people of color, and women, I voted for tRump because he knows how to lower the price of eggs".
We can't overestimate how much responsibility Fox bears for ruining our country right now. They lie constantly, have the look and feel of a real news station which they're not, and push the Trump agenda non-stop. Uncritical thinkers inhale them like air itself, and integrate Fox's filthy madness thoroughly in their thinking. It would be like separating milk from water to extract the Fox poison from many Americans' thinking.
I, too, stand with Captain Kelly and those who revere and follow the Constitution. I will not bow or submit to those who are actively involved in the treasonous coup that has not stopped since Jan. 6., and am working with many others to follow the law and keep our elections safe and secure. It is my belief that absent a violent scenario, winning our majority in Congress is the only way to stop this carnage. I will support our leaders like Captain Kelly, and all others loyal to our Constitution, come what may. We ARE the resistance.
Agree Celeste, we must somehow remain "absent a violent scenario". Because that would enable "them" even more. We are no match for the ICE Force. They are well paid/compensated/incentivized/etc. We merely have the right to keep and bear firearms.., but, so do all the ICE employees. And, given reason, ICE will collect our guns under the auspices of preventing us "terrorists" from causing terrorism. Just watch. We need to be smarter. At least we have a Constitution to refer to. Not some document yet to be written. We still have a chance.
Correct. This is why I advocate for voting rights, get people registered to vote, and encourage those who will listen to think about running for office. We must adhere to the rule of law.
I teared up reading your words, and I am noticing that this forum is training people to be better writers. Mark Kelly's clarity of thought and lifetime service, and You snapping to Salute Him are inspiring!
Well said. Captain Kelly actually put his life at risk to serve our country while our President claimed the bone spurs in his feet prevented his service during the Vietnam War. Not to say our President is afraid to take a life so long as he is not in harms way. Indeed, our President is the kind of guy you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Thank God for real heroes.
Actually, I would like to meet that kind of guy in a dark alley. Just me and just him. I would drop him with one well-aimed kick right in his shriveled little balls.
Loren, thank you for your wonderful tribute to Mark Kelly and your service to the nation. Thank you also for rallying us through your inspiring words to also be brave and not give up the battle for our democracy.
"Don't 'sir' me"...but thank you nevertheless. Crippled as I am, there isn't much I can do, but nevertheless I'll do my best. As I trust we all know, we as a nation are truly up Shit Creek, and it's up to us to be the paddles.
The “sir” is to show respect. I’m in my late 70s so I have some limits also but you and I do what we can, even if it is to yell encouragement to others. Yes?
Loren Bliss, thank you for continuing your service in these statements. We remain in your debt. As a WWII child (7 in ‘41), I remember your war and its horrors as reported. We paid better attention then—a habit from ‘41-45. (In my family from ‘38-as my uncle was l “regular” Navy in submarines.)
Thank you. I was in Korea c. 1961-1962, this after the 1953 armistice. Thus I escaped the war per se, though we had several alerts due to border skirmishes resulting from local North Korean probes, typically squad -sized actions. Also I did rear-area, headquarters-type work, so I was never under live fire in Korea. But I surely was a few times afterward in civilian life, consequences of leftist activism in the South and the Pacific Northwest.
I should explain to the uninitiated that in the military, only commissioned officers are addressed as "sir." Enlisted personnel -- privates through sergeants and specialists -- are addressed simply by rank; addressing us as "sir" is literally against regulations.
Thank you, sir, for your service to our country. Your pride and reverence show through for our country and the people who serve it honorably. Thank you also for the explanation of the military ranks. I learned something. And I agree with your goon-squad description. “Goon-squad” makes me chuckle, but I realize this is no laughing matter.
Thank you. Thank you for being the backbone of a society that stands up to an immoral and illegal power. Thank you for your voice that supports leaders like Senator Kelly
I am confident that Trump’s attacks on Kelly and Hegseth’s hint at Military Tribunal will cause more voices like yours to rise up and demand that oaths be honored
Loren, as someone who could not lie to take that oath of office in the Navy, I will pop to and render the hand salute along side you. I only wanted to follow my Dad's footsteps as a MetTech, as well as his sage advise of "Anything but the goddam Army". (My time in uniform (over 30 years, 28 of that full time) was behind the badge. I think he was happier than my Mom that I chose that path.)
Those words brought tears to my eyes, too. Thanking (and commending) you for your service!! Thank you as well for your well-articulated thoughts. Happy Thanksgiving to you!!!
A great letter Loren Bliss. Thank you for reminding us what presidential material looks like. Mark Kelly for President! Get the regime of nation-destroying Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners out of there. 💙💩🎃🤡💙
Loren I have been hoping someone will take on the histir history of the KoreanWar and the people involved. I think it was very difficult and lots of fear. My father was involved The PoW exchange and the Hunta virus work. He was above above the MASH units ..also not according to rules helped a civilian with sharpenal. So I would like something more than The Manchurian Candidate and a drama or film that would also tell the truth and educate as in the Ken Burns documentary. And even he had to leave out much. Just something for all you that served during that time. Dad would talk of frozen water in the tents! Take Care of yourself and thanks.
All retired and ex military must sand with Captain Kelly and continue to advise our younger troops to make trump more of the fool. As a retired US Navy CWO í am at 87 ready anytime to take on these MAGA POS.
Lady Em, that's a clever remark, but not entirely accurate. Donald was made by his dad's millions. Without that advantage, he'd be a second-rate used car salesman in Queens. Moreover, he can hardly be described as a "man." He's a punk who blew Bubba.
Ow! I KNew someone would pick up on that! Shall we just say he is "self made" to the extent that his projected image is A wily business man a great deal maker, handsome (!!!) strong, a babe magnet (yechhh!).. . . I could go on, but I don't need to - trump will do it for me
Kathy, that is why I call him Toddler-Trump. He has the worst behavior of badly parented toddlers and has nothing of adult in his make-up. Truly disgusting!!
Absolutely true. According to Mary Trump, Fred Sr. took responsibility for raising his sons, while Mary Anne took responsibility for raising her daughters.
They also did not practice true socialism. Socialism being the vehicle to reach true communism, where government would not longer be necessary because things are running perfectly. The idea that Communism was a utopian point that could be reached because one had used socialism to get there.
My political book club is reading the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1920s dystopian novel "We" which influenced Orwell's "1984." In it we have a narrator, who is rigid and follows the rules of his society and is upset if anyone does not follow those rules because he sees them as a means to reaching perfection. Happiness is equated with subservience to the state. Happiness cannot coexist with freedom. People want to be dictated to, and not have to make their own decisions. (Except for those who don't want to do this.). It gives us a flavor for early post Revolution Russia, and all that was intended. Zamyatin was excited by the Revolution but then living in what the people created to fulfill the promise of Communism was clearly not what he expected. Here is a link to a pdf of it if you would like to see what he is saying. https://cdn.mises.org/We_2.pdf
These people have no idea what they are talking about. Social Democrat is not the same as Socialist. Those would be The Left and in a democracy should not be outlawed. It is not in our constitution to say such parties cannot exist, so there is no ground to stand on. I think it is legitimate to ban parties that undermine the constitution, but social democrats do not. It is the MAGA party that does. That is the one that should be banned. If we can get a Democratic majority in the house, they should go about doing that.
Actually, m'lady, since Trumpmeister Putin's Cossacks are again performing their Tsarist function of savaging dissenters, someone should get him a kubanka -- with the Russian insignia removed and replaced with a Nazi swastika.
I had to look up the term, and yes, perfect. The ball caps he typically sports are hardly in keeping with his grandiosity. I bought a women’s fur version, sans insignia, in Kyiv circa late ‘70’s. It’s in a box in the attic somewhere. I haven’t worn it since I stepped off the plane.
The ball cap is supposed to show how much he identifies with the working class. He has so much money that he can't be corrupted. People are still saying that. It's weird. I notice how much fiction and documentary shows on PBS about royalty in a nation whose charter says in effect "no kings", and reads like an indictment. I gather that we all miss the protection and support of a parent, especially raised in an authoritarian household; and some people have ways of cosplaying that role; but at the price some degree of tyranny. Actual liberty requires that we mutually pledge to each other to recognize and protect unalienable universal rights married to the common weal; and that's the buck that stops with us.
I have to admit I was a huge Downton Abbey fan, but I pretty much turned off the tv in 2016. Americans do have an affinity for pressing their noses to the glass.
You can be jailed in some official circumstances, for lying to the government, ostensibly OUR government. Why can we not prosecute, or at least sue, when the government demonstrably lies to us? What does an organization generally do when an employee (AKA public servant) shows a pattern of lying to the boss?
Mark Kelly is an American who is a living example of integrity and character. We all need to take a moment in these chaotic times to listen to what a real American patriot is saying! He is speaking for every one of us who still believes in our Democracy. He is speaking for We The People!
Mark Kelly approved of 9 of those in Trump's Cabinet when a NO vote would have been a signal that these choices were unacceptable. Now he wants to be elected to 6 more years so he is is on television talk shows and bombards me in emails and texts (plus a letter a week) asking for money to Fight Trump. He should have fought harder in the beginning of Trump's regime. He is not a hero. He did a job like many others and received the honor and recognition of the country.
Mary, people can see the error of their ways. I can see in this he is being a hero. He should not have approved those people, but neither should anyone else have done that. If we do not accept people when they change, what is the point of them changing. Perhaps he has not, but let us see him going forward. He has served his country in war, and he is serving us now.
That has to be the best sum-up of his dementia I've heard in a while. Bravo.
There is now a fake-gold plated sign saying "Oval Office" outside the Oval Office. Methinks it's there to help President Pissy Pants find his way around the place.
One day soon, expect a sleepless, muttering, incontinent old man to suddenly wander into the White House briefing room wearing only his Depends. Looking forward to hearing Karoline Spokesbarbie explain that one away...
It is all so ludicrous what we are going through on a daily basis.
One thing I believe is it the idiot in the White House doesn’t really have two brain cells to rub together. I don’t believe that he has the brain power or ability to think things through on his own. I think that those working project 2025 program his brain to say what he says do what he does because he doesn’t understand Politics, what’s happening with Russia, Ukraine Gaza all he understands is gold, fluff, destruction, corruption, etc.
Those Trump handguns should be confiscated before they are used in assassinations. There are MAGAS (pardoned January Sixers) who may vie to be first to kill with one.
Brilliant! If anyone ever makes a feature film about the Trump presidency, it will have to be an X-rated slapstick comedy. I'm assuming the World will survive Trump.
Glitzy FAKE-gold gewgaws.... Like everything else about this man...hollow, phony, cheap and faux to the core. Hillbilly Louis XVI. Almost as convincing as those little hands going back and forth, pumping that invisible concertina for all its worth, all the time.
Clowns, funny or not, sitting on the throne, are not funny. In a satire maybe, but this is as serious as a heart attack, I heard a cop say once. They can kill a hero, they can kill or torment all of us, and the SC is complicit. I knew on Nov 5 last, that this time would be worse than last time, but my brain could not fathom the extent of the murderous venom, of chump and his vicious slime, but also of “lawmakers” who, when they find their pedophile, attack anybody else. National insanity as bad as the world has seen with unfathomable consequences. Abigail Adams said that their comfortable lives would be upended by the fight. Ours will be also. But fight we must. They did it for us, we must do it for our future…. MTG took a stand, Mark Kelly is taking a stand, maybe it is catching. May Epstein do what he threatened, from the grave…
It is catching on. Kevin McCarthy's analogy is beyond perfect, calling MTG “almost like a canary in the coal mine”. Between the words he is saying being with Trump is the same as being in a deep, deep, hole and the air is deadly! The only chance the GOP has to live past Trump is to impeach him ASAP. That would at least show they can be adults and admit they screwed-up. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/more-republicans-resignations-prediction_n_6925077ee4b05f521dda468c
The problem with impeachment however, is that the Country would then be saddled with the Hillbilly Fallacy himself, Peter Thiel's Buckeye boy toy, who in some ways is worse than Trump, if such a thing is possible.
Certainly his actions have gone way past impeachable. However, they would be impeaching the figurehead for the oligarchy. The monied class would pressure their paid puppets in Congress to not go a long with it, because they want to continue to bilk and fleece.
But, Bill Katz, we all must work to get as many Dems as possible elected BEFORE 2026. There are elections on December 2 and 9, that will help. Meanwhile the ICE sirens started at 5:30 this morning in Chicago, and have fired up again as I write. They are present horrors and harbingers, reminding me to keep writing GOTV postcards for 12/09.
It’s more about getting people to vote as well. One has to break out of all the silos we have created. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone around 2000 predated the last Surgeon Geberal’s concern about loneliness by twenty years.
4 H Clubs an intergenerational group wide framework. It could help and the framework is run by Robert’s Rules. They are tied to each county’s extension agency. Now over 100 years old and started out with African Americans as well because they for awhile had lands snd farms. Much more in the past though that is changing. Sewing , cooking, gardening, animal husbandry. One could expand to History and Economics and Ecology. .
Right. MTG is a shrewd politico but otherwise an very stupid opportunist. She truly has zero redeeming qualities. Zero. Should not be in same paragraph with Mark Kelly.
Only as the "almost" canary in a coal mine. The canary is not a very smart little bird, and sadly inconsequential except for the warning it gives before it dies.
yes, you are right that this clown is definitely not funny. this whole thing has felt like a child's nightmare where you wake up and smell smoke and run to tell your parents who just smile and tuck you back in.
Trump is like a chimpanzee with loaded machine gun, so the danger and the casualties are horrifying, yet humor erodes his legitimacy; so that near the top of his enemies list are our most popular political satirists. Yet his many missteps trip up his momentum, especially the more they are noticed. Mr. Trump's nakedness is by no means a pretty sight, and the more light on his imaginary finery, the more insubstantial it's revealed to be. A backward glance behind at the wreckage in his wake reveals the ugly truth. His felonious plans are obscene.
Don't waste your time waiting for those cowards to say anything that would bring any retribution from the fascist in chief Daniel. They would rather follow any unlawful order and violate any laws in a blink of an eye to stay on his good side. As for the rule of law and the oath to the constitution.....that's for morons....
There're always exceptions Daniel and those are good and necessary to keep perspective but in the fascist party it's not the rule. In any case I appreciate your comment. 👍
Incompetence. That’s the word Trump’s opponents should be shouting from the rooftops every day. Putting aside the graft, corruption, love of dictators, and rape allegations, the fact of the matter is, these “best people” have no idea how to govern. They only know bullying and destruction. Incompetence, thy name is Trump.
The Great Halligan Hustle, or How to Lose a Coup in Ten Days
In the latest installment of “As the Republic Spins,” a federal judge has reminded President Trump that the Constitution is not an all-you-can-eat buffet. This time, the reminder arrived courtesy of U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who politely but firmly informed Trump that he cannot pluck a loyal insurance lawyer off the political discount rack and install her as a federal prosecutor just because he is mad at James Comey and Letitia James... https://essayx.substack.com/p/the-great-halligan-hustle-or-how
Putin’s ability to play the long game—and as Mitch says “play trump like a fiddle”—compared with Trump’s juvenile “I want it now” temper tantrums, shows what a piker Trump really is.
I wish he WERE a mobster. He wanted to be - but had just enough brains to realise that if he started running with the big dogs, he'd soon end up wearing a pair of concrete shoes. He's no Don Corleone - Junior might make a good Sonny, but using Eric as consigliere is a step too far. . .
Do any of these lawmakers realize that an underlying rage that most people, both right and left, is the unfairness of the continual Republican habit of giving tax breaks to the 1%. Democrats do it also because all our lawmakers are held hostage by the oligarchy. The answer to that is so simple: revise all election laws to make any personal contribution more than $50.00 illegal. Each qualified candidate is given $1000,00 by the government to campaign and all tv/radio stations allot free and equal time to each candidate. No campaing starts until six weeks before Election Day.
Lifting the burden of constantly begging for money would be a relief to any serious lawmaker, and shortening the campaign would be a relief to the rest of us. If a candidate cannot get his/her message out in six weeks, they have no business standing for an office.
We the people have a job to do. And that is to convince the lawmakers that they have the power to fix this,and that we demand that they do so.
Well said! This may be Mark Kelly’s jump to Presidential candidacy ( unless the Trump conspiracy is so broad that they can put him in prison for “treason against Trump”!)
Phil, great to see you batting lead-off. Only prob. is that there were no runners on base when you knocked the cover off of the ball and out of the park.🫱🏻🫲🏽
Your rapid-fire moral inventory of the gangster régime, as a vitamin supplement to Dr Richardson's fine and candid essay, said it all.💪🏾
Yet I stand at the rim of a bottomless, burning volcano of outrage and despair and, increasingly, desperation for my belovèd, albeit unlikeable, republic.💔
No Nestea plunge this time. There is a fine article by retired LTG Mark Hertling that lays out clearly for non-veterans like me what exactly these oaths say and how they work.💡
The second and third links *feature Mr Comey's heartening and heart-felt message and Joyce Vance's thankfully in-the-weeds analysis of the dismissals with Preet Bharara.⚖️
Send support to Senator Kelly and speak up about our wild reality!
There’s a calendar on my spreadsheet so we can target our calls/letters/emails/faxes to flood offices in an organized manner.
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Nokings) as a resource to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. We deserve better ❤️🩹🤍💙
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Megan Rothery, thank you. I heard on my public radio station this morning that the reason some in Congress choose to vote for the release of the Epstein files was because of the number of emails and phone calls that they received by their constituents.
Thank you Megan. Prof. Richardson in a podcast suggested to write a thank you note to the 6 veterans and duly elected representatives that stood up and stated to not obey illegal orders. We wrote thank you post cards to all 6. It is beyond shameful that the President who is a draft dodger would call for their execution by hanging. They are getting death threats by the thousands. This is political persecution.
It would appear that what is being called extrajudicial murders in the Caribbean are illegal. Great Britain is not sharing intelligence about any boat traffic in the Caribbean, so other countries are also questioning the legality. Sen. Mark Kelly has launched a fundraiser to combat the investigation. Republicans, Democrats, Independents should be outraged by the President’s remarks for execution. Our military put their lives on the line.
Of course it's bigger. TN Senator Marsha Blackburn has supported Trump's every move. Our other Senator Jim Haggerty has been mute. They are an embarrassment to TN.
Elizabeth, as the self-designated "WalMart" greeter on the forum, I see you are a fairly newbie commenter. WELCOME to the group! Glad to have you here.
As HCR said, Kelly called for Americans to “stand up and show the fools who would frighten us, who would divide us, that we’re made of stronger stuff, that we believe in the rule of law"
What is up with this “I only represent my constituents.” guff?
