British prime minister Liz Truss resigned today after just 44 days in office. Modeling herself on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who pushed the same sorts of supply-side economic policies U.S. president Ronald Reagan did, Truss had taken office on September 6 promising to fix the country’s rising cost of living by slashing taxes on the country’s corporations and highest earners and thereby, she argued, spurring growth.
I wonder how many insurrectionists and other MAGA and GOP voters can tell you who Thatcher was or Liz Truss is, or what supply-side economic mythology is, or why Brexit continues to hurt the UK and Europe, or what mega-donors demand from the GOP. Even scarier, I wonder how many of them even care. Fox News isn't going to tell them the truth, and it's easier to just believe what Fox and Trump and other demagogues tell them.
I hope I can come back in about 30-50 years to see what the history books, including Dr. Richardson, have to say about these intense recent decades. Whew!
Britain is sure giving us a preview of the chaos America will have if the MAGA Republicans gain power in our next two elections. The tax cuts of 2016 showed Reaganomics never works and never will. What we're seeing in our economics today is greedy corporations who have no incentive to share the wealth with the middle class. While corporations are free to raise prices to maintain a gluttony of profit, middle class workers receive no cost of living increase. Corporations don't seem to realize they are biting the hand that feeds them since capitalism is based on the consumers ability to buy. Today's capitalism is about profits to shareholders while starving the consumer and hollowing out the middle class. Economics now is about moving money upward in the food chain of income disparity. This is all moving toward America becoming a failed state unless we can turn this around! President Biden is on the right track by building wealth from the bottom up and the middle out. We, the People, all of us this time sharing the wealth !
The federalist society owns the supreme court, much of the lower courts, the fbi and much of congress and senate. And yet the senior editor of their official organ calls for radical revolution, mass incarceration, the end of democracy in a rant redolent of fascism. The most vile racism and sexism pours from the mouths of right wing media personalities. Kevin McCarthy is threatening to take the government hostage after the midterms. MTG has gone from gibberish about Jewish space lasers to being seated next to McCarthy. Steve Bannon’s project of stealing local elections has met almost no pushback. A few election denying AGs will be able to throw the next presidential election to whichever of the trumpist thugs has emerged with the GOP nomination, or at the very least throw the election into chaos. Meanwhile Garland still has not prosecuted anyone of consequence from the January 6 insurrection. It seems, does it not, that the right is preparing for war? And that we on the left and center have no real idea what is about to hit us?
Why am I not surprised that Liz Truss blew up her premiership before it could gather up a full head of steam. I could almost hear her chortling, "Ooh, Ooh, TAX CUTS, EVERYBODY!! LET'S PARTY!!"
Before anyone starts mouthing that awful cliché, 'What were they thinking?', we know what it was, and it wasn't thinking. These so-called 'conservatives' are as predictable as ants at a picnic. It's all about supply-side 'let's-pretend'; and here they are, trying to rescue a battered economy when the obvious response needs to be redirecting money from wherever it can be found into keeping people from starving, and losing their homes, and ensuring that people have a job to go to every day. You would think that these people would not have to be told that the fiscal policies of Sir Robert Peel, back in the 1830s, would most definitely not be welcome in a world in which Russian aggression has precipitated the worst energy crisis in memory, together with the ratcheting up of obscene profit-taking by OPEC and its domestic admirers; shortages of natural gas due to shortsighted policies that placed all of their bets on cheap Russian gas that gas consuming countries in Western Europe had to know would make them politically vulnerable as long as Vladimir Putin held sway in Russia. It's been said that no one ever lost money betting on the stupidity of the American public; likewise, no one ever lost money on betting on the shortsighted greed of vulture capitalists the world over. Finally, the intellectual universe of conservative political parties is a mere fraction of the size of the ambition of those parties to rule, and with the least amount of accountability and self-reflection as they can manage. Conservative political parties, as with authoritarianism and fascism, live entirely in the present. For them, both past history and their future prospects are cautionary warnings about what so often goes wrong when political movement conservatives are allowed to hold sway for too long, and thereafter run amok.
