Thank you for defending democracy, Heather. Please don't forget all the civil servants who are being fired and furloughed. My partner and I have lost our careers because of the fascists.
It would be good to hear more senior Democrat politicians speaking up on behalf of civil servants fired without cause. As Martin Luther King once said: "In the end, you don't remember the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends."
The damage that is being done to the efficient functioning of the federal government and the provision of vital services to the American people is already being seen in the chaotic way that the Trump administration has been operating. As a retired civil servant myself, I'm used to being described as a time-server or pencil-pusher but I also know that without ministers the country would still function, but without civil servants it would grind to a halt.
If you liked Heather’s verbal discussion of the Oct. 18th NoKings rallies, then you might like Rachel Maddow’s YouTube video documentary of the rallies in every state in the union and showing the enormity of the 8 million person and counting event. You are not alone. We the people are letting our feelings be known.
If you are interested in why the government is still shut down, why Trump is putting US military forces in US cities, what is happening with redistricting/gerrymandering, and other issues, here is an interview of US Representative Eric Swalwell, a lawyer and publisher of a book on the impeachment of Donald Trump, by Marc Elias, a voting rights lawyer who won 60 cases against Trump lawyers who tried to overthrow the 2020 election and won four cases he argued at the US Supreme Court.
The Democrats need a Project 2026 that offers a progressive and hopeful future for Americans. Their current strategy seems to be to lay low and not upset people who might rally to their cause (whatever that is!) merely because of their antipathy towards Trump. The refusal of so many Democrat politicians to endorse Mamdani or at the very least condem Cuomo's campaign is a sign of their utter fecklessness. That strategy failed last time and they don't seem to have learned from this.
Excellent reporting Professor Richardson, your work is incredibly important. Thank you and President John Adams for your reminders of what public service truly is.
What I'm about to recommend may sound like a crazy suggestion to many. I'm a rational, reasonable, responsible, US Navy Vet & old physics student. And someone who's also studied history.
Communication is key to any group of entities! Be they people or others in nature. If you don't see what's coming, I feel pity for you. If you do, you might think like me. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I want a quite peaceful life in my old age.
I STRONGLY recommend that people purchase an AM/FM Radio, a small solar power generation system and if you have the resources a long range shortwave radio system with an antenna with capabilities that allows long range communications.
Build networks of people who you truly believe are trustworthy. And learn what Allen Turing did. Codes!! He's the father of AI. There's a reason they keep referring to the Turing test!
The Internet is not safe or secure. I've known this for a decade. And it is very vulnerable. To attacks and misuse.
I hope I'm wrong and my suggestion is worthless. But at this point in space and time I'm not sure it is. Trump is Putins puppet. Why would he kill the Voice of America? It's a radio station that they have trouble blocking the single on. Radio stations while very old technology still has value!!!
I stand for the rule of law and the constitution and the United States of America! No dictator should rule this land!!! No ICE!! THE NEW GESTAPO!!!
Let us get to work, the great march yesterday was just a warmup. Look at your local library. Is the director a trumpee busy banning books? Check your county reps. How about your local congressman/woman? Are they red flags in disguise? This work calls for attention to details. Slowly we will kick the pretentious ruby reds, out of democracy. They are traitors to our constitution. Between now and Nov 26, each one of us must do our part to weed out the unwanted maggots. The phony king will melt away into oblivion once the republican support system collapses. With whatever means, we must support our elected official to get elected. Their majority is the only way for democratic guard rails to be put back. We insist our leaders to codify women's rights, expansion of supreme court and clear statuary requirement disqualifying, criminals convicts, rapists, child molesters, from any public office..
I know I am not the only person who could not sleep last night. I could not get that horrifying image of the backhoe smashing into the East Wing out of my mind. I wish the East Wing had been filled with the spineless, silent, Republicans.
This is a link to the YouTube video of the 60 minutes interview of the Justice Department whistleblower that Heather discusses in her newsletter, if you are interested.
Thank you for the CBS post . This is all just so relentlessly stunning. The image of what he is doing to the people’s house is a far too vivid a metaphor for every thing he touches now. The DOJ might be the most ominous. I, for one, will never forgive or forget the silent and the complicit in our government. But I won’t be here long.
Republicans have disgraced our laws and our constitution by their silence. I hope the generations following mine understand the fight ahead. God help them.