Do the constituents pay all of the lobbyists in D.C.? Are they restricted to the lobbies?
Is there a citizenship clause in the Corporations United ruling? (Sometimes I have trouble spelling “citizens” … sorry.)
Are the multi-state, multi-national dark-money PACs constituents? (Yes, they are multi-national. Yes, that is illegal, I hope. No, I can’t prove it. Why do we call it dark money? Must a civil engineer prove liquid flows downhill?)
Why do all these politicians from all over the country ask me to contribute to their efforts to influence their constituents?
I’ve never been a sailor. I only recall being on a sailboat two times in my 71 years. Why do I have nightmares about being tangled in a twisted mass of writhing ropes as my boat plunges into the deep?
As Thanksgiving celebrations all around the country commence, I am thankful we still have freedom to speak and share our love and appreciation for each other, to pursue our dreams for ‘a more perfect union’ and a safe, peaceful world for our children. The destructive forces aligned against us cannot be allowed to prevail. It will be a great blessing to all if we can emerge from this nightmare without terrible violence and bloodshed in our cities, on our campuses and in places where Americans freely gather. But if it comes to that, I believe the brave leaders among us will rise up to face the moment. Senator Mark Kelly is one such leader I would be proud to follow. (To all local, state and federal agencies: I am not advocating violence. I support peaceful resistance unless attacked.)
An inspiring and necessary response from Senator Mark Kelly against the aggressive allegations made by the Trump administration and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. This all springs from those six Congresspeople reminding those serving in the military that they must not follow illegal orders. Hegseth was the guy, remember, who was asked at his senate confirmation hearing if he would disobey an order from Trump if it were illegal. That's ridiculous, Hegseth parried the question. Why? he was asked. Because, Hegseth explained, Trump would never give an illegal order. The senate confirmed him. And here we are.
Yeah, the problem with this whole issue (and one of the difficulties of the statement issued by the Democratic lawmakers including Kelly) is that it is not necessarily obvious, especially to someone NOT trained in the law, what is an illegal order. I think some things are probably easier to decide that others. Being told to go murder a civilian would probably be considered illegal by MOST service people, although again, if you were told "We have to kill John Smith because our intelligence says he is a double agent and is planning on blowing up the Pentagon" by your superior and their superiors, would you think, as say a Lieutenant or Sergeant, that you would have the right and/or authority to question that and demand some kind of clear and convincing proof that you have to obey? Or would you think, in the wake of 9/11, that you had an obligation to "protect and defend" your country by following the order and killing John Smith?
I expect most service people would prefer to obey and use their obedience as a defense if they were charged with murder.
This is a complicated jungle, and in the past, we have stumbled through things like this relying on the integrity of the people in the chain of command not to issue such an order unless it was seriously necessary.
I think that today, such dependence on sincerity and integrity may be a great risk.
Interesting comment, Jon. You're right that knowing the difference between a legal and an illegal order might well be difficult in many combat situations and not only. Nevertheless, there is nothing treasonous in reminding soldiers how they are required to behave by our Constitution and laws, while blowing up small boats without first attempting to board and inspect them is clearly and unambiguously illegal, unconstitutional and, in the long-run politically stupid.
Wasn’t it just the higher ups who were hauled into Nuremberg. Of course, it was the grunts who had to carry out the orders, but who was held accountable. The trials are always down the road for the perps.
Yes, for the most part, only higher ups were prosecuted. Nuremberg trials prosecuted just 177 Nazis or collaborators, all of whom were relatively high up in the German command. Most of them were found guilty, although several were, particularly some civilian industrialists, were acquitted. The thousands upon thousands of "grunts" who carried out the orders were mostly spared from trial, although some were tried in local trials and in other countries (Soviet Union had its own trials, as well as some of the other Eastern bloc states).
As a practical matter, typically only "losers" of wars are tried for war crimes. It is rare (the Calley trial over My Lai - no Daniel, I didn't miss it LOL - was an exception, although he was singled out... none of the others either under his command or above him in the chain of command were ever tried).
As Ben Franklin (I think) once said, "Treason is a crime invented by winners as an excuse to hang the losers". In some sense that is true of all war crime allegations. Had the US lost WWII (or at least the Japanese part of WWII), it is almost certain that some Americans might have stood trial in Japan for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Not at all. In fact Nuremberg itself sort of put a stamp on that defense because although it convicted about 150 of the accused, it also acquitted about 25, and many hundreds more were never charged.
If members of Congress are so concerned about the illegality of Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump's commands, they should not put the onus on those serving at the bottom of the chain of the command. Impeach Trump. His orders for illegal military strikes in the Caribbean are just one more reason to do so. But instead of confronting Trump, these few representatives of Congress circulate a highly divisive and confusing video, charging them to determine for themselves the legality of Trump's orders and refuse to carry out the illegal ones. The video then tells them Congress has their back. How are they supposed to know that when Congress has been kowtowing to Trump all this time? Our troops do not know Congress has their back. The Jane Fonda era of visiting troops in Vietnam to browbeat them into disobeying their oath to service is an uncomfortable and shameful memory. Perhaps trying for the best, Fonda didn't know enough to know what her interference could wreck: putting the well-being of the troops at risk by sowing confusion and discord among them. Her great influence should have been wielded at a higher level. And now, if Congress members are incensed at the commander-in-chief's illegal commands, they should use their Congressional power of the purse to prohibit Trump from using Congressionally appropriated funds for illegal military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific and work to remove him from office.
Oh come on, are you completely missing what is going on? The Democrats are NOT in power in Congress and have no hope of impeaching ANYONE who is GOP, Trump or anyone else. They are doing the best they can to communicate what they think needs to be done. Congress has been kowtowing to Trump because the GOP controls both houses of Congress, that is certainly not "news" to anyone.
Trump’s bias precedes him. Bondi is his right hand, Patel is his left, Pirro (Subway sandwich verdict) is half his ass and Retribution Barbie is the other half of his ass. Thus every court action brought by these bias people has no veracity whatsoever. Trump’s history of extortion puts every criminal action brought by these people in a bind. Nevertheless, Trump is our “leader.” That means we should follow him, Bondi, Patel, Pirro, and Halligan. Thus all good Americans who receive a federal jury summons should raise their right hand and swear under oath, with as much meaning as when Trump, Bondi, Petal, Pirro, and Halligan took their oath, and then do your duty! Remember the Sandwich Guy, Comey, James, Bolton, Schiff, Smith, Kinzinger, Kelly, Hill, and also all the pardons of real criminals who conspired with him in multiple ways to steel the 2020 election. A judge can only do so much, but one juror is like an ant at a picnic.
France 24, a French public broadcasting service, is reporting that X inadvertently turned on account location features showing that Top MAGA accounts are based outside of the US. https://youtu.be/OhHHw3TacVE?si=I5PbeO6FdbBJ73eT
Yep. There are magat fakers in Bangladesh and Nigeria. The account location feature was evidently not inadvertent and was turned off as soon as the SHTF.
Many countries, cat cat, all with nefarious leaders, play the crooked writing games.
Is it because these leaders all know in too many regular schools truly ambitious literacy has so very little perch anymore?
And these pretend-American accounts -- does AI construct them for whatever mafiosi are yet paying oligarch debts and shakedowns? Do the different dictators, mob bosses, and nationalist weavers of hate scenarios have as busy an algorithm-based industry and Jeffrey, Donald, and Ghislaine had in theirs of multi-billionaire-dollar trafficking of underage girls?
Can the schools of decent democracies compete with so much human emptiness? Is that neutered and neutering emptiness eating away at schools' decent purposes as many of us see it having made such inroads in countries such as Japan in thrall to what testing has done to U.S. schools?
GDITFH, Mr. Balla! You are incorrigible!* Shame on you! "At long last, Sir, have you left no sense of decency?"**
Your persistent, distorted, and unconscionable attacks on school leadership, teachers, schools, and standardized testing (about this last of which your ignorance is shameful) is no less unconscionable than Trump's respecting the Declaration, the Constitution, or the Gettysburg Address, or the Secretary of Defense threatening to recall and court martial Senator Kelly for publicly stating the fact of all members of the armed forces obligations respecting illegal orders.
This retired professor, therefore, as promised publicly to you repeatedly, calls you out for the nth time on your falsehoods, this time in Sentences 1, 2 and 5: an "F" for each of them.
________________________
*In any and all four of the definitions in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition.
**Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, June 7, 1954.
Its interesting on that heat map that very few of the influencers appear to be in Russia or China (which are mostly green) but that the principle locations are Africa and the Middle East (and of course parts of the US). What that suggests to me is that many of the "influencers" use relocation software to make it appear their locations are elsewhere. That stuff is widely available and not difficult to use at all. And the good stuff is highly secure, and can't easily be broken, even by law enforcement.
Case in point: dear gawd I’ll be happy when Medicare enrollment ends. I’m constantly rejecting calls from “potential spam” from all corners of my area.
Russia? Vlad may panic if his ploy to take Ukraine runs into snags and his puppet loses his mojo. What does Vlad have as his backup plan. Or the P2025 cretins. It won’t be pretty…
there are lots of American reports of this as well, and descriptions of some of the allegedly American patriotic accounts created in Nigeria, Poland, Israel, and other hotspots of American patriotism.
I saw that also! I perhaps misremember, but I think it was Heather who said that much of the internet comments were placed their by operatives in attempt to drive a narrative. Elsewhere, (I can't remember where, sorry) I read that approx 40% of comments in social media are bots and/or foreign paid placement.
Good to see Halligan fail so miserably. That’s what you get for appointing completely incompetent idiots who don’t know jack sh*t about the job they have to do, but whose only requirement is their willingness to kiss the Orange Goblin Baby’s bloated behind.
In Italian she would be a Pupi....even simpler than in English. Maybe in Spanish? Títere. In any case, regarding of the language, she is the Secretary of the Trump's Defense 4th Branch of Government.
Yes, it does. "Moin" is a very often used expression which can mean basically anything ;)
But yes, the Germans are indeed capable of making words with more than 20 letters, like "Einkommensteuererklärung", "Normenkontrollverfahren" or "Justizvollzugsbeamter".
My glancing experience with German is that instead of coining nouns for things, they just jam together what the thing does. Instead of "toilet," they'd go with ceramicbowlthatflushesawaypooandpee.
Who would accept a job they know they're unqualified for that's as visible as this? Only another narcissist, who thinks because she's always been "pretty" she deserves anything and can also do anything.
I keep wondering about that, too. I'd shit my pants if I would have been made director of the FBI, or worse, in charge of the American military. I'd collapse under the enormous responsibility, afraid to do something wrong, or making a decision that could cost peoples' lives. Hegseth just took another swig of cheap whisky, yelled "America f*ck yeah" and took on the job.
I think of Roger Stone and Steven Miller. I could totally see Miller on live tv yelling about something, then his skin tears open and a giant lizard breaks out!
And in this whackadoodle world we're living in, I doubt I'd even be surprised.
Ugh. In my mind, I can hear Trumpelthinskin going on and on about that. "Lindsey is great, she is the best, a great woman. Everybody knows it. Absolutely qualified for the job. She has, like, studied things. Lawyer things. And she has two great assets that are very important to me, very important. That makes her absolutely qualified."
And women appointees: they have to pass the requisite MAGAgirl appearance guidelines: oversized fake boobs, diamond cross necklace, massive hair extensions, heavy make-up. Dear Leader thinks he still judges tawdry and vulgar “beauty” pageants.
The Kelly story is meant to be a distraction from the fracture going on in the Republican party. Punch Bowl reported that there are more Representatives threatening to resign early. Trump wants that story buried. But there is a ploy that Mike Johnson can use to deal with that.
Mike Johnson has the unilateral power to shut down the House in the event that a cluster of early resignations by fed-up Republicans threatens to flip the House majority. But he ALSO has the unilateral power to RECONVENE the House. Republicans gave him the power when they voted for the House Rules at the opening of this session of Congress.
He can shut the House down if he sees support growing for a resolution to remove him as speaker.
He can shut the House down if he sees support growing for a discharge petition to change the rules and take that power away from him.
And ONLY HE CAN RECONVENE THE HOUSE.
Playing by the rules, the next opportunity to change the rules would be when the next Congress convenes in January 2027 after the midterms.
Of course, the rule could be challenged in the courts, but that takes time.
And the current continuing resolution funding the government only runs through January 30, 2026.
Mike Johnson is still highly motivated to protect Trump from the disclosures in the Epstein files. He is also now motivated by wanting to keep the Speakership, if in name only, and to return to Trump's good gracess. This is the nuclear option.
In the authoritarian playbook, guys like Viktor Orbán successfully play by the rules to subvert the intent of the law.
We all spend a great deal of time here thinking of the worst possible outcomes of our quandaries. But worst doesn't necessarily translate into likeliest, especially not right now.
The first vote on healthcare subsidies takes place in mid-December in the Senate. There's only about a two-week window for this, given the calendar. Already, President Pissy Pants is making noises about demanding that Congress extend the subsidies. This is interesting. In the middle of his various miasmas, the fear of losing keeps haunting him. The last vote in the Senate for Big Ugly was 50-50, with Maybelline Wanker Boy breaking the tie. It's entirely possible that some Senators, watching not Trump, but the November 4 blue wave, might have a change of heart.
That puts it back to the House, and as you mention, the CR runs only through January 30. The likeliest outcome is that government will shut down yet again, with the public getting a second chance to examine in full view what Republicans really stand for. Going straight into an election-year campaign, that's a terrible outcome for them. Self-interest is already rising as the greatest motivation of all, and it's not looking good for them.
I think Kegsbreath had no idea that Mark Kelly and the others would punch back as hard as they did, and they certainly did not see the appointment of Lindsey Halligan declared illegal. A lot of forces are punching back on them -- and hard.
Winter is coming. And they are not prepared. And frightened. This week, I'm taking heart.
“This week, I'm taking heart.” Yeah, me too. It appears we have turned a corner and the regime’s wheels are wobbly. November 4 couldn’t have happened at a better time. We all knew this fascist bullshit was unsustainable over the long run, but I am a bit surprised the blowback came as soon as it did. Now if good fortune prevails and the dictator has left us by June, one way or another, the midterms should go as planned. It’s still dangerous out there, though. The criminal rat is feeling the walls closing in and that makes him even more nuts than he already is. The video reminding the military to refuse illegal orders will surely come in handy if the dictator gives the order to send out the nukes.
We've temporarily forgotten about that pathetic performance by an aging Las Vegas drag showman and his little sidekick bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet a couple of months back, addressing senior military commanders many times smarter than him as "the people who kill and break things for a living."
Kegsbreath is a mascaraed asswipe too dumb to know when to come in out of the rain. He demonstrated his lack of qualifications in front of literally EVERY senior officer in the Pentagon. You can bet they're all thinking of that -- as well as the video by former military/intelligence officials on the need to follow Nuremberg rules -- and all that may come to a head in Venezuela soon enough.
You know, it’s funny, when the mascaraerd asswipe (LOL) is front and center, he is the one you hate the most. Then the next day, that criminal running DOJ comes out with another one of her snotty arrogant statements, and you hate her the most. On and on, it’s like whack-a-mole. I’ve got a lot of years on me and I don’t think I’ve seen such a collection of the absolute worst creatures, I won’t refer to them as human, assembled in one place ever. In a perverse way, it’s quite an accomplishment.
Yeah, but if you've ever tried to play Whack-a-mole, you know that you can't beat it. Its a carnival game and that is the whole point. You keep the focus changing from moment to moment and the player just can't stay with it for more than a few minutes. That is PRECISELY the game the GOP (or at least the Trumpians) are playing and it serves its purpose. You get so discombobulated watching the next "mole" pop up that you can't even stay with the game.
What in the world gives you the idea that somehow Trump will be gone by June? I seriously doubt it (unless he dies in some way). And if I was running for Congress as a Democrat personally, I would want the BEST protection for him possible, because as crazy as it sounds, I believe Vance would provide a better interim for keeping the GOP together than Trump. Vance is deviously smart and Thiel, his puppetmaster is even smarter. Trump is crazy and his shenanigans are hard to miss, Vance would do much better for the GOP if he was in control. At least that's me $.03 and I'm sticking to it!
Ha! I’ll see your $.03 and raise you $.02. Couple of things; I’ve been posting for a while about the dictator being gone by June. It’s merely a wish, a plea to The Universe, that it be so. I wish I had some real insight to this, but obviously I don’t. We have differing views of the dictator’s second banana. I think Shady JD is a toothless punk. I did at one time fear him because I thought he was smart, but he’s proven to me, at least, he’s just as stupid as the rest of them. Plus, no one likes the SOB. The dictator’s MAGATS don’t especially care for him, he really has no constituency, none that I can tell anyway. And if the regime minus the dictator hangs around after his exit, I think Gruppenfuhrer Miller and Russell Vought will play with Vance like cats with a mouse. Now THOSE two are the ones I fear.
Nobody, but nobody likes Wanker Boy. He's almost as irrelevant as irrelevant can be. No black magic up those sleeves at all.
People keep spinning tales of fantasy about his power, about the powerful puppet strings, about Thiel, about this and that. These people are nowhere near as powerful as they want you to believe, or as many here all too readily leap to premature conclusions about.
And President Diapers may well soon wander into the Briefing Room clad only in his underthings. Dementia is a progressive disease, not a static one.
The only calming thought, for me, is I believe Vance thinks rather highly of himself. I could see him thinking "they report to MEEEEEE!!!!" not vice versa. He's relied on Usha helping him get to where he got Thiel's attention, and Usha doesn't appear to be all that happy right now.
Well Miller is definitely one to fear, but honestly if Trump is gone, I believe Miller will be subsumed into the waves because he is a Jew and frankly, the Trump/Maga supporters don't exactly love Jews, even though Trump plays footsey with them all the time (Miller, Netanyahu, his son-in-law, etc.) IF Trump is gone, that support will dissipate.
But I definitely fear Vought. He is dangerous AND could lead a consolidation of power, much as Dick Cheney did for Bush II. He won't ever be President, but if he is running things for Vance, I think your thought that Vance won't be important goes out the window.
I think he'll be gone only when he gets even more untethered. Which, by judging by my brother's decent into his Alzheimer's, I do think will be by June. The "Quiet, Piggy!" is a bigger deal than most realize, methinks.
And he openly falls asleep while media is recording his nodding off. Nothing holds his attention. Early morning crazed posts also speak to disordered sleep. He is visible crumbling
BTW: please look at all recent photos of his hands on the desk. He always had left had covering the right one. Every photo.
I think you are definitely "wishful thinking" here. I just don't see it at all. The GOP is going to have to decide to take him out and I don't see that happening at all. He is their "linchpin".