It is the implicit job of government to ensure that those seeking rents, and short-term profits, are kept firmly under control. Capitalism may be the finest method civilization has happened upon to create unbridled wealth, but like fossil fuels, it needs to be confined in secure spaces and put to work making the machinery of civilization move forward. Otherwise, it's too explosive a commodity to be left in reckless hands. Liz Truss and her band of merry adventurers styling themselves as 'conservatives' are like people playing with matches in the drought stricken forest. To call them irresponsible, is to understate the severity of what they've done. The fact that one or two of them have advanced degrees in economics belies the fact that the coursework they apparently took to qualify for those academic degrees bears no awareness of the dire realities that the government and country they were selected to lead are in dire economic straits; and that the policy choices that they pontificate about, while garnering nods of approval in a faculty lounge, are now about to crash on the shoals of reality. These people are, and always have been, sophomoric fools.
Before Roe, Women died by bleeding out from botched abortions, many were married, Catholic (nobirth control), mothers and good people. I got to tell their family mommy is dead with her blood on my shoes. The crime is not providing safe medical care. There are no medical reasons for prohibiting abortion. The only reason is religious beliefs. The Constitution gives us freedom of and from religion. Prohibiting abortion is unconstitutional.
In an article relating how the British people were fed a bunch of lies to get them to vote for Brexit (with most of the English believing them), the author states “Once the electorate can no longer trust what they are told, democratic debate is denied.” The same can be said about the lies told by TFG when he declared there were thousands of dead people voting in Georgia (there were four). Far too often, when confronted by facts, MAGA Republicans refuse to believe them because they believe that any news not touted by F** News or similar sources is Fake News. As the author stated, this prevents democratic debate. We can only hope that independent voters can believe facts and vote accordingly.
I'm reminded of the scene in "Cabaret" where Brian Roberts (Michael York) realizes just what his good friend Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) is, when "Max" shows up in his SS uniform.
The Federalist, run by confessed plagiarist Ben Domenech (who John McCain would have run out of the house the first time Megan brought him home to meet dad), at least is willing to let us know that "National Conservatism" is to Conservatism as "National Socialism" is to Socialism.
Now we can clearly see them as the Enemy they are.
As to Brexit, as my British (they're not all English, HCR, that's the most obvious and common American mistake) friends explained at the time, all David Cameron had to do was add in that the plebiscite had to get a majority in each part of the United Kingdom. The Scots, Welsh and Irish all voted Remain, it was just "the buggers in Yorkshire and Liverpool" as one friend described them, who voted Leave.
Yep, Davidson has that unhinged, ready-to-start-quoting-Ilyin vibe to him. Wonder if Sabatini knows what flavor of "god" Franco, Mussolini, Codreanu, Ilyin, and of course The Austrian Corporal were conjuring? Ironically, I suspect not--mostly because he's a tool--but also because it doesn't matter for him just as it didn't for them. Their "god" is whatever they want it to be to justify enacting their childish, brutish, lashing-out narcissoscape. Yep, THAT deranged. The only thing missing from Davidson's self-righteous rant was saying "will to power." (also suspiciously hypocritical. I ALWAYS suspect people who hate so many things as usually being guilty of habitually doing at least one of those "unmentionables" themselves. I've been proven correct in this numerous times. My all-time favorite: Ted Haggard).
So, we're gonna vote in record numbers and sweep these idiots from our halls of power, right? Right? No excuses if we don't. If you think voting is hard, just wait. Beatings will continue until morale improves...
For a brief moment, I'd hoped against hope, that the Truss debacle was an avant-garde happening. A herald of international rejection of the dysfunctional conservative enterprise. As if. Truss is out only because of her clumsy execution. Where was her Mitch McConnell? Her Newt Gingrich? Her Leonard Leo sucking the teat of big money and crapping corrupt government. A significant number of Americans' taste for eating shit seems insatiable. The Republican dystopia of our nightmares is the apocalypse now of their enraptured dreams. The big money behind it isn't betting their lives on any assumption of heaven - they're building equally fantastical bunkers. Is Putin holding off using nuclear weapons, hedging his bets on a GOP Congress playing its trump card and withdrawing aid from Ukraine? A Trump second coming withdrawing America from NATO?