Yes, I agree. It has been a stunning change. I am a “grandtifa” and lived through many generations. Somehow parenting went awry and the children didn’t get socialized with prosocial ethics and morality, empathy and emotional stability. Too many children were exposed to ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) that produced psychopathology like the epidemic of narcissism and malignant personality disordered narcissists like Trump. Sworn oaths seem meaningless. All the Patrick Henry’s (“Give me liberty or give me death!”) among our leaders appear to be gone.
Anomalies crop up at particular moments and change the landscape. May we live long enough to see that serious lessons have been learned with a “never again” ethic embraced, moving forward.
At each new insult to our American system of law, trust and tradition, I kept saying, "There! That ought to wake up the MAGA voters so that they finally realize what the Executive and Republican congress are doing to all of us!" Day after day, week after week, one outrage after another; now they are arresting and deporting Americans without due process to foreign jails. Now we have Federal troops with weapons in American cities. Now they are even turning on American farmers. And now, today, they have ripped into the White House...for a Ballroon??? All while the Republican Senators and Representatives sit on their hands and follow orders. Will MAGA ever see the threat from what they have unleashed? What has happened to all of us?
Vance will be worse. Trump has charisma --- doesn't work for me, but it is hard to ignore. In the absence of his own charisma, Vance will have only his sponsors, Thiel and Vought at least.
I have never seen that charisma. He has always been a crude lowlife liar in my opinion. Makes it all the harder for me to understand how we are in this position of having him twice as president. It brings me to tears.
Their messaging is more or less the same but their funding comes primarily from US billionaires and vested interests - the Coors family, Walmart, ExxonMobil.
Fox news at the end of this insanity needs to be also tried for intentionally misleading the People as propagandist for P2025/GOP/Trump. The mouth pieces are just as guilty of supporting treason.
Thank you for defending democracy, Heather. Please don't forget all the civil servants who are being fired and furloughed. My partner and I have lost our careers because of the fascists.
Help us resist: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/democracy-defender-reader-poem
It would be good to hear more senior Democrat politicians speaking up on behalf of civil servants fired without cause. As Martin Luther King once said: "In the end, you don't remember the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends."
The damage that is being done to the efficient functioning of the federal government and the provision of vital services to the American people is already being seen in the chaotic way that the Trump administration has been operating. As a retired civil servant myself, I'm used to being described as a time-server or pencil-pusher but I also know that without ministers the country would still function, but without civil servants it would grind to a halt.
If you liked Heather’s verbal discussion of the Oct. 18th NoKings rallies, then you might like Rachel Maddow’s YouTube video documentary of the rallies in every state in the union and showing the enormity of the 8 million person and counting event. You are not alone. We the people are letting our feelings be known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjSCy54LqaI
If you are interested in why the government is still shut down, why Trump is putting US military forces in US cities, what is happening with redistricting/gerrymandering, and other issues, here is an interview of US Representative Eric Swalwell, a lawyer and publisher of a book on the impeachment of Donald Trump, by Marc Elias, a voting rights lawyer who won 60 cases against Trump lawyers who tried to overthrow the 2020 election and won four cases he argued at the US Supreme Court.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2jKnfkgyXA
You all know MAGA won’t leave willingly in 2026 or 28.
Make a plan to yank them out NOW💪💪💪
The Democrats need a Project 2026 that offers a progressive and hopeful future for Americans. Their current strategy seems to be to lay low and not upset people who might rally to their cause (whatever that is!) merely because of their antipathy towards Trump. The refusal of so many Democrat politicians to endorse Mamdani or at the very least condem Cuomo's campaign is a sign of their utter fecklessness. That strategy failed last time and they don't seem to have learned from this.
Excellent reporting Professor Richardson, your work is incredibly important. Thank you and President John Adams for your reminders of what public service truly is.
What I'm about to recommend may sound like a crazy suggestion to many. I'm a rational, reasonable, responsible, US Navy Vet & old physics student. And someone who's also studied history.
Communication is key to any group of entities! Be they people or others in nature. If you don't see what's coming, I feel pity for you. If you do, you might think like me. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I want a quite peaceful life in my old age.
I STRONGLY recommend that people purchase an AM/FM Radio, a small solar power generation system and if you have the resources a long range shortwave radio system with an antenna with capabilities that allows long range communications.
Build networks of people who you truly believe are trustworthy. And learn what Allen Turing did. Codes!! He's the father of AI. There's a reason they keep referring to the Turing test!