Seriously (i.e., belay the giggles for a moment) between now and January 30 lie circa sixty days. Do you believe it's possible for the "leadership dems" to get their shit together sufficiently to do the policy and strategic thinking on the three dozen distinct dimensions of the threats to the Republic Trump and Company have visited upon America? Alternative scenarios for legislative 2026, and for the midterm elections campaigns, and the tasks they see needing to be undertaken by Congress in '27 and '28 leading up to the different set of tasks facing the next President? So much time has already been wasted. Can we really get there? Are we doomed to just keep fiddle-fucking around??
Yes, this story is going around. If 3-4 GOP congress critters decide to not run and immediately step down, that would put the House into Democratic hands almost immediately, at least until replacement elections are held sometime in 2026 IF THAT HAPPENS (which it might not as the actual 2026 elections will be so close that some states may not wish to pay for an extra election.
There is precedent for this happening. I don't remember the exact year but I believe it was sometime in the 80s that the GOP was in power in the House by a very thin margin and a couple of House GOP guys died and it threw the power to the Dems. But one of the states held a quick election and the power went back to the GOP within a few months. Its late but I will look it up tomorrow.
Actually, House rules mostly can NOT be challenged in court, as most courts hold that as a separate branch of government, courts can not step in and issue orders or rulings dealing with the House's (and the Senate's) own rules. There are some exceptions, but in general (and certainly regarding adjournment and reconvening either body) the courts refuse to deal with those issues, stating that that would violate the separation of powers defined in the Constitution. There have been several rulings like this, including ones where one of the bodies has either refused to seat an elected congress critter or Senator (similar to the hold up of swearing in the Arizona congresswoman this year). The courts simply refuse to get involved saying that both houses of Congress have the right to make their own rules. The Supreme Court has typically supported such rulings.
I think Johnson will play as close to the line as he thinks he can dare, but he will probably step back if he thinks he could actually get into serious trouble in the future. He has a lot of allegiance to Trump, but as we have seen in the past (such as with Watergate and during the Iran contra debacle) Congress critters have a self-preservation mechanism that usually kicks in at SOME point, albeit in Johnson's case, he has certainly played chicken with that line a lot more than some prior Speakers.
It is going to be interesting if a few more GOP Congress critters decide to resign early. MTG is waiting until Jan 5, 2026 only because she needs to be in the House for 5 years in order to qualify for a pension and that date is exactly 5 years after her swearing into Congress in 2021.
Politics is an interesting spectator sport, because in the end, everything that happens can ultimately effect the spectators too :-)
So here is Article 1 Section 5 of the Constitution:
Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
The first one is what prevents the judicial review of the rules. Thank you so much for pointing that out. The second one initially looks like it provides a constraint that requires the Senate to agree to any adjournment longer than 3 days, but what Johnson did during the shutdown was resort to pro forma sessions every 3 days where he adjourned and then immediately reconvened so by playing by that rule, he kept the House out of session and avoided needing Senate agreement.
According to legalclarity,org:
Pro forma sessions are typically called by leadership, such as the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader. They are often used to prevent the President from making recess appointments, which are temporary appointments made without Senate approval when the Senate is not in session. By holding pro forma sessions, the Senate remains technically in session, blocking the President’s ability to bypass the Senate’s advice and consent role.
These sessions also maintain legislative timelines, such as those related to budget resolutions or appropriations. By convening pro forma sessions, Congress adheres to deadlines without engaging in substantive legislative activity, ensuring that neither the executive nor legislative branches can unilaterally alter the legislative process.
Conducting a pro forma session in Congress involves straightforward yet structured steps. These sessions are scheduled in advance, with leadership issuing a notice. Attendance is not mandatory. The presiding officer, often the Speaker of the House or a designated senator, opens the session by calling it to order.
The session proceeds with no substantive legislative business. Instead, a brief statement may be read into the record or members’ presence acknowledged. This fulfills the formal requirement that Congress remains in session.
The use of pro forma sessions has been upheld by the courts when used to prevent Presidents from using their power to make appointments when Congress is out of session. That is a separation of powers issue. But maybe there is a judicial argument that the Founders did not intend him to give the Speaker unilateral authority to shut down the legislative branch ly based on the explicit need to obtain the consent of the Senate for long adjournments.
The actual House rules are some of the hardest things to follow by reading them. They are filled with arcane stuff that often doesn't make sense (even though in the end it usually does). So I empathize with anyone's frustration about trying to figure out what is supposed to happen in the House. Fortunately there are 435 folks there, each of whom has their own legal authority as a representative of their own district, and they have the power to challenge things, so generally when they don't it is either because they are chicken or because the rules are being interpreted more or less correctly.
Thanks! I have been googling furious but went back to the ultimate source, the Constitution first. I have a thin argument based on the need for Senate approval that the proforma rules essentially nullify appended to your other reply.
Takes a constiutional lawyer to peel this onion. Johnson is one…
You’re right. As long as Howdy-Doody Johnson lives, the House will never function as a normal political body anymore. And those Epstein files will never be released. They will get lost in a fire due to an ‘unfortunate series of events’ - oopsie.
Nah, you can't burn electrons. The whole set is digitized somewhere, probably in multiple places what with the rules for backups of computer files. Too many people are involved to let them disappear. But that doesn't mean they won't try every trick in the book to keep the content from seeing the light of day. Too many powerful, rich people either know or are worried that their names are in those files (and they're not all Republicans).
Yep, and keep in mind that many Dem congress critters have seen those files too, and very likely some of them have copies of at least some of the (hopefully most) incriminating documents. They are playing by the rules (so far) because those rules are required in Congress, but I expect leaks will start to happen if it starts to appear that the GOP is REALLY going to go to the mat on stonewalling this stuff. I actually believe that at some point, enough GOP congress folks (it only takes 3 or 4 now) will decide to bail because the political consequences in their district will be too great if they don't. Trump definitely has a lot of power, but it would be folly to really presume his power is uncheckable. We all know what happened to Nixon, proving that no President is REALLY beyond the law in the end. I have great confidence that Trump WILL ultimately pay the price, but we will all suffer for quite a while until that happens, just as we did for several years back in the early 70s after Watergate happened (72, and Nixon didn't resign until 74, almost 2 full years).
I thought so but where are they, as this drags on, chump will just say, they are a hoax, been made up by democrats, blah, blah. Will the SC say pedophilia is an official act, committed before he ran for office. Insane you say. No schitt, Sherlock
We’ll have another government shutdown in January and it will be even longer than the last one. Trump has no interest in governing. All he wants is a Nobel and gaudy monuments to himself. When he is cornered because of his many failed domestic policies, he’ll launch an unpopular war against Venezuela, ostensibly aimed at toppling that country’s corrupt regime, but actually aimed at access to Venezuelan oil. Of course, Trump and his family will somehow finagle kick backs from the oil companies. It’s unlikely the Democrats will retake the House, UNLESS Trump refuses to continue the enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Then, all bets are off.
Remember though, the nationwide elections, including the governor’s office in Virginia and New Jersey were won by Democratic candidates before the subsidies were front and center. Healthcare overall, and the cuts to Medicaid and hence those to Medicare, are still in effect.
We've been there before. The media makes a HUGE deal about this, but in the recent past, off-off-year elections (2021) which went strongly Democrat and provided a false sense of security that the Dems would prevail in '22 were completely wrong and the GOP gained control of the House in '22. I am NOT predicting the GOP will hold the House, in fact, I think itwill be VERY close and I think the Dems have a good chance of taking control, but anyone thinking that somehow the Dems will have a HUGE victory is smoking some REALLY good dope these days. NOT going to happen.
It was the year that both Ossoff and Warnock won Senate seats in Georgia. It was also the year that Youngkin (R in VA) won but that was considered a LESS "Trumpian" result than had been hoped for (and the VA legislatures stayed majority Democratic). The more important point is that 2021 like 2025 was only a small part of the electorate and it is typically incorrect to read too much into swings during that election.
The important year is NEXT year (2026) when all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate (including 20 GOP Senators out of 33) are up for grabs.
Liz48? Liz Warren? Liz Cheney? There are quite a few Liz's who could contend for the Presidency in 2028 if they wanted to although I think LW is probably too old, and Cheney, even though we all "love her" now for her bravado in defying Trump, is NOT a great "Democrat", that's for sure. She is a die-hard GOP member like her dad and I am not sure I could ever support her for President unless it was SOLELY to beat Trump.
As Greg Olear said, it could be anyone with the chops to appeal to enough people to elect a sane Speaker. Since the Speaker does not have to be in congress, the field is open…
Speaker Dobby will also have much to answer for. Another incompetent fraud who looks his part for the cameras but is a pitiful weak sycophant.
Drumpf has a real talent for finding people who are so weak and so stupid they're willing to do his bidding for a swing at power. That then flips on them and bites them in the ass.
I think Project 2025 sidewalk has ended for MAGA, and they are not good at thinking on their feet. This was evidenced when they were blindsided by 5 Democratic Senators who voted to reopen the government on terms no MAGA law maker would have agreed to just days before. They are out of ideas and guidance. Expect more distractions (e.g. threatening the death penalty for elected elected office holders exercising free speech), and House of Representatives shut downs.
MAGA is also waking up to the fact that ALL of the Trump Administration's efforts are for maintaining their money-making grift, not to forwarding the MAGA culture wars agenda. That is why MTG is resigning, and why other Republican law makers may resign early too.
And I am never going to associate the name Republican with honor, courage, decency, or humanity ever again. The name should no longer be used to denote one of our political factions. It will be forever linked with evil. Those in government who still call themselves Republicans should be facing trials for their crimes against humanity, for the destruction of USAID, which has led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
Maybe it's a little bit too early for your comment James. Just wait ( a way of saying) for the high premiums on health insurance plans to kick in and you'll have millones of americanos not able to get medical attention and therefore many more of those preventable deaths will be added to the crimes of this fascist regime. So much for the "party of life". Evangelicals woke up !!!!!!, you have blood in your hands already, don't make this situation worse.
Yup, but until the pardon power is changed in the Constitution, this is a dead horse you are beating. No one will EVER be prosecuted for such crimes, even after Trump is gone, as the pardons will flow until everyone is covered. And like it or not (and I certainly hate it), those pardons will stick like glue, because that is the way the Constitution reads. It shouldn't, but it does.
The worst thing about Trump’s pardoning fraudsters is that he removes any obligation on the pardoned to pay restitution to the people they defrauded. Not only do they see the people who cheated getting out of prison, but they won’t get their money back as the restitution orders have been vacated. That has to be rubbing salt in their wounds.
This is not ALWAYS true and in some cases, Trump may have decided on clemency instead of a pardon precisely because of this. An act of clemency which reduces or eliminates jail/prison time doesn't necessarily eliminate other penalties like restitution. A number of the people he has "let go" have been given clemency grants rather than pardons, and I expect this MIGHT have something to do with it. But of course, I am not in his head and so I can't be at all sure of anything.
I see. I had mentioned this as I had read something the other day online which stated that in some of the cases where Trump had pardoned or offered clemency to offenders, the restitution orders had been vacated as well, so the people pardoned had no remaining obligation to make restitution to their victims. What is interesting is that one of the people Trump pardoned has gone on to commit new scams, and he is now facing prosecution in these new scams.
I guess a clemency grant can also relieve an obligation for restitution, but in general each aspect of clemency must be spelled out, so if you are granted a reprieve from prison (only), that doesn't mean you don't have to complete your restitution. That is unlike a pardon because in the latter, it is as if you have been found not guilty (in most respects) whereas in clemency, only the part(s) of your sentence that is shortened or ended applies. Your guilt is still on the record.
The founders knew of vipers, traitors, violent opponents, but they assumed that the electorate would be fair. They started out as the outliars, but it was the brutality of the British soldiers that galvanized the people to keep fighting. Innocents have already died, but we pretend…
This comment jumped out at me in Jefferson's 2nd Inaugural Address:
" the Press, confined to truth, needs no other legal14 restraint. the public judgment will correct false reasonings & opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press, and it’s demoralising licentiousness. if there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, it’s Supplement must be sought in the Censorship of Public opinion."
Fair and free elections are supposed to present "a full hearing of all parties", as are trails in a court. But what happened when the input of some parties is eclipsed? Or other parties hog the stage? There are studies of the "wisdom of the crowd" that indicate that input from diverse perceptions tend to be self correcting compared to solo estimates, although there are ways that is not always the case. In any case, crowd wisdom is a central feature of democracy. A full hearing of all parties may often be an reachable ideal, but so too is a crime-free society; which does not negate the attempt to make a society as representative, or as crime free as possible. There are viable strategies, but those invested in the status quo can be expected to resist them.
One difference was that in Jefferson's time "the press" was far more decentralized, even though not everyone could afford to aquire one. Yet billionaires did not yet exist, even corrected for inflation. The closest thing was slave-driving plantation owners, running America's first local "Big Business" (Which the British East India Company was not.) Both messed with American society.
I have been calling them repugnantkins for years now, I was a republican for years in the John McCain mold, so I understand them clearly. They are repugnant on so many levels, they are odious at their core, and their only hope for redemption is to disavow what they have become.
Parties change, as both the "R" and "D"s have over many decades, but we can't afford to normalize evil. A whole lot more attention should be paid to "preventable deaths", especially those that serve no more than self-centered political whim.
I keep saying this over and over: impeachment equals being charged—it does not equal being convicted and removed from office. The House can impeach someone (i.e., charge them), but to convict and remove them from office requires a supermajority in the Senate. That’s why no elected federal politician in US history, except one (which occurred over 200 years ago), has ever been convicted and removed. This constant discussion about impeachment is a waste of time in modern politics.
Would I like to see him convicted and removed from office? Of course, but I’m a realist, and spending months and months on an impeachment trial while the economic needs of the masses remain unaddressed/underdressed, only frustrates the masses who are desperate for relief from high inflation, desperate for a change in politics away from protecting the mega-rich, Wall Street, and multinational corporations, and desperate for affordable housing and access to affordable healthcare. And whom want a democracy not based on who can buy an election but on a one-person-one-vote reality.
If we as Democrats/social Democrats/independents want to achieve and hold onto the votes of the people, then we must once again become the party of Roosevelt and put our emphasis on the needs of the poor, working, and middle classes, and an emphasis on small and medium-sized businesses—not large mega-corporations that couldn’t care less about the communities in which they operate. The sooner we jettison our emphasis on corporatism and the wealthy within the Democratic Party, the quicker we’ll regain and retain the votes of the masses.
We have got to get serious fast about how the accumulation of tremendous wealth in a few hand distorts our economy, our culture, our physical environment, our form of government, and our probable future as a species. The "Gilded Age" was corrupt. Efforts to check and civilize the powers of "Robber Barons" was considered progress. The middle class grew, and efforts to empower more classes of citizens advanced How did we ever get bamboozled into bringing them back?
There are three things I may offer you to help answer your question. The first is acceptance and misunderstanding of neoliberalist driven economic policy in the form of "free markets" and "trickle down" policy adopted by leadership of both parties. The second is the non-enforcement of anti-trust laws, still on the books, designed to limit monopoly power. This non-enforcement, and deregulation, has happened under Administration's of both parties. Lastly. the disenfranchising of the working class, politically as well as economically, by both parties.
Three books to help understanding here are: Humanomics by Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson; From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth by Alex Gourevitch; and Outclassed by Joan C. Williams
well, and the spread of Fox News and its imitators, spreading lies to all who watch or listen - so huge swaths of the public have no idea what's actually going on.
And Biden deliberately broke with the 'trickle down' scam. Alas, he did not market Bidenomics very well, and of course the Fox-poisoned did not know about it anyway.
One of the things in the 3 dozen I mentioned above is looking at what the nation needs to do to facilitate what the 4th Estate is supposed to do to inform and focus and enhance the capacity of the polity to do its work as voters, Corporate ownership of media just won't hack it, especially if the oligarchs sit of top of it. Lot of thinking to be done on this.
Sorry Sadie, but I disagree about impeachment. We need to use the full toolbox to get this wannabe dictator out. It could be Epstein, or calling a war on Venezuela or massive political rallies that bring him down or flipping the House to hold him accountable but the full set of tools is needed. We do have
issues with inflation, housing costs but this President is torching all those issues. Third time impeachment could be the charm. Were we just 3 votes away from conviction the last time? Even though Justa Dick Vance is also a scary proposition as President, he does not have the cult following. One step at a time.
One interesting thing which has come out of the recent Epstein email dump are the large quantities of emails between Epstein and Steve Bannon. Bannon wasn’t an Epstein client, but Bannon was cultivating Epstein’s political support for Bannon’s extremism and Donald Trump. Their exchanges predominantly seem to have discussed politics and strategy.
and which 20 Republican senators do you expect will cross the line and vote with the Democrats because that is the number of Republican senators that will be required to convict and remove.
Remember, though, unless the Senate convicts, Trump will be impeached but remain in office, just like the first time. And beatings will continue as long as he remains.
Mitch can’t protect him this time, but somebody else likely will. I agree. Cult still in charge. I still like Greg Olear’s Liz48 plan. Has a better shot, although still difficult but sidelines Vance.
JD, I am not sure that Liz would have any chance at all. This country is NOT ready to elect a woman as president, which I find reprehensible, but her qualifications are not as good as the other two women who were defeated by ffpotus.
You have precisely described what I have been thinking. The Senate needs to be substantially reformed to remove its inherent malapportionmenf. With the Senate as it is comprised today, we would never get a conviction of Trump. McConnell was instrumental in preventing Trump’s conviction and removal from office, despite evidence of Trump’s obvious guilt. The Senate as constituted today would still never convict Trump.
And so does the House need to attend to its shortcomings.. How both houses do their work is on that list of 3 dozen I've mentioned including SCOTUS serious weaknesses, the crumbling of the separation of church and state, the bowing down before absurd wealth in the hands of a very few, etc. etc.
This is absolutely correct, but the Republicans are disinclined to clean up their own messes. The Democrats always nave to come in t fix what the Repúblicans broke.
"In fact, a few other GOP members messaged us over the weekend saying that they, too, are considering retiring in the middle of the term.
Here’s one particularly exercised senior House Republican:
“This entire White House team has treated ALL members like garbage. ALL. And Mike Johnson has let it happen because he wanted it to happen. That is the sentiment of nearly all — appropriators, authorizers, hawks, doves, rank and file. The arrogance of this White House team is off putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened. They don’t even allow little wins like announcing small grants or even responding from agencies. Not even the high profile, the regular rank and file random members are more upset than ever. Members know they are going into the minority after the midterms.
“More explosive early resignations are coming. It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out.”
Looks like the Republican caucus is on the verge of fracture.