Canvassing Saturday in a very poor section of Ellsworth, in subsidized housing literally behind our own Pillow Man's strip mall temple of trumpism, I spoke with a young couple in their early twenties. Three children under 5 years and the license plate GOP216. Today canvassing high on a hill above Bar Harbor at a rich man's aerie, I listened to a former Democratic voter now devout anti-vaxxer vent spleen. Later I listened to a 30 something, still voting Democrat, detail almost exactly as HCR has here, how we got here and where we seem to be heading. They were hopeless about their prospects but still in the fight. They are my hope. GOTV. Whether, we win or lose, has to be the beginning of our efforts.
Let GOP extremists have their perversions of 1776 and their cons of originalism. We can build on the example of the early Civil Rights Movement and its rightful heirs who eschew exclusivity for alliance and understand the importance of voting as a strategy and unity as a tactic.
Hello everyone; short interruption: Postcards To Voters is asking for more writers for the final push to get out the vote in the crucial state of Georgia. It is easy to join. Either text JOIN to (484) 275-2229 or email Join@TonyTheDemocrat.org. We only have two more weeks to get cards in the mail. Handwritten postcards to voters have proven surprisingly effective. Please help in doing all we can to save our democracy.
Truss lasted 44 days with her far right-wing proposals... the trouble with the US is if those kinds get into office they'll stay there spewing their poison for years! In the case of reagan, decades! Oh, lordy me!
We need a group to grade Congressional and Presidential candidates on their embrace of democracy versus authoritarianism. All reputable rational actors of any stripe, mainstream news, Left and Right 'fact based' Think Tanks, etc. can have a vote and tally the consensus. NRA grades Congress on Second Amendment, Environmental Groups rank Congress people on their environmental chops, multiple news outlets have 'Fact Check' columns and so should national politicians be ranked based upon their embrace of democracy or authoritarianism. It would be easier to say 'Ted Cruz got a D- grade on his Democracy evaluation, Trump an F-, Liz Cheney an A+, Mitt Romney got a B- etc. instead of only pointing to specific instances and trying to persuade people.
The politics are truly screwed up in the two English-speaking countries that take pride in a Constitution that British Prime Minister Gladstone declared was the ‘greatest living political document’ and the 13th century ground-breaking Magna Carta.
The Brits hoisted themselves on their own petard by a false fact campaign resulting in Brexit—the painful and financially stupid divorce from the European Union. This ‘insurrection’ was triggered by Boris Johnson who, though brighter and more literate than Donald Trump, shared many of the same massive character flaws that distinguish Bone Spur Donald.
The Conservative Party has been in power for well over a decade. It has experienced a succession of prime ministers who I would characterize as worse, worse,w orse, and worst, with limpid Elizabeth Truss crashing in only 44 days. In a desperate search for a replacement, Braggart Boris, who had recently crashed like an expended rocket, is hopefully waiting in the wings for an encore performance (ain’t going to happen).
Meanwhile the United Kingdom is a soggy mass of fiscal failure, poorly functioning public services, high inflation and energy prices, and dismal economic growth prospects.
By contrast the United States, with admirable government accomplishments and policies at this moment under President Biden’s administration, seems on a Trumpublican precipice that could plunge the country into a dreadful sink hole.
All this is reflected in the Donald Trump cult, where a charlatan specialist in bankruptcy and false facts has coalesced a frightening mass of American citizens and politicians into a nihilistic coalition.
There is a frightening possibility that these Trumpublican nihilists, who already have captured the Supreme Court, will control one or both houses of Congress after November with the prospect of a deSantis-type president in 2024.
I recall, during World War II, being extremely proud of the Anglo-American alliance under the inspirational leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
Today I feel despair for the short-term future of the United States and Great Britain.
Nazi Germany and Gilead all wrapped up into one lovely prison. In some ways I am glad that they are finally, clearly, coming out of the fascist closet. Perhaps this rhetoric will open those eyes that have been looking everywhere but under their noses.
We stand at the precipice of our democracy and so many fools are ready to jump into the jaws of Fascism, autocracy and dictatorship with its attendant hatefulness and unbridled violence and murder. I just hope that enough Americans recognize the danger and vote to keep these hateful monsters out of power.