The Internet is not safe or secure. I've known this for a decade. And it is very vulnerable. To attacks and misuse.
I hope I'm wrong and my suggestion is worthless. But at this point in space and time I'm not sure it is. Trump is Putins puppet. Why would he kill the Voice of America? It's a radio station that they have trouble blocking the single on. Radio stations while very old technology still has value!!!
I stand for the rule of law and the constitution and the United States of America! No dictator should rule this land!!! No ICE!! THE NEW GESTAPO!!!
Let us get to work, the great march yesterday was just a warmup. Look at your local library. Is the director a trumpee busy banning books? Check your county reps. How about your local congressman/woman? Are they red flags in disguise? This work calls for attention to details. Slowly we will kick the pretentious ruby reds, out of democracy. They are traitors to our constitution. Between now and Nov 26, each one of us must do our part to weed out the unwanted maggots. The phony king will melt away into oblivion once the republican support system collapses. With whatever means, we must support our elected official to get elected. Their majority is the only way for democratic guard rails to be put back. We insist our leaders to codify women's rights, expansion of supreme court and clear statuary requirement disqualifying, criminals convicts, rapists, child molesters, from any public office..
I know I am not the only person who could not sleep last night. I could not get that horrifying image of the backhoe smashing into the East Wing out of my mind. I wish the East Wing had been filled with the spineless, silent, Republicans.
This is a link to the YouTube video of the 60 minutes interview of the Justice Department whistleblower that Heather discusses in her newsletter, if you are interested.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/justice-department-erez-reuveni-60-minutes-video-2025-10-19/
Thank you for the CBS post . This is all just so relentlessly stunning. The image of what he is doing to the people’s house is a far too vivid a metaphor for every thing he touches now. The DOJ might be the most ominous. I, for one, will never forgive or forget the silent and the complicit in our government. But I won’t be here long.
Republicans have disgraced our laws and our constitution by their silence. I hope the generations following mine understand the fight ahead. God help them.
Yes, I agree. It has been a stunning change. I am a “grandtifa” and lived through many generations. Somehow parenting went awry and the children didn’t get socialized with prosocial ethics and morality, empathy and emotional stability. Too many children were exposed to ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) that produced psychopathology like the epidemic of narcissism and malignant personality disordered narcissists like Trump. Sworn oaths seem meaningless. All the Patrick Henry’s (“Give me liberty or give me death!”) among our leaders appear to be gone.
Anomalies crop up at particular moments and change the landscape. May we live long enough to see that serious lessons have been learned with a “never again” ethic embraced, moving forward.
Your last few sentences made me want to cry at how far away from those initial ideals we’ve gotten.
At each new insult to our American system of law, trust and tradition, I kept saying, "There! That ought to wake up the MAGA voters so that they finally realize what the Executive and Republican congress are doing to all of us!" Day after day, week after week, one outrage after another; now they are arresting and deporting Americans without due process to foreign jails. Now we have Federal troops with weapons in American cities. Now they are even turning on American farmers. And now, today, they have ripped into the White House...for a Ballroon??? All while the Republican Senators and Representatives sit on their hands and follow orders. Will MAGA ever see the threat from what they have unleashed? What has happened to all of us?
Vance will be worse. Trump has charisma --- doesn't work for me, but it is hard to ignore. In the absence of his own charisma, Vance will have only his sponsors, Thiel and Vought at least.
I have never seen that charisma. He has always been a crude lowlife liar in my opinion. Makes it all the harder for me to understand how we are in this position of having him twice as president. It brings me to tears.
The grift
the con
We’ll stay strong
We don’t deserve this
More lyrics from our pro-American song "No Kings". I participated last Saturday by drumming along to it: https://youtu.be/S1ve0VV9C2M?si=PhbW5yzFEjYXl0Nm
Who's willing to bet that the Heritage foundation is funded by the Putin regime?
Their messaging is more or less the same but their funding comes primarily from US billionaires and vested interests - the Coors family, Walmart, ExxonMobil.
https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/
Heater, has the democrats ever put out a publication like Newt Gingrich GoPAC memo?
We will rebuild!
Fox News and others like it are trying to destroy our democracy! We can’t let it!
Fox news at the end of this insanity needs to be also tried for intentionally misleading the People as propagandist for P2025/GOP/Trump. The mouth pieces are just as guilty of supporting treason.