They're coming to the realization that they took the wrong path. And the end of it is their political destruction and entries in history books that paint them as traitors to the human race. It will be right and just. I have no sympathy for them, and will grant no absolution.
Perhaps this is the corrective to the many fears of Mike Johnson being this all-powerful thing bent on protecting Trump no matter what. This small, wretched creature could never wield the power he supposedly has. And small cracks are already there, already causing much bigger cracks, which in turn are causing....
We can all be mistaken, but I remain deeply struck by how much of a Rube Goldberg contraption this all really is, held together only by scotch-tape and lies. For weeks, the whole thing has been shaking in gale-force winds. The very self-interest of small, greedy men (and a few women) in Congress continues to take its toll. Until November 4, they wandered in pure la-la land, untethered to reality of any kind, with a few here and there expressing their "concern." But the times, they are a-changin'.
The punch-back of patriots is something else they didn't bargain for. Yesterday, Senator Kelly broadcast a close-up of the various medals received for valor and meritorious conduct, adorning his Navy uniform (he made sure those stripes showed, too). My only thought (and I can't be alone): Kegsbreath sure picked the wrong dude to have a pissing contest with...
The small wretched creature may be a puppet, albeit a quite obedient one, whose strings are pulled by the Heritage Foundation’s backers with decades of planning behind them. The rules changes have always been opaque—there is no clean set that I have been able to find, just piles of references back to previous versions for the changes. Over time, the process has ceded enormous power to the Speaker to control the workings of the legislative branch.
The underlying weakness lies in the Constitution, which allows the House and Senate to make their own rules and procedures.
Johnson is using his power of appointments to control the rules committee, which determines what legislation gets to the floor for a vote. Johnson is using his powers to allow Trump to overreach on executive powers without any pushback.
All true and undeniable, yet political self-interest remains an even larger power than those arcane rules (which can change on a dime) and many are already the members telling him so. The winds are not blowing in his direction.
Thank you Georgia for this. While the Administration keeps lobbing distraction smoke bombs real events are unfolding. So it appears the Republican Party (MAGA) is fracturing?
There are those who are afraid of the blue wave but will also likely face primary challenges. They will be the first to break away. They don’t want to sink money into expensive primary campaigns they either lose, or they win but then can’t raise enough money for the election. They are likely to have cushy places to land, but those are getting fewer and far between as lobbying has dried up because of the personal interactions of the oligarch bros.
Then there are the ones in deep red districts like MTG, who Trump is cutting off out of spite and will spite him back.
And finally there are the ones who think they can rehabilitate themselves with their constituents based on what they do between now and the primaries.
Think about what got Nixon pressured to resign; the realization that enough Republicans thought he was guilty to charge and convict him. And how many things Trump has done that are way worse.
I’m struck by the strong personal statements given today by both James Comey and Mark Kelly. In Comey’s case, the quiet conservative reassuring us that Justice may not be first, but it bats cleanup. And in Kelly’s words, the confidence of a pilot ready for takeoff. If he’s not considering a ‘28 Presidential bid yet, he should. I’d knock on a thousand doors for the chance for First Lady Gabby Giffords.
Trump is growing more dangerous every day. Put a child-raping murdering sociopath in the most powerful position in the world and this is where we are. He’ll sell the entire world out to Putin, who he is beholden to for some unknown reason. He’d sell his grandmother for profit. Not only is our country in danger but, by putting him in office we have placed all the countries of the world in danger.
A draft-dodging Silver Spoon/felon/rapist with no real life successes, besides being born rich, somehow got elected President and he hired an alcoholic television news host, with barely any military experience, to be Secretary of Defense and they decided to go after a decorated combat veteran and genuine The Right Stuff astronaut, now a Senator, because the draft dodger is now senile and got mad at what The Stereotypical American Hero said. If you wrote this novel, it would NEVER be published because it's too unbelievable!
I was trying to come up with something negative about Kelly that would make him any less the Stereotypical All American Hero and all I could come up with is: his ears are kind of funny looking. Otherwise, he's straight from central casting! Like The Right Stuff come to life.
Unfortunately, there will never be a prosecution of Trump in federal court again, at least not for any offenses committed prior to Jan 20, 2029 when he is scheduled to leave office. Either he will directly pardon himself (along with hundreds of others) or he will resign on Jan 19 and have Vance pardon him. I was surprised he didn't do this in 2021, but i doubt he will make the same mistake twice.
That 100% of Mark Kelly's Senate colleagues aren't standing behind him in public as he denounces Trump and Hegseth tells you what is wrong with Congress. At minimum, Senate Democrats need to be visibly behind Kelly. If all we hear are crickets, again, it means the wrong people are currently in Congress and must be replaced.
"Senate Democrats need to be visibly behind Kelly. If all we hear are crickets, again . . .."
If U.S. schools valued the literacy of quoting others, referencing more widely, our public officials would have some models to guide them in the crediting support you suggest.
But our schools have lost -- totally, M.A., totally lost -- that humanizing literacy. Have instead embraced testing, where only impersonal, neutered, billionaire-packaging voices do the questioning.
Mr. Balla, you become more and more ridiculous with each gratuitous repetition of your false assertions (lies!) about the teaching profession and the educational enterprise. Your second full sentence doesn't parse. Your next to last sentence is no better; what does "schools have lost, . . totally, . . totally lost . . that humanizing literacy." What does that even mean? It certainly isn't clear to me, and I served that profession for nearly forty years, often as a critic. Is it that you're offering yourself as evidence of its shortcomings? Your last sentence is unintelligible; in fact, it isn't a sentence at all. Back to the drawing board, my sweet! "F" yet again.
There is a concept that comes to mind over and over as the Trump Era scandals have unfolded one after another, and brought sharply into focus with the recent public statements of the Patriot Six. That concept is integrity; both personal and professional, of some, and the utter lack thereof of others.
No need to specify here who’s got it and who ain’t. At this point everyone knows, even the people who don’t want to know.
“Make lying wrong again!”; a hand-lettered sign seen at a demonstration on the green in New Milford, Ct. Kinda says it all right there, doesn’t it.
Is this funny in any way?
It’s certainly predictable. Take an incompetent mobster, give him power, and watch his incompetence just ratchet up more frustration from him, more demand for more sycophancy from all his horribly educated cultists, more anger at the pinnacling fruits of all their incompetence.
They gave their tax cuts to their mega rich enablers. No programs, no policies for any Americans in the bottom 90%. Glitzy gold geegaws smeared all over the Oval Office. More flag poles. An idiotically gratuitous, amateur military parade. Lawsuits in retribution against public figures. Extortion. More extortion. (To which our most elite law firms, universities, and media companies just caved.) Destruction of the East Wing. Regular, wholesale murders of civilians in small boats on the Caribbean. Historic violations of the Constitution on emoluments.
He's a mobster. Allied with Putin and all the world’s worst dictators, all the world’s biggest rapists of underage girls Donald’s years-long pals for years trafficked.
We know what heroes look like. We also know what the bad guys look like. Mark Kelly is a hero. Trump is the bad guy! Obvi!
Naval Captain Mark Kelly (USN Ret.) is not only "a hero." For those unfamiliar with military ranks, his captaincy is the equivalent of bird colonel in the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force. In the Navy he would command a warship; in the Army or the Marine Corps, a full regiment.
Now at last we of the (real) resistance have a (true) leader, and I as a long-ago Regular Army veteran raise my crippled 85-year-old body to its feet, snap my arthritis-plagued bones to attention as best I can and salute him as smartly as I am able. "Sir, we await your orders, sir."
(And, yes, I believe that by siccing its goon-squad of uniformed oath-breakers on Captain Kelly, Trump's regime of nation-destroying Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners has crossed a line of no return. Nor will I deny the tears that filled my eyes as I wrote the words in the second paragraph above.)
Also, let us not forget that President Washington was himself once a colonel, commander of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War.
Thank you for your service to this country, sir. I salute YOU. And thank you for your patriotism today as a member of the resistance. ❤️
I was but a Spec-4; active duty 1959-1962, 16 months in Korea, honorably discharged 1965. (As we used to say back then, "Don't 'sir' me; my parents were married.") With salutes of respect and gratitude to Dr. Richardson for her unyielding courageousness and to all of us here in militant solidarity: may we Never Give Up the Ship, no matter what.
As a former army NCO (active duty 1967-71), my reply to ‘Sir’ would have been, “Don’t call me Sir; I work for a living.”
It was, of course mostly all in a kind of fun. Complaining about something is an essential part of military life. But at a time when both the nation and the army were being torn apart, and wearing a military uniform in the US was as likely to result in getting an insult on the street as a compliment, there was a defensive edge to our lives that I’ve not seen since until this moment when Pvt Bonespur and his overgrown kindergartener Secretary of Defense turned loose on six Americans who were simply honoring an oath that neither Trump nor Hegseth appear to understand.
The army taught me something else as well. The strongest among us were also the ones who never blew their own horns because they knew something else that neither Trump nor Hegseth have any clue about - the kind of strength that knows it need not prove anything to anybody - indeed, they were often the gentlest in a quiet, competent sort of way.
This debate about orders is, of course, far more complex than a few sound bites. I would refer you to David French’s excellent article on the subject in yesterday’s NYT.
I watch Trump and Hegseth and all I see are cowards trying to wrap themselves in the ersatz armor of braggadocio - strutting on a stage of their imagination, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
To this Six - we stand behind you all the way.
Thank you, sergeant.
James, I never served in the armed forces but did serve our nation as a public school educator teaching my students respect, honorable acts, and negotiation for better outcomes. I’m with you 100%.
Is it the job of the Attorney General to start with a crime and then look for the person(s) who committed it? Or is her job to start with a person she wants to convict, and then find a crime they are guilty of?
Given Novii Tsar Putin's mastery of Trump, it should surprise no one that their Christonazi AG Pam Bondi is the attitudinal reincarnation of Stalin's NKVD Chief Lavrentiy Beria. Quoth Beria: "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." (https://www.azquotes.com/author/63981-Lavrentiy_Beria )
😂😂😂😂🤣: absolutely too funny. Kudos !!
My husband was at US Naval Hospital #5, Philadephia 1963-1965. He was a ‘Naval psychiatrist’.. During his 2 years, a list was compiled, shredded in front of men on duty that weekend and restored. It was a list of all the ‘homosexuals’ …. They were all gone by the end of the week, leaving the Naval hospital without staff to care for the patients…. We are definitely a “work in progress”. Thank YOU, Loren
Thank you. Also, though hetero, I have LGBTQ relatives and friends, thus it is personally important to me to ensure such atrocities as you describe above are genuinely ended forever.
Loren, WE are hope… and because of Heather, The Bulwark and others, there is a communication that is actually “awesome” from ‘Everyones’ and Everywheres!” Serious, amazing and GOOD! (-: WE ARE!….
Appalling!
Indeed…. thank YOU…
Thank you for your statement. And thank you you for this :”
“ Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners”
The best description of this regime yet. One I will share with others
With men like Senator Kelly and yourself , among many others, standing up for democracy and the constitution, the Nation will weather this ugly storm that has cast a long shadow over this great nation.
Please all keep calling your legislators to stand with American Hero Senator Kelly and the others who spoke out !! 📲📲📲
Absolutely furious here on Florida’s “Space Coast”. I’ll be making a sign for my car today in support of Senator Kelly.Please join me !
🚀🚙
Kelly for President
Gary, our great minds think alike, lol! I just posted that above.
You can reach any legislator through the Capitol Hill switchboard. Mostly you get a recording to respond to but I believe most do pay attention to messages. 202-224-3121
We have to keep calling. Keep writing post cards and emails. Keep demonstrating. Tell your senators and rep to shape up if they're on the MAGA side. Praise them and send them money if they're on the Kelly side. We have to thank Trump, I think, for singling out Sen. Kelly. He has touched a chord among the true Americans who are fighting this regime. What did Churchill say? "We will fight in the roads, in the ditches, on the highway overpasses..." -;)
WRITE a letter! Not only to your own Rep in Congress, but to every state’s Rep ! WE THE PEOPLE must be HEARD!
My legislator is a carpet-bagging, career MAGA
congressman in a safe district. I still call him regularly but he's such a POS. It still feels good.
👍Mine too, Brian. Every one of mine is a MAGA.Keep Calling Them Out !
KEEP DOING IT!
History will try to analysis how Americans could have voted twice for someone with his history and lack of character to be president only to have him degrade government and international reputation.
I think when time passes and all the true information finally comes out, we will learn that he cheated not only in the 2024 election, but all the prior elections too. Not that it makes any difference now because he in office, but there is no question that he has been and is firmly in Putin’s pocket and that U.S. the biggest tragedy that has befallen our country.
I agree, Elizabeth. But I don't know if Trump cheated. Putin cheated. Remember when Reagan celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall with Gorbachev's help? Now Putin is celebrating the hollowing-out and destruction of America, with Trump's help. We must not let Putin succeed.
And do you wonder about the mysterious death of his first wife?
A genuinely international "Manchurian Candidate," bred by American capitalism and managed by the Russian Novii Tsar.
Vital questions: are Trump's owners paying Putin management-fees under the chess-board? If so, whom are the payers and how big is the bill?
Isn't that one of the definitions of treason? Why isn't he being impeached for treason?
There is a new book a stumbled on a memoir about a family from Germany moved to Hawaii to help assist the Japanese government. It took a long time to come out but that doesn’t surprise and fits so well. I would think this framework is once again being used somehow.
If their analysis is at all accurate, gender will be the prime reason for both of his elections. I base my analysis on this: his first term opponent was a former Senator and former Secretary of State as well as former First Lady. His second term opponent was a former State Attorney General (of a state that has the 4th largest economy in the world), Senator, and Vice President. The person he lost to was also a former Senator and Vice President, but peed standing up.
I fear you're correct. Misogyny is far more intense, biblically reinforced and therefore incorrigible in this Prosperity-Gospel-Christian nation than even white racism.
You can’t fix stupid. The same people who voted for our president, the idiot, the first time voted for him again. Throw in the Neanderthal attitude that we can’t have a woman president and you have the f—ked up mess we are currently in.
Ally, agreed. Along with racism, misogyny is a part of the bias of many. I am sure both of us have stories about this.
We're in total agreement there.
That, along with the blitz of dishonest ads that flooded the airwaves during the World Series and football games last fall, obviously aimed at the age 18-34 male demographic, the so-called "manosphere."
that would be a truly sad statement of stupidity. but could definitely be.
I think history, with improved technological analysis techniques, will be able to analyze how Russian social media troll farms put a fat finger on the scales and, by manipulating a significant number of uneducated Americans who responded to their artfully-crafted propaganda, installed a Russian asset of decades into the highest office in the land.
Also Musk changed votes.
I have maintained that those elections were fixed by voter suppression and RW propaganda which included Russian efforts. Furthermore as far as affordability being the driving issue based on exit polling, wrong hate was the motivation factor. People would not tell pollsters, "I voted for tRump because I hate trans, immigrants, people of color, and women, I voted for tRump because he knows how to lower the price of eggs".
FOX.
We can't overestimate how much responsibility Fox bears for ruining our country right now. They lie constantly, have the look and feel of a real news station which they're not, and push the Trump agenda non-stop. Uncritical thinkers inhale them like air itself, and integrate Fox's filthy madness thoroughly in their thinking. It would be like separating milk from water to extract the Fox poison from many Americans' thinking.
Me too.
I, too, stand with Captain Kelly and those who revere and follow the Constitution. I will not bow or submit to those who are actively involved in the treasonous coup that has not stopped since Jan. 6., and am working with many others to follow the law and keep our elections safe and secure. It is my belief that absent a violent scenario, winning our majority in Congress is the only way to stop this carnage. I will support our leaders like Captain Kelly, and all others loyal to our Constitution, come what may. We ARE the resistance.
YES!!!! WE ARE!!!!
Hear, hear!
Agree Celeste, we must somehow remain "absent a violent scenario". Because that would enable "them" even more. We are no match for the ICE Force. They are well paid/compensated/incentivized/etc. We merely have the right to keep and bear firearms.., but, so do all the ICE employees. And, given reason, ICE will collect our guns under the auspices of preventing us "terrorists" from causing terrorism. Just watch. We need to be smarter. At least we have a Constitution to refer to. Not some document yet to be written. We still have a chance.
Correct. This is why I advocate for voting rights, get people registered to vote, and encourage those who will listen to think about running for office. We must adhere to the rule of law.
I teared up reading your words, and I am noticing that this forum is training people to be better writers. Mark Kelly's clarity of thought and lifetime service, and You snapping to Salute Him are inspiring!
Indeed, Joan…. ‘This forum’ is IS something else! ‘We’ have a remarkable place to ‘talk’ to one another!
Thank you.
Well said. Captain Kelly actually put his life at risk to serve our country while our President claimed the bone spurs in his feet prevented his service during the Vietnam War. Not to say our President is afraid to take a life so long as he is not in harms way. Indeed, our President is the kind of guy you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Thank God for real heroes.
Actually, I would like to meet that kind of guy in a dark alley. Just me and just him. I would drop him with one well-aimed kick right in his shriveled little balls.
Thank you.
Loren, thank you for your wonderful tribute to Mark Kelly and your service to the nation. Thank you also for rallying us through your inspiring words to also be brave and not give up the battle for our democracy.
Thank you.
Loren: .......nation-destroying Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners - terrific word smithing.
Thank you.
Thank you for all you have done.
Thank you.
Well said, sir. Thank you for your service then and now.
"Don't 'sir' me"...but thank you nevertheless. Crippled as I am, there isn't much I can do, but nevertheless I'll do my best. As I trust we all know, we as a nation are truly up Shit Creek, and it's up to us to be the paddles.
The “sir” is to show respect. I’m in my late 70s so I have some limits also but you and I do what we can, even if it is to yell encouragement to others. Yes?
Your body may be crippled, but nothing crippled about your mind. And that alone ranks you far above the POTUS.
We lost something when we quit hearing sir and ma'am.
One of the best lines ever..."It's not the one thing, it's the dismal tide."
"Signs and wonders, but I think when you quit hearing sir and ma'am the rest is sure to follow."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk6LBQMPBWs
Waiting for civility to return.
Loren Bliss, thank you for continuing your service in these statements. We remain in your debt. As a WWII child (7 in ‘41), I remember your war and its horrors as reported. We paid better attention then—a habit from ‘41-45. (In my family from ‘38-as my uncle was l “regular” Navy in submarines.)
Thank you. I was in Korea c. 1961-1962, this after the 1953 armistice. Thus I escaped the war per se, though we had several alerts due to border skirmishes resulting from local North Korean probes, typically squad -sized actions. Also I did rear-area, headquarters-type work, so I was never under live fire in Korea. But I surely was a few times afterward in civilian life, consequences of leftist activism in the South and the Pacific Northwest.