I wonder how many insurrectionists and other MAGA and GOP voters can tell you who Thatcher was or Liz Truss is, or what supply-side economic mythology is, or why Brexit continues to hurt the UK and Europe, or what mega-donors demand from the GOP. Even scarier, I wonder how many of them even care. Fox News isn't going to tell them the truth, and it's easier to just believe what Fox and Trump and other demagogues tell them.
I hope I can come back in about 30-50 years to see what the history books, including Dr. Richardson, have to say about these intense recent decades. Whew!
Britain is sure giving us a preview of the chaos America will have if the MAGA Republicans gain power in our next two elections. The tax cuts of 2016 showed Reaganomics never works and never will. What we're seeing in our economics today is greedy corporations who have no incentive to share the wealth with the middle class. While corporations are free to raise prices to maintain a gluttony of profit, middle class workers receive no cost of living increase. Corporations don't seem to realize they are biting the hand that feeds them since capitalism is based on the consumers ability to buy. Today's capitalism is about profits to shareholders while starving the consumer and hollowing out the middle class. Economics now is about moving money upward in the food chain of income disparity. This is all moving toward America becoming a failed state unless we can turn this around! President Biden is on the right track by building wealth from the bottom up and the middle out. We, the People, all of us this time sharing the wealth !
The federalist society owns the supreme court, much of the lower courts, the fbi and much of congress and senate. And yet the senior editor of their official organ calls for radical revolution, mass incarceration, the end of democracy in a rant redolent of fascism. The most vile racism and sexism pours from the mouths of right wing media personalities. Kevin McCarthy is threatening to take the government hostage after the midterms. MTG has gone from gibberish about Jewish space lasers to being seated next to McCarthy. Steve Bannon’s project of stealing local elections has met almost no pushback. A few election denying AGs will be able to throw the next presidential election to whichever of the trumpist thugs has emerged with the GOP nomination, or at the very least throw the election into chaos. Meanwhile Garland still has not prosecuted anyone of consequence from the January 6 insurrection. It seems, does it not, that the right is preparing for war? And that we on the left and center have no real idea what is about to hit us?
Why am I not surprised that Liz Truss blew up her premiership before it could gather up a full head of steam. I could almost hear her chortling, "Ooh, Ooh, TAX CUTS, EVERYBODY!! LET'S PARTY!!"
Before anyone starts mouthing that awful cliché, 'What were they thinking?', we know what it was, and it wasn't thinking. These so-called 'conservatives' are as predictable as ants at a picnic. It's all about supply-side 'let's-pretend'; and here they are, trying to rescue a battered economy when the obvious response needs to be redirecting money from wherever it can be found into keeping people from starving, and losing their homes, and ensuring that people have a job to go to every day. You would think that these people would not have to be told that the fiscal policies of Sir Robert Peel, back in the 1830s, would most definitely not be welcome in a world in which Russian aggression has precipitated the worst energy crisis in memory, together with the ratcheting up of obscene profit-taking by OPEC and its domestic admirers; shortages of natural gas due to shortsighted policies that placed all of their bets on cheap Russian gas that gas consuming countries in Western Europe had to know would make them politically vulnerable as long as Vladimir Putin held sway in Russia. It's been said that no one ever lost money betting on the stupidity of the American public; likewise, no one ever lost money on betting on the shortsighted greed of vulture capitalists the world over. Finally, the intellectual universe of conservative political parties is a mere fraction of the size of the ambition of those parties to rule, and with the least amount of accountability and self-reflection as they can manage. Conservative political parties, as with authoritarianism and fascism, live entirely in the present. For them, both past history and their future prospects are cautionary warnings about what so often goes wrong when political movement conservatives are allowed to hold sway for too long, and thereafter run amok.
It is the implicit job of government to ensure that those seeking rents, and short-term profits, are kept firmly under control. Capitalism may be the finest method civilization has happened upon to create unbridled wealth, but like fossil fuels, it needs to be confined in secure spaces and put to work making the machinery of civilization move forward. Otherwise, it's too explosive a commodity to be left in reckless hands. Liz Truss and her band of merry adventurers styling themselves as 'conservatives' are like people playing with matches in the drought stricken forest. To call them irresponsible, is to understate the severity of what they've done. The fact that one or two of them have advanced degrees in economics belies the fact that the coursework they apparently took to qualify for those academic degrees bears no awareness of the dire realities that the government and country they were selected to lead are in dire economic straits; and that the policy choices that they pontificate about, while garnering nods of approval in a faculty lounge, are now about to crash on the shoals of reality. These people are, and always have been, sophomoric fools.