Feels like there ARE quite a few paddles, Loren…. (-:
We lost something when we quit hearing sir and ma'am.
"Signs and wonders, but I think when you quit hearing sir and ma'am the rest is sure to follow."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk6LBQMPBWs
I should explain to the uninitiated that in the military, only commissioned officers are addressed as "sir." Enlisted personnel -- privates through sergeants and specialists -- are addressed simply by rank; addressing us as "sir" is literally against regulations.
Thank you, sir, for your service to our country. Your pride and reverence show through for our country and the people who serve it honorably. Thank you also for the explanation of the military ranks. I learned something. And I agree with your goon-squad description. “Goon-squad” makes me chuckle, but I realize this is no laughing matter.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for being the backbone of a society that stands up to an immoral and illegal power. Thank you for your voice that supports leaders like Senator Kelly
I am confident that Trump’s attacks on Kelly and Hegseth’s hint at Military Tribunal will cause more voices like yours to rise up and demand that oaths be honored
Thank you.
Loren, I agree with you. Kelly is a leader who is leading! I am grateful for him. He continues to serve.
I thank you for your service as well!
Thank you.
Loren, as someone who could not lie to take that oath of office in the Navy, I will pop to and render the hand salute along side you. I only wanted to follow my Dad's footsteps as a MetTech, as well as his sage advise of "Anything but the goddam Army". (My time in uniform (over 30 years, 28 of that full time) was behind the badge. I think he was happier than my Mom that I chose that path.)
Salute returned.
Those words brought tears to my eyes, too. Thanking (and commending) you for your service!! Thank you as well for your well-articulated thoughts. Happy Thanksgiving to you!!!
Thank you.
A great letter Loren Bliss. Thank you for reminding us what presidential material looks like. Mark Kelly for President! Get the regime of nation-destroying Christonazi/Neoconfederate RepubliKlaners out of there. 💙💩🎃🤡💙
Loren I have been hoping someone will take on the histir history of the KoreanWar and the people involved. I think it was very difficult and lots of fear. My father was involved The PoW exchange and the Hunta virus work. He was above above the MASH units ..also not according to rules helped a civilian with sharpenal. So I would like something more than The Manchurian Candidate and a drama or film that would also tell the truth and educate as in the Ken Burns documentary. And even he had to leave out much. Just something for all you that served during that time. Dad would talk of frozen water in the tents! Take Care of yourself and thanks.
Thank you.
All retired and ex military must sand with Captain Kelly and continue to advise our younger troops to make trump more of the fool. As a retired US Navy CWO í am at 87 ready anytime to take on these MAGA POS.
And we know what heroes do; enduring great effort and/or risk on the behalf of others. His Self-absorbancy the Trump, not so much.
Trump is a self made man who worships his creator. . .
Lady Em, that's a clever remark, but not entirely accurate. Donald was made by his dad's millions. Without that advantage, he'd be a second-rate used car salesman in Queens. Moreover, he can hardly be described as a "man." He's a punk who blew Bubba.
Ow! I KNew someone would pick up on that! Shall we just say he is "self made" to the extent that his projected image is A wily business man a great deal maker, handsome (!!!) strong, a babe magnet (yechhh!).. . . I could go on, but I don't need to - trump will do it for me
…a self-made man, thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility. (Wish I could claim credit for this. Found it in another context.)
Yah, he is a real DIY er…
What else were his supporters expecting when they voted for this asshole last year? He was a well known quantity..
Mr. Self Absorbant. Hmmm.
Trump has never put anyone else first. His first and only concern has always been himself and whatever he wants at any given moment.
Kathy, that is why I call him Toddler-Trump. He has the worst behavior of badly parented toddlers and has nothing of adult in his make-up. Truly disgusting!!
Absolutely true. According to Mary Trump, Fred Sr. took responsibility for raising his sons, while Mary Anne took responsibility for raising her daughters.
and never will, and it will be true until death do us part.
What can you expect from a disturbed toddler?
Kinda like those Pampers, eh?
He picked on a true hero. Wrong move.
Someone should give trump a black hat to wear , rather than a red one.
Although, considering his Russian ties, maybe a red one is more appropriate. . .
Russia is not Red. It is a fascist dictatorship and in no way shape or form practices communism or socialism.
True, that. Mind you, it never DID practise TRUE Communism. The Soviets were as corrupt as any other dictatorship. Only they lied about it more
They also did not practice true socialism. Socialism being the vehicle to reach true communism, where government would not longer be necessary because things are running perfectly. The idea that Communism was a utopian point that could be reached because one had used socialism to get there.
My political book club is reading the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1920s dystopian novel "We" which influenced Orwell's "1984." In it we have a narrator, who is rigid and follows the rules of his society and is upset if anyone does not follow those rules because he sees them as a means to reaching perfection. Happiness is equated with subservience to the state. Happiness cannot coexist with freedom. People want to be dictated to, and not have to make their own decisions. (Except for those who don't want to do this.). It gives us a flavor for early post Revolution Russia, and all that was intended. Zamyatin was excited by the Revolution but then living in what the people created to fulfill the promise of Communism was clearly not what he expected. Here is a link to a pdf of it if you would like to see what he is saying. https://cdn.mises.org/We_2.pdf
Thank you, Ms. Weide. We cannot point this truth out too often, especially given this neo-McCarthyite horror: "Resolution denouncing socialism passes in the House, ahead of Mamdani visit with Trump" https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/11/21/resolution-denouncing-socialism-passes/
These people have no idea what they are talking about. Social Democrat is not the same as Socialist. Those would be The Left and in a democracy should not be outlawed. It is not in our constitution to say such parties cannot exist, so there is no ground to stand on. I think it is legitimate to ban parties that undermine the constitution, but social democrats do not. It is the MAGA party that does. That is the one that should be banned. If we can get a Democratic majority in the house, they should go about doing that.
Actually, m'lady, since Trumpmeister Putin's Cossacks are again performing their Tsarist function of savaging dissenters, someone should get him a kubanka -- with the Russian insignia removed and replaced with a Nazi swastika.
I had to look up the term, and yes, perfect. The ball caps he typically sports are hardly in keeping with his grandiosity. I bought a women’s fur version, sans insignia, in Kyiv circa late ‘70’s. It’s in a box in the attic somewhere. I haven’t worn it since I stepped off the plane.
The ball cap is supposed to show how much he identifies with the working class. He has so much money that he can't be corrupted. People are still saying that. It's weird. I notice how much fiction and documentary shows on PBS about royalty in a nation whose charter says in effect "no kings", and reads like an indictment. I gather that we all miss the protection and support of a parent, especially raised in an authoritarian household; and some people have ways of cosplaying that role; but at the price some degree of tyranny. Actual liberty requires that we mutually pledge to each other to recognize and protect unalienable universal rights married to the common weal; and that's the buck that stops with us.
Hear! Hear!
I have to admit I was a huge Downton Abbey fan, but I pretty much turned off the tv in 2016. Americans do have an affinity for pressing their noses to the glass.
How about a red A on the forehead?
A red hat with a hammer and sickle insignia would be appropriate.
Or a white hood.
Can’t we the people SUE (millions or billions of $ would be fine) this corrupt
Trump and his evil affiliates…
You can be jailed in some official circumstances, for lying to the government, ostensibly OUR government. Why can we not prosecute, or at least sue, when the government demonstrably lies to us? What does an organization generally do when an employee (AKA public servant) shows a pattern of lying to the boss?
Pure evil
Trump did bring in someone off the street that would be an unconstitutional "presidential aide" from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Heroes vs Zeroes.
The contrast could not be more stark between Kelly and Hegseth.
Yes. Here is what Lucian Truscott, has to say about this today.
https://open.substack.com/pub/luciantruscott/p/hegseth-is-not-fit-to-carry-senator?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
It is horrid to live in a dystopian world. That is the world Trump has created for Americans. We need to remove him from office.
Mark Kelly is an American who is a living example of integrity and character. We all need to take a moment in these chaotic times to listen to what a real American patriot is saying! He is speaking for every one of us who still believes in our Democracy. He is speaking for We The People!
Mark Kelly approved of 9 of those in Trump's Cabinet when a NO vote would have been a signal that these choices were unacceptable. Now he wants to be elected to 6 more years so he is is on television talk shows and bombards me in emails and texts (plus a letter a week) asking for money to Fight Trump. He should have fought harder in the beginning of Trump's regime. He is not a hero. He did a job like many others and received the honor and recognition of the country.
Mary, people can see the error of their ways. I can see in this he is being a hero. He should not have approved those people, but neither should anyone else have done that. If we do not accept people when they change, what is the point of them changing. Perhaps he has not, but let us see him going forward. He has served his country in war, and he is serving us now.
Are you sure about that?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-superman-white-house-tweet-b2787229.html
Sure about Kelly being a hero and as someone else pointed out a true leader? Yes!
Hat tip to "The Princess Bride"; "No good, I've known too many officers!"
Trump so wants to be the Godfather, but every time he goes to the bargaing table, he makes an offer that he doesn't understand.
That has to be the best sum-up of his dementia I've heard in a while. Bravo.
There is now a fake-gold plated sign saying "Oval Office" outside the Oval Office. Methinks it's there to help President Pissy Pants find his way around the place.
One day soon, expect a sleepless, muttering, incontinent old man to suddenly wander into the White House briefing room wearing only his Depends. Looking forward to hearing Karoline Spokesbarbie explain that one away...
I think you're right on the signage, ICTT.
“Spokes Barbie” is priceless! Thank you, ICTT.
Oh yes ICTT does, Virginia Witmer. Spokes Barbie is truly nauseating; more plastic than anything alive, and as fake as the lies she spouts.
It comes to this.
Yes we have to laugh at times.
It is all so ludicrous what we are going through on a daily basis.
One thing I believe is it the idiot in the White House doesn’t really have two brain cells to rub together. I don’t believe that he has the brain power or ability to think things through on his own. I think that those working project 2025 program his brain to say what he says do what he does because he doesn’t understand Politics, what’s happening with Russia, Ukraine Gaza all he understands is gold, fluff, destruction, corruption, etc.
What’s more worrisome is who and what will replace him.
Oh MY WORD! (You choose). Thank you, ‘It’s Come to This’…
You have a way with words and more importantly a way with visuals😂🤣😝🤬
you gotta laugh, gotta laugh...somehow!
No doubt it is for him to find his way!
Extortion is his only bargaining tool.
As long as he gets a personal cut in every deal. By the way, you can now but Trump handguns.
Those Trump handguns should be confiscated before they are used in assassinations. There are MAGAS (pardoned January Sixers) who may vie to be first to kill with one.
Brilliant! If anyone ever makes a feature film about the Trump presidency, it will have to be an X-rated slapstick comedy. I'm assuming the World will survive Trump.
And the sooner the better- I mean….so he can see it before he exits. We could all use a good laugh!!
Starring The Ghost of Charley Chaplin
Spit my coffee
Sharing! Thanks, Joel.
Oh he wanted to be part of the NYC Mob,but they just laughed at him. He is much too stupid and gullible to be in the Mob.
"Glitzy gold geegaws smeared all over the Oval Office."
That was precise.
Glitzy FAKE-gold gewgaws.... Like everything else about this man...hollow, phony, cheap and faux to the core. Hillbilly Louis XVI. Almost as convincing as those little hands going back and forth, pumping that invisible concertina for all its worth, all the time.
Ain't no there there.
YOU have ‘done it’, described THAT motion that gives me knots in my whole self when he does it….. Thank YOU!
And never has been. 🤬
They look tacky as hell.
What do you expect from trump? "Taco Hell."
Exactly! There is nothing anyone could do to improve Trump’s taste. It looks like he thinks all the gold decor makes him look self-important.
I loved that appropriate description as well
Clowns, funny or not, sitting on the throne, are not funny. In a satire maybe, but this is as serious as a heart attack, I heard a cop say once. They can kill a hero, they can kill or torment all of us, and the SC is complicit. I knew on Nov 5 last, that this time would be worse than last time, but my brain could not fathom the extent of the murderous venom, of chump and his vicious slime, but also of “lawmakers” who, when they find their pedophile, attack anybody else. National insanity as bad as the world has seen with unfathomable consequences. Abigail Adams said that their comfortable lives would be upended by the fight. Ours will be also. But fight we must. They did it for us, we must do it for our future…. MTG took a stand, Mark Kelly is taking a stand, maybe it is catching. May Epstein do what he threatened, from the grave…
It is catching on. Kevin McCarthy's analogy is beyond perfect, calling MTG “almost like a canary in the coal mine”. Between the words he is saying being with Trump is the same as being in a deep, deep, hole and the air is deadly! The only chance the GOP has to live past Trump is to impeach him ASAP. That would at least show they can be adults and admit they screwed-up. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/more-republicans-resignations-prediction_n_6925077ee4b05f521dda468c
Impeach, convict, remove. We need it all.
The problem with impeachment however, is that the Country would then be saddled with the Hillbilly Fallacy himself, Peter Thiel's Buckeye boy toy, who in some ways is worse than Trump, if such a thing is possible.
Certainly his actions have gone way past impeachable. However, they would be impeaching the figurehead for the oligarchy. The monied class would pressure their paid puppets in Congress to not go a long with it, because they want to continue to bilk and fleece.
‘3 BIG words’!!!!!
Impeach? Oh no… that won’t happen. Their souls have been sold. They call it between a rock and a hard place. Can’t wait for 2026.
But, Bill Katz, we all must work to get as many Dems as possible elected BEFORE 2026. There are elections on December 2 and 9, that will help. Meanwhile the ICE sirens started at 5:30 this morning in Chicago, and have fired up again as I write. They are present horrors and harbingers, reminding me to keep writing GOTV postcards for 12/09.
It’s more about getting people to vote as well. One has to break out of all the silos we have created. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone around 2000 predated the last Surgeon Geberal’s concern about loneliness by twenty years.
4 H Clubs an intergenerational group wide framework. It could help and the framework is run by Robert’s Rules. They are tied to each county’s extension agency. Now over 100 years old and started out with African Americans as well because they for awhile had lands snd farms. Much more in the past though that is changing. Sewing , cooking, gardening, animal husbandry. One could expand to History and Economics and Ecology. .
Good to know that County Agents and 4-H clubs still exist. I was a member as a child and went to 4-H camp.
As for economics: girls did Home-Ec(onomics) as boys did “Shop.”
No offense meant but I would not equate MTG with MK. She is just gettin’ while the gettin’ is good. He is staying to fight. Just saying.
Just til her pension kicks in!!!!!!
Right. MTG is a shrewd politico but otherwise an very stupid opportunist. She truly has zero redeeming qualities. Zero. Should not be in same paragraph with Mark Kelly.
Hope I did’t do that. She is still in the viper pit, but speaks to more vipers
Putting together MTG & Mark Kelly makes no sense to me.
Only as the "almost" canary in a coal mine. The canary is not a very smart little bird, and sadly inconsequential except for the warning it gives before it dies.
Mark Kelly is the real deal
I see.
yes, you are right that this clown is definitely not funny. this whole thing has felt like a child's nightmare where you wake up and smell smoke and run to tell your parents who just smile and tuck you back in.
Sadly, our house is on fire. Deliberately set…
Trump is like a chimpanzee with loaded machine gun, so the danger and the casualties are horrifying, yet humor erodes his legitimacy; so that near the top of his enemies list are our most popular political satirists. Yet his many missteps trip up his momentum, especially the more they are noticed. Mr. Trump's nakedness is by no means a pretty sight, and the more light on his imaginary finery, the more insubstantial it's revealed to be. A backward glance behind at the wreckage in his wake reveals the ugly truth. His felonious plans are obscene.
Is he survivable, is P2025.
Pimp and Circumstance.
I wanna hear what Sen. Wicker, Rep Bacon et al say.
What do they say about orders to kill?
What about "Bubba"?
Don't waste your time waiting for those cowards to say anything that would bring any retribution from the fascist in chief Daniel. They would rather follow any unlawful order and violate any laws in a blink of an eye to stay on his good side. As for the rule of law and the oath to the constitution.....that's for morons....
The Constitution is just an encumbrance for those who would be Kings.
I hope you're wrong.
They call out Trump on Ukraine.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/us-sen-roger-wicker-rips-trumps-so-called-peace-plan-for-ukraine-russia/
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/republican-trump-ukraine-russia-peace-plan-b2870645.html
There're always exceptions Daniel and those are good and necessary to keep perspective but in the fascist party it's not the rule. In any case I appreciate your comment. 👍
We only need a few to stop this adminisration in its tracks. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Putin is Bubba.
Without is Bubba?
Incompetence. That’s the word Trump’s opponents should be shouting from the rooftops every day. Putting aside the graft, corruption, love of dictators, and rape allegations, the fact of the matter is, these “best people” have no idea how to govern. They only know bullying and destruction. Incompetence, thy name is Trump.
The Great Halligan Hustle, or How to Lose a Coup in Ten Days
In the latest installment of “As the Republic Spins,” a federal judge has reminded President Trump that the Constitution is not an all-you-can-eat buffet. This time, the reminder arrived courtesy of U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who politely but firmly informed Trump that he cannot pluck a loyal insurance lawyer off the political discount rack and install her as a federal prosecutor just because he is mad at James Comey and Letitia James... https://essayx.substack.com/p/the-great-halligan-hustle-or-how
Putin’s ability to play the long game—and as Mitch says “play trump like a fiddle”—compared with Trump’s juvenile “I want it now” temper tantrums, shows what a piker Trump really is.
I wish he WERE a mobster. He wanted to be - but had just enough brains to realise that if he started running with the big dogs, he'd soon end up wearing a pair of concrete shoes. He's no Don Corleone - Junior might make a good Sonny, but using Eric as consigliere is a step too far. . .
Do any of these lawmakers realize that an underlying rage that most people, both right and left, is the unfairness of the continual Republican habit of giving tax breaks to the 1%. Democrats do it also because all our lawmakers are held hostage by the oligarchy. The answer to that is so simple: revise all election laws to make any personal contribution more than $50.00 illegal. Each qualified candidate is given $1000,00 by the government to campaign and all tv/radio stations allot free and equal time to each candidate. No campaing starts until six weeks before Election Day.
Lifting the burden of constantly begging for money would be a relief to any serious lawmaker, and shortening the campaign would be a relief to the rest of us. If a candidate cannot get his/her message out in six weeks, they have no business standing for an office.
We the people have a job to do. And that is to convince the lawmakers that they have the power to fix this,and that we demand that they do so.
Phil, don't hold back. Excellent calling out a few of his crimes.
Well said! This may be Mark Kelly’s jump to Presidential candidacy ( unless the Trump conspiracy is so broad that they can put him in prison for “treason against Trump”!)
All that glitters is not gold.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/trump-ripped-for-bizarre-gold-decor-after-sleuths-fact-check-claim-it-s-not-home-depot-stuff/ar-AA1Qexpx
TY Phil, sums it up!
Take an incompetent monster, give him power >and complete immunity from consequences<...
Fixed it for you.
Phil, great to see you batting lead-off. Only prob. is that there were no runners on base when you knocked the cover off of the ball and out of the park.🫱🏻🫲🏽
Your rapid-fire moral inventory of the gangster régime, as a vitamin supplement to Dr Richardson's fine and candid essay, said it all.💪🏾
Yet I stand at the rim of a bottomless, burning volcano of outrage and despair and, increasingly, desperation for my belovèd, albeit unlikeable, republic.💔
No Nestea plunge this time. There is a fine article by retired LTG Mark Hertling that lays out clearly for non-veterans like me what exactly these oaths say and how they work.💡
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-americans-should-understand-about-the-military-disobeying-illegal-orders-two-oaths
https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/former-fbi-director-james-comey-responds-to-dismissal-of-charges/669587 (*James *Comey; 2⅓min.)
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/explanation-the-comey-and-james-prosecutions (*Joyce *Vance *and *Preet *Bharara; 18¾min.)
The second and third links *feature Mr Comey's heartening and heart-felt message and Joyce Vance's thankfully in-the-weeds analysis of the dismissals with Preet Bharara.⚖️
Send support to Senator Kelly and speak up about our wild reality!
There’s a calendar on my spreadsheet so we can target our calls/letters/emails/faxes to flood offices in an organized manner.
Use/share this spreadsheet (bit.ly/Nokings) as a resource to contact members of Congress, the Cabinet and news organizations. Call. Write. Email. Protest. Unrelentingly. We deserve better ❤️🩹🤍💙
Reach out (beyond your own) to as many in the Senate and House as you can. All of this is bigger than “I only represent my constituents” issues.
Add a comment to help keep this bumped ✊
Megan Rothery, thank you. I heard on my public radio station this morning that the reason some in Congress choose to vote for the release of the Epstein files was because of the number of emails and phone calls that they received by their constituents.
This works people! Let’s keep up the pressure!
That's very good news. Thanks, Vickie, and as always thanks to Megan.
Thank you Megan. Prof. Richardson in a podcast suggested to write a thank you note to the 6 veterans and duly elected representatives that stood up and stated to not obey illegal orders. We wrote thank you post cards to all 6. It is beyond shameful that the President who is a draft dodger would call for their execution by hanging. They are getting death threats by the thousands. This is political persecution.
It would appear that what is being called extrajudicial murders in the Caribbean are illegal. Great Britain is not sharing intelligence about any boat traffic in the Caribbean, so other countries are also questioning the legality. Sen. Mark Kelly has launched a fundraiser to combat the investigation. Republicans, Democrats, Independents should be outraged by the President’s remarks for execution. Our military put their lives on the line.
Can you blame them? This maladministration is anything but trustworthy and completely lacks integrity.
Thank you Megan. You provide a lifeline between us and our representatives. It is a lifeline that runs in both directions.
Keep up the good work - and thank you!
Of course it's bigger. TN Senator Marsha Blackburn has supported Trump's every move. Our other Senator Jim Haggerty has been mute. They are an embarrassment to TN.
And my rep, Tim Burchett, is a national punch line. I’m 0 for 3. That’s why I support Www.bluetennessee.org. We need more blue.
Could be worse. You could, like me, be saddled with the filth coming out of Ohio.
Elizabeth, as the self-designated "WalMart" greeter on the forum, I see you are a fairly newbie commenter. WELCOME to the group! Glad to have you here.
Thanks Megan.
You’re welcome! Thanks for speaking up right now!
Thank you Megan. I just picked up my phone and called Sen Kelly to thank him. Easy since you posted your file right here.
You’re amazing!!
Nah. You provided the tools—I just used them. Thank you.
Mark Kelly stands up for democracy and the rule of law. He refuses to be silenced by authoritarian bullies. Others will follow his example.
As HCR said, Kelly called for Americans to “stand up and show the fools who would frighten us, who would divide us, that we’re made of stronger stuff, that we believe in the rule of law"
Thank you for helping us do that, Megan!
Thank you for your amazing work Megan.
Thank you so much Megan!
What is up with this “I only represent my constituents.” guff?
Do the constituents pay all of the lobbyists in D.C.? Are they restricted to the lobbies?
Is there a citizenship clause in the Corporations United ruling? (Sometimes I have trouble spelling “citizens” … sorry.)
Are the multi-state, multi-national dark-money PACs constituents? (Yes, they are multi-national. Yes, that is illegal, I hope. No, I can’t prove it. Why do we call it dark money? Must a civil engineer prove liquid flows downhill?)
Why do all these politicians from all over the country ask me to contribute to their efforts to influence their constituents?
I’ve never been a sailor. I only recall being on a sailboat two times in my 71 years. Why do I have nightmares about being tangled in a twisted mass of writhing ropes as my boat plunges into the deep?
That’s my bump. Who’s next?
As Thanksgiving celebrations all around the country commence, I am thankful we still have freedom to speak and share our love and appreciation for each other, to pursue our dreams for ‘a more perfect union’ and a safe, peaceful world for our children. The destructive forces aligned against us cannot be allowed to prevail. It will be a great blessing to all if we can emerge from this nightmare without terrible violence and bloodshed in our cities, on our campuses and in places where Americans freely gather. But if it comes to that, I believe the brave leaders among us will rise up to face the moment. Senator Mark Kelly is one such leader I would be proud to follow. (To all local, state and federal agencies: I am not advocating violence. I support peaceful resistance unless attacked.)
Thank you, Megan, for this wonderful resource!
Thank you for your spreadsheets!
Thanks
You’re welcome! Thanks for being aware and active!
An inspiring and necessary response from Senator Mark Kelly against the aggressive allegations made by the Trump administration and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. This all springs from those six Congresspeople reminding those serving in the military that they must not follow illegal orders. Hegseth was the guy, remember, who was asked at his senate confirmation hearing if he would disobey an order from Trump if it were illegal. That's ridiculous, Hegseth parried the question. Why? he was asked. Because, Hegseth explained, Trump would never give an illegal order. The senate confirmed him. And here we are.
Yeah, the problem with this whole issue (and one of the difficulties of the statement issued by the Democratic lawmakers including Kelly) is that it is not necessarily obvious, especially to someone NOT trained in the law, what is an illegal order. I think some things are probably easier to decide that others. Being told to go murder a civilian would probably be considered illegal by MOST service people, although again, if you were told "We have to kill John Smith because our intelligence says he is a double agent and is planning on blowing up the Pentagon" by your superior and their superiors, would you think, as say a Lieutenant or Sergeant, that you would have the right and/or authority to question that and demand some kind of clear and convincing proof that you have to obey? Or would you think, in the wake of 9/11, that you had an obligation to "protect and defend" your country by following the order and killing John Smith?
I expect most service people would prefer to obey and use their obedience as a defense if they were charged with murder.
This is a complicated jungle, and in the past, we have stumbled through things like this relying on the integrity of the people in the chain of command not to issue such an order unless it was seriously necessary.
I think that today, such dependence on sincerity and integrity may be a great risk.
Interesting comment, Jon. You're right that knowing the difference between a legal and an illegal order might well be difficult in many combat situations and not only. Nevertheless, there is nothing treasonous in reminding soldiers how they are required to behave by our Constitution and laws, while blowing up small boats without first attempting to board and inspect them is clearly and unambiguously illegal, unconstitutional and, in the long-run politically stupid.
The lawyer at U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the operations against alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela, disagreed that the strikes are legal and was overruled, according to six sources. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/top-military-lawyer-raised-legal-concerns-boat-strikes-rcna243694
You guys missed My Lai, Abu Garab, etc.
The US admiral in charge of the Southern Command retired last month.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/16/admiral-alvin-holsey-caribbean-venezuela
Well said David!
Wasn’t it just the higher ups who were hauled into Nuremberg. Of course, it was the grunts who had to carry out the orders, but who was held accountable. The trials are always down the road for the perps.
Yes, for the most part, only higher ups were prosecuted. Nuremberg trials prosecuted just 177 Nazis or collaborators, all of whom were relatively high up in the German command. Most of them were found guilty, although several were, particularly some civilian industrialists, were acquitted. The thousands upon thousands of "grunts" who carried out the orders were mostly spared from trial, although some were tried in local trials and in other countries (Soviet Union had its own trials, as well as some of the other Eastern bloc states).
As a practical matter, typically only "losers" of wars are tried for war crimes. It is rare (the Calley trial over My Lai - no Daniel, I didn't miss it LOL - was an exception, although he was singled out... none of the others either under his command or above him in the chain of command were ever tried).
As Ben Franklin (I think) once said, "Treason is a crime invented by winners as an excuse to hang the losers". In some sense that is true of all war crime allegations. Had the US lost WWII (or at least the Japanese part of WWII), it is almost certain that some Americans might have stood trial in Japan for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Let’s not forget TACO’s interference with military justice in his first term. https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/15/trump-pardon-war-crimes-071244
Tough truths await anyone opening their eyes to history. Thanks for your sobering comments today Jon.
I just saw the movie Nuremberg. Reminded of what “just following orders” can lead to.
I plan on seeing it on Friday or Saturday this weekend. Looks interesting.
Didn't the Nuremberg Trials make the "I was just following orders" defense kaput?
Not at all. In fact Nuremberg itself sort of put a stamp on that defense because although it convicted about 150 of the accused, it also acquitted about 25, and many hundreds more were never charged.
If members of Congress are so concerned about the illegality of Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump's commands, they should not put the onus on those serving at the bottom of the chain of the command. Impeach Trump. His orders for illegal military strikes in the Caribbean are just one more reason to do so. But instead of confronting Trump, these few representatives of Congress circulate a highly divisive and confusing video, charging them to determine for themselves the legality of Trump's orders and refuse to carry out the illegal ones. The video then tells them Congress has their back. How are they supposed to know that when Congress has been kowtowing to Trump all this time? Our troops do not know Congress has their back. The Jane Fonda era of visiting troops in Vietnam to browbeat them into disobeying their oath to service is an uncomfortable and shameful memory. Perhaps trying for the best, Fonda didn't know enough to know what her interference could wreck: putting the well-being of the troops at risk by sowing confusion and discord among them. Her great influence should have been wielded at a higher level. And now, if Congress members are incensed at the commander-in-chief's illegal commands, they should use their Congressional power of the purse to prohibit Trump from using Congressionally appropriated funds for illegal military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific and work to remove him from office.
Oh come on, are you completely missing what is going on? The Democrats are NOT in power in Congress and have no hope of impeaching ANYONE who is GOP, Trump or anyone else. They are doing the best they can to communicate what they think needs to be done. Congress has been kowtowing to Trump because the GOP controls both houses of Congress, that is certainly not "news" to anyone.
Trump’s bias precedes him. Bondi is his right hand, Patel is his left, Pirro (Subway sandwich verdict) is half his ass and Retribution Barbie is the other half of his ass. Thus every court action brought by these bias people has no veracity whatsoever. Trump’s history of extortion puts every criminal action brought by these people in a bind. Nevertheless, Trump is our “leader.” That means we should follow him, Bondi, Patel, Pirro, and Halligan. Thus all good Americans who receive a federal jury summons should raise their right hand and swear under oath, with as much meaning as when Trump, Bondi, Petal, Pirro, and Halligan took their oath, and then do your duty! Remember the Sandwich Guy, Comey, James, Bolton, Schiff, Smith, Kinzinger, Kelly, Hill, and also all the pardons of real criminals who conspired with him in multiple ways to steel the 2020 election. A judge can only do so much, but one juror is like an ant at a picnic.
A lot of ants will make you pack up your picnic and go home.
Maybe only a few on the blanket and they pack it and go to another park. But a few ants there and....
But the central folks listed by Killackey are just the stage actors. Those wrote write the evil orders are behind the scene.
Half-arsed is how one might describe his vindictive indictments.
Thanks for that reminder, Constance.
France 24, a French public broadcasting service, is reporting that X inadvertently turned on account location features showing that Top MAGA accounts are based outside of the US. https://youtu.be/OhHHw3TacVE?si=I5PbeO6FdbBJ73eT
Yep. There are magat fakers in Bangladesh and Nigeria. The account location feature was evidently not inadvertent and was turned off as soon as the SHTF.
Many countries, cat cat, all with nefarious leaders, play the crooked writing games.
Is it because these leaders all know in too many regular schools truly ambitious literacy has so very little perch anymore?
And these pretend-American accounts -- does AI construct them for whatever mafiosi are yet paying oligarch debts and shakedowns? Do the different dictators, mob bosses, and nationalist weavers of hate scenarios have as busy an algorithm-based industry and Jeffrey, Donald, and Ghislaine had in theirs of multi-billionaire-dollar trafficking of underage girls?
Can the schools of decent democracies compete with so much human emptiness? Is that neutered and neutering emptiness eating away at schools' decent purposes as many of us see it having made such inroads in countries such as Japan in thrall to what testing has done to U.S. schools?
GDITFH, Mr. Balla! You are incorrigible!* Shame on you! "At long last, Sir, have you left no sense of decency?"**
Your persistent, distorted, and unconscionable attacks on school leadership, teachers, schools, and standardized testing (about this last of which your ignorance is shameful) is no less unconscionable than Trump's respecting the Declaration, the Constitution, or the Gettysburg Address, or the Secretary of Defense threatening to recall and court martial Senator Kelly for publicly stating the fact of all members of the armed forces obligations respecting illegal orders.
This retired professor, therefore, as promised publicly to you repeatedly, calls you out for the nth time on your falsehoods, this time in Sentences 1, 2 and 5: an "F" for each of them.
________________________
*In any and all four of the definitions in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition.
**Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, June 7, 1954.
Are we sure it was inadvertent? Couldn’t it have been Musk taking a brief dig at Trump?
It has also been reported in the US: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/top-maga-influencers-accidentally-unmasked-080635757.html
And interesting heat map of where they are located: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRZUPBjEreX/
Its interesting on that heat map that very few of the influencers appear to be in Russia or China (which are mostly green) but that the principle locations are Africa and the Middle East (and of course parts of the US). What that suggests to me is that many of the "influencers" use relocation software to make it appear their locations are elsewhere. That stuff is widely available and not difficult to use at all. And the good stuff is highly secure, and can't easily be broken, even by law enforcement.
Case in point: dear gawd I’ll be happy when Medicare enrollment ends. I’m constantly rejecting calls from “potential spam” from all corners of my area.
Spare me this idiot phenomenon of "influencers".
They're as empty as their foolish title.
The bots on META are often AI generated. I’m getting pretty good at spotting them.
Great, France saved us once, can they do it again?
Russia? Vlad may panic if his ploy to take Ukraine runs into snags and his puppet loses his mojo. What does Vlad have as his backup plan. Or the P2025 cretins. It won’t be pretty…
there are lots of American reports of this as well, and descriptions of some of the allegedly American patriotic accounts created in Nigeria, Poland, Israel, and other hotspots of American patriotism.
I appears that Trump can thank Musk for this.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/24/media/x-features-maga-accounts
Oh dear! And they'd only just made up.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5612031-trump-musk-saudi-dinner/
I saw that also! I perhaps misremember, but I think it was Heather who said that much of the internet comments were placed their by operatives in attempt to drive a narrative. Elsewhere, (I can't remember where, sorry) I read that approx 40% of comments in social media are bots and/or foreign paid placement.
Good to see Halligan fail so miserably. That’s what you get for appointing completely incompetent idiots who don’t know jack sh*t about the job they have to do, but whose only requirement is their willingness to kiss the Orange Goblin Baby’s bloated behind.
That applies to puppet Bondi like a glove Duch.
Yup. Bondi is a "Paradebeispiel", as they call it here in Germany.
In Italian she would be a Pupi....even simpler than in English. Maybe in Spanish? Títere. In any case, regarding of the language, she is the Secretary of the Trump's Defense 4th Branch of Government.
Does German even have any words that are less than 15 letters?? 😐
The only German word I recall my mother using was "Dummkopf"
So there is at least one!
Yes, it does. "Moin" is a very often used expression which can mean basically anything ;)
But yes, the Germans are indeed capable of making words with more than 20 letters, like "Einkommensteuererklärung", "Normenkontrollverfahren" or "Justizvollzugsbeamter".
My glancing experience with German is that instead of coining nouns for things, they just jam together what the thing does. Instead of "toilet," they'd go with ceramicbowlthatflushesawaypooandpee.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
😅😅 best description I’ve ever seen
True. Though they do have a simple "toilette", the Germans indeed have these very long 'describing' combo-nouns.
🤣
😂
Who would accept a job they know they're unqualified for that's as visible as this? Only another narcissist, who thinks because she's always been "pretty" she deserves anything and can also do anything.
Look for her on Faux Nooz
I keep wondering about that, too. I'd shit my pants if I would have been made director of the FBI, or worse, in charge of the American military. I'd collapse under the enormous responsibility, afraid to do something wrong, or making a decision that could cost peoples' lives. Hegseth just took another swig of cheap whisky, yelled "America f*ck yeah" and took on the job.
That is because you have a couple things that Kegsbreath lacks: Intelligence and a soul.
Thanks, Ally :) But I'm really honestly wondering if Hogsbreath is human at all.
Between him and RFJ Jr I wonder about lizard people...
I think of Roger Stone and Steven Miller. I could totally see Miller on live tv yelling about something, then his skin tears open and a giant lizard breaks out!
And in this whackadoodle world we're living in, I doubt I'd even be surprised.
Or terminator-type cyborgs built by Peter Thiel and Elon Musk...
Have you seen the perpetual deer-in-the-headlights expression on Patel's face? Or is that just his natural look?
...or has something rigid been implanted in his backbone - or somewhere else?
Pretty much.
But Halligan looks good and has big lips.
Ugh. In my mind, I can hear Trumpelthinskin going on and on about that. "Lindsey is great, she is the best, a great woman. Everybody knows it. Absolutely qualified for the job. She has, like, studied things. Lawyer things. And she has two great assets that are very important to me, very important. That makes her absolutely qualified."
Marches Dozy Don’s vetting guidelines for women hires
And women appointees: they have to pass the requisite MAGAgirl appearance guidelines: oversized fake boobs, diamond cross necklace, massive hair extensions, heavy make-up. Dear Leader thinks he still judges tawdry and vulgar “beauty” pageants.
I think you forgot the tight leggings with panther print - they are also part of the guidelines.