Before Roe, Women died by bleeding out from botched abortions, many were married, Catholic (nobirth control), mothers and good people. I got to tell their family mommy is dead with her blood on my shoes. The crime is not providing safe medical care. There are no medical reasons for prohibiting abortion. The only reason is religious beliefs. The Constitution gives us freedom of and from religion. Prohibiting abortion is unconstitutional.
In an article relating how the British people were fed a bunch of lies to get them to vote for Brexit (with most of the English believing them), the author states “Once the electorate can no longer trust what they are told, democratic debate is denied.” The same can be said about the lies told by TFG when he declared there were thousands of dead people voting in Georgia (there were four). Far too often, when confronted by facts, MAGA Republicans refuse to believe them because they believe that any news not touted by F** News or similar sources is Fake News. As the author stated, this prevents democratic debate. We can only hope that independent voters can believe facts and vote accordingly.
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/case-for-brexit-built-on-lies-five-years-later-deceit-is-routine-in-our-politics
https://www.ajc.com/politics/alleged-dead-georgia-voters-found-alive-and-well-after-2020-election/DAL3VY7NFNHL5OREMHD7QECOCA/
I'm reminded of the scene in "Cabaret" where Brian Roberts (Michael York) realizes just what his good friend Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) is, when "Max" shows up in his SS uniform.
The Federalist, run by confessed plagiarist Ben Domenech (who John McCain would have run out of the house the first time Megan brought him home to meet dad), at least is willing to let us know that "National Conservatism" is to Conservatism as "National Socialism" is to Socialism.
Now we can clearly see them as the Enemy they are.
As to Brexit, as my British (they're not all English, HCR, that's the most obvious and common American mistake) friends explained at the time, all David Cameron had to do was add in that the plebiscite had to get a majority in each part of the United Kingdom. The Scots, Welsh and Irish all voted Remain, it was just "the buggers in Yorkshire and Liverpool" as one friend described them, who voted Leave.
The Federalist, senior editor John Daniel Davidson said the quiet part out loud that MAGA isn't the fringe, it's the core.
Yep, Davidson has that unhinged, ready-to-start-quoting-Ilyin vibe to him. Wonder if Sabatini knows what flavor of "god" Franco, Mussolini, Codreanu, Ilyin, and of course The Austrian Corporal were conjuring? Ironically, I suspect not--mostly because he's a tool--but also because it doesn't matter for him just as it didn't for them. Their "god" is whatever they want it to be to justify enacting their childish, brutish, lashing-out narcissoscape. Yep, THAT deranged. The only thing missing from Davidson's self-righteous rant was saying "will to power." (also suspiciously hypocritical. I ALWAYS suspect people who hate so many things as usually being guilty of habitually doing at least one of those "unmentionables" themselves. I've been proven correct in this numerous times. My all-time favorite: Ted Haggard).
So, we're gonna vote in record numbers and sweep these idiots from our halls of power, right? Right? No excuses if we don't. If you think voting is hard, just wait. Beatings will continue until morale improves...
For a brief moment, I'd hoped against hope, that the Truss debacle was an avant-garde happening. A herald of international rejection of the dysfunctional conservative enterprise. As if. Truss is out only because of her clumsy execution. Where was her Mitch McConnell? Her Newt Gingrich? Her Leonard Leo sucking the teat of big money and crapping corrupt government. A significant number of Americans' taste for eating shit seems insatiable. The Republican dystopia of our nightmares is the apocalypse now of their enraptured dreams. The big money behind it isn't betting their lives on any assumption of heaven - they're building equally fantastical bunkers. Is Putin holding off using nuclear weapons, hedging his bets on a GOP Congress playing its trump card and withdrawing aid from Ukraine? A Trump second coming withdrawing America from NATO?