The Kelly story is meant to be a distraction from the fracture going on in the Republican party. Punch Bowl reported that there are more Representatives threatening to resign early. Trump wants that story buried. But there is a ploy that Mike Johnson can use to deal with that.
Mike Johnson has the unilateral power to shut down the House in the event that a cluster of early resignations by fed-up Republicans threatens to flip the House majority. But he ALSO has the unilateral power to RECONVENE the House. Republicans gave him the power when they voted for the House Rules at the opening of this session of Congress.
He can shut the House down if he sees support growing for a resolution to remove him as speaker.
He can shut the House down if he sees support growing for a discharge petition to change the rules and take that power away from him.
And ONLY HE CAN RECONVENE THE HOUSE.
Playing by the rules, the next opportunity to change the rules would be when the next Congress convenes in January 2027 after the midterms.
Of course, the rule could be challenged in the courts, but that takes time.
And the current continuing resolution funding the government only runs through January 30, 2026.
Mike Johnson is still highly motivated to protect Trump from the disclosures in the Epstein files. He is also now motivated by wanting to keep the Speakership, if in name only, and to return to Trump's good gracess. This is the nuclear option.
In the authoritarian playbook, guys like Viktor Orbán successfully play by the rules to subvert the intent of the law.
How do you think this is going to play out?
Authoritarians who last are popular. Trump and the consequences of his regime are the opposite. Reason for hope.
We all spend a great deal of time here thinking of the worst possible outcomes of our quandaries. But worst doesn't necessarily translate into likeliest, especially not right now.
The first vote on healthcare subsidies takes place in mid-December in the Senate. There's only about a two-week window for this, given the calendar. Already, President Pissy Pants is making noises about demanding that Congress extend the subsidies. This is interesting. In the middle of his various miasmas, the fear of losing keeps haunting him. The last vote in the Senate for Big Ugly was 50-50, with Maybelline Wanker Boy breaking the tie. It's entirely possible that some Senators, watching not Trump, but the November 4 blue wave, might have a change of heart.
That puts it back to the House, and as you mention, the CR runs only through January 30. The likeliest outcome is that government will shut down yet again, with the public getting a second chance to examine in full view what Republicans really stand for. Going straight into an election-year campaign, that's a terrible outcome for them. Self-interest is already rising as the greatest motivation of all, and it's not looking good for them.
I think Kegsbreath had no idea that Mark Kelly and the others would punch back as hard as they did, and they certainly did not see the appointment of Lindsey Halligan declared illegal. A lot of forces are punching back on them -- and hard.
Winter is coming. And they are not prepared. And frightened. This week, I'm taking heart.
“This week, I'm taking heart.” Yeah, me too. It appears we have turned a corner and the regime’s wheels are wobbly. November 4 couldn’t have happened at a better time. We all knew this fascist bullshit was unsustainable over the long run, but I am a bit surprised the blowback came as soon as it did. Now if good fortune prevails and the dictator has left us by June, one way or another, the midterms should go as planned. It’s still dangerous out there, though. The criminal rat is feeling the walls closing in and that makes him even more nuts than he already is. The video reminding the military to refuse illegal orders will surely come in handy if the dictator gives the order to send out the nukes.
We've temporarily forgotten about that pathetic performance by an aging Las Vegas drag showman and his little sidekick bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet a couple of months back, addressing senior military commanders many times smarter than him as "the people who kill and break things for a living."
Kegsbreath is a mascaraed asswipe too dumb to know when to come in out of the rain. He demonstrated his lack of qualifications in front of literally EVERY senior officer in the Pentagon. You can bet they're all thinking of that -- as well as the video by former military/intelligence officials on the need to follow Nuremberg rules -- and all that may come to a head in Venezuela soon enough.
You know, it’s funny, when the mascaraerd asswipe (LOL) is front and center, he is the one you hate the most. Then the next day, that criminal running DOJ comes out with another one of her snotty arrogant statements, and you hate her the most. On and on, it’s like whack-a-mole. I’ve got a lot of years on me and I don’t think I’ve seen such a collection of the absolute worst creatures, I won’t refer to them as human, assembled in one place ever. In a perverse way, it’s quite an accomplishment.
That's dumptys super power.
What an apt description of the charade that is our government. Whack-a-mole.
Yeah, but if you've ever tried to play Whack-a-mole, you know that you can't beat it. Its a carnival game and that is the whole point. You keep the focus changing from moment to moment and the player just can't stay with it for more than a few minutes. That is PRECISELY the game the GOP (or at least the Trumpians) are playing and it serves its purpose. You get so discombobulated watching the next "mole" pop up that you can't even stay with the game.
For me, it's Caro-lying Leavitt, the Propagandist in Chief.
What in the world gives you the idea that somehow Trump will be gone by June? I seriously doubt it (unless he dies in some way). And if I was running for Congress as a Democrat personally, I would want the BEST protection for him possible, because as crazy as it sounds, I believe Vance would provide a better interim for keeping the GOP together than Trump. Vance is deviously smart and Thiel, his puppetmaster is even smarter. Trump is crazy and his shenanigans are hard to miss, Vance would do much better for the GOP if he was in control. At least that's me $.03 and I'm sticking to it!
Ha! I’ll see your $.03 and raise you $.02. Couple of things; I’ve been posting for a while about the dictator being gone by June. It’s merely a wish, a plea to The Universe, that it be so. I wish I had some real insight to this, but obviously I don’t. We have differing views of the dictator’s second banana. I think Shady JD is a toothless punk. I did at one time fear him because I thought he was smart, but he’s proven to me, at least, he’s just as stupid as the rest of them. Plus, no one likes the SOB. The dictator’s MAGATS don’t especially care for him, he really has no constituency, none that I can tell anyway. And if the regime minus the dictator hangs around after his exit, I think Gruppenfuhrer Miller and Russell Vought will play with Vance like cats with a mouse. Now THOSE two are the ones I fear.
Nobody, but nobody likes Wanker Boy. He's almost as irrelevant as irrelevant can be. No black magic up those sleeves at all.
People keep spinning tales of fantasy about his power, about the powerful puppet strings, about Thiel, about this and that. These people are nowhere near as powerful as they want you to believe, or as many here all too readily leap to premature conclusions about.
And President Diapers may well soon wander into the Briefing Room clad only in his underthings. Dementia is a progressive disease, not a static one.
The only calming thought, for me, is I believe Vance thinks rather highly of himself. I could see him thinking "they report to MEEEEEE!!!!" not vice versa. He's relied on Usha helping him get to where he got Thiel's attention, and Usha doesn't appear to be all that happy right now.
Well Miller is definitely one to fear, but honestly if Trump is gone, I believe Miller will be subsumed into the waves because he is a Jew and frankly, the Trump/Maga supporters don't exactly love Jews, even though Trump plays footsey with them all the time (Miller, Netanyahu, his son-in-law, etc.) IF Trump is gone, that support will dissipate.
But I definitely fear Vought. He is dangerous AND could lead a consolidation of power, much as Dick Cheney did for Bush II. He won't ever be President, but if he is running things for Vance, I think your thought that Vance won't be important goes out the window.
I think he'll be gone only when he gets even more untethered. Which, by judging by my brother's decent into his Alzheimer's, I do think will be by June. The "Quiet, Piggy!" is a bigger deal than most realize, methinks.
And he openly falls asleep while media is recording his nodding off. Nothing holds his attention. Early morning crazed posts also speak to disordered sleep. He is visible crumbling
BTW: please look at all recent photos of his hands on the desk. He always had left had covering the right one. Every photo.
I think you are definitely "wishful thinking" here. I just don't see it at all. The GOP is going to have to decide to take him out and I don't see that happening at all. He is their "linchpin".
ICTT, I’ve some House Rs are thinking of following MTG and resigning (leaving the Rs with a loss of majority). What do you think?
I'm too busy giggling to give you a coherent answer right now.... 🤣
Seriously (i.e., belay the giggles for a moment) between now and January 30 lie circa sixty days. Do you believe it's possible for the "leadership dems" to get their shit together sufficiently to do the policy and strategic thinking on the three dozen distinct dimensions of the threats to the Republic Trump and Company have visited upon America? Alternative scenarios for legislative 2026, and for the midterm elections campaigns, and the tasks they see needing to be undertaken by Congress in '27 and '28 leading up to the different set of tasks facing the next President? So much time has already been wasted. Can we really get there? Are we doomed to just keep fiddle-fucking around??
Let me know when you’ve quit giggling. 🫤
Yes, this story is going around. If 3-4 GOP congress critters decide to not run and immediately step down, that would put the House into Democratic hands almost immediately, at least until replacement elections are held sometime in 2026 IF THAT HAPPENS (which it might not as the actual 2026 elections will be so close that some states may not wish to pay for an extra election.
There is precedent for this happening. I don't remember the exact year but I believe it was sometime in the 80s that the GOP was in power in the House by a very thin margin and a couple of House GOP guys died and it threw the power to the Dems. But one of the states held a quick election and the power went back to the GOP within a few months. Its late but I will look it up tomorrow.
Actually, House rules mostly can NOT be challenged in court, as most courts hold that as a separate branch of government, courts can not step in and issue orders or rulings dealing with the House's (and the Senate's) own rules. There are some exceptions, but in general (and certainly regarding adjournment and reconvening either body) the courts refuse to deal with those issues, stating that that would violate the separation of powers defined in the Constitution. There have been several rulings like this, including ones where one of the bodies has either refused to seat an elected congress critter or Senator (similar to the hold up of swearing in the Arizona congresswoman this year). The courts simply refuse to get involved saying that both houses of Congress have the right to make their own rules. The Supreme Court has typically supported such rulings.
I think Johnson will play as close to the line as he thinks he can dare, but he will probably step back if he thinks he could actually get into serious trouble in the future. He has a lot of allegiance to Trump, but as we have seen in the past (such as with Watergate and during the Iran contra debacle) Congress critters have a self-preservation mechanism that usually kicks in at SOME point, albeit in Johnson's case, he has certainly played chicken with that line a lot more than some prior Speakers.
It is going to be interesting if a few more GOP Congress critters decide to resign early. MTG is waiting until Jan 5, 2026 only because she needs to be in the House for 5 years in order to qualify for a pension and that date is exactly 5 years after her swearing into Congress in 2021.
Politics is an interesting spectator sport, because in the end, everything that happens can ultimately effect the spectators too :-)
So here is Article 1 Section 5 of the Constitution:
Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
The first one is what prevents the judicial review of the rules. Thank you so much for pointing that out. The second one initially looks like it provides a constraint that requires the Senate to agree to any adjournment longer than 3 days, but what Johnson did during the shutdown was resort to pro forma sessions every 3 days where he adjourned and then immediately reconvened so by playing by that rule, he kept the House out of session and avoided needing Senate agreement.
According to legalclarity,org:
Pro forma sessions are typically called by leadership, such as the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader. They are often used to prevent the President from making recess appointments, which are temporary appointments made without Senate approval when the Senate is not in session. By holding pro forma sessions, the Senate remains technically in session, blocking the President’s ability to bypass the Senate’s advice and consent role.
These sessions also maintain legislative timelines, such as those related to budget resolutions or appropriations. By convening pro forma sessions, Congress adheres to deadlines without engaging in substantive legislative activity, ensuring that neither the executive nor legislative branches can unilaterally alter the legislative process.
Conducting a pro forma session in Congress involves straightforward yet structured steps. These sessions are scheduled in advance, with leadership issuing a notice. Attendance is not mandatory. The presiding officer, often the Speaker of the House or a designated senator, opens the session by calling it to order.
The session proceeds with no substantive legislative business. Instead, a brief statement may be read into the record or members’ presence acknowledged. This fulfills the formal requirement that Congress remains in session.
The use of pro forma sessions has been upheld by the courts when used to prevent Presidents from using their power to make appointments when Congress is out of session. That is a separation of powers issue. But maybe there is a judicial argument that the Founders did not intend him to give the Speaker unilateral authority to shut down the legislative branch ly based on the explicit need to obtain the consent of the Senate for long adjournments.
I should have just gone and read the Constitution, but then I wouldn't have needed your analysis.
Thanks for that important information! Can you cite some references? I have been working off the rules of the House and Library of Congress documents.
This makes Mike Johnson even more powerful!!! Scary shit.
Try this. Its an AI response, but it is pretty accurate (based on my evaluation). And there are other references online if you just google them.
https://www.google.com/search?q=can+House+of+Representatives+rules+be+challenged+in+federal+court%3F&oq=can+House+of+Representatives+rules+be+challenged+in+federal+court%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAtIBCTE0NjkxajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
The actual House rules are some of the hardest things to follow by reading them. They are filled with arcane stuff that often doesn't make sense (even though in the end it usually does). So I empathize with anyone's frustration about trying to figure out what is supposed to happen in the House. Fortunately there are 435 folks there, each of whom has their own legal authority as a representative of their own district, and they have the power to challenge things, so generally when they don't it is either because they are chicken or because the rules are being interpreted more or less correctly.
Thanks! I have been googling furious but went back to the ultimate source, the Constitution first. I have a thin argument based on the need for Senate approval that the proforma rules essentially nullify appended to your other reply.
Takes a constiutional lawyer to peel this onion. Johnson is one…
I would certainly question whether Johnson (Mike) is a constitutional lawyer. More like an unconstitutional lawyer, if you ask me :-)
Some think tank dies Republican thinking.
Or was. He might have trouble finding a job when he loses his seat.
And perhaps his freedom
Doesn't the senate have to agree if the House adjourns? I thought there was something about that.
But then Speaker Dobby and his pals agreed thst the entire term was only a day, so perhaps it disarmed all the other rules.
The shenanigans this rot of a party gets up to....
You’re right. As long as Howdy-Doody Johnson lives, the House will never function as a normal political body anymore. And those Epstein files will never be released. They will get lost in a fire due to an ‘unfortunate series of events’ - oopsie.
Nah, you can't burn electrons. The whole set is digitized somewhere, probably in multiple places what with the rules for backups of computer files. Too many people are involved to let them disappear. But that doesn't mean they won't try every trick in the book to keep the content from seeing the light of day. Too many powerful, rich people either know or are worried that their names are in those files (and they're not all Republicans).
Yep, and keep in mind that many Dem congress critters have seen those files too, and very likely some of them have copies of at least some of the (hopefully most) incriminating documents. They are playing by the rules (so far) because those rules are required in Congress, but I expect leaks will start to happen if it starts to appear that the GOP is REALLY going to go to the mat on stonewalling this stuff. I actually believe that at some point, enough GOP congress folks (it only takes 3 or 4 now) will decide to bail because the political consequences in their district will be too great if they don't. Trump definitely has a lot of power, but it would be folly to really presume his power is uncheckable. We all know what happened to Nixon, proving that no President is REALLY beyond the law in the end. I have great confidence that Trump WILL ultimately pay the price, but we will all suffer for quite a while until that happens, just as we did for several years back in the early 70s after Watergate happened (72, and Nixon didn't resign until 74, almost 2 full years).
I thought so but where are they, as this drags on, chump will just say, they are a hoax, been made up by democrats, blah, blah. Will the SC say pedophilia is an official act, committed before he ran for office. Insane you say. No schitt, Sherlock
I can’t forget how the Supreme Court has enabled and expanded DJT’s powers.
Yep, as I said earlier, I do consider it possible that the Supreme Court will rule that pedophilia is part of a president's official duties.
Musk has the files and can use the info for profit and blackmail.
Agree. Too many rich and powerful men in the Files. They are not coming out
Very unfair Duch. You know that if you bet that your prediction would be reality you can't lose. Give other people a chance 😃
Mr. Squeaker
Unreliable Georgia that a role model for this country now it's Viktor Orbsn's Hungary. What a disaster 😑
We’ll have another government shutdown in January and it will be even longer than the last one. Trump has no interest in governing. All he wants is a Nobel and gaudy monuments to himself. When he is cornered because of his many failed domestic policies, he’ll launch an unpopular war against Venezuela, ostensibly aimed at toppling that country’s corrupt regime, but actually aimed at access to Venezuelan oil. Of course, Trump and his family will somehow finagle kick backs from the oil companies. It’s unlikely the Democrats will retake the House, UNLESS Trump refuses to continue the enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Then, all bets are off.
Remember though, the nationwide elections, including the governor’s office in Virginia and New Jersey were won by Democratic candidates before the subsidies were front and center. Healthcare overall, and the cuts to Medicaid and hence those to Medicare, are still in effect.
We've been there before. The media makes a HUGE deal about this, but in the recent past, off-off-year elections (2021) which went strongly Democrat and provided a false sense of security that the Dems would prevail in '22 were completely wrong and the GOP gained control of the House in '22. I am NOT predicting the GOP will hold the House, in fact, I think itwill be VERY close and I think the Dems have a good chance of taking control, but anyone thinking that somehow the Dems will have a HUGE victory is smoking some REALLY good dope these days. NOT going to happen.
Somewhat Meh dope, but I don’t know that ‘21 election was thought to favor democrats.
It was the year that both Ossoff and Warnock won Senate seats in Georgia. It was also the year that Youngkin (R in VA) won but that was considered a LESS "Trumpian" result than had been hoped for (and the VA legislatures stayed majority Democratic). The more important point is that 2021 like 2025 was only a small part of the electorate and it is typically incorrect to read too much into swings during that election.
The important year is NEXT year (2026) when all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate (including 20 GOP Senators out of 33) are up for grabs.
Liz48 would ditch Johnson as the first step, how many disaffected repubs would it take?
Liz48? Liz Warren? Liz Cheney? There are quite a few Liz's who could contend for the Presidency in 2028 if they wanted to although I think LW is probably too old, and Cheney, even though we all "love her" now for her bravado in defying Trump, is NOT a great "Democrat", that's for sure. She is a die-hard GOP member like her dad and I am not sure I could ever support her for President unless it was SOLELY to beat Trump.
As Greg Olear said, it could be anyone with the chops to appeal to enough people to elect a sane Speaker. Since the Speaker does not have to be in congress, the field is open…
Well reasoned, thanks.
Speaker Dobby will also have much to answer for. Another incompetent fraud who looks his part for the cameras but is a pitiful weak sycophant.
Drumpf has a real talent for finding people who are so weak and so stupid they're willing to do his bidding for a swing at power. That then flips on them and bites them in the ass.
I think Project 2025 sidewalk has ended for MAGA, and they are not good at thinking on their feet. This was evidenced when they were blindsided by 5 Democratic Senators who voted to reopen the government on terms no MAGA law maker would have agreed to just days before. They are out of ideas and guidance. Expect more distractions (e.g. threatening the death penalty for elected elected office holders exercising free speech), and House of Representatives shut downs.
MAGA is also waking up to the fact that ALL of the Trump Administration's efforts are for maintaining their money-making grift, not to forwarding the MAGA culture wars agenda. That is why MTG is resigning, and why other Republican law makers may resign early too.
And I am never going to associate the name Republican with honor, courage, decency, or humanity ever again. The name should no longer be used to denote one of our political factions. It will be forever linked with evil. Those in government who still call themselves Republicans should be facing trials for their crimes against humanity, for the destruction of USAID, which has led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
Maybe it's a little bit too early for your comment James. Just wait ( a way of saying) for the high premiums on health insurance plans to kick in and you'll have millones of americanos not able to get medical attention and therefore many more of those preventable deaths will be added to the crimes of this fascist regime. So much for the "party of life". Evangelicals woke up !!!!!!, you have blood in your hands already, don't make this situation worse.
The Guardian published an excellent article about what political greed and hubris is doing to Christianity, and the nation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/nov/23/america-christian-evangelical-discrimination-immigration
It seems that the Pope has got it in for Trump as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/23/who-can-tame-trump-pope-leo-xiv-catholic-church-usa
Trump has disclosed more than once his concerns about being able to get to Heaven.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-heaven-israel-hamas-gaza-christianity-b2844269.html
By the way, I love the Independent headline which seems to suggest that Trump wondered whether he could get to Heaven on Air Force One.
No need to worry though, there's always the other guy!
https://ew.com/thmb/UL_94FGOlc2sKQyXvELEJT86vpo=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/donald-trump-south-park-072425-1-8bd39a4db76e472ea82a77986ede6491.jpg
Naw, he's buying a stairway.
Stairways go down as well as up.
Can’t read the article unless I subscribe
So far as I know the Guardian and Independent don't actually require it.
What will Rupert do?
Yup, but until the pardon power is changed in the Constitution, this is a dead horse you are beating. No one will EVER be prosecuted for such crimes, even after Trump is gone, as the pardons will flow until everyone is covered. And like it or not (and I certainly hate it), those pardons will stick like glue, because that is the way the Constitution reads. It shouldn't, but it does.
The worst thing about Trump’s pardoning fraudsters is that he removes any obligation on the pardoned to pay restitution to the people they defrauded. Not only do they see the people who cheated getting out of prison, but they won’t get their money back as the restitution orders have been vacated. That has to be rubbing salt in their wounds.
This is not ALWAYS true and in some cases, Trump may have decided on clemency instead of a pardon precisely because of this. An act of clemency which reduces or eliminates jail/prison time doesn't necessarily eliminate other penalties like restitution. A number of the people he has "let go" have been given clemency grants rather than pardons, and I expect this MIGHT have something to do with it. But of course, I am not in his head and so I can't be at all sure of anything.
I see. I had mentioned this as I had read something the other day online which stated that in some of the cases where Trump had pardoned or offered clemency to offenders, the restitution orders had been vacated as well, so the people pardoned had no remaining obligation to make restitution to their victims. What is interesting is that one of the people Trump pardoned has gone on to commit new scams, and he is now facing prosecution in these new scams.
Many of those pardoned owed restitution to the US government. Some fines/restitution in the millions.
Yes, and the restitution was ultimately to be collected by the government to repay people scammed out of their money.
I guess a clemency grant can also relieve an obligation for restitution, but in general each aspect of clemency must be spelled out, so if you are granted a reprieve from prison (only), that doesn't mean you don't have to complete your restitution. That is unlike a pardon because in the latter, it is as if you have been found not guilty (in most respects) whereas in clemency, only the part(s) of your sentence that is shortened or ended applies. Your guilt is still on the record.
The founders knew of vipers, traitors, violent opponents, but they assumed that the electorate would be fair. They started out as the outliars, but it was the brutality of the British soldiers that galvanized the people to keep fighting. Innocents have already died, but we pretend…
This comment jumped out at me in Jefferson's 2nd Inaugural Address:
" the Press, confined to truth, needs no other legal14 restraint. the public judgment will correct false reasonings & opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press, and it’s demoralising licentiousness. if there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, it’s Supplement must be sought in the Censorship of Public opinion."
Fair and free elections are supposed to present "a full hearing of all parties", as are trails in a court. But what happened when the input of some parties is eclipsed? Or other parties hog the stage? There are studies of the "wisdom of the crowd" that indicate that input from diverse perceptions tend to be self correcting compared to solo estimates, although there are ways that is not always the case. In any case, crowd wisdom is a central feature of democracy. A full hearing of all parties may often be an reachable ideal, but so too is a crime-free society; which does not negate the attempt to make a society as representative, or as crime free as possible. There are viable strategies, but those invested in the status quo can be expected to resist them.
Such a wonderful dream, if propaganda did’t rule the fools
I have to snigger. How I wish that were true today. More communications options just elevated idiots. Sadly, by design
One difference was that in Jefferson's time "the press" was far more decentralized, even though not everyone could afford to aquire one. Yet billionaires did not yet exist, even corrected for inflation. The closest thing was slave-driving plantation owners, running America's first local "Big Business" (Which the British East India Company was not.) Both messed with American society.
Damn, No Rupert back then. Hearst came later and was less lethal
Republicans have long claimed that they own patriotism, and thus, the military.
Vainglorious cosplaytiots.
There are a handful of Republicans left. The rest are Trumpublicans, including the sniveling sycophants like McConnell, Rubio, and Comer.
I have been calling them repugnantkins for years now, I was a republican for years in the John McCain mold, so I understand them clearly. They are repugnant on so many levels, they are odious at their core, and their only hope for redemption is to disavow what they have become.
They call themselves "Republicans" yet tear down the republic, like Ray Bradbury's "Firemen" who went around burning books.
Parties change, as both the "R" and "D"s have over many decades, but we can't afford to normalize evil. A whole lot more attention should be paid to "preventable deaths", especially those that serve no more than self-centered political whim.
Trump should be impeached for what he’s done… and he WILL BE once the Democrats take back control of the House!
I keep saying this over and over: impeachment equals being charged—it does not equal being convicted and removed from office. The House can impeach someone (i.e., charge them), but to convict and remove them from office requires a supermajority in the Senate. That’s why no elected federal politician in US history, except one (which occurred over 200 years ago), has ever been convicted and removed. This constant discussion about impeachment is a waste of time in modern politics.
Would I like to see him convicted and removed from office? Of course, but I’m a realist, and spending months and months on an impeachment trial while the economic needs of the masses remain unaddressed/underdressed, only frustrates the masses who are desperate for relief from high inflation, desperate for a change in politics away from protecting the mega-rich, Wall Street, and multinational corporations, and desperate for affordable housing and access to affordable healthcare. And whom want a democracy not based on who can buy an election but on a one-person-one-vote reality.
If we as Democrats/social Democrats/independents want to achieve and hold onto the votes of the people, then we must once again become the party of Roosevelt and put our emphasis on the needs of the poor, working, and middle classes, and an emphasis on small and medium-sized businesses—not large mega-corporations that couldn’t care less about the communities in which they operate. The sooner we jettison our emphasis on corporatism and the wealthy within the Democratic Party, the quicker we’ll regain and retain the votes of the masses.
We have got to get serious fast about how the accumulation of tremendous wealth in a few hand distorts our economy, our culture, our physical environment, our form of government, and our probable future as a species. The "Gilded Age" was corrupt. Efforts to check and civilize the powers of "Robber Barons" was considered progress. The middle class grew, and efforts to empower more classes of citizens advanced How did we ever get bamboozled into bringing them back?
There are three things I may offer you to help answer your question. The first is acceptance and misunderstanding of neoliberalist driven economic policy in the form of "free markets" and "trickle down" policy adopted by leadership of both parties. The second is the non-enforcement of anti-trust laws, still on the books, designed to limit monopoly power. This non-enforcement, and deregulation, has happened under Administration's of both parties. Lastly. the disenfranchising of the working class, politically as well as economically, by both parties.
Three books to help understanding here are: Humanomics by Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson; From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth by Alex Gourevitch; and Outclassed by Joan C. Williams
well, and the spread of Fox News and its imitators, spreading lies to all who watch or listen - so huge swaths of the public have no idea what's actually going on.
And Biden deliberately broke with the 'trickle down' scam. Alas, he did not market Bidenomics very well, and of course the Fox-poisoned did not know about it anyway.
True that.
One of the things in the 3 dozen I mentioned above is looking at what the nation needs to do to facilitate what the 4th Estate is supposed to do to inform and focus and enhance the capacity of the polity to do its work as voters, Corporate ownership of media just won't hack it, especially if the oligarchs sit of top of it. Lot of thinking to be done on this.
Sorry Sadie, but I disagree about impeachment. We need to use the full toolbox to get this wannabe dictator out. It could be Epstein, or calling a war on Venezuela or massive political rallies that bring him down or flipping the House to hold him accountable but the full set of tools is needed. We do have
issues with inflation, housing costs but this President is torching all those issues. Third time impeachment could be the charm. Were we just 3 votes away from conviction the last time? Even though Justa Dick Vance is also a scary proposition as President, he does not have the cult following. One step at a time.
One interesting thing which has come out of the recent Epstein email dump are the large quantities of emails between Epstein and Steve Bannon. Bannon wasn’t an Epstein client, but Bannon was cultivating Epstein’s political support for Bannon’s extremism and Donald Trump. Their exchanges predominantly seem to have discussed politics and strategy.
and which 20 Republican senators do you expect will cross the line and vote with the Democrats because that is the number of Republican senators that will be required to convict and remove.
Remember, though, unless the Senate convicts, Trump will be impeached but remain in office, just like the first time. And beatings will continue as long as he remains.
Mitch can’t protect him this time, but somebody else likely will. I agree. Cult still in charge. I still like Greg Olear’s Liz48 plan. Has a better shot, although still difficult but sidelines Vance.
JD, I am not sure that Liz would have any chance at all. This country is NOT ready to elect a woman as president, which I find reprehensible, but her qualifications are not as good as the other two women who were defeated by ffpotus.
I would hope that desperation might loosen a few tight asses. Point taken since my bro favored male evil. Any male with the chops????
Possibly Mark Kelly.
He is already a Senator but great choice.
You have precisely described what I have been thinking. The Senate needs to be substantially reformed to remove its inherent malapportionmenf. With the Senate as it is comprised today, we would never get a conviction of Trump. McConnell was instrumental in preventing Trump’s conviction and removal from office, despite evidence of Trump’s obvious guilt. The Senate as constituted today would still never convict Trump.
And so does the House need to attend to its shortcomings.. How both houses do their work is on that list of 3 dozen I've mentioned including SCOTUS serious weaknesses, the crumbling of the separation of church and state, the bowing down before absurd wealth in the hands of a very few, etc. etc.
This is absolutely correct, but the Republicans are disinclined to clean up their own messes. The Democrats always nave to come in t fix what the Repúblicans broke.
100% agree
From Punchbowl News:
"In fact, a few other GOP members messaged us over the weekend saying that they, too, are considering retiring in the middle of the term.
Here’s one particularly exercised senior House Republican:
“This entire White House team has treated ALL members like garbage. ALL. And Mike Johnson has let it happen because he wanted it to happen. That is the sentiment of nearly all — appropriators, authorizers, hawks, doves, rank and file. The arrogance of this White House team is off putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened. They don’t even allow little wins like announcing small grants or even responding from agencies. Not even the high profile, the regular rank and file random members are more upset than ever. Members know they are going into the minority after the midterms.
“More explosive early resignations are coming. It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out.”
Looks like the Republican caucus is on the verge of fracture.
They're coming to the realization that they took the wrong path. And the end of it is their political destruction and entries in history books that paint them as traitors to the human race. It will be right and just. I have no sympathy for them, and will grant no absolution.
But I encourage them to do a MTG
Perhaps this is the corrective to the many fears of Mike Johnson being this all-powerful thing bent on protecting Trump no matter what. This small, wretched creature could never wield the power he supposedly has. And small cracks are already there, already causing much bigger cracks, which in turn are causing....
We can all be mistaken, but I remain deeply struck by how much of a Rube Goldberg contraption this all really is, held together only by scotch-tape and lies. For weeks, the whole thing has been shaking in gale-force winds. The very self-interest of small, greedy men (and a few women) in Congress continues to take its toll. Until November 4, they wandered in pure la-la land, untethered to reality of any kind, with a few here and there expressing their "concern." But the times, they are a-changin'.
The punch-back of patriots is something else they didn't bargain for. Yesterday, Senator Kelly broadcast a close-up of the various medals received for valor and meritorious conduct, adorning his Navy uniform (he made sure those stripes showed, too). My only thought (and I can't be alone): Kegsbreath sure picked the wrong dude to have a pissing contest with...
The small wretched creature may be a puppet, albeit a quite obedient one, whose strings are pulled by the Heritage Foundation’s backers with decades of planning behind them. The rules changes have always been opaque—there is no clean set that I have been able to find, just piles of references back to previous versions for the changes. Over time, the process has ceded enormous power to the Speaker to control the workings of the legislative branch.
The underlying weakness lies in the Constitution, which allows the House and Senate to make their own rules and procedures.
Johnson is using his power of appointments to control the rules committee, which determines what legislation gets to the floor for a vote. Johnson is using his powers to allow Trump to overreach on executive powers without any pushback.
I wish it were held together only by scotch tape.
All true and undeniable, yet political self-interest remains an even larger power than those arcane rules (which can change on a dime) and many are already the members telling him so. The winds are not blowing in his direction.
A lot of woe is me but nothing for the country and its democracy there.
Really good point. They haven't said a word about the mess they have caused did they.
Liz48, just what might be an escape hatch if the opposition has the guts. But would take planning and finesse. Blather won’t do.
What is to be done about the Supreme Court? And their power?
Thank you Georgia for this. While the Administration keeps lobbing distraction smoke bombs real events are unfolding. So it appears the Republican Party (MAGA) is fracturing?
Yes, along lines of self-interest.
There are those who are afraid of the blue wave but will also likely face primary challenges. They will be the first to break away. They don’t want to sink money into expensive primary campaigns they either lose, or they win but then can’t raise enough money for the election. They are likely to have cushy places to land, but those are getting fewer and far between as lobbying has dried up because of the personal interactions of the oligarch bros.
Then there are the ones in deep red districts like MTG, who Trump is cutting off out of spite and will spite him back.
And finally there are the ones who think they can rehabilitate themselves with their constituents based on what they do between now and the primaries.
Thanks. We are seeing history here. I wonder what the Republican Party will look like a year from now.
Think about what got Nixon pressured to resign; the realization that enough Republicans thought he was guilty to charge and convict him. And how many things Trump has done that are way worse.
I’m struck by the strong personal statements given today by both James Comey and Mark Kelly. In Comey’s case, the quiet conservative reassuring us that Justice may not be first, but it bats cleanup. And in Kelly’s words, the confidence of a pilot ready for takeoff. If he’s not considering a ‘28 Presidential bid yet, he should. I’d knock on a thousand doors for the chance for First Lady Gabby Giffords.
You mean James Comey, right?
James Comer is the idiot House member who chairs the oversight committee that is dedicated to “investigating” Hunter’s laptop and similar stories.
I think it’s fair to say that the big orange turd and his whiney tinny soldier have picked the wrong fight with the wrong patriot.
Trump is growing more dangerous every day. Put a child-raping murdering sociopath in the most powerful position in the world and this is where we are. He’ll sell the entire world out to Putin, who he is beholden to for some unknown reason. He’d sell his grandmother for profit. Not only is our country in danger but, by putting him in office we have placed all the countries of the world in danger.
My sentiments on Nov 6, last.
Bravo for Kelly! As for Comey, I hope someday he rots in hell for the actions he took in 2016 to tilt the election to Trump.
He has surely repented, but I was and am with you.
Likewise.
A draft-dodging Silver Spoon/felon/rapist with no real life successes, besides being born rich, somehow got elected President and he hired an alcoholic television news host, with barely any military experience, to be Secretary of Defense and they decided to go after a decorated combat veteran and genuine The Right Stuff astronaut, now a Senator, because the draft dodger is now senile and got mad at what The Stereotypical American Hero said. If you wrote this novel, it would NEVER be published because it's too unbelievable!
If this were fiction, it would be rejected as too unrealistic, but unfortunately, this is our reality.
Partying draft dodger vs. American military hero: Swipe to decide who should be prosecuted?
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/11/24/trump-kelly-us-constitution/
I was trying to come up with something negative about Kelly that would make him any less the Stereotypical All American Hero and all I could come up with is: his ears are kind of funny looking. Otherwise, he's straight from central casting! Like The Right Stuff come to life.
Well he doesn't dye his hair. Oh, wait...
Unfortunately, there will never be a prosecution of Trump in federal court again, at least not for any offenses committed prior to Jan 20, 2029 when he is scheduled to leave office. Either he will directly pardon himself (along with hundreds of others) or he will resign on Jan 19 and have Vance pardon him. I was surprised he didn't do this in 2021, but i doubt he will make the same mistake twice.
That 100% of Mark Kelly's Senate colleagues aren't standing behind him in public as he denounces Trump and Hegseth tells you what is wrong with Congress. At minimum, Senate Democrats need to be visibly behind Kelly. If all we hear are crickets, again, it means the wrong people are currently in Congress and must be replaced.
Ruben Gallego has defended Mark Kelly.
Yes, M. A.:
"Senate Democrats need to be visibly behind Kelly. If all we hear are crickets, again . . .."
If U.S. schools valued the literacy of quoting others, referencing more widely, our public officials would have some models to guide them in the crediting support you suggest.
But our schools have lost -- totally, M.A., totally lost -- that humanizing literacy. Have instead embraced testing, where only impersonal, neutered, billionaire-packaging voices do the questioning.
Mr. Balla, you become more and more ridiculous with each gratuitous repetition of your false assertions (lies!) about the teaching profession and the educational enterprise. Your second full sentence doesn't parse. Your next to last sentence is no better; what does "schools have lost, . . totally, . . totally lost . . that humanizing literacy." What does that even mean? It certainly isn't clear to me, and I served that profession for nearly forty years, often as a critic. Is it that you're offering yourself as evidence of its shortcomings? Your last sentence is unintelligible; in fact, it isn't a sentence at all. Back to the drawing board, my sweet! "F" yet again.
There is a concept that comes to mind over and over as the Trump Era scandals have unfolded one after another, and brought sharply into focus with the recent public statements of the Patriot Six. That concept is integrity; both personal and professional, of some, and the utter lack thereof of others.
No need to specify here who’s got it and who ain’t. At this point everyone knows, even the people who don’t want to know.
“Make lying wrong again!”; a hand-lettered sign seen at a demonstration on the green in New Milford, Ct. Kinda says it all right there, doesn’t it.