Canvassing Saturday in a very poor section of Ellsworth, in subsidized housing literally behind our own Pillow Man's strip mall temple of trumpism, I spoke with a young couple in their early twenties. Three children under 5 years and the license plate GOP216. Today canvassing high on a hill above Bar Harbor at a rich man's aerie, I listened to a former Democratic voter now devout anti-vaxxer vent spleen. Later I listened to a 30 something, still voting Democrat, detail almost exactly as HCR has here, how we got here and where we seem to be heading. They were hopeless about their prospects but still in the fight. They are my hope. GOTV. Whether, we win or lose, has to be the beginning of our efforts.
Let GOP extremists have their perversions of 1776 and their cons of originalism. We can build on the example of the early Civil Rights Movement and its rightful heirs who eschew exclusivity for alliance and understand the importance of voting as a strategy and unity as a tactic.
Hello everyone; short interruption: Postcards To Voters is asking for more writers for the final push to get out the vote in the crucial state of Georgia. It is easy to join. Either text JOIN to (484) 275-2229 or email Join@TonyTheDemocrat.org. We only have two more weeks to get cards in the mail. Handwritten postcards to voters have proven surprisingly effective. Please help in doing all we can to save our democracy.
Truss lasted 44 days with her far right-wing proposals... the trouble with the US is if those kinds get into office they'll stay there spewing their poison for years! In the case of reagan, decades! Oh, lordy me!
We need a group to grade Congressional and Presidential candidates on their embrace of democracy versus authoritarianism. All reputable rational actors of any stripe, mainstream news, Left and Right 'fact based' Think Tanks, etc. can have a vote and tally the consensus. NRA grades Congress on Second Amendment, Environmental Groups rank Congress people on their environmental chops, multiple news outlets have 'Fact Check' columns and so should national politicians be ranked based upon their embrace of democracy or authoritarianism. It would be easier to say 'Ted Cruz got a D- grade on his Democracy evaluation, Trump an F-, Liz Cheney an A+, Mitt Romney got a B- etc. instead of only pointing to specific instances and trying to persuade people.
The politics are truly screwed up in the two English-speaking countries that take pride in a Constitution that British Prime Minister Gladstone declared was the ‘greatest living political document’ and the 13th century ground-breaking Magna Carta.
The Brits hoisted themselves on their own petard by a false fact campaign resulting in Brexit—the painful and financially stupid divorce from the European Union. This ‘insurrection’ was triggered by Boris Johnson who, though brighter and more literate than Donald Trump, shared many of the same massive character flaws that distinguish Bone Spur Donald.
The Conservative Party has been in power for well over a decade. It has experienced a succession of prime ministers who I would characterize as worse, worse,w orse, and worst, with limpid Elizabeth Truss crashing in only 44 days. In a desperate search for a replacement, Braggart Boris, who had recently crashed like an expended rocket, is hopefully waiting in the wings for an encore performance (ain’t going to happen).
Meanwhile the United Kingdom is a soggy mass of fiscal failure, poorly functioning public services, high inflation and energy prices, and dismal economic growth prospects.
By contrast the United States, with admirable government accomplishments and policies at this moment under President Biden’s administration, seems on a Trumpublican precipice that could plunge the country into a dreadful sink hole.
All this is reflected in the Donald Trump cult, where a charlatan specialist in bankruptcy and false facts has coalesced a frightening mass of American citizens and politicians into a nihilistic coalition.
There is a frightening possibility that these Trumpublican nihilists, who already have captured the Supreme Court, will control one or both houses of Congress after November with the prospect of a deSantis-type president in 2024.
I recall, during World War II, being extremely proud of the Anglo-American alliance under the inspirational leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
Today I feel despair for the short-term future of the United States and Great Britain.
Nazi Germany and Gilead all wrapped up into one lovely prison. In some ways I am glad that they are finally, clearly, coming out of the fascist closet. Perhaps this rhetoric will open those eyes that have been looking everywhere but under their noses.
We stand at the precipice of our democracy and so many fools are ready to jump into the jaws of Fascism, autocracy and dictatorship with its attendant hatefulness and unbridled violence and murder. I just hope that enough Americans recognize the danger and vote to keep these hateful monsters out of